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Hi All, its Rob again and I decided to write a series on Azure Cloud.  Since Azure Stack is months away from GA, its good to understand Azure Cloud for a few reasons.  The API is the consistent across Azure Cloud and Azure Stack. And building a hybrid environment is the future for IT to use features like DR, Application Portability and Backup.

So, let’s start from the beginning and go over the fundamental terms.

What is Cloud? Simply put, it’s a large number of devices connected through wide communication network.

What are the benefits of Cloud?

• Provide Services at much lower cost
• Flexibility on technology that gives the customer a competitive advantage
• Helps IT to be more efficient on operations
• Pays as they go and for what they use
• Move to OPEX model from CAPEX model
• Faster deployment

Types of Clouds and Examples

Private

• A private cloud is dedicated to the customer’s organization.
• On-premises (their own data center) or in a partner’s hosting facility.
• More control over the level of security, privacy, customization, and governance of your software and services.
• More cost-effective data center operations using the customer’s existing investments in people and equipment.
• Example: Customer needs dedicated resources and wants to restrict access to all content in the cloud

Public

• The public cloud is where cloud services are provided in a virtualized environment.
• Resources are available on demand.
• Centralized operation and resource management are shared.
• Customers can access the resource they need, and then only pay for what they use.
• Many services are available that are ready to be accessed from any internet enabled device.
• Example: Customer can share resources and wants to pay when they use the resource

Hybrid

• A hybrid cloud is an integrated service utilizing on-premises resources, private clouds and public clouds.
• Moving non-sensitive functions to the public cloud allows an organization to benefit from public cloud scalability while reducing the demands on a private cloud.
• The availability of secure resources and scalable cost-effective public resources provides organizations with options.
• Example: Customer has secure and non-secure data and they have made some investment in their own infrastructure and they want to use them

Industry Tends

As we look at the IT industry today, a number of important trends are changing the way software is being purchased, deployed and used in the organization.

Data Explosion

The volume of data in the workplace is exploding. According to IDC, digital data will grow more than 40x over the next decade. As more and more data is created digitally, we expect to see ever greater demands being placed on our data platforms to store, secure, process and manage these large volumes of data.

Consumerization of IT

Today we see an increasing trend toward the “consumerization” of IT—creating the demand for Web 2.0 experiences in the business environment. As consumers, we are accustomed to powerful user-friendly experiences, whether searching the Internet on a mobile device to find information instantly, or quickly accessing our personal financial data. In the workplace, however, we are often unable to answer even the most basic questions about our business. Increasingly, users demand business experiences that more closely mirror the convenience and ease of use in consumer life.

Private and Public Cloud

Cloud computing is changing the way data is accessed and processed, and it is creating whole new models for the way applications are delivered. According to IDC, Cloud services will account for 46% of net-new growth in overall IT spending. With private and public cloud infrastructure, organizations have an opportunity to reduce TCO dramatically as data volume increases. As we see an evolution toward greater use of private and public clouds, we see an increasing need for solutions that support hybrid cloud scenarios.

Azure at a Glance

So this picture, or at least the big blocks above, are how Microsoft thinks about the main capability buckets of their platform. As we go though this series, we will start to get more specific about these buckets (Compute, data, networks, and app services).
Well, I hope you enjoyed this brief introduction on Azure Cloud.  Stay tuned to the rest of the series. Next up, more fundamentals and use cases and then we dive into some fundamentals, like Azure Resource Manager.

Until next time, Rob