Windows Azure

Windows Azure:

When you hear word windows you imagine an operating system which you can install on your machine wisely, of course a legal one.

We had already many versions of Windows, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7 and recent Windows 8.

All of these versions you are able to install on your system and start playing with it.

But, Windows Azure is something different. Yes, it is an operating system. But this operating system you cannot install on your standalone system.

So what is Windows Azure ?

From Microsoft you will find following definition for Azure.

The Azure is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together.

They (Microsoft) call it as windows azure Fabric.

In simple words, Imagine Windows azure as an BOX where you can install many systems with say Windows server OS (It’s an absolute infrastructural view).

Now what Azure does is it internally manages all instances. You can imagine an Instance like similar to a standalone desktop system.

We already have a system which is running on a server OS, So why we need azure?

Well the answer is we need it to manage the all the instances. For example say you have simple web server. Now we can have maximum availability if we have more than 1 web server and incoming traffic is load balanced across instances. Here the activities such as load balancing, High Availability, Scalability etc. are controlled and governed by Azure internally.

So summarizing people in general call it as cloud OS.

Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases.

Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. 

Azure provides support for the following protocols:

1.    HTTP

2.    REST

3.    SOAP

4.    XML

And many more internet protocols.

Azure provides 2 types of services:

1.       PAAS (Platform as a Service)

2.       IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Coming soon more about Windows Azure..........Keep reading........

 http://gabale.blogspot.com/2013/02/windows-azure.html