Microsoft Azure IaaS

IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service, which is a fancy way of saying your servers are being stored and run by some host off-site. Microsoft has been running full steam ahead into the cloud and shows no signs of stopping. Azure is a platform Microsoft is building a set of hosted services on similar to the Amazon Web Services that run in Microsoft datacenters, which are some of the top datacenters in the world. Azure includes web site hosting, Virtual Machine hosting, SQL Server database hosting, Virtual Networks and VPN, and the new Windows Azure Active Directory. All of these services are accessible 24/7 from the internet and backed up and maintained by engineers at Microsoft’s data centers.

Azure services integrate with on-site Active Directory databases in order to allow administrators to manage services and access in one place. The new Azure Active Directory is not a replacement for having a server for log in in your office. It is designed so that applications and services built within the Azure infrastructure as well as other 3rd party cloud services can authenticate users with a single-sign-on that is integrated with users Windows logon. Azure can be used to build or install enterprise applications to the cloud so users can access business data and services from anywhere, while reducing the overall cost in support and maintenance over having it all onsite. Azure can be used to backup virtual machines and run them in the event of a disaster. Azure can be used to store backup files off-site and restore from those backups. Virtual machines can be spun up in a matter of minutes and backups restored to these virtual machines in the event of a disaster. Azure allows companies to create secure virtual networks for applications and connect them to their onsite networks via VPN. SQL databases can be created directly on the Azure platform and accessed via an application built on Azure services.

All of these services are considered infrastructure because solutions can be built on them. This technology is great and opens up doors to some fantastic cost savings and innovation; however, if you are thinking of moving your entire network out to Microsoft’s cloud we just aren’t there yet. Today, most of what Azure does is geared towards developers; however, as more of the pieces fall into place products built using Azure services will be available to just drop in to fill the needs of businesses with minimal IT required. The IaaS over the Internet, Azure in particular, is not quite ready for businesses to move in fulltime yet, but based on what I have been reading and what vendors like Microsoft, Apple, and Cisco are saying the move is right around the corner…so get ready.

Leave a Reply