Since its introduction a decade ago, the cloud has become an increasingly important aspect of corporate and IT computing. Today, nearly every organization uses cloud computing in some way.
This book describes one of the most popular and foundational approaches to cloud computing, called infrastructure as a service (IaaS), in which the cloud provides the basic underlying components of computing – facilities, servers, networks, storage – allowing organizations to decrease or even eliminate their reliance on private data centres. Infrastructure as a service enables companies to rapidly move applications away from expensive data centres in order to take advantage of the cost efficiencies of the cloud.
In this book, we define what IaaS is and place it in context with other leading cloud computing models, platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). We then describe a number of common uses of IaaS, ranging from offloading development and testing from the data centre to web applications, and for hosting your enterprise applications.
Digital transformation’ is more than just a catchy phrase for Microsoft’s cloud customers
You might be asking, “How much will my organization have to pay?” We show how you can understand the costs of cloud computing and compare them to your costs on-premises in your data centre, then help you to avoid common pitfalls, such as over-provisioning, so that you get the most value for your cloud investment.
Then we go on a ‘deep dive’ of Azure IaaS, where we walk through the major technologies and capabilities offered by Azure, and how you can use them. We discuss the three foundational aspects of IaaS in Microsoft Azure: compute, storage and networking and your options in each.
We cover more ways you can get value from the cloud, even if your applications remain on-premises: using the cloud’s inexpensive data backup features; its support for business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR); and others.
From there we discuss a relatively new set of capabilities, containerization and orchestration, respectively, and how these technologies can both save you money and provide you with new levels of scale and resilience. And of course, we show how you manage your growing IT ecosystem in the cloud, describing the various tools available to you to monitor and manage your applications.
Finally, we cover two critically important areas of cloud computing: security and compliance, which are naturally top of mind for every enterprise IT executive. We talk about what capabilities and support Azure offers you, and what your responsibilities are in these spaces. We hope you enjoy your tour of Azure infrastructure as a service. After reading this book, you and your teams should be prepared to embark on your cloud journey!