Get to know Azure

Explore the world of cloud computing and learn what sets Azure apart

Learn More

Introduction to cloud computing

Lower cost

Cloud computing eliminates the expense of setting up and running on-site datacenters, which often have added costs such as employing staff and buying and maintaining land, buildings, and computer hardware. The cloud allows businesses to access the computer resources they need in real time to match their business needs on demand.

Higher security

Security is a key focus of cloud providers, who invest huge sums of money into securing their infrastructure. Cloud providers typically also offer a broad set of policies, compliance, technologies, and controls that strengthen your security posture by protecting your data, apps, and infrastructure from threats.

Increased productivity

More efficiently develop and manage your applications with nearly unlimited cloud computing resources. Cloud providers continuously update their datacenter networks with the latest-generation hardware, providing you with fast, efficient computing resources that never go obsolete and would be more costly to implement in a single datacenter.

Global scale

Cloud computing runs on data centers around the world, providing overall resiliency and reliability by allowing your data to be backed up in more than one geographic location. This also allows your IT resources to be delivered from specific geographic locations when required.

What is Azure?

Be future-ready

Continuous innovation from Microsoft supports your development today—and your product visions for tomorrow. Build on the latest advancements in the cloud, including more than 1,000 new capabilities released in the last year.

Operate hybrid seamlessly

On-premises, in the cloud, and at the edge—Azure meets you where you are. Integrate and manage your environments with tools and services designed for hybrid cloud.

Build on your terms

You have choices—with Azure’s commitment to open source and support for all languages and frameworks, you’re free to build how you want and deploy where you want.

Trust your cloud

Get security from the ground up—backed by a team of experts and proactive, industry-leading compliance that’s trusted by enterprises, governments, and startups.

Azure is secure

Start with a secure foundation

Reduce costs and complexities with a highly-secure cloud foundation that takes advantage of multi-layered security provided by Microsoft.

Streamline your compliance and enable business transformation

Use built-in controls, configuration management tools, implementation and guidance resources, and third-party audit reports to simplify your compliance needs.

Detect threats early

Identify new threats and respond quickly with unique services informed by real-time global cybersecurity intelligence delivered at cloud scale.

Azure is global

The advantages of Azure over AWS

Competitive pricing

AWS is 5 times more expensive than Azure for Windows Server and SQL Server. Azure matches AWS pricing for comparable services.

Achieve more with open source on Azure

Use any open-source OS, languages, and tools on Azure. Azure made the most contributions to GitHub in 2017 and it’s the only cloud with integrated support for Red Hat.

Enhanced proactive security and compliance

Compare AWS and Azure and you’ll find that Azure’s compliance offerings—including 70+ compliance certifications—and are more comprehensive.

Get more value from your existing Microsoft investment

Keep using your organization’s existing tools and knowledge: get a consistent experience across your on-premises and cloud technologies by integrating them with Azure Active Directory.

Azure is the future

The advent of the cloud and smart technologies is revealing new scenarios that were simply not possible until now. Smart sensors and connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices now allow us to capture new data from industrial equipment: from factories to farms, from smart cities to homes. And whether it’s a car or even a refrigerator, new devices are increasingly cloud connected by default.

Simultaneously, hybrid cloud is evolving from being the integration of on-premises datacenters with the public cloud, to becoming units of computing that are accessible even in the world’s most remote destinations.

By bringing these two new realities together—and with artificial intelligence running across all systems—we have entered the era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge.

The intelligent edge is a continually expanding set of connected systems and devices that gather and analyze data—close to your users, the data, or both. Users get real-time insights and experiences, delivered by highly responsive and contextually aware apps. The Azure platform is built to provide an agile and secure experience across the intelligent cloud/intelligent edge in alignment with these enduring principles:

01 Consistent application development
for simplifying the development and deployment of your solutions with consistent programming models, app services, data services, DevOps tools, and support for open source technologies.
02 Holistic security
that reduces the complexity of managing security across a distributed infrastructure.
03 Unified identity
to manage profiles for cloud-to-edge solutions and guard against unauthorized access.
04 Simplified device management
including monitoring, backup, disaster recovery, and update management tools for cloud and edge environments.
05 Artificial intelligence across all devices
allowing you to build, retrain, and improve machine learning models that run at the edge to deliver real-time insights.
06 A robust intelligent edge portfolio and ecosystem
including edge devices provided by Azure and partners to ensure the right edge solution for your business.

Your cloud journey starts here

Find everything you need to make a successful move to the cloud using the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. The framework contains proven guidance designed to help customers and partners create and implement strategies for achieving their cloud goals.