What is Azure Function? Steps to create Azure Functions

Azure Function is a serverless compute service on Microsoft Azure that enables you to build and run event-driven applications and microservices using serverless architecture. It allows developers to write code that responds to an event such as an HTTP request, database update, or a message in a queue.

 

Steps to create an Azure Function:

 

1. Log in to the Azure Portal: Go to https://portal.azure.com/ and sign in to your Azure account.

2. Create a new Function App: From the Azure Portal, click the "+ Create a resource" button on the left-hand side menu. Then, search for "Function App" and select the appropriate option.

3. Configure the basic settings: Provide a name for your Function App, select the appropriate subscription, and choose a resource group for the app.

4. Choose the runtime and operating system: Select the programming language and version for your function app. You can choose from a variety of supported languages, including Node.js, C#, Python, and Java.

5. Choose the hosting plan: Select the hosting plan for your function app. You can choose from several options, including Consumption Plan, Premium Plan, and Dedicated Plan.

6. Configure the storage: Choose the storage account to use for your function app.

7. Create a new function: From the Azure Portal, navigate to your Function App and click the "+ New Function" button.

8. Choose the function template: Select the function template you want to use. There are several templates available, including HTTP Trigger, Timer Trigger, and Blob Trigger.

9. Configure the function settings: Provide a name for your function, choose the appropriate trigger, and configure the input and output bindings.

10. Write the function code: Write the code for your Azure Function using the programming language and framework of your choice.

11. Test the function: Test the function locally or deploy it to Azure and test it using the Azure Portal.

12. Monitor the function: Monitor the performance and usage of your Azure Function using the Azure Portal.

You can now run your serverless application in the cloud and take advantage of the benefits of serverless computing, including automatic scaling and pay-per-use pricing.

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How to create an account on Azure

How to create an account on Azure a step-by-step guide:

1. Go to the Azure website (https://azure.microsoft.com/) and click on the "Start free" button on the top right corner of the page. This will take you to the Azure sign-up page.

2. On the sign-up page, you'll need to select the type of subscription you want to use. Azure offers two types of subscriptions: a free trial and a pay-as-you-go subscription. If you're new to Azure, it's recommended to start with the free trial subscription, as it provides a limited amount of free services for the first 12 months.

3. Once you've selected your subscription type, you'll need to sign in with a Microsoft account. If you don't have a Microsoft account, you can create one by clicking the "Create one!" link. You can use any email address to create a Microsoft account.

4. After signing in or creating your Microsoft account, you'll need to provide some personal information and billing details. This includes your name, address, and credit card information. If you're signing up for a free trial subscription, you won't be charged unless you upgrade to a paid subscription.

5. You'll also need to agree to the terms and conditions and privacy statement before you can create your Azure account. Be sure to read these carefully before agreeing to them.

6. After completing the form, click the "Sign up" button to create your account. This will take you to the Azure dashboard, where you can start creating resources like virtual machines, storage accounts, and databases.

7. However, before you can start using Azure, you need to verify your account. You should receive an email from Microsoft Azure with a verification link. Click on the link to verify your account.

8. Once your account is verified, you can log in to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com) and start creating resources.

In summary, to create an account on Azure, you need to select a subscription type, sign in or create a Microsoft account, provide personal information and billing details, agree to the terms and conditions and privacy statement, verify your account, and then log in to the Azure portal.

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What is Environment as a Service (EaaS)?

Over the last few years, business needs for new applications and services have increased tremendously, resulting in a need to accelerate the application development process. Moreover, the process of development has changed radically. Development is fast-paced and needs continuous application updates, patching, enhancements, etc. These changes require development environments, quality assurance, continuous deployment, infrastructure, etc. That’s where EaaS comes in. 

EaaS (Environment as Service) offers environments in the form of service so that you can easily manage all your environments efficiently and quickly. EaaS eliminates the application environment bottlenecks and enables faster innovation at scale. An environment consists of infrastructure, software, code, configuration, and all the runtime libraries required to run your application in an isolated environment.

Benefits to businesses using EaaS:

Here are some of the core benefits to businesses using EaaS:

Increased Efficiency of DevOps

DevOps is a critical part of modern application development. Replicating a production environment containing complex configuration, infrastructure components like load balancers, Kubernetes cluster, firewall, etc., takes a considerable amount of time and can lead to errors. Also, factor in the deviation in environments e.g., Staging is a replica of production, but data, infrastructure, and configuration will be slightly different. Automating the development environment takes a lot of burdens away from the DevOps and reduces the complexity of the DevOps process.

Having the ability to automate environments using an Environment as a Service platform, you can give your distributed teams the ability to spin up and decommission the environments as needed, accelerating time to market and faster ROI.

Increased Development Speed

EaaS improves your overall development speed and ability to market your product early. As you can quickly clone your environment and testing can be performed in isolation without interfering with other environments, you can quickly roll out your releases.

Reduced Cost

EaaS not only keeps checks on the cost related to environment setup and management but also helps you reduce the cost. Let’s find how:

Save valuable time spent on the manual setup of the environment. Note that the security and complexity when managing environments are also essential factors i.e., a Production environment is set up with a different security profile than a staging environment. EaaS helps you manage these complexities easily without spending too much time.

As the environments provided by EaaS are ephemerals, that means they can be created or deleted automatically for as long as you’re going to use them That way, you can achieve not only scalability but improved cost control.

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Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)

Azure Active Directory is a Microsoft cloud-based identity and access management service. Azure AD helps employees of an organization sign in and access resources.

External resources might include Microsoft Office 365, the Azure portal, and thousands of other software as a service (SaaS) applications.

Internal resources might include apps on your corporate network and intranet, along with any cloud apps developed by your own organization.

Azure AD (Azure Active Directory) provides services such as:

Authentication - This includes verifying identity to access applications and resources, and providing functionality such as self-service password reset, multi-factor authentication (MFA), a custom banned password list, and smart lockout services.

Single-Sign-On (SSO) - SSO enables users to remember only one ID and one password to access multiple applications. A single identity is tied to a user, simplifying the security model. As users change roles or leave an organization, access modifications are tied to that identity, greatly reducing the effort needed to change or disable accounts.

Application Management - You can manage your cloud and on-premises apps using Azure AD Application Proxy, SSO, the My apps portal (also referred to as Access panel), and SaaS apps.

Business to business (B2B) identity services - Manage your guest users and external partners while maintaining control over your own corporate data

Business-to-Customer (B2C) identity services - Customize and control how users sign up, sign in, and manage their profiles when using your apps with services.

Device Management - Manage how your cloud or on-premises devices access your corporate data.

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Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks attempt to overwhelm and exhaust an application’s resources, making the application slow or unresponsive to legitimate users. DDoS attacks can be targeted at any endpoint that is publicly reachable through the internet. Thus, any resource exposed to the internet, such as a website, is potentially at risk from a DDoS attack.

When you combine Azure Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection with application design best practices, you help provide defense against DDoS attacks. DDoS Protection leverages the scale and elasticity of Microsoft’s global network to bring DDoS mitigation capacity to every Azure region. The Azure DDoS Protection service protects your Azure applications by scrubbing traffic at the Azure network edge before it can impact your service's availability.

This diagram shows network traffic flowing into Azure from both customers and an attacker. Azure DDoS protection identifies the attacker's attempt to overwhelm the network and blocks further traffic from reaching Azure services. Legitimate traffic from customers still flows into Azure without any interruption of service.

Azure Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service tiers 

Azure DDoS Protection provides the following service tiers:

1. Basic

The Basic service tier is automatically enabled as part of the Azure platform. Always-on traffic monitoring and real-time mitigation of common network-level attacks provide the same defenses that Microsoft’s online services use. Azure’s global network is used to distribute and mitigate attack traffic across regions.

2. Standard

The Standard service tier provides additional mitigation capabilities that are tuned specifically to Microsoft Azure Virtual Network resources. DDoS Protection Standard is simple to enable and requires no application changes. Protection policies are tuned through dedicated traffic monitoring and machine learning algorithms. Policies are applied to public IP addresses which are associated with resources deployed in virtual networks, such as Azure Load Balancer and Application Gateway.

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Azure Firewall

A Firewall is a service that grants server access based on the originating IP address of each request. You create firewall rules that specify ranges of IP addresses. Only clients from these granted IP addresses will be allowed to access the server. Firewall rules also include specific network protocol and port information.

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based, network security service that protects your Azure Virtual Network resources. It is a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability.

You can create, enforce, and log, application and network connectivity policies across subscriptions, and virtual networks, centrally. Azure Firewall uses a static public IP address for your virtual network resources, which allows outside firewalls to identify traffic originating from your virtual network. The service is fully integrated with Azure Monitor for logging and analytics.

Azure Firewall provides many features, including:

• Built-in high availability.

• Unrestricted cloud scalability.

• Inbound and outbound filtering rules.

• Azure Monitor logging.

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) is software that is centrally hosted and managed for the end customer. It allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the internet. Common examples are email, calendars, and office tools such as Microsoft Office 365.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is typically licensed through a monthly or annual subscription, and Office 365 is an example of Software as a Service (SaaS) software.

Software as a Service (SaaS) characteristics

Upfront Costs - Users have no upfront costs; they pay a subscription, typically on a monthly or annual basis.

User Ownership - Users just use the application software; they are not responsible for any maintenance or management of that software.

Cloud Provider Ownership - The cloud provider is responsible for the provision, management, and maintenance of the application software.

Disadvantages of Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software limitations - There may be some limitations to a software application that might affect how users work. Since you are using as-is software you don't have direct control of features. Any business needs and software limitations should be taken into consideration when considering which SaaS platform is best suited for a workload.

Common usage of Software as a Service (SaaS)

Examples of Microsoft Software as a Service (SaaS) services include Office 365, Skype, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

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Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides an environment for building, testing, and deploying software applications. The goal of Platform as a Service (PaaS) is to help create an application as quickly as possible without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure. For example, when deploying a web application using Platform as a Service (PaaS), you don't have to install an operating system, web server, or even system updates. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable organizations to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated cloud-enabled enterprise applications.

Resources are purchased from a cloud service provider on a pay-as-you-go basis and accessed over a secure Internet connection.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) Characteristics

Upfront Costs - There are no upfront costs, and users pay only for what they consume.

User Ownership - The user is responsible for the development of their own applications. However, they are not responsible for managing the server or infrastructure. This allows the user to focus on the application or workload they want to run.

Cloud Provider Ownership - The cloud provider is responsible for operating system management, and network and service configuration. Cloud providers are typically responsible for everything apart from the application that a user wants to run. They provide a complete managed platform on which to run an application.

Disadvantages of Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platform Limitations - There may be some limitations to a cloud platform that could affect how an application runs. Any limitations should be taken into consideration when considering which Platform as a Service (PaaS) platform is best suited for a workload.

Common usage of Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Development Framework - Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides a framework that developers can build upon to develop or customize cloud-based applications. Similar to the way you create a Microsoft Excel macro, Platform as a Service (PaaS) lets developers create applications using built-in software components. Cloud features such as scalability, high-availability, and multi-tenant capability are included, reducing the amount of coding that developers must do.

Analytics or Business Intelligence - Tools provided as a service with Platform as a Service (PaaS) allow organizations to analyze and mine their data. They can find insights and patterns, and predict outcomes to improve business decisions such as forecasting, product design, and investment returns.

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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the most basic category of cloud computing services. With Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), you rent IT infrastructure servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, and operating systems from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis. It's an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Characteristics

Upfront Costs - Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has no upfront costs. Users pay only for what they consume.

User Ownership - The user is responsible for the purchase, installation, configuration, and management of their own software operating systems, middle ware, and applications.

Cloud Provider Ownership - The cloud provider is responsible for ensuring that the underlying cloud infrastructure (such as virtual machines, storage and networking) is available for the user.

Disadvantages of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Management - The shared responsibility model applies; the user manages and maintains the services they have provisioned, and the cloud provider manages and maintains the cloud infrastructure.

Common usage of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Migrating Workloads - Typically, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) facilities are managed in a similar way as on-premises infrastructure and provide an easy migration path for moving existing applications to the cloud.

Test and Development - Teams can quickly set up and dismantle test and development environments, bringing new applications to market faster. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) makes scaling development testing environments up and down fast and economical.

Website Hosting - Running websites using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) can be less expensive than traditional web hosting.

Storage, Backup, and Recovery - Organizations avoid the capital outlay and complexity of storage management, which typically requires a skilled staff to manage data and meet legal and compliance requirements. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is useful for managing unpredictable demand and steadily growing storage needs. It can also simplify the planning and management of backup and recovery systems.

When using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), ensuring that a service is up and running is a shared responsibility: the cloud provider is responsible for ensuring the cloud infrastructure is functioning correctly; the cloud customer is responsible for ensuring the service they are using is configured correctly, is up to date, and is available to their customers.

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Type of Cloud Computing Services

Cloud Computing Services are service deployment models that let you choose the level of control over your information and types of services you need to provide. There are three main types of cloud computing services, sometimes called the cloud computing stack because they build on top of one another.

1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the most basic category of cloud computing services. With Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), you rent IT infrastructure servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, and operating systems from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis. It's an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet.

2. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides an environment for building, testing, and deploying software applications. The goal of Platform as a Service (PaaS) is to help create an application as quickly as possible without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure. For example, when deploying a web application using Platform as a Service (PaaS), you don't have to install an operating system, web server, or even system updates. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable organizations to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated cloud-enabled enterprise applications.

Resources are purchased from a cloud service provider on a pay-as-you-go basis and accessed over a secure Internet connection.

3. Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) is software that is centrally hosted and managed for the end customer. It allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the internet. Common examples are email, calendars, and office tools such as Microsoft 365.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is typically licensed through a monthly or annual subscription, and Microsoft 365 is an example of Software as a Service (SaaS) software.

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Hybrid Cloud

A Hybrid Cloud combines both public and Private Clouds, allowing you to run your applications in the most appropriate location.

Hybrid Cloud type has the following characteristics

Resource location - Specific resources run or are used in a Public Cloud, and others run or are used in a Private Cloud.

Cost and efficiency - Hybrid Cloud models allow an organization to leverage some of the benefits of cost, efficiency, and scale that are available with a Public Cloud model.

Control - Organizations retain management control in Private Clouds.

Skills - Technical skills are still required to maintain the Private Cloud and ensure both cloud models can operate together.

An example of a Hybrid Cloud usage scenario would be hosting a website in the Public Cloud and linking it to a highly secure database hosted in a Private Cloud.

Hybrid Cloud scenarios can be useful when organizations have some things that cannot be put in a Public Cloud, possibly for legal reasons. For example, you may have medical data that cannot be exposed publicly.

Another example is one or more applications that run on old hardware that can’t be updated. In this case, you can keep the old system running locally in your Private Cloud and connect it to the Public Cloud for authorization or storage.

Hybrid Cloud Disadvantages

Upfront CapEx - front CapEx is still required before organizations can leverage a Private Cloud.

Costs - Purchasing and maintaining a Private Cloud to use alongside the Public Cloud can be more expensive than selecting a single deployment type.

Skills - Deep technical skills are still required to be able to set up a Private Cloud.

Ease of Management - Organizations need to ensure there are clear guidelines to avoid confusion, complications or misuse.

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Private Cloud

A Private Cloud is owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud. They create a cloud environment in their own data centre and provide self-service access to compute resources to users within their organization. The organization remains the owner, entirely responsible for the operation of the services they provide.

Private Cloud type have following characteristics

Ownership - The owner and user of the cloud services are the same.

Hardware - The owner is entirely responsible for the purchase, maintenance, and management of the cloud hardware.

Users - A Private Cloud operates only within one organization and cloud computing resources are used exclusively by a single business or organization.

Connectivity - A connection to a Private Cloud is typically made over a private network that is highly secure.

Public access - Does not provide access to the public.

Skills - Requires deep technical knowledge to set up, manage, and maintain.

A use case scenario for a Private Cloud would be when an organization has data that cannot be put in the public cloud, perhaps for legal reasons. For example, they may have medical data that cannot be exposed publicly.

Another scenario may be where government policy requires specific data to be kept in-country or privately.

A Private Cloud can provide cloud functionality to external customers as well, or to specific internal departments such as Accounting or Human Resources.

Private Cloud Disadvantages:

Upfront CapEx - Hardware must be purchased for start-up and maintenance.

Agility - Private Clouds are not as agile as public clouds, because you need to purchase and set up all the underlying infrastructure before they can be leveraged.

Maintenance - Organizations have the responsibility for hardware maintenance and updates.

Skills - Private Clouds require in-house IT skills and expertise that may be hard to get or be costly.

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Public Cloud

A Public Cloud is owned by the cloud services provider (also known as a hosting provider). It provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect to the cloud service via a secure network connection, typically over the internet.

Public Cloud type has the following characteristics

Ownership - Ownership refers to the resources that an organization or end-user uses. Examples include storage and processing power. Resources do not belong to the organization that is utilizing them, but rather they are owned and operated by a third party, such as the cloud service provider.

Multiple End Users - Public Cloud modes may make their resources available to multiple organizations.

Public Access - Public Access allows the public to access the desired cloud services.

Availability - Availability is the most common cloud-type deployment model.

Connectivity - Users and organizations are typically connected to the Public Cloud over the internet using a web browser.

Skills - Public Clouds do not require deep technical knowledge to set up and use its resources.

With a Public Cloud, there is no local hardware to manage or keep up to date; everything runs on the cloud provider’s hardware. In some cases, cloud users can save additional costs by sharing computing resources with other cloud users.

A common use case scenario is deploying a web application or a blog site on hardware and resources that are owned by a cloud provider. Using a Public Cloud in this scenario allows cloud users to get their website/blog up and running quickly, and then focus on maintaining the site without having to worry about purchasing, managing, or maintaining the hardware on which it runs.

Businesses can use multiple Public Cloud service provider companies of varying scale. Microsoft Azure is an example of a Public Cloud provider.

Public Cloud Disadvantages:

Security - There may be specific security requirements that cannot be met by using Public Cloud.

Compliance - There may be government policies, industry standards, or legal requirements which Public Clouds cannot meet.

Ownership - Organizations don't own the hardware or services and cannot manage them as they may wish.

Specific Scenarios - If organizations have a unique business requirement, such as having to maintain a legacy application, it may be hard to meet that requirement with Public Cloud services.

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Type of Cloud

There are three different types of cloud: Public Cloud, Private Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud. A cloud type defines where your data is stored and how your customers interact with it – how do they get to it, and where do the applications run? It also depends on how much ownership of infrastructure you want or need to manage.

Type of Cloud - 

1. Public Cloud

A Public Cloud is owned by the cloud services provider (also known as a hosting provider). It provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect to the cloud service via a secure network connection, typically over the internet.

2. Private Cloud

A Private Cloud is owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud. They create a cloud environment in their own data centre and provide self-service access to compute resources to users within their organization. The organization remains the owner, entirely responsible for the operation of the services they provide.

3. Hybrid Cloud

A Hybrid Cloud combines both Public and Private Clouds, allowing you to run your applications in the most appropriate location.

Type of Cloud

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Key Cloud Concepts And Benefits

Cloud services is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources. Cloud services have characteristics and considerations, some of which are outlined and explained below:

High Availability - The ability to keep services up and running for long periods of time, with very little downtime, depending on the service in question.

Scalability - The ability to increase or decrease resources for any given workload. You can add additional resources to service a workload (known as scaling out) or add additional capabilities to manage an increase in demand to the existing resource (known as scaling up). Scalability doesn't have to be done automatically

Elasticity - The ability to automatically or dynamically increase or decrease resources as needed. Elastic resources match the current needs, and resources are added or removed automatically to meet future needs when it’s needed, and from the most advantageous geographic location. A distinction between scalability and elasticity is that elasticity is done automatically

Agility - The ability to react quickly. Cloud services can allocate and deallocate resources quickly. They are provided on-demand via self-service, so vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes. There is no manual intervention in provisioning or de-provisioning services.

Fault Tolerance - The ability to remain up and running even in the event of a component or service no longer functioning. Typically, redundancy is built into cloud services architecture so if one component fails, a backup component takes its place. The type of service is said to be tolerant of faults.

Disaster Recovery - The ability to recover from an event which has taken down a cloud service. Cloud services disaster recovery can happen very quickly with automation and services being readily available to use.

Global Reach - The ability to reach audiences around the globe. Cloud services can have a presence in various regions across the globe which you can access, giving you a presence in those regions even though you may not have any infrastructure in that region.

Customer Latency Capabilities - If customers are experiencing slowness with a particular cloud service, they are said to be experiencing some latency. Even though modern fibre optics are fast, it can still take time for services to react to customer actions if the service is not local to the customer. Cloud services have the ability to deploy resources in data centres around the globe, thus addressing customer latency issues.

Predictive Cost Considerations - The ability for users to predict what costs they will incur for a particular cloud service. Costs for individual services are made available, and tools are provided to allow you to predict what costs service will incur. You can also perform analysis based on future growth.

Technical Skill Requirements And Considerations - Cloud services can provide and manage hardware and software for workloads. Therefore, getting a workload up and running with cloud services demands less technical resources than having IT teams build and maintain physical infrastructure for handling the same workload. A user can be an expert in the application they want to run without having to need skills to build and maintain the underlying hardware and software infrastructure.

Increased Productivity - On-site datacenters typically require a lot of hardware setup (otherwise known as racking and stacking), software patching, and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing eliminates the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.

Security - Cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, controls, and expert technical skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve. The result is strengthened security, which helps to protect data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.

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Economies Of Scale

The concept of Economies Of Scale is the ability to reduce costs and gain efficiency when operating at a larger scale in comparison to operating at a smaller scale.

Cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are large businesses and can leverage the benefits of Economies Of Scale, and then pass those benefits on to their customers.

This is apparent to end-users in several ways, one of which is the ability to acquire hardware at a lower cost than if a single user or smaller business were purchasing it.

Storage costs, for example, have decreased significantly over the last decade due in part to cloud providers' ability to purchase larger amounts of storage at significant discounts. They are then able to use that storage more efficiently and pass on those benefits to end-users in the form of lower prices.

There are limits to the benefits large organizations can realize through Economies Of Scale. A product will inevitably have an underlying core cost, as it becomes more of a commodity, based on what it costs to produce. Competition is also another factor which has an effect on the costs of cloud services.

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Cloud Storage Services

Cloud Storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools. The physical storage spans multiple servers at different locations, and the physical environment is typically owned and managed by a cloud provider. These cloud storage providers are responsible for keeping the data available and accessible, and the physical environment protected and running. People and organizations buy or lease storage capacity from the providers to store user, organization, or application data.

Most devices and applications read and/or write data. Here are some examples:

• Buying a movie ticket online
• Looking up the price of an online item
• Taking a picture
• Sending an email
• Leaving a voicemail

In all of these cases, data is either read or written. The type of data and how it's stored can be different in each of these cases.

Cloud providers typically offer services that can handle all of these types of data. For example, if you wanted to store text or a movie clip, you could use a file on disk. If you had a set of relationships such as an address book, you could take a more structured approach like using a database.

The advantage of using cloud-based data storage is you can scale to meet your needs. If you find that you need more space to store your movie clips, you can pay a little more and add to your available space. In some cases, the storage can even expand and contract automatically - so you pay for exactly what you need at any given point in time.

Microsoft Azure provides following types of storage services,

• File Storage
• Queue Storage
• Table Storage
• Cosmos DB
• SQL Database

Azure Storage Services

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Capital Expenditure (CapEx)

Capital Expenditure (CapEx) is the spending of money on physical infrastructure upfront and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time. Capital Expenditure (CapEx) is an upfront cost, which has a value that reduces over time.

A typical on-premises data centre includes costs such as:

Server costs

This area includes all hardware components and the cost of supporting them. When purchasing servers, make sure to design fault tolerance and redundancy, such as server clustering, redundant power supplies, and uninterruptible power supplies. When a server needs to be replaced or added to a data centre, you need to pay for the computer. This can affect your immediate cash flow because you must pay for the server upfront.

Storage costs

This area includes all storage hardware components and the cost of supporting it. Based on the application and level of fault tolerance, centralized storage can be expensive. For larger organizations, you can create tiers of storage where more expensive fault‐tolerant storage is used for critical applications and lower expense storage is used for lower priority data.

Network costs

Networking costs include all on-premises hardware components, including cabling, switches, access points, and routers. This also includes a wide area network (WAN) and Internet connections.

Backup and archive costs

This is the cost to back up, copy, or archive data. Options might include setting up a backup to or from the cloud. There's an upfront cost for the hardware and additional costs for backup maintenance and consumables like tapes.

Organization continuity and disaster recovery costs

Along with server fault tolerance and redundancy, you need to plan for how to recover from a disaster and continue operating. Your plan should consist of creating a data recovery site. It could also include backup generators. Most of these are upfront costs, especially if you build a data recovery the site, but there's an additional ongoing cost for the infrastructure and its maintenance.

Datacenter infrastructure costs

These are costs for construction and building equipment, as well as future renovation and remodelling costs that may arise as demands grow. Additionally, this infrastructure incurs operational expenses for electricity, floor space, cooling, and building maintenance.

Technical personnel

While not a capital expenditure, the personnel required to work on your infrastructure are specific to on-premises data centres. You will need the technical expertise and workforce to install, deploy, and manage the systems in the data centre and at the data recovery site.

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Operational Expenditure (OpEx)

Operational Expenditure (OpEx) is spending money on services or products now and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense from your tax bill in the same year. There's no upfront cost. You pay for a service or product as you use it.

With Cloud Computing, many of the costs associated with an on-premises data centre are shifted to the service provider. Instead of thinking about physical hardware and data centre costs, cloud computing has a different set of costs. For accounting purposes, all these costs are operational expenses:

Leasing software and customized features

Using a pay-per-use model requires actively managing your subscriptions to ensure users do not misuse the services, and that provisioned accounts are being utilized and not wasted. As soon as the provider provisions resources, billing starts. It is your responsibility to de-provision the resources when they aren't in use so that you can minimize costs.

Scaling charges based on usage/demand instead of fixed hardware or capacity

Cloud computing can bill in various ways, such as the number of users or CPU usage time. However, billing categories can also include allocated RAM, I/O operations per second (IOPS), and storage space. Plan for backup traffic and data recovery traffic to determine the bandwidth needed.

Billing at the user or organisation level

The subscription (pay-per-use) model is a computing billing method that is designed for both organisations and users. The organisation or user is billed for the services used, typically on a recurring basis. You can scale, customize, and provision computing resources, including software, storage, and development platforms. For example, when using a dedicated cloud service, you could pay based on server hardware and usage.

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Capital Expenditure (CapEx) versus Operational Expenditure (OpEx)

Previously companies needed to acquire physical premises and infrastructure to start their business. There was a substantial up-front cost in hardware and infrastructure to start or grow a business. Cloud computing provides services to customers without significant upfront costs or equipment setup time.

These two approaches to investment are referred to as:

Capital Expenditure (CapEx): CapEx is the spending of money on physical infrastructure upfront, and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time. CapEx is an upfront cost, which has a value that reduces over time.

Operational Expenditure (OpEx): OpEx is spending money on services or products now and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense from your tax bill in the same year. There's no upfront cost. You pay for a service or product as you use it.

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