I thought that this would be a good idea for a first post for my blog, but as it turns out – It is incredibly hard to describe what Azure is, there is just so much to it!

So, what is it?

At its core, Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, offering over 200 different services and solutions to help organizations build, deploy, and manage their applications and services in the cloud. From hosting web applications and databases to enabling advanced analytics and machine learning, you can do anything.

Learning through explaining – A short business scenario

I think the best way to understand what Azure is, and how you might benefit from it is by showing you examples of different core services. Say you have a really intense application which you need to run once a week which takes a couple hours to run. It’s to heavy to run on your servers as it’s a resource hog. You don’t want to buy a whole new server as that requires maintenance and it’s just a once-a-week task. You could try run it on your own desktop, maybe during your lunch break but that means the process is manual and relies on your having your desktop on.

You could host this application in Azure. You might be thinking ‘Why pay to host it in the cloud?’ – In Azure, you only pay for what you use. You could spin up a virtual machine which contains the application – it runs the code – it destroys itself. This means you only pay for the 2 hours the virtual machine is running. You could do this by using a golden imagine. You could use a logic app which runs on a recurrence of one week, which deploys an ARM Template then after 2 hours (Or whatever condition you specify) it will delete the virtual machine and resources associated with it. What if this application needs to access API keys – You can use Azure Key Vault. Need to store the data somewhere, you can use Azure Storage.

What I love about Azure

One of the massive benefits of using Azure is that you can remove single points of failures in your business. Say you develop an internal web app which is buggy and it doesn’t just crash the site, but crashes the whole server – that one application could grind your business to a halt. With something like Azure App Service, you could host the applications all separately. So if the app goes down, your business doesn’t. It’s also a win-win for a security perspective, if your application was vulnerable to some exploit the most they could get access to is the application itself, instead of a potentially critical server.

What I love most about Azure is the shift of responsibility when deploying things to the cloud. Personally, I love building stuff way more than maintaining stuff. If I build an application for a business I don’t want to be setting up a server, setting up the firewall, then maintaining that server – making sure it gets updated regularly. It’s boring work. With services like Azure App Service – You do not need to do the boring work. I don’t need to manage the underlying infrastructure or operating system. It’s done by Azure.

Another particular benefit I really like about Azure App Service is the built-in authentication with Entra ID. I recently had to create a web application, but to be honest, I don’t trust myself writing proper authentication into the application. The last thing I want to do is leave the application vulnerable because a messed up a couple lines of code. Also, who wants 50 sets of credentials all for different apps? With Azure App Service I was able to integrate Entra ID natively into the App Service. Meaning that the authentication is entirely handled by Microsoft – once again shifting more responsibility for Microsoft, and I don’t have to manage the credentials!

Conclusion

In conclusion, Azure is much more than just a cloud computing platform—it’s a powerful service that allows businesses to innovate, scale, and thrive in the digital cloud age. From hosting applications and managing data to securing environments and automating processes, Azure offers a suite of services and solutions to meet the diverse needs of organizations all around the world. By leveraging Azure, businesses can unlock new opportunities for growth, streamline operations, and drive meaningful outcomes. Whether you’re a developer, IT professional, or a business owner, Azure provides the tools and capabilities you need to succeed in today’s ever-changing landscape. So why wait? You can create your free account today and get $200 credit.

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments!