This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. (November 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Microsoft Azure
Developer(s)Microsoft
Initial releaseOctober 27, 2008; 14 years ago (2008-10-27)[1]
Operating systemLinux, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android
TypeWeb service, cloud computing
LicenseProprietary for platform, MIT License for client SDKs
Websiteazure.microsoft.com

Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure (/ˈæʒər, ˈʒər/ AZH-ər, AY-zhər, UK also /ˈæzjʊər, ˈzjʊər/ AZ-ure, AY-zure),[2][3][4] is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft that provides access, management, and development of applications and services via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and supports many different programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.

Azure, announced at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in October 2008, went by the internal project codename "Project Red Dog",[5] and was formally released in February 2010 as Windows Azure, before being renamed Microsoft Azure on March 25, 2014.[6][7]

Services

Microsoft Azure uses large-scale virtualization at Microsoft data centers worldwide and it offers more than 600 services.[8]

Compute services


Identity

Mobile services

Storage services

Communication services

Data management

Messaging

The Microsoft Azure Service Bus allows applications running on Azure premises or off-premises devices to communicate with Azure. This helps to build scalable and reliable applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The Azure service bus supports four different types of communication mechanisms:[25][26]

Media services

A PaaS offering that can be used for encoding, content protection, streaming, or analytics.[citation needed]

CDN

A global content delivery network (CDN) for audio, video, applications, images, and other static files. It can be used to cache static assets of websites geographically closer to users to increase performance. The network can be managed by a REST-based HTTP API.[28]

Azure has 118 point of presence locations, across 100 cities, worldwide (also known as Edge locations) as of January 2023.[29]

Developer

Management

Azure AI

Azure Blockchain Workbench

See also: Confidential Consortium Framework

Through Azure[33] Blockchain Workbench, Microsoft is providing the required infrastructure to set up a consortium network in multiple topologies using a variety of consensus mechanisms. Microsoft provides integration from these blockchain platforms to other Microsoft services to streamline the development of distributed applications. Microsoft supports many general-purpose blockchains including Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric and purpose-built blockchains like Corda.

Functions

Azure functions are used in serverless computing architectures where subscribers can execute code as an event driven Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) without managing the underlying server resources.[34] Customers using Azure functions are billed based on per-second resource consumption and executions.[35]

Internet of Things (IoT)

Azure Orbital

Launched in September 2020, Azure Orbital is a ground station service to help customers move satellite data to the cloud and to provide global cloud connectivity. Private industries and government agencies that use data collected by satellites can directly connect satellites to the cloud computing networks to process and analyse the data. Mobile cloud computing ground stations for customers that operate where there is no existing ground infrastructure (such as energy, agricultural and military) will provide point-to-point cloud connectivity to remote locations using third party satellite systems – SpaceX’s Starlink constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) and SES’ O3b medium Earth orbit (MEO) constellation.[43][44]

SES will be deploying satellite control and uplink ground stations for its next-generation O3b mPOWER MEO satellites alongside Microsoft's data centers to provide single-hop connectivity to the cloud from remote sites.[45] The first two O3b mPOWER satellites launched in December 2022 (with nine more scheduled for deployment in 2023-2024) and the initial service start is expected in Q3 2023.[46]

Microsoft suggests that satellite routing to the cloud can offer a speed advantage. For example, a connection from the home to a cloud data center for online media, entertainment or gaming, currently may use complex fibre routes that are longer than one hop up to a satellite and down again. Microsoft’s experiments using Xbox cloud have found there are parts of the world (including parts of the USA) where it is faster via satellite than over terrestrial networks.[47]

Regional expansion

In 2018, Azure was available in 54 regions, with 12 new regions being developed.[48] Microsoft became the first large cloud provider that built facilities in Africa, with two regions in South Africa.[49] An Azure geography contains multiple Azure Regions, such as for example "North Europe" (Dublin, Ireland), "West Europe" (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Where a location represents the city or area of the Azure Region. Each Azure Region is paired with another region within the same geography; this makes them a regional pair. In this example, Amsterdam and Dublin are the locations which form the regional pair.[50]

Middle East cloud data centers

On June 19th 2019, Microsoft announced the launch of two new cloud regions in the United Arab Emirates – Microsoft’s first in the Middle East.[51] Microsoft's management stated that these new datacenters will empower customers and partners to embrace the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and achieve more using cloud technologies.

Research partnerships

Microsoft has partners that sell its products. In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using the Microsoft Azure application suite for IoT technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University, the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt, analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in the process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms.[52]

Design

Microsoft Azure uses a specialized operating system, also called Microsoft Azure, to run its "fabric layer":[53] a cluster hosted at Microsoft's data centers that manage computing and storage resources of the computers and provisions the resources (or a subset of them) to applications running on top of Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure has been described as a "cloud layer" on top of a number of Windows Server systems, which use Windows Server 2008 and a customized version of Hyper-V, known as the Microsoft Azure Hypervisor to provide virtualization of services.[54]

Scaling and reliability are controlled by the Microsoft Azure Fabric Controller, which ensures the services and environment do not fail if one or more of the servers fails within the Microsoft data center, and which also provides the management of the user's Web application such as memory allocation and load balancing.[54]

Azure provides an API built on REST, HTTP, and XML that allows a developer to interact with the services provided by Microsoft Azure. Microsoft also provides a client-side managed class library that encapsulates the functions of interacting with the services. It also integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio, Git, and Eclipse.[55][56][57]

In addition to interacting with services via API, users can manage Azure services using the Web-based Azure Portal, which reached General Availability in December 2015.[58] The portal allows users to browse active resources, modify settings, launch new resources, and view basic monitoring data from active virtual machines and services.

Deployment models

Microsoft Azure offers two deployment models for cloud resources: the "classic" deployment model and the Azure Resource Manager.[59] In the classic model, each Azure resource (virtual machine, SQL database, etc.) was managed individually. The Azure Resource Manager, introduced in 2014,[59] enables users to create groups of related services so that closely coupled resources can be deployed, managed, and monitored together.[60] The classic model is slated to be phased out in future.

History and timeline

Azure logo used from 2010 to 2012, under Windows Azure name
Azure logo used from 2010 to 2012, under Windows Azure name

In 2005, Microsoft took over Groove Networks, and Bill Gates made Groove's founder Ray Ozzie one of his 5 direct reports as one of 3 chief technology officers. Ozzie met with Amitabh Srivastava, which let Srivastava change course. They convinced Dave Cutler to postpone his retirement and their teams developed a cloud operating system.[61][62][63]

Privacy

Microsoft has stated that, per the USA Patriot Act, the US government could have access to the data even if the hosted company is not American and the data resides outside the USA.[79][80][contradictory] To manage privacy and security-related concerns, Microsoft has created a Microsoft Azure Trust Center,[81] and Microsoft Azure has several of its services compliant with several compliance programs including ISO 27001:2005 and HIPAA. A full and current listing can be found on the Microsoft Azure Trust Center Compliance page.[82] Of special note, Microsoft Azure has been granted JAB Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) from the U.S. government in accordance with guidelines spelled out under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a U.S. government program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud services used by the federal government.[83]

Significant outages

The following is a list of Microsoft Azure outages and service disruptions.

Date Cause Notes
2012-02-29 Incorrect code for calculating leap day dates[84]
2012-07-26 Misconfigured network device[85][86]
2013-02-22 Expiry of an SSL certificate[87] Xbox Live, Xbox Music and Video also affected[88]
2013-10-30 Worldwide partial compute outage[89]
2014-11-18 Azure storage upgrade caused reduced capacity across several regions[90] Xbox Live, Windows Store, MSN, Search, Visual Studio Online among others were affected.[91]
2015-12-03 Active Directory issues[92]
2016-09-15 Global DNS outage[93]
2017-03-15 Storage tier issues[94]
2017-10-03 Fire system glitch[95]
2018-06-20 Cooling system failure[96] North Europe region experienced 11 hours of downtime
2018-09-04 Cooling system failure due to inadequate surge protection (lightning strike)[97] Brought down numerous services in multiple regions for over 25 hours, with some services remaining affected until three days later
2019-05-02 DNS Migration Issue[98]
2021-03-15 OpenID Key removal[99] Authentication errors across multiple services using Azure Active Directory for up to 16 hours
2021-04-01 DNS issue impacting multiple Microsoft services [100] Worldwide DNS issues with Azure services

Certifications

A large variety of Azure certifications can be attained, each requiring one or multiple successfully completed examinations.

Certification levels range from beginner, intermediate to expert.

Examples of common certifications include:

Key people

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Srivastava, Amitabh (October 27, 2008). "Introducing Windows Azure". msdn.com. Archived from the original on May 14, 2010. Retrieved April 3, 2021.
  2. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  3. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011). Roach, Peter; Setter, Jane; Esling, John (eds.). Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-15255-6.
  4. ^ "azure". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on February 4, 2020.
  5. ^ a b Luescher, Michel. "Why is there a 'reddog' DNS Suffix for my VM's?". Cloudelicious. Retrieved June 26, 2018.((cite news)): CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ a b c "Upcoming Name Change for Windows Azure". Microsoft Azure. March 24, 2014. Archived from the original on March 24, 2014. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  7. ^ Tharakan, Anya George and Dastin, Jeffery (October 20, 2016). "Microsoft shares hit high as cloud business flies above estimates". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  8. ^ Directory of Azure Cloud Services
  9. ^ "How to monitor Microsoft Azure VMs". Datadog. August 13, 2015. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  10. ^ Chiappetta, Marco. "Ampere Continues Blazing A Trail For Efficient, High-Performance Cloud Native Processors". Forbes. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  11. ^ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. "Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server". ZDNet. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  12. ^ "Meet Windows Azure event June 2012". Weblogs.asp.net. June 7, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  13. ^ "Web App Service - Microsoft Azure". Microsoft.
  14. ^ "Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)". Microsoft.
  15. ^ "External Identities documentation". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
  16. ^ "Mobile Engagement - Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  17. ^ "HockeyApp - Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  18. ^ "File Storage". Microsoft. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  19. ^ Hassell, Jonathan (September 3, 2014). "Microsoft's StorSimple: A first look at the 8000 series". Computerworld.
  20. ^ "Azure and CONNX". CONNX. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
  21. ^ Azure Synapse Analytics
  22. ^ "SQL Data Warehouse | Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  23. ^ "Introduction to Azure Data Factory". microsoft.com. Retrieved August 16, 2018.
  24. ^ "HDInsight | Cloud Hadoop". Azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  25. ^ "Sanitization". docs.particular.net. Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  26. ^ sethmanheim. "Overview of Azure Service Bus fundamentals". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
  27. ^ "Event Hubs". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  28. ^ BryanLa. "Azure REST API Reference". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved September 15, 2021.
  29. ^ "Azure CDN Coverage by Metro | Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
  30. ^ eamonoreilly. "Azure Automation Overview". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
  31. ^ "What is the Azure Face API?". Microsoft. July 2, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
    "Detect domain-specific content". Microsoft. February 7, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
    "Applying content tags to images". Microsoft. February 7, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
    "Detecting image types with Computer Vision". Microsoft. March 10, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
  32. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (May 2, 2019). "Microsoft extends its Cognitive Services with personalization service, handwriting recognition APIs and more". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 29, 2019. the Computer Vision API can now understand more than 10,000 concepts, scenes and objects, together with 1 million celebrities
  33. ^ "Azure". Azure. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  34. ^ "What is Microsoft Azure Functions? - Definition from WhatIs.com". SearchCloudComputing. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
  35. ^ "Azure Functions pricing". SearchCloudComputing. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
  36. ^ "Azure IoT Hub general availability overview". Microsoft. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
  37. ^ "IoT Central | Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  38. ^ Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft delivers public preview of its new Azure IoT software as a service". ZDNet. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  39. ^ Pietschmann, Chris (October 4, 2017). "Azure IoT Developer Kits (AZ3166) Have Arrived". Build5Nines.com. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
  40. ^ "Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. April 16, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
  41. ^ Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft's Azure IoT Edge, now generally available, is key to Redmond's IoT strategy | ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  42. ^ "Microsoft's edgy Open Enclave SDK goes cross platform". The Register.
  43. ^ Introducing Azure Orbital Microsoft. September 22, 2020. Accessed July 30, 2021
  44. ^ SpaceX, SES to provide broadband for Microsoft’s Azure Space mobile data centers Space News. October 20, 2020. Accessed July 30, 2021
  45. ^ "SES Becomes Microsoft Azure Orbital Founding Connectivity Partner" (Press release). SES. September 22, 2020. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
  46. ^ SpaceX launches first pair of O3b mPower satellites SpaceNews. 16 December 2022. Accessed 27 December 2022
  47. ^ Moving space into the cloud Space News. June 23, 2021. Accessed July 30, 2021
  48. ^ "Azure Regions | Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
  49. ^ "Microsoft beats Google and Amazon to announce first African data centers, kicking off in 2018". VentureBeat. May 18, 2017. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
  50. ^ Luescher, Michel (October 11, 2018). "Azure Region and Datacenter, find your best match". Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  51. ^ "Microsoft Cloud datacenter regions now available in the UAE to help fuel the Middle East's future economic ambitions – Middle East & Africa News Center". news.microsoft.com. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
  52. ^ "Google goes bilingual, Facebook fleshes out translation and TensorFlow is dope - And, Microsoft is assisting fish farmers in Japan". The Register.
  53. ^ "What is Windows Azure Fabric Controller (FC)? - Definition from WhatIs.com". SearchCloudComputing. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  54. ^ a b Petertaylor9999. "Enterprise Cloud Adoption: How does Azure work?". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  55. ^ "Azure Repos – Git Repositories | Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  56. ^ "Microsoft Azure Developer Tools | Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  57. ^ rmcmurray. "Azure Toolkit for Eclipse". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  58. ^ Welicki, Leon. "Announcing Azure Portal general availability". Microsoft. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  59. ^ a b FitzMacken, Tom. "Azure Resource Manager vs. classic deployment". Microsoft. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  60. ^ FitzMacken, Tom. "Azure Resource Manager overview". Microsoft. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  61. ^ Ray Ozzie: Bill Gates' Fifth Guy, redmondmag, 2005-03-15.
  62. ^ Red Dog: Five questions with Microsoft mystery man Dave Cutler, ZDNet, 2009-02-25.
  63. ^ The engineer’s engineer: Computer industry luminaries salute Dave Cutler’s five-decade-long quest for quality, Microsoft News Center, 2016-04-15.
  64. ^ "Ray Ozzie announces Windows Azure". ZDNet. Retrieved October 28, 2008.
  65. ^ "Windows Azure General Availability". blogs.microsoft.com. February 1, 2010.
  66. ^ Pietschmann, Chris (February 2017). "Happy 7th Birthday Microsoft Azure!". Build5Nines.com. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  67. ^ "SQL Azure SU3 is Now Live and Available in 6 Datacenters Worldwide". SQL Azure Team Blog. Microsoft. Archived from the original on June 20, 2013. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  68. ^ "Microsoft Azure Machine Learning combines power of comprehensive machine learning with benefits of cloud". blogs.microsoft.com. June 16, 2014.
  69. ^ "Human Error Caused Microsoft Azure Outage". Cloudwards.net. December 20, 2014.
  70. ^ "What is the relationship between Azure Cloud Switch and SONiC?". Github.com. February 15, 2020.
  71. ^ "Announcing Azure Portal general availability". Azure.microsoft.com.
  72. ^ Fussell, Mark. "Azure Service Fabric is GA!". Microsoft. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
  73. ^ "Microsoft Azure gets a new Logo and a Manifesto". Build5Nines.com. September 26, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  74. ^ Daniel, Chacko. "Azure Service Fabric is now in public preview". Microsoft Azure. Microsoft. Retrieved July 16, 2018.
  75. ^ "Azure IoT Central is now available". Microsoft Azure. Microsoft. Retrieved September 24, 2018.
  76. ^ "Microsoft has signed up to the Open Invention Network. We repeat. Microsoft has signed up to the OIN". The Register.
  77. ^ "Azure Front Door Service is now available".
  78. ^ "Microsoft cloud services continuity". Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  79. ^ Toor, Amar (June 30, 2011). "Microsoft: European cloud data may not be immune to the Patriot Act". Engadget.com. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  80. ^ "The collapse of the US-EU Safe Harbor", October 20, 2015, Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, Microsoft.com
  81. ^ "Microsoft Azure Trust Center". Windowsazure.com. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  82. ^ "Microsoft Azure Trust Center Compliance". Windowsazure.com. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  83. ^ "FedRAMP Compliant Cloud Systems". cloud.cio.gov. Retrieved October 15, 2014.
  84. ^ "Summary of Windows Azure Service Disruption on Feb 29th, 2012". Azure.microsoft.com. March 9, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  85. ^ "Windows Azure outage hits Europe". Gigaom.com. July 26, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  86. ^ "Microsoft pins Azure outage on network miscue". Gigaom.com. July 27, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  87. ^ Microsoft’s Azure storage service goes down, locking out corporate customers from their data Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  88. ^ Bishop, Bryan (February 22, 2013). "Xbox Live and Windows Azure suffering from extended outages". Theverge.com. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  89. ^ "Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud hit by worldwide management interuption [sic]". www.pcworld.com. October 31, 2013. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  90. ^ Zander, Jason. "Update on Azure Storage Service Interruption". Microsoft. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  91. ^ Foley, Mary J. "Microsoft says Storage service performance update brought Azure down". ZD.NET. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  92. ^ "European Office 365 and Microsoft Azure users hit by service outage". Retrieved September 6, 2018.
  93. ^ Foley, Mary Jo. "Global DNS outage hits Microsoft Azure customers - ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
  94. ^ "Microsoft confirms Azure storage issues around the world (updated)". March 16, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
  95. ^ "Microsoft Says Azure Outage Caused by Accidental Fire-Suppression Gas Release". October 4, 2017. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
  96. ^ "Microsoft Azure suffers major outage". June 20, 2018. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
  97. ^ Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft South Central U.S. datacenter outage takes down a number of cloud services - ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
  98. ^ Pietschmann, Chris (May 3, 2019). "May 2, 2019: Major Azure Outage Due to DNS Migration Issue". Build5Nines.com. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  99. ^ "March 16, 2021: Microsoft's latest cloud authentication outage: What went wrong". ZDNet.
  100. ^ "RCA - DNS issue impacting multiple Microsoft services (Tracking ID GVY5-TZZ)". Azure.
  101. ^ "The engineer's engineer: Computer industry luminaries salute Dave Cutler's five-decade-long quest for quality". Stories. April 15, 2016. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  102. ^ "Mark Russinovich - Blog - Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com.
  103. ^ "Jason Zander - Blog - Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com.
  104. ^ "Julia White - Blog - Microsoft Azure". azure.microsoft.com.

Sources

Further reading