Windows Azure is the generic name for Microsoft's cloud services platform. The initial goal of this platform is to host and scale a web application using the "cloud" data centers of the giant company.
To maintain the health of the Windows Azure environment, 8 large data centers located around the world are used. Currently, two models of work are successfully implemented: platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). This service delivery model has the following advantages:
- only those resources that were actually used are paid;
- there is a multithreaded structure of calculations;
- there is an abstraction from the infrastructure.
The PaaS model implies the lease of a full-fledged platform, which consists of the following elements: an operating system, file storage and application services. This approach significantly reduces developer costs. They no longer need to create their own infrastructure and purchase expensive equipment.
The way Windows Azure works is to individually run a virtual machine to test and maintain a specific application. The user independently determines the amount of required computing power. These parameters can be changed if developers need more (fewer) virtual machines.
Despite the fact that this scheme is implemented by Microsoft, several open source operating systems are available in the Windows Azure environment. A developer can run a virtual machine with the following pre-installed OS:
- Ubuntu 12;
- CentOS 6;
- OpenSUSE 12;
- SUSE Linux Server 11.
The security of Windows Azure and similar "cloud" services is much higher than that of conventional hosting providers. This is due to the fact that giant corporations can afford to allocate large funds to maintain the performance of data centers. In June 2012, the Windows Azure platform underwent tremendous changes. Now this portal is written in HTML 5 and has a large number of new options.
