Can Microsoft compete with Amazon, Google, and other rivals in the cloud computing space?
If you research Azure on the Internet, unless you specify "Microsoft" or "cloud computing," you will run smack into all sorts of colorful discussions -- literally. Azure is a bright blue color that, according to Wikipedia, resembles a sky on a bright clear day. Thus, it may seem slightly presumptuous that Microsoft has given its new cloud services operating system the name Azure. It's as if Microsoft Azure is the computing sky that supports your Internet cloud. But naming aside, what is Windows Azure?
First off, what is cloud computing? It's an emerging style of infrastructure that allows companies to utilize the Internet (the "cloud" in cloud computing) for functions such as data storage, security, and enterprise applications. And you can implement the structure both internally or externally (which is conceptually similar to the way you might have an external Web server or an Intranet Web server). Visualize with cloud computing that data storage and software as a service (SaaS) relies on the Internet to hide from a user or company the underlying structure and worries that a normal set of applications and internal networks hold. And if you can grasp that, you will see how it will ultimately benefit the enterprise world.
More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/154560/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
If you research Azure on the Internet, unless you specify "Microsoft" or "cloud computing," you will run smack into all sorts of colorful discussions -- literally. Azure is a bright blue color that, according to Wikipedia, resembles a sky on a bright clear day. Thus, it may seem slightly presumptuous that Microsoft has given its new cloud services operating system the name Azure. It's as if Microsoft Azure is the computing sky that supports your Internet cloud. But naming aside, what is Windows Azure?
First off, what is cloud computing? It's an emerging style of infrastructure that allows companies to utilize the Internet (the "cloud" in cloud computing) for functions such as data storage, security, and enterprise applications. And you can implement the structure both internally or externally (which is conceptually similar to the way you might have an external Web server or an Intranet Web server). Visualize with cloud computing that data storage and software as a service (SaaS) relies on the Internet to hide from a user or company the underlying structure and worries that a normal set of applications and internal networks hold. And if you can grasp that, you will see how it will ultimately benefit the enterprise world.
More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/154560/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
