Microsoft Azure

What is Microsoft Azure?

Azure is a cloud platform from Microsoft. Launched on 1 st of February 2010, Microsoft Azure consists of over 600 services. Among these services customers can access storage, virtual machines, messaging services, CDN, media services, machine learning, IoT capabilities, and vast management options among many more.

Microsoft Azure runs on custom operating system that in turn provides cloud layer for Windows operating systems. Azure also relies heavily on Hyper-V virtualization system developed and provided by some of the Windows versions to the end user and professional user as well. Hyper-V capability also used for providing high performance access to other operating systems (like GNU/Linux distributions) that customers might like to run on Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure also provides a load balancing and resilience capability through Microsoft Azure Fabric Controller which basically provides everything that is connected to and interacting with the whole system to stay that way.

For deployment Microsoft Azure provides two options to customers. First is for accessing cloud resources through classic means, deployment by hand and management one by one for every virtual asset and database. Since 2014, Microsoft provides Azure Resource Manager tool with which customers can manage all related sources together from a single panel.

From a privacy perspective, because of USA Patriot Act, U.S. Government can request access to data by legal means even if the Microsoft Azure data in question does not reside within the United States. On the other hand, while contradicts the USA Patriot Act, Microsoft claims that Azure system also compliant with European Union’s General Data Protection Act.

Microsoft currently provides six different certifications for Microsoft Azure platform: like Azure Administrator Associate, Azure solutions Architect Expert, and Azure Security Engineer Associate. You can get more information on Microsoft Azure and these certifications at azure.microsoft.com

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