Microsoft Azure to host website?

Question

I have a question, I have a domain and an accommodation requested from a normal company. I have heard of Microsoft Azure that works through cloud. Could you explain to me how this works for a website?

It allows to be exactly the same as the site in php and the databases all online as in any other accommodation. And this service makes faster navigation on the website and of course there is some economic advantage?

What if swapping is possible to use a domain registered in another company? Thanks for the help, I’m sorry for the rain of questions but I’m very curious about this system.

Answer 1

Azure has some options for hosting websites. The most common are the following:

• Virtual machines: the option of Iaas (Infrastructure as a Service) - you basically "rent" a computer that is running on the cloud, and are responsible for installing everything that is necessary to run your website. The computer may be running Windows (multiple versions) or Linux (multiple versions). You have full control over the machine, including being responsible for making necessary upgrades.
• Websites: the option of Paas (Platform as a Service) - you upload the files that form your website, which will run on a machine managed by Azure. Patches and other updates are applied automatically, and you only need to worry about the website itself. Several languages are supported, among them PHP (take a look in this tutorial: create the website or in this other tutorial - more complete, using PHP and Mysql for more information).

The two options above support custom domains, even if they are registered with other companies (a while ago I had a registered domain on Godaddy.com that pointed to an Azure website; I don’t remember how it was set up but it wasn’t too complicated).

Regarding the database, in the first case (virtual machine) you can install the BD on the machine (it is "yours", and you can do whatever you want with it). In the second case you can or use some BD in the cloud (both in Azure and outside it, as long as you have something like a Connection string that points to where the database is stored), or even has a local database (at your company), and access it via "hybrid connections".

Speed: probably won’t make much difference compared to if you have the site running locally. The advantage of Azure (and other Cloud providers such as AWS) is that they have several data centers, then you can have your website redundant in multiple locations and the customer will access whatever you have closer, reducing the latency of the requests.

As for the price - you pay what you use. A virtual machine will cost more than a simple website, but you have more control. With websites there are also several modes (from free, with relatively low quotas and worse performance, to paid depending on the size of the machine being used and how many copies (replication) are running. Take a look at price calculator page you may have an idea of how much it costs.

Answer 2

If you are thinking in the context of a single machine, then there are almost no advantages. I say almost, because you can always take advantage of the tools offered in these cloud environments, but, on the other hand, it is a more expensive environment (proportionally speaking).

The advantages, from environments like Azure, will appear in cases where you start needing to scale your site.

An example would be the case that you have a machine that will run 100% of the time (24 h/d and 7 d/s). And you can rent another machine that will only be on at peak times.

Why would anyone want that? Because not a single, more "powerful machine"?

To explain it is necessary to bear in mind that:

CLOUD (Azure in case) === Super managed/controlled environment

If it is a "super managed" environment I can rent a very small machine, pay cheaper for it and turn on another machine only when my site has the demand for it.

Just to explain what I meant by "super-managed"... It is pq, in environments like Azure, there are several variables that we can configure according to our demand. We can configure bandwidth, disk space, memory, etc. (several other things). And once configured we can create images (machine copies) and replicate very easily. And still decide what time to turn on/off each machine. And best of all... This can be, once configured (of course :]), automated.

And with that, companies, when they find the right equation, save money.

In short... Cloud (Azure, in this case) is the place for us to always have an environment with 100% use of resources. That is, no idleness, no paying for what is not being used.