eCommerce Glossary: Azure

Glossary
Full Glossary
Everything You Need To Know About Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Overview

In today's world, several industries are already moving to cloud computing for their businesses. Unlike before, most companies are now using the service to set up virtual offices. One of the benefits of using cloud computing platforms is that it offers organizations the flexibility to connect with their businesses any time and anywhere. Apart from that, it also helps them to save the cost of managing their IT infrastructures. According to studies, more than 77% of organizations use cloud computing for some portions of their infrastructures. Although there are several cloud computing platforms out there, AWS and Microsoft Azure are the most popular.

Two people collaborating on web design with connected UI components

Although AWS is the largest computing platform out there, Azure has proven itself a reliable platform. As such, it's currently the second-largest cloud computing platform. In this article, we'll be exploring everything about Microsoft Azure, including what it is, its portal login, and its DevOps service. So, let's start with a brief introduction to the cloud computing platform.

3 Core Services Offered By Microsoft Azure

What Is Microsoft Azure?

Azure, initially released in February 2010, is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft. Although it took the giant software company a bit late to start offering cloud computing services, it has since received a lot of favor from several people worldwide. According to a study by Channel Partners, more than 715 million users are currently making use of their businesses' platform. Also, 85% of Fortune 500 companies utilize Microsoft's cloud computing service.

Azure offers support for several programming languages. These include Python, Java, JavaScript, C#/. NET, and Node Js. Furthermore, the cloud computing platform also specializes in offering several services, based on about 18 categories. Some of them include computing, storage, IoT, migration, mobile, analytics, artificial intelligence, networking, and containers. While we won't touch all of them, let's have a quick look at some of them below.

As mentioned earlier, the cloud computing platform offers more than 200 services. Here are the core ones below:

Computing Services

Under this category, there exist several services that Azure offers to business owners. One of them is the virtual machine service, enabling people to run an operating system in an app window of their desktop. Apart from that, another one under this category is the Cloud service. Speaking of that, it allows business owners to create a scalable office in the cloud. As for load balancing and maintenance, you can rest assured that the platform will help you take care of everything.

Networking Services

Some of the services that fall under this category include Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN), DNS, virtual network, and many more. Speaking of CDN, it refers to the provision and delivery of content to users. Interestingly, users can quickly get access to the data - all thanks to the strategically placed servers across the world. Furthermore, as for the virtual network service, it enables Azure services to communicate without worrying about security concerns privately.

Storage Services

Like the first two categories, there are also many services under this category. Some of them include queue storage, disk storage, blob storage, and file storage. Starting with Azure's file storage service, it deals with managing file storage, which one can access via the industry SMB protocol. Furthermore, as for blob storage, the service helps users to store unstructured data like texts easily.

-----

What Is Azure DevOps?

Let's start with the definition of DevOps, taking it one step at a time. The term 'DevOps' refers to the process of combining software development and IT operations. The purpose is to shorten the development life cycle of software and achieve improved productivity and collaborations. In case you're finding it pretty challenging to understand that, let's break it down a little bit.

Indeed, you'll agree with us that the software market becomes more volatile by the day. As such, there's a need for developers to stay updated and deliver the latest software. The only way to achieve that, however, is through continuous delivery and integration. That's where DevOps comes into the scene. It combines two teams' services: the developers (Dev) and the IT operations team (Ops). That said, let's talk about Azure DevOps and why it matters for businesses.

To start with, Azure DevOps is a part of the Azure project. On November 13, 2013, Microsoft released its software as service delivery of Visual Studio on the cloud computing platform. Initially, Microsoft announced the project as 'Team Foundation Services.' However, after some time, the service expanded to what we now know today as Azure DevOps Services.

So, speaking of Azure DevOps, it's a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform created by Microsoft, providing development and collaboration tools for deploying software. Furthermore, the platform integrates with most of the top systems in the market, delivering the DevOps services. Here's a burning question, what exactly does Azure DevOps offer?

----

What Does Azure DevOps Offer?

Azure DevOps offers several services, including Boards, Pipeline, Repos, Artifacts, and Test plans. Let's take it one at a time and have a quick look at each of them below.

Azure Boards

With Azure Boards, you can always rest assured of getting agile planning, visualization, and reporting tools. Apart from that, they also ensure better work item tracking.

Azure Pipeline

Speaking of Azure pipeline, it's an Azure platform-supported pipeline that allows you to build, test, and deploy applications continuously.

Azure Artifacts

As for Azure Artifacts, it offers integrated package management, with the support of some languages from either private or public sources. They include npm, Python, Maven, and NuGet package feeds.

Azure Test Plans

As far as Azure Test Plans are concerned, it helps to provide users with the relevant toolkit to conduct an integrated, planned, and exploratory testing solution. The purpose of that is to ensure that the software works perfectly.

Azure Repos

Azure Repos is more of a home or storage for repositories. It offers users cloud-hosted private git repositories.

----

Azure Portal And How To Access The Login Page

Having spoken about all you need to know about Azure, it's time to talk about its portal and how you can log in for the first time.

To get started, you'll need to receive a welcome email from Microsoft Azure to access the portal and log in. You can do that by following the simple steps below:

  • Go to your email and open the welcome email.
  • Next, check through and click on the Azure portal link available in the email.
  • After that, you'll be redirected to the Azure portal login page.
  • Go to the email and copy out the login username and temporary password. Next, input the information on the Azure portal login page and click the sign-in button.
  • After that, you'll get redirected to a page where you'll be able to change the temporary password to your preferred one.
  • Next, click on the "Finish" button.
  • Go back to your email account and check for a confirmation message. After that, you can proceed with the new login details and access the Azure portal.