Microsoft Azure Overview

In short, it is a holistic cloud computing solution by the software giant, Microsoft, enabling businesses to develop, manage, and deploy applications on the global network without any physical hardware setup. This is due to wide-ranging services provided by Azure, such as compute, storage, networking, and application services, which make it an ideal solution for scalable, secure, and efficient development of solutions.

Tutorial Objectives
This tutorial includes the key concepts of Azure and the main services. It shall equip readers for job interviews and Microsoft Azure certifications.

What is Azure?
Azure gives a growing set of cloud services to support applications, streamline new development, and enhance on-premises solutions. It is used for building, testing, deploying, and managing apps through Microsoft-managed data centers.

Key Azure Services
Compute Services
Azure Virtual Machines, Websites, Mobile Services: Use high-performance computing resources on-demand.
Data Services
Storage Services: Azure Storage (Blob, Queue, Table, File services), SQL Database, Redis Cache. Scalable and diversified storage solutions
Application Services
Azure Active Directory, Service Bus, HDInsight, Scheduler, Media Services. Facilitate the running and handling of apps
Network Services
Virtual Networks, Content Delivery Network, Traffic Manager. Conduct provisions of connectivity over both cloud-based as well as on-premises environments
How Azure Works
Infrastructure is highly virtualized, with racks of servers controlled by software called the Fabric Controller. The Fabric Controller monitors server health, and the Orchestrator handles user requests to authenticate and authorize access requests and task assignment.

In Azure’s organisation are:
Clusters: groupings of racks within a data centre
Availability Zones: physical, separate locations within a region, each featuring isolated data centers
Regions: connected data centers with low-latency connectivity.
Geographies: Distributed Regions for Data residency and compliance.
Azure Global Coverage
Azure is present in more than 50 regions worldwide that makes it highly scalable and host data locally. This enables businesses to have freedom as well as compliance on a flexible basis across the globe.

Price Model
Azure is a pay-as-you-go service, which allows one to scale up or down based on needs because of flexible pricing options. New users can enjoy free amounts of services for a given initial period due to Azure credits.

Azure Certifications
There are three main categories of certifications that Microsoft offers:

Azure Administrator : Manages and monitors solutions.
Azure Developer: Designs and builds cloud solutions.
Azure Solution Architect: Architects solutions involving compute, network, storage, and security.
Each certificate has an associate and advanced level, which further structures the process of career development.

Tutorial Prerequisites
The audience is expected to have a basic understanding of cloud computing and general IT fundamentals before entering into Azure.

Target Audience
This tutorial is intended for students and IT professionals who are interested in careers as Azure Developers or Administrators particularly fresh into cloud computing.

This Tutorial Scope
In this tutorial, I will be covering:
Core Azure Services (Compute, Storage, Networking, Application, etc.)
Hands-on creation of VMs, web sites, storage accounts, etc.
Users would be able to implement all that Azure offers in terms of possible computing solutions at the end.