Microsoft Azure

The main articles are:

• What is IaaS
• PaaS - Platform As A Service

Microsoft Azure is one of the cloud platforms that combines both IaaS computing infrastructure solutions (servers, data warehouses, networks, operating systems) and a set of tools and services that facilitate the development and deployment of cloud applications (PaaS). All this gives developers the ability to quickly create, deploy and manage large-scale applications to meet the needs of specific organizations. Microsoft Azure services help customers avoid the complexity and cost of replacing existing equipment, managing the underlying infrastructure, and therefore better manage IT budgets - customers pay only for the resources they need.

Microsoft Azure Structure

Microsoft Azure Ecosystem for July 2024:

• Calculations: Virtual machines (VMs), containers, Kubernetes, functions without a server (Azure Functions).

• Storage: Blob Storage, Azure Files, Managed Disks.

• Data Base: SQL Database, Cosmos DB, Azure Database for MySQL, PostgreSQL.

• Network: Virtual networks, load balancing, CDN, VPN.

• AI and machine learning: Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services.

• Application development: App Services, Logic Apps, DevOps, API Management.

Microsoft Azure Purpose and Capabilities

The main purpose of Microsoft Azure is the ability to quickly develop web services and web applications. To do this, Windows Azure will take on tasks such as data storage, information search, time-consuming calculations, etc., while web developers will only have to execute requests to Windows Azure.

To be able to interact with the system, a large number of protocols are provided, such as:, HTTP, SOAP REST, and. XML Microsoft Azure is an open platform, so it supports third-party languages ​ ​ such as,, and Eclipse Ruby PHP Python, and also supports and. Windows.NET Framework Visual Studio

For resource support of the platform servers , Microsoft will be used around the world. The result of using such a scheme will be increased performance and reliability (as in cluster systems) of web applications running Windows Azure. Microsoft will begin providing services for to hosting distributed projects running on Windows Azure, offering disk space and computing power of their servers, as well as a new system as a subscription service.

At launch, it was assumed that the main subscribers of services provided on the basis of Windows Azure will be small and medium-sized businesses, which, by transferring applications to the cloud, will be able to save on the hardware equipment of their data centers and specialist services.

Prices for Microsoft Azure services

Main article: Prices for Microsoft Azure services

Microsoft Azure Solutions

Main article: Solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform

Chronology of service development

2023

Data breach of 30 million Microsoft software users

In early July 2023, the cybercriminal group Anonymous Sudan announced the hacking of Microsoft servers and the theft of an extensive database of users of products and services of the Redmond Corporation.

According to the attackers, they stole information about about 30 million users. The stolen information includes logins and passwords, as well as email addresses. As evidence of the hack, Anonymous Sudan participants presented a sample of about 100 pairs of logins and passwords, but their authenticity was not confirmed. Hackers put the database up for sale - it is offered to anyone for $50 thousand.

Microsoft denies server hacking and theft of user information. However, the corporation confirmed that it is the cybercriminals who are part of the Anonymous Sudan group who are responsible for service interruptions and problems in the operation of a number of services, including the cloud platform, Azure as well as Outlook. OneDrive Failures were recorded in early June 2023. BleepingComputer contacted Microsoft to request comment on the credibility of Anonymous Sudan's statement, and a representative of the corporation categorically rejected the report. about a data breach

We have no evidence that our customers' data has been stolen or compromised. Our analysis shows that this claim is false, Microsoft said.

Microsoft did not specify whether the investigation has been completed or is still ongoing. In addition, it is not clear whether Anonymous Sudan attackers are going to make the files publicly available if there is no buyer on them. If hackers actually managed to steal information about millions of users of Microsoft products, this information can be used to organize phishing attacks and other fraudulent schemes aimed at stealing money.^[1]

Microsoft acknowledged the global failure of the Microsoft 365 infrastructure and named its cause

The reason for the global failure of the Microsoft 365 infrastructure and a number of cloud services Azure was a change in the IP address of the WAN router. The corporation Microsoft announced this in an official notice at the end of January 2023. More here.

2022

Banning cryptocurrency mining without prior approval

Microsoft updated its Universal Licensing Terms for Online Services, banning mining cryptocurrency from any Microsoft service without prior approval from the company. The ban also applies to cloud computing service Microsoft Azure. This became known on December 15, 2022.

Neither the client nor those who access the Web Service through the client can use the Web Service to mine cryptocurrency without Microsoft's prior written permission, the updated rules say.

Users now need to get prior written approval from Microsoft before using online services to mine cryptocurrencies, regardless of subscription term. The cryptocurrency mining permit "may be considered for testing and security research."

Microsoft made the changes because "cryptocurrency mining can lead to disruptions or even deterioration of online services, and can often be associated with cyber fraud and unauthorized access to customer resources and their use"^[2].

Customer Data Breach

On October 19, 2022, Microsoft revealed details of an incorrect server configuration that led to the leakage of data from some potential customers. The data of 548 thousand users, including their confidential information, were in the public domain.

Microsoft has confirmed a customer data breach incident over incorrectly configured cloud system servers on its side. Azure The problem affected 65 thousand organizations from 111 countries of the world. According to the company's Security Breach Response Center, the leak is related to an incorrect configuration of the server endpoint, which was discovered by information security researchers from SOCRadar Cyber ​ ​ Intelligence on September 24, 2022.

Information security specialists discovered using special network tools to search for leaked data an incorrectly configured server pool of the Microsoft Azure platform. It was a working segment of the Azure blob storage on the Microsoft side.

The unsealed data included names, email addresses, email content, company name and phone numbers, and may have included attached files relating to the business relationship between the customer and Microsoft or the company's authorized partner. An unintended incorrect configuration was allowed on an endpoint that is not used in the Microsoft ecosystem and was not the result of a security vulnerability.

Microsoft did not say how many potential customers were exposed to the wrong configuration, but in a separate message, SOCRadar, which describes the impact as BlueBleed, cites a figure of more than 65 thousand. The researchers report that the data breach on the Azure Blob Storage instance amounted to 2.4 TB and included documents confirming the execution and approval of the work, including those that could disclose intellectual property.

Microsoft thanked SOCRadar for the discovery of open storage and explained that the experts of the information security company greatly exaggerated the scale of this incident. Microsoft said that the decision to copy this data to yourself and make it available for corporate search using a special paid search portal for vulnerabilities on its site is not in the interests of ensuring the privacy or security of customers and potentially exposes them to unnecessary risk.^[3]

Use to steal cryptocurrencies

A large-scale phishing campaign uses Microsoft Azure and Google Sites to steal cryptocurrencies. This became known on August 11, 2022.

The attackers targeted users of Coinbase, MetaMask, Kraken and Gemini.

Phishing pages posted on Microsoft Azure and Google Sites are advertised through comments posted on legitimate sites by a network of bots controlled by attackers. This tactic allows you to increase traffic, increase the rating of a fake site in search engines and bypass auto-moderation systems.

This campaign was noticed by analysts at Netskope, who noted that this tactic allowed some fraudulent sites to appear as the first result in Google search.

To make matters worse, as shown below, Google also included phishing pages in the Highlighted Descriptions, giving them maximum visibility in search results.

On phishing pages, attackers try to steal the victim's credentials or seed phrases. The whole scheme looks like this:

• On all phishing sites, users enter their credentials, after which they are redirected to a fake page that asks the victim to specify their phone number and enter a code from SMS;
• As soon as the user enters the code, the site issues a fake error about unauthorized activity and authorization problems, forcing the victim to click on the "Contact an expert" button;
• After that, the victim goes to an online chat page, where a fraudster posing as a technical support worker forces the victim to install TeamViewer.

After that, an attacker can gain remote access to the victim's device, and then collect the multifactor authentication codes necessary to log into the victim's accounts on crypto exchanges^[4].

Fix two serious vulnerabilities

On May 6, 2022, it became known that information security corporation experts Microsoft announced a fix for two serious vulnerabilities cloud service in Azure. These bugs allowed access to strangers. databases PostgreSQL

Vulnerabilities directly hidden in the Flexible Server solution for data Azure Database for PostgreSQL databases. safety The Microsoft Center Bulletin states that by exploiting vulnerabilities that allow you to elevate privileges during user authorization for replication in FlexibleServer, malefactor you can use an incorrectly bound regular expression to bypass authorization and gain access to other users' databases.

The vulnerabilities were discovered by the information security company Wiz. Its experts assigned the combination the name ExtraReplica. The Wiz publication indicates that these vulnerabilities are critical, and that in fact we are talking about the possibility of replicating (copying all the content) other people's databases, followed by gaining access to their content.

Exploiting the vulnerability in the Flexible Server (in their own cloud resources), the experts conducted reconnaissance and found that they had access to the resources of other users on the same subnet as the Wiz resources.

After that, another error was identified in the PostgreSQL authorization procedure, which allowed you to log in to other people's PostgreSQL instances using a certificate issued for an arbitrary domain.

Microsoft received information about the problem in January 2022 and fixed it within 48 hours. Details about ExtraReplica were only disclosed in early May 2022 in accordance with standard practice.

No indication that the vulnerability was exploited in practice was found. According to Wiz, the problem itself appeared as a result of changes in the PostgreSQL engine, which, paradoxically, were intended to optimize its authorization system.

"No one would use cloud resources if they were not based on the principle of completely isolating the resources of different users from each other. Therefore, errors associated with violation of such isolation can be considered the most critical for cloud services. Fortunately, these bugs were quickly fixed. It remains, however, a question whether these vulnerabilities affect other services using PostgreSQL databases, "" - says Mikhail Zaytsev, information security expert at SEQ.

Cost Management with Coster Service

Coster Cost management IT in Azure has been added to cloud MS the multi-cloud resource cost control service. The company Softline announced this on March 30, 2022. More. here

2021

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Availability

Red Hat, an open source solution provider, announced the launch of the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform service on Microsoft's Azure platform on December 13, 2021. The service is based on the Red Hat platform for hybrid cloud automation, which has recently been significantly upgraded. Cooperation between Red Hat and Microsoft allows you to offer the customer a solution for automated delivery of any applications to any site without unnecessary costs and difficulties. Read more here.

The largest DDoS attack in history has been registered - it came from 70 thousand sources

In mid-October 2021, Microsoft announced the largest DDoS attack in history. The company claims the attack lasted more than 10 minutes, with brief bursts of traffic peaking at 2.4 Tbit/s, 0.55 Tbit/s and 1.7 Tbit/s.

In August 2021, Microsoft managed to prevent a 2.4 Tb/s distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The attack targeted an Azure client in Europe and exceeded the maximum traffic volume recorded by the company in 2020 by 140%. The attack also exceeds the peak traffic volume of 2.3 Tbit/s aimed at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2020, although this attack was less than the 2.54 Tbit/s attack that Google coped with in 2017.

DDoS attacks are usually used to bring websites or services out of the network due to the flow of traffic that the web host cannot cope with. They are usually carried out through a botnet, a network of computers that have been hacked using malware or malicious software (software) to remotely manage them. The Azure service was able to stay online throughout the attack due to its ability to absorb dozens of terabits.

The attack traffic came from about 70 thousand sources and from many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such Malaysia Vietnam Taiwan Japan China as,,, and, as well as from, - USA said Amir Dahan, senior program manager at the Microsoft Azure network team.

Although the number of DDoS attacks on Azure increased in 2021, the maximum attack bandwidth decreased to 625 Mbps before this attack of 2.4 Tbit/s at the end of August 2021. Microsoft does not name the Azure customer in Europe who was attacked, but such attacks can also be used as a cover for secondary attacks, which in turn are aimed at spreading malware and penetrating the company's systems.^[5]

Launch of DLP-system "SearchInform CIB"

SearchInform, a Russian developer of information security tools, has partnered with Microsoft, and DLP system CIB, a corporate data protection SearchInform, has been deployed in the Microsoft Azure cloud. This was announced on September 14, 2021 by Microsoft. Read more here.

Launching Infobip Conversations and Moments Services

March 19, 2021, Infobip an international developer of communication solutions for business, launched the service Conversations as and omnicanal contact center tool for marketing mailings on the Infobip Moments cloudy Azure platform. More. here

2020

Connection to satellites for instant data processing

On September 11, 2020, it became known that Microsoft intends to challenge Amazon by connecting the Azure cloud network directly to satellites for instant data processing. This is evidenced by documents received from Microsoft by the US Federal Communications Commission in August 2020.

According to CNBC, Microsoft has connected a Spanish satellite to two ground stations - both located in Washington state, where Microsoft is headquartered. This will allow the company to demonstrate the ability to directly upload satellite data to the Azure cloud for immediate processing. The ground station is an extremely important channel for transmitting data to and from satellites in orbit.

On September 2, 2020, the US Federal Communications Commission allowed Microsoft to test the new solution. The regulator's permission gives Microsoft a six-month license that allows it to download telecommunications data, including images. A Spanish satellite called Deimos-2 was launched into orbit in June 2014. The satellite is operated by a subsidiary of the Canadian company UrtheCast - as part of testing, the satellite will Deimos-2 be within reach of Microsoft antennas for "several minutes."

Documents obtained by the US regulator state that Microsoft wants to conduct testing before, during and after the Ignite conference for IT professionals, which will begin on September 22, 2020.

If the test results arouse significant market interest, then Microsoft will send an application to the International Bureau (IB) for permission to perform commercial operations in the future, including a request for Deimos-2 satellite access to the United States market, Microsoft said.[6]

Create Azure compute nodes to deploy Nutanix clusters and services

On September 9, 2020, Nutanix announced a partnership with Microsoft that will allow companies to offer a hybrid infrastructure with unified management and the ability to seamlessly transfer applications, data and licenses between the private cloud and the Azure cloud using the Nutanix Clusters on Azure solution. Read more here.

Microsoft explained the silence in the many hours of Azure failure

In early April 2020 Microsoft , she explained her silence in the many hours of Azure failure, which affected the company's European customers. It turned out that the task of informing customers depended on the incident manager from, USA who was sleeping at the time.

The failure that affected customers from Europe and Great Britain continued for three days starting at 9:00 UTC on March 24. However, at first Microsoft did not report that customers were forced to deal with the unusually slow operation of Azure, although by the company's own standards such problems should be recognized within 10 minutes.

Azure CTO Chad Kimes acknowledged that "communications within Microsoft during this incident were also difficult" and apologized to 6,136 affected customers.

The technical problem itself was caused by capacity constraints on virtual machines due to a sharp increase in demand for Azure computing resources during the coronavirus pandemic, which led to long delays in services. The biggest delay was nine hours, according to Kimes.

When incidents involve customer request failures or performance impacts, our automated toolkit tells the designated person in charge and the primary incident manager, "Kimes explained. - The latter is usually responsible for posting external messages confirming the incident. However, due to differences in the toolkit, it turned out that while the employee responsible for the incident worked hard, assessing technical problems and possible solutions, no one informed the main incident manager about this, and he continued to sleep. When he connected to us at the beginning of the working day in the eastern United States, the company finally acknowledged the incident.[7]

775% growth in cloud services

Microsoft announced an increase in the use of Azure cloud services by 775% in regions where social distancing has been introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic or self-isolation has been recommended. In particular, there was an increase in the use of Microsoft Teams, Windows Virtual Desktop and Power BI services . This became known on March 29, 2020.

Microsoft announced an acceleration in work to "add significant additional capacity that will be available," although at the same time some quotas will be introduced to cope with the huge demand for its cloud services.

As of March 2020, Azure services have more than 44 million users per day. These users generated more than 900 million minutes daily for communication on the Microsoft Teams platform during the week. The use of the service Virtual Desktop Windows"" has grown more than 3 times. The use of government Power BI for distribution to citizens information coronavirus increased by 42% over the week.

It also reports "some time constraints" designed to balance the capabilities of services to meet the needs of all customers.

Шаблон:Quote "We have imposed restrictions on free offers to prioritize existing customers," the company said in a statement. "We also have restrictions on certain resources for new subscriptions.

The company previously issued guidance that says first responders and health services have a priority right to use Microsoft Teams. At the same time, against the background of the growth of Azure download, there were complaints about the operation of services. In particular, British experts complain about bandwidth problems in the Microsoft cloud^[8]

Limiting resources to Azure users

At the end of March 2020, Microsoft began to limit the resources available to users in the Azure cloud infrastructure. The corporation does this in order to ensure uninterrupted access to services to those customers who need it most.

It looks like we used all the RAM, disk and processor resources in Azure. Unable to start virtual machine, error: "allocation failed." We do not have enough resources for the requested virtual machine size in this region, "a user under the pseudonym @ teroalhonen wrote on Twitter.

Another Twitter user under the nickname @ nigel_websters writes that he had problems with resources and capacities in Azure in southern Britain, Northern and Western Europe, as a result of which he lost the ability to create virtual machines even to test one processor.

Microsoft confirmed the restrictions on the use of Azure and linked them to the growing demand for cloud services resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, due to which many companies and government agencies began to transfer employees to remote work.

Microsoft said that resources in Azure will primarily be provided to emergency services, medical and government agencies so that they can ensure the continuous operation of remote personnel and basic functions. The company also intends to revise the pricing of its products and functions - primarily free ones.

With continued demand, if during this time we encounter any bandwidth restrictions in any region, we will introduce clear criteria for priority new cloud resources, Microsoft said in a blog post.[9]

2019

Vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain client data and control over the Microsoft Azure server

On January 31, 2020, Check Point Research announced the identification of two Microsoft Azure vulnerabilities. The researchers found that users on the Azure network could gain control of the entire server, which could lead to the theft or change of the code of business applications of organizations.

The first flaw safety was discovered in. Azure Stack The Azure Stack vulnerability allowed you to the hacker to get screenshots and confidential information about machines running on Azure. The second vulnerability was discovered in the application service. Azure App Service The lack of security allowed hackers to gain control over the entire Azure server and, therefore, gain control over the code of business applications of organizations.

As of January 2020, Check Point and Microsoft have worked together to make the cloud safer.

Azure Stack is a cloud computing software solution developed by Microsoft that helps businesses deliver Azure services from their own data center. Microsoft created Azure Stack to help organizations leverage hybrid cloud computing on their own terms, leveraging cloud capabilities. In doing so, companies can consider a variety of technical and business factors, such as regulatory requirements, data sovereignty, settings, and data latency.

Check Point researchers were able to obtain screenshots and confidential information about Azure clients and machines. infrastructures This vulnerability would allow a hacker to obtain confidential information about any enterprise where it operates in Azure. To do this, the attacker had to first get to access to the portal Azure Stack, which allows you to send not authenticated HTTP requests containing screenshots and information about tenants and infrastructure machines.

The Azure Application Service is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) that integrates Microsoft Azure websites, mobile, and other services into a single service. This service provides new capabilities that provide integration with local or cloud systems.

The Azure Application Service provides users with several features. Among them are the provision and deployment of mobile and web applications, the creation of applications for iOS, Android and Windows, automation of business processes using visual design and integration with Software as a Service (SaaS) applications such as Salesforce, Marketo and DropBox.

Researchers at Check Point have proven that hackers could compromise a client's apps, data and accounts by creating a free user in the Azure cloud and exploiting Azure's vulnerabilities.

Check Point researchers installed the Azure Stack Development Kit (ASDK) on their own servers. After ASDK was installed, the researchers noted places where vulnerabilities could potentially be found. Because Azure Stack has features similar to Azure's public cloud, Check Point researchers focused on these vectors.

Check Point reported Microsoft vulnerabilities. The first vulnerability was found by Check Point on January 19, 2019, after which Microsoft released a CVE-2019-1234 security update. The second vulnerability was revealed on June 27, 2019, when Microsoft updated its CVE-2019-1372 protection. Check Point and Microsoft jointly resolved security issues: patches for both vulnerabilities in Azure were released in late 2019.

Microsoft and OpenAI will develop AI-based supercomputing technologies for Azure

July 23, 2019 it became known that Microsoft will invest $1 billion in the non-profit organization OpenAI, based in San Francisco. The parties have entered into a multi-year partnership to develop supercomputer technologies based on artificial intelligence for the Microsoft Azure cloud service. Read more here.

Linux has become more popular than Windows Server among Azure users

At the end of June 2019, it became known that Linux has become a more popular operating system than Windows Server among Azure users. Microsoft recognizes the high demand for Linux and strives to develop related projects.

Sasha Levin, who is responsible for developing the Microsoft Linux kernel, told ZDNet about this superiority.

According to IDC analysts, the share of Linux among operating systems used in corporate servers and cloud systems reached 68% in 2017.

Executive Vice President of Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group Scott Guthrie noted that not only Azure customers are switching to Linux. 

Built-in Azure services often run on Linux. Microsoft creates most of these services. For example, a software-defined network (SDN) in Azure is based on Linux, he said.

Microsoft is confident that open source software can benefit every developer, Guthrie said.

It's not just code, it's community. We are now the largest proponent of open source projects in the world, "he said.

Microsoft has applied to include the company in a closed list of Linux developers, which includes Canonical, Debian, Red Hat, SUSE and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

These companies exchange data on uncorrected vulnerabilities before they are published and discuss possible solutions. The discussion participants are given 7-14 days to make proposals on methods for correcting vulnerabilities, and after this period, the information becomes publicly available.

According to Sascha Levin, Microsoft has distinguished itself over the years by competent elimination of security problems, which allowed it to gain serious experience in identifying and eliminating vulnerabilities.^[10]

Integration with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

On June 5, 2019, Microsoft and Oracle announced a tight integration of their cloud services. With this collaboration, the companies are looking to attract more large customers and confront Amazon, which is leading the cloud market.

One of the conditions of the partnership involves the organization of direct high-speed communication between Oracle and Microsoft data centers. First, such a connection will be received by data centers in the eastern United States, and then it will spread to other regions.

Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud clients will be able to authenticate using one account, as well as exchange data and receive support from both vendors. Microsoft's analytical, AI and other cloud services will be able to connect to Oracle Cloud products such as Autonomous Database.

In addition, users will be able to deploy cloud technologies including Oracle solutions (for example, JD Edwards Enterprise One, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail and Oracle Hyperion) and Microsoft DBMS running in the Azure and/or Oracle Cloud infrastructure.

According to Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of Microsoft Cloud and AI, the collaboration with Oracle was the "best solution" as it will help customers move their enterprise applications and databases to the public cloud faster.

The head of the analytical agency Amalgam Insights, Nyun Park, says that thanks to the agreement, companies that are just starting to use Azure or Oracle Cloud will find it easier to back up data in the cloud and share workflows between development teams that may have different preferences in choosing cloud infrastructures.

According to analysts, Gartner this cloud alliance was a clear "blow" to Amazon, especially from Oracle, which does not hide that it considers Amazon a competitor in the DBMS market.^[11]

Direct sale of Azure services

In January 2019, Microsoft decided to independently sell Azure cloud services to customers in the medium and small business (SMB) sector. Thus, the American corporation can take away most of the sales from partners who are actively working in this market.

Starting in March 2019, a new way to buy and manage Azure products directly from Microsoft will operate, according to a statement from the software giant. The innovation "will facilitate the licensing process, make it more efficient and easier."

The new model includes an "optimized digital customer agreement with Microsoft (Microsoft Customer Agreement)," which will replace current systems for purchasing through resellers and MSPs.

It also supports our customers' use of Azure through sophisticated billing and cost management mechanisms and comprehensive subscription and account management features, Microsoft said in a statement.

Customers buying Azure directly from the company will be offered a list of products and services from Microsoft and third-party manufacturers, as well as Microsoft's new "simple" 11-page customer agreement.

The company promises that partners will play an important role in the new sales model.

They will continue to provide assistance to customers during the initial stages of product use, offer additional services and differentiated solutions in combination with Microsoft products and services. Our partners will be the foundation when it comes to helping our customers innovate and thrive, the company added.

Apparently, Microsoft wants to make purchases of Azure services as simple as with Office 365, but some customers will undoubtedly still need help setting up and managing cloud services, which can complicate deployment and management.^[12]

As TAdviser was told in Microsoft, the direct sale of Azure services does not apply to the Russian market. Changes are relevant only for the following countries: Argentina, Canada, Chile, Puerto Rico,, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA,, Great Britain,, and USA France Germany other Western countries. Europe

2018

The number of vacancies for Microsoft Azure specialists increased by 165.9% in three years

In December 2018, job search portal Indeed published a study reporting rapidly growing demand for cloud computing professionals.

So, by the end of 2018, the number of vacancies in which Google Cloud knowledge is required soared by 1082% compared to three years ago. In the case of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure clouds, growth figures were 107.15% and 165.9%, respectively. Read more here.

Citrix and Microsoft Joint Technology Development and Programs

Citrix and Microsoft on October 4, 2018 announced a commercial collaboration project, as well as presented joint technology developments and programs that will help customers implement cloud strategies.

Citrix has received the status of a cloud solution provider (Microsoft Direct Cloud Service Provider, CSP). This will make it easier for customers to purchase Azure Marketplace cloudy licensed solutions Citrix Workspace using Microsoft 365 the Azure platform functionality. With the partner agreement, customers will be able to quickly move from purchase to full-fledged work without having to complete a large number of additional transactions. This feature will also be available through other Microsoft service providers that can configure, configure, and maintain fully ready-to-use solutions for their customers.

The first joint cloud service will be Desktop-as-a-Service (Desktop-as-a-Service), DaaS integrated with. With Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop this solution, customers can purchase and deploy a desktop virtual desk based on the Azure platform in just a few hours.

In addition to this service, the company's cooperation includes the integration of Citrix Networking and Citrix Analytics technologies.

For all customers who run on the Azure platform and use SOOffice 365 or plan to move their virtual desktops to the cloud, Citrix Networking will become an integrated solution that provides high speed and fast ROI, the company says.

Citrix also announced built-in support for Azure DNS private zones with its Application Delivery Controller (ADC) solution, which allows you to quickly solve problems with customer domain names. The company became one of the first partners under the Microsoft GA of Azure DNS Private Zones program.

Linux became the most popular OS in Azure

At the end of September 2018, Microsoft announced that Linux had become the most popular operating system in the Azure infrastructure.

In an interview with ZDNet, Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group Scott Guthrie said that about 50% of Azure virtual machines are running on   the Linux distribution and operation system.

True, this is depending on the day, because many of these workloads are elastic. But sometimes it happens that a little more than half of Azure's virtual machines run on Linux, he said, adding that Linux usage is increasing every month.

According to him, Azure's "native" services often run on Linux, and Microsoft is creating more and more such services. Among them, for example, is the Azure Software Defined Network based on Linux.

The publication states that Linux has become the most popular OS in Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, and the return of Windows Server is not expected. This situation has developed not only due to the demand for Linux among Azure clients, but also due to the promotion of the open platform of Microsoft itself.

Take a look at our parallel edition of SQL Server on Linux. All of our projects now run on Linux, "said Scott Guthrie.

At least eight Linux distributions are available on Azure, each of which has full support from the Azure team. Which projects are most popular among customers and Microsoft itself, Guthrie did not specify and only said that Microsoft has built close relations with Red Hat, SUSE and Canonical.

The top executive also added that by the end of September 2018, Microsoft has more than 200 open source software projects, and the company has become the largest supporter of the Open Source community.^[13]

Lightning hit the Microsoft Azure data center. Services failed

On September 4, 2018, one data centers Microsoft was struck by lightning. This led to the failure of some of the equipment and the fact that the company's services stopped working for some users.

The incident occurred in the San Antonio-based Microsoft data center, which is responsible for the functioning of the Azure infrastructure in the southern and central parts of the United States. The lightning discharge occurred on the cooling system of the object and led to a surge in voltage and temperature.

The data center has activated automatic processes that ensure the integrity of data and equipment, and critical hardware has switched to a structured mode of reduced power consumption, - said Azure technical support in the official Twitter blog.

The failure caused Office 365, Azure Active Directory, and Visual Studio Team Services to stop working for some users. In addition, there were complaints about lack of access to Xbox Live and OneDrive services.

A few hours later, Microsoft announced the restoration of storage availability for most of the affected services. However, judging by the information on the Azure website, access problems remained at the time of publication of the material (September 5, 15:50 Moscow time).

According to GeekWire, the cooling system is the most important part of the modern data center, given the gigantic heat created by thousands of servers operating in a closed area. The data centers of most cloud companies provide procedures for automatic shutdown of equipment after a sharp increase in temperature. They require a restart of the equipment and a certain time to restore the work.

According to Mimecast threat resilience expert cyber security Pete Banham, the Azure incident was another reminder that companies need to create backup capacity on their own, not rely on one supplier.^[14]

Microsoft turns Azure into a global computer

One of the main topics of the Microsoft Build 2018 developer conference, which was held from May 7 to 9 in Seattle (USA), was cloud computing. The company's CEO, Satya Nadella, said future applications "will need a ubiquitous computing environment - from cloud to edge computing," which relies on technologies related to events without the use of local servers.

Azure is built like a world computer, "Nadella said from the stage at Build 2018.

The head noted that in 2017 Microsoft added about 130 new features to Azure, and more will appear in the future.

Thus, Custom Vision artificial intelligence algorithms, which are part of the Azure Cognitive Services suite, began to work on the Azure IoT Edge platform, which will allow various "smart" devices, from cameras and drones to industrial equipment, to perform analytical actions by their own means without the need to connect to the cloud.

During 2018, Azure IoT Edge will have more Azure Cognitive services that can work directly on devices. "Cognitive" capabilities include visual and speech recognition, language support, communication, search and operation of knowledge.

Microsoft makes Azure IoT Edge Runtime an open source environment, allowing users to modify, configure applications for smart devices.

This will allow the community to expand its use cases and further develop innovation, "says Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft. - You might think you're not an IoT developer, but thanks to the growth of cloud and edge applications, launching your code at the border will be the new normal.[15]

2017

Integration with SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud

Microsoft Corporation and SAP SE on November 28, 2017 announced the creation of an integrated offer, thanks to which corporate customers can form a clear strategic plan for developing business innovation in the cloud. Specifically, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (SAP's private managed cloud service) will be integrated into Microsoft Azure and enable customers to run SAP S/4HANA in a secure managed cloud. In addition, Microsoft will implement SAP S/4HANA on Azure to support its own internal financial processes. SAP, in turn, will migrate the internal key business systems to Azure. Read more here.

Azure virtual machines running on Linux

At the end of October 2017, the company Microsoft announced that about 40% of Azure virtual machines are running on distributions. operating system Linux With this statement American , the software giant reiterated its increasing support. open source software

Information about the operation of 40% of Azure virtual machines on Linux appeared on the Twitter account of Microsoft Developer UK. In June 2016, the company claimed about a 33 percent rate. Thus, the share of users who prefer to work with Azure virtual machines on Linux has increased by 7 percentage points in just over a year.

As noted by ZDNet, Azure users can choose the following distributions: CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, RHEL, SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE and Ubuntu.^[16]

Earlier in 2017, Microsoft also added support Intel Clear Linux - a specialized distribution designed to run on hardware processors Intel and use cloudy in infrastructure and the Internet of Things (). IoT

Microsoft has long stayed away from Open Source projects, but by 2015-2017, the company's attitude towards this ON has changed dramatically. This is evidenced by events such as the opening of an unrelated GUI part of the platform, .NET creating an environment for running Linux applications in, Windows 10 expanding Linux support in Azure, joining workgroups in organizations and, Linux Foundation Eclipse Foundation cooperation with companies, and, Canonical Red Hat SUSE porting for Linux SQL Server , translating Windows development to Git, as well as the creation of such open source projects as Visual Studio Code ChakraCore, LSP, CNTK, DMTK and Typescript.

Microsoft Azure PIC Advanced Analytics Services. Scheme

Availability of power of Cray supercomputers

The corporation Microsoft and developer supercomputers Cray in October 2017 agreed to provide computing power supercomputers Cray XC and Cray CS cloud to Microsoft Azure.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cray supercomputers will be connected directly to Azure, integrated with Azure virtual machines and Azure Data Lake storage, as well as Microsoft's artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

Customers will be able to gain access to the power of supercomputers exclusively within the framework of the Azure package of services - Cray solutions will not be leased separately. At the same time, customers will be given the opportunity to configure solutions for specific needs and tasks.

Overall, the offer will allow budget-constrained customers to get the capacity they need for high-performance computing and other resource-intensive tasks (AI applications, simulation and modeling, complex analytics).

Cray XC and CS series supercomputers are powered by Intel processors and Nvidia graphics. Some of the machines are equipped with programmable logic integrated circuits (FPGAs). The Cray Aries network interconnect is also used. Capacity of one container exceeds petaflops. Prices for Cray XC series supercomputers start at $500,000.^[17]

Microsoft Azure Enterprise NFS

On October 17, 2017, Microsoft and NetApp introduced the Microsoft Azure Enterprise Network File System (NFS) cloud-centric service based on NetApp technologies. As part of the service, the enterprise network file system (NFS) is provided directly in Azure and runs on NetApp technologies.

Customers can now migrate their applications to Azure and continue to enjoy the same scalability, performance, and reliability provided by NetApp's data management services. Users will get access to the service directly from the Azure console.

Cloud architects and DSS administrators are now easier to allocate, automate, and scale NFS services with the RESTful API, NetApp said. Additional data protection services will also be offered, starting with automatic on-demand snapshots. This service will be supported by V3 and V4 workloads for cloud and hybrid cloud customers. It will also integrate with the Azure service server, including analytics, SQL server, SAP HANA for Azure.

Companies can already order an Azure Enterprise NFS service based on NetApp products.

Preferred cloud platform for Adobe Sign

Microsoft and Adobe on September 11, 2017 announced the expansion of strategic partnerships and integration of their products. Adobe will make Microsoft Azure the preferred cloud platform for Adobe Sign (a component of the Adobe Document Cloud line). Read more here.

Azure includes support for Clear Linux

On January 20, 2017, Microsoft announced the expansion of the range of Linux distributions supported in Azure.

In the Azure cloud environment, you can work with CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu and Intel Clear^[18]. At the same time, the distribution kit is available in three versions at once:

• in the first, it looks like a regular virtual machine with maximum customization capabilities,
• in the second, a container-based solution Docker
• in the third, a special Clear configuration for machine learning tasks.

Clear is a lightweight version of Linux, initially focused on solving high-performance computing problems, capable of working both on dedicated physical servers and in the cloud. This specificity is quite consistent with the traditional direction of Intel software tools aimed at maximizing the use of processor resources. The microprocessor giant itself considers Clear as a key building block for creating cloud scalable clusters, so this solution pays special attention to performance issues (that is why everything unnecessary has been removed from the distribution kit) and optimizing the distribution of computing loads.

Microsoft stops licensing services "on demand"

January 12, 2016 it became known about the termination of the payment regime for Azure cloud services (pay-as-you-go - payment of used resources) from February 1, 2017.

This Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA) payment option will not be available for newly connected users. Enterprise customers will have access to Azure through partner providers providing Cloud Solution Program services^[19]

Microsoft explained this decision by the need to support the quality use of cloud services by partners with appropriate qualifications and able to offer customers their own additional services.

2015

Statistics

According to Microsoft statistics, by the end of September 2015, 80% of companies in the Fortune 500 are working with cloud services. By 2018, Microsoft intends to increase revenue from sales of cloud solutions to $20 billion. By September 2015, about 40% of the revenue generated by the Azure platform comes from startups and independent software developers. One in five Azure virtual machines runs on Linux.

Microsoft has regulated global scientific competition for access to Azure

On May 19, 2015, Microsoft announced the launch of a local grant program, through which it will become easier for Russian scientists to fight for the right to gain free access to the Azure cloud, and this excludes competition with foreign scientific teams. The grant program for Russian scientists is called Microsoft Azure for Research Russia Initiative^[20].

Russian scientists, "who have demonstrated the highest potential of domestic science," will be able to use the power of the Azure cloud platform for free in scientific work as part of the program. Applications for the program are accepted until the end of August 2015.

Scientific teams can use Azure's power only for scientific research and access virtual machines, data storage. The corporation does not advertise the amount of funding for the program.

By participating in the global Azure for Research program, previously, Russian scientists could access Azure for free, but they had to compete with research teams from around the world for this right. Now Microsoft has created a separate program for Russia, and, according to its terms, Russian scientists will compete only with each other for the right to free access to the platform.

The grant company explained that the decision to create a special program to support Russian scientists was made, since the previous year of cooperation showed the huge scientific potential of Russia, and added: the decision is due to the high quality of projects and a large number of applications for participation in the program.

In 2014, representatives of the programming technology laboratory of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University became the owners of the Azure for Research grant. In working on their projects, scientists from this laboratory are developing machine learning technologies.

Another holder of the grant was the scientific group of the Center for the Study of the Internet and Society. The team studies social networks and their distribution in Russia, including tracking the behavior of various groups of users in online and offline environments. In the future, these data will help to understand how social networks affect the transmission of information and how they affect the existence of society.

2014

Gartner Opinion

In light of the many inherent advantages of Microsoft, it is easy to forget that the Azure platform has recently appeared on the market. Gartner in 2014 did not fail to note that customers found "significant gaps" in terms of network functionality and security. In addition, this proposal is tied to the products of Microsoft itself, and the company has yet to introduce a licensing program.

According to analysts, the strengths are that Microsoft's vision for Azure's diverse services includes transparent interoperability with its locally installed applications and devices. Microsoft is unique in its ability to build an ecosystem from its own products and is aggressively pushing that vision into global markets.

Microsoft overtakes Amazon

In terms of the number of Windows cloud installations clearly visible on the Web, the corporation Microsoft with its Azure platform recently slightly overtook the company, Amazon one of the main competitors in the cloud market, hosting reports. Netcraft The researchers placed quite high requirements on the studied cloud servers in terms of their activity, so the total market size was only about 5 million machines. Microsoft accounted for 23,400 Windows computers, and Amazon operates only 22,600 of them. A significant contribution to Microsoft's success was made by its projects,,, and, Office 365- OneDrive Skype Xbox Live services PaaS for,,, and, ASP.NET Node.js as well as PHP corporate Python support for the McDonald's Happy Studio project and the Olympic Games in. At the same Sochi time, Amazon's business Linux is about ten times larger than that of Windows Microsoft^[21]

Marketing claims

In January 2014, a serious scandal erupted around a new advertising campaign in support of the Microsoft Azure cloud service. In particular, the company's slogan caused a protest, which in the original language sounds like this: "So easy, even an older woman can do it" (that is, literally - "So simple that even an old woman will figure it out").

It all started with the fact that Twitter a message of this kind appeared on the official account of the service in (@ WindowsAzure): "What do you do when your 68-year-old secretary needs to use multifactor authentication? Ask Azure. "

The Multi-Factor Authentication in question is not really difficult for ordinary employees, as it only involves using two types of passwords at the same time, for example, it can be a letter password and a physical key or the like.

Ultimately, under pressure from users, Microsoft apologized and deleted the scandalous tweets.

New Azure Features

On April 4, 2014, Microsoft announced the introduction of new features in the Azure cloud platform.

Updates include a management portal that combines all tools in one place. New features have been added, and more clients have been given access to features in the testing phase.

One of the main innovations is the updated Azure management portal. All tools, technologies and services from Microsoft and its partners in demand by developers are in one place. According to the developers, this facilitates the process of creating, implementing and managing applications.

Updating Azure, the corporation took into account the wishes of customers and added the possibility of offline synchronization. Now developers can create applications for scenarios when the user is for some time without communication and then he needs to synchronize data on the device and server.

Launched the commercial service Azure Backup - a tool for creating backups of data on the cloud platform for Windows Server, which copies files and directories to the server, helps protect data from loss when local storage fails.

A public preview version of Hyper-V Recovery Manager, a tool designed to back up private clouds, has been released.

Improved work with virtual machines. Users can simultaneously delete VMs together with the disks connected to them.

"Image" of the new portal

Azure Backup Service

NoSQL database as part of Azure

On August 25, 2014, it became known that a simple non-relational document storage, DocumentDB, appeared in the Microsoft Azure cloud.

Microsoft emphasized that the service is aimed at organizations that need a database to host data from mobile or web applications.

As of August 25, 2014, Azure DocumentDB is operating in trial mode. DocumentDB is Microsoft's first native NoSQL database, which also offers non-relational systems from other developers in the cloud - MongoDB, MongoLabs, Nodejitsu, Redis and RavenHQ. In addition to storing documents, the service provides the ability to process requests and execute transactions - the functionality inherent in relational DBMSs.

The Bing search engine is offered as a service available for embedding in applications, and the distributed Apache HBase database is now available as part of the Azure Hadoop DBMS service. In addition, the Microsoft cloud now offers more than 300 ready-made virtual machine images pre-configured for various tasks.

VMAccess Extension to replace lost password

On August 26, 2014, it became known about the release by Microsoft of the VMAccess Extension tool for users of the Azure Virtual Machines service.

When using virtual machines in a cloud environment, all the issues of managing the storage of passwords of the user's prerogative - all passwords and keys used inside the virtual machine are inaccessible to unauthorized persons. If the password is forgotten, you must either remember it or extract data from the disks yourself, which is often impossible or very difficult.

To resolve such situations, Microsoft created and released the VMAccess Extension tool, with the help of which the user generates new access passwords and SSH keys inside his virtual machine (on the Windows, Linux platform). The function will only work when the VMAccess Extension is included in the virtual machine when it is created.

The key reinstallation operation is carried out through the Azure personal management portal, which is accessed through Windows Live ID authorization, and there the user can use two-factor authentication to improve security: access to the account is carried out using a permanent password and a one-time code coming to the mobile phone in SMS format.

Azure empowerment. Service Map

On September 15, 2014, it became known about the expansion of the capabilities of Microsoft's Azure cloud service platform, which the company reported in early September 2014 in a series of announcements.

After a long stay in beta status, Azure SQL Databases tools have been put into commercial availability with a level of SLA 99.99% and the ability to store information up to 500 GB. These services implement the database as a service (DBaaS) model, which helps customers quickly use the functionality DBMS without the need to use their own. IT infrastructures SQL Databases are implemented in three versions (Tiers) - Basic, Standard and Premium, their difference in volumes, data storage transaction execution speed, self-service capabilities and geographical replication (creating copies in different regions of the world).

Management tools have been translated into commercial availability from the SLA of the standard level API. These services, available from any client device, including mobile devices, provide user control over access to all its API sets hosted both in the cloud and in its own infrastructure. The services are implemented in several functional versions, including a developer version priced from $49 per month.

To integrate Azure Web sites, Azure Virtual Networks with TCP and UDP are now available for use. Thus, it became possible to link the website directly to a database located in a non-public virtual machine or in the enterprise infrastructure. Site connection configuration is managed using the new version of Preview Azure Portal.

The tools for creating scalable web content management systems (CMS) have support for the popular WordPress system .

The Azure Alerting alert services have been put into commercial operation, the Media Services video streaming capabilities have been expanded, and a preliminary version of the role-based access control system for information resources has been released.

Public services of Microsoft Azure Services in 2014. Categories of services:

• Compute Services
• storage services (Data Services) and
• App Services.

Services for building private virtualization infrastructures based on the System Center 2012 R2 family of products, including components such as:

• App Controller,
• Virtual Machine Manager,
• Operations Manager,
• Configuration Manager,
• Service Manager,
• Orchestrator,
• Data Protection Manager и
• Azure Pack.

Windows Server 2012 R2 platform services, including the following technologies and components: Storage Spaces, Data Deduplication, Resilient File System, SMB Transparent Failover, Storage Quality of Service, Generation 2 Virtual Machines, Online VHDX Resize, Enhanced Session Mode, Live Migration, Failover Clustering, Cluster Shared Volumes, Scale-Out File Server, Shared Virtual Hard Disks, Hyper-V Extensible Switch, Remote Desktop Services, SMB Direct, SMB Multi-channel и NICTeaming.

Apache Storm Analytical Processing Support for Hadoop

On October 15, 2014, the Microsoft press service announced that Microsoft's HDInsight (Hadoop) service supported Apache Storm real-time analytics as a preview of Azure.

The company touts Apache Storm support as an opportunity for customers to "process millions of Hadoop data elements from their IoT devices in real time using the fully managed Hadoop service."

HDInsight - cloud, distribution Hadoop which Microsoft was developed in conjunction with. Hortonworks

Microsoft introduces new machine learning capabilities in [[the Windows Azure Marketplace 'Azure Marketplace]] so that customers and partners can take advantage of the new functionality in the form of web services.

Microsoft made available its own machine learning services on Azure for preview, Azure ML in June 2014.

IBM and Microsoft Cloud Compatibility

On October 28, 2014, it became known about the upcoming compatibility of IBM and Microsoft cloud systems.

Despite the competition IBM Microsoft in the cloud services market, corporations have agreed to support the work of the main corporate packages on each other's cloud systems. The Microsoft Azure platform will run the application server, WebSphere messaging system and. Websphere MQ DBMS DB2

IBM Cloud infrastructure services will provide support for Windows Server and SQL Server, and the Microsoft environment will run on the IBM Bluemix platform . NET. In addition, IBM Cloud will be able to run virtual machines on the Windows Server platform with the Hyper-V hypervisor, and the IBM PureApplication service will work in the Azure system, designed to migrate enterprise applications to the cloud. Azure will support licensing of binding layer programs from IBM based on payment upon use.

The preliminary version of .NET on the Bluemix platform will be released in a few months.

2013

Service malfunction

The cloud service from MicrosoftWindows Azure from October 30 to October 31, 2013 experienced serious health problems around the world, so that some users could not manage it.

The first messages on the service desk of the service were recorded at 2:35 am universal time on October 30, 2013, then Microsoft reported literally the following: "We are experiencing difficulties with performance in the north and central part, as well as the southern part of the United States, Northern Europe, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, East Asia, in the West and East of the United States."

A 17 hours later, the corporation also released a message in which it announced that the management of so-called swap operations may not work correctly, so users are advised to abandon them. The problem was finally resolved by the morning of October 31, 2013, when at 10:45 am the support service announced the restoration of these functions in all regions of the service.

Since the problem affected only the deployment, the processes in the cloud for Microsoft clients started up properly. Nevertheless, Microsoft immediately had questions about the security of the service: why did the failure become so large-scale and why did it take so long to fix it? Microsoft has apologized to its customers for the inconvenience.

Azure AppFabric

Since cloud applications typically require the creation of systems that combine multiple virtual machines and different services, Microsoft's architecture includes the Azure AppFabric component, which is responsible for planning, provisioning, device management and resiliency, as well as additional monitoring and control tools.

2012: Service malfunction

On February 29, 2012, the Microsoft Azure cloud service experienced a serious failure, the consequences of which have not yet been eliminated. Microsoft said in this regard that it is experiencing problems with the Windows Azure service, while customers will not be able to implement management functions.

Later at 17:30 (Moscow time) on February 29, 2012, Microsoft reported that the severity of the problem was "reduced and service management was restored for most customers." "We still need to resolve some issues before we can fully restore management of the service," the company said in a statement. The cause of the incident, according to the corporation, was "a certain event that happened 29.02.2012."

By 8:00 Moscow time on February 29, the failure affected less than 3.8% of the hosted services, and, as Microsoft said, measures were taken to prevent the problem of "spreading the error throughout the environment." In addition, Azure customers in the north and south central United States, as well as in Northern Europe, could observe some performance problems, Microsoft said through the service dashboard at 13:55 Moscow time. It was also reported that incoming traffic may not reach a subset of hosting services for this sub-region. Deployed applications will continue to work. The stored credentials will not be affected by what is happening.

At 22:30 Moscow time on February 29, Microsoft announced that it was "actively restoring Windows Azure services for the northern US, southern and central states, as well as Northern Europe," and that "more and more client applications should recover and work, even if the service management functionality has not yet been restored."

The SQL Azure data synchronization service was not available in six regions in the USA, Europe and Asia, and various problems were also indicated in some regions for interaction with Access Control 2.0, Azure Reporting, Azure Marketplace and Azure Service Bus.

The company promised to regularly update information on ongoing measures to restore the functionality of the cloud service, but no specific deadlines were given. In response to what is happening, Azure users on February 29 created a stream of criticism about the shutdown on official forums. They reproached and accused the company of doing nothing to restore the service.

One commenter wrote "the dashboard shows the service is working." Relying on Windows Azure, he closely followed the dashboard throughout the day and noticed a complete lack of time estimates to resolve problematic issues.

Another client of the cloud service complained about the downtime of his company's sites, which fell within an hour (from about 14:00 Moscow time). "This is becoming quite problematic for us as we accept 24/7 online payments across the UK and Europe. The dashboard does not tell me anything except that I already know, excluding that: "Deployed applications will continue to work." I assure you that this is not the case, because the deployed applications do not respond, "he focused on the service.

Microsoft representatives did not immediately comment on the problems with Azure and the reasons for their occurrence. This is far from the first Azure outage since the service launched in late 2009.

2010: Architecture and Service Components

The PaaS architecture from Microsoft Azure in 2010 consisted of several components:

• Windows Azure - a program designed for deploying and managing services, processing and scalable storage of data, organizing a network, provides the ability to elastic calculations;
• Microsoft SQL Services Database and Reporting Tool
• Microsoft.NET Services - service implementation of .NET Framework components;
• Microsoft Live Services is a set of services for working with documents. Stores, distributes, and synchronizes documents, photos, and other files between computers, phones, applications, and websites;
• Microsoft SharePoint Services - a set of services for collaboration on projects;
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services - services for managing business information and customer relationships.

2009: Service Launch and Price Announcement

Prices for Windows Azure became known in the summer of 2009. Microsoft began charging $0.12 for each hour of calculations, $0.15 for each GB of data transmitted, and $0.01 for every 10,000 data read-write operations.

Hosting a SQL Azure Web Edition database of no more than 1 GB costs $10 per month. Data Base for SQL Azure Business Edition enterprises up to 10 GB will cost $100 per month, and 100 thousand.NET Services messages - $0.15.

The cost of Windows Azure is comparable to the cost of competing cloud platforms - for example, Amazon EC2, Google App Engine and Force.com.

Application development

Creating an Application

To work with Windows Azure in Visual Studio 2008, you must install:

• Windows Azure SDK
• Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

After that, new project types will appear in Visual Studio. Any.NET language can be used when developing an application (although Microsoft's focus in developing Azure was on C). After writing the service code, you need to prepare the package for "publication." After that, 2 files will be created (the package itself with the service code and the configuration file, which indicates the number of nodes for the service), which need to be downloaded to the cloud.

The publication procedure consists of two stages:

• Loading project into Staging for validation.
• Translating a Validated Project into Production

And the last thing that is required to work and test the project is to make a web shell.

Application execution

In Windows Azure, an application has several instances, each of which executes part or all of the application code. Each instance runs on its own virtual machine. But the application itself on Windows Azure does not see the virtual machine on which it runs. Instead, the developer can create applications with two types of -Web Role and Worker Role. The Web Role instance accepts incoming requests through Internet Information Services (IIS). Web role can be implemented with the help of ASP.NET, WCF or other.NET technology that works with IIS.

Worker Role receives source data from Web Role, usually through a queue in the Windows Azure store. The result of working instances of Worker Role can be written to the Windows Azure store or sent to the outside world through outgoing network connections. Unlike Web Role instances, which are created to process requests and are turned off after the request is processed, Worker Role can work indefinitely - this is a background job.

Each virtual machine running instances of Web Role or Worker Role contains a Windows Azure agent through which applications communicate with the Windows Azure fabric. Each virtual machine has its own physical processor core. By doing this, you can control the performance of each application by increasing the number of running instances specified in the configuration file.

Data access

Windows Azure allows you to store data in blobs, tables, and queues accessed via REST.

Using blobs is the easiest way to store data in Windows Azure. There is a simple hierarchy: a vault can have one or more containers, each of which stores one or more blobs. Blobs can be large - up to 50 GB each, and to make the transfer of blobs easier, each of them can be divided into sub-blobs. If a transmission error occurs, the retransmission may begin with the most recent subblock to be transmitted. Blobs can have metadata (for example, information about where the JPEG photo was taken, or data about the song composer for an MP3 file).

Tables are used to store data so that applications can work with data at the small structural unit level. The data in the tables is stored as a simple hierarchy of entities with properties.

The third method of storing data in the Windows Azure store - queues - was created in order to ensure the interaction of instances of Web Role and Worker Role. For example, the user sends a request to perform some resource-intensive task through a web page implemented in the Web Role. The Web Role instance that receives this request writes a message to the queue. A Worker Role instance that waits for a message in the queue reads a new message and does the work it needs. He can return the results of the work through another queue or in some other way.

Notes