https://azure.microsoft.

com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-
dictionary/what-is-azure#:~:text=Azure%20offers%20a%20range
%20of,globally%20with%20ease%20and%20flexibility.

What is Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure, launched in 2010, marked a pivotal shift from on-premises
datacenters to cloud computing. By offering businesses a global network of
datacenters maintained and managed by Microsoft, Azure reduced the time and
expense associated with maintaining on-premises infrastructure.

Since its original launch, Azure continues to offer extensive capabilities that go
beyond simplifying infrastructure management. With comprehensive AI, data,
and application services that work together, Azure delivers a unified approach to
cloud computing that’s unique in the industry. Its open, flexible cloud platform is
designed to support each company’s business strategy and stage of AI
transformation.
Overview
Key takeaways
 Azure, the Microsoft Cloud computing platform, offers more than 200
products and services across a global network of datacenters.
 With more than 300 highly secure datacenters in over 60 regions, Azure
delivers the most extensive cloud footprint, giving businesses more
regions to choose from than any other cloud provider.
 95% of Fortune 500 companies trust Azure to help them run their
businesses and meet their enterprise-scale demands.
 Businesses of all sizes rely on Azure to help them bring their ideas to life,
seamlessly unify their technology, and innovate on trust.
 Azure provides built-in security solutions designed to protect company’s
workloads from code to cloud.
 Azure AI Foundry provides an end-to-end AI platform across models, tools,
safety features, and monitoring capabilities—to help organizations
efficiently and cost-effectively design and scale their AI applications.
 The Azure AI model catalog includes more than 1,800 models, offering
organizations unmatched flexibility to choose and build AI solutions
tailored to their needs.
 Looking ahead, Azure will continue to drive innovation in cloud
infrastructure and AI-powered services, providing the choice and flexibility
businesses need to meet evolving requirements.
Benefits
Why do organizations choose Azure?
As a leading cloud platform, Azure empowers developers and organizations of all
sizes to drive business growth through accelerated and sustained innovation.
Cloud platform—wherever you are
Azure delivers the most far-reaching cloud footprint in the industry, connected
through one of the world’s largest networks. With over 300 highly secure
datacenters in more than 60 regions worldwide, Azure gives organizations more
regions to choose from than any other cloud provider.

The Azure global network empowers businesses to deploy applications closer to

customers and employees, providing faster, more responsive experiences. With
low latency, advanced networking, and optimized routing, Azure delivers content
quickly and reliably to where it’s needed.
Enterprise expertise
Azure is built to meet enterprise-scale demands, delivering the high availability
and reliability needed for mission-critical workloads. This focus on enterprise
readiness has made Azure the trusted choice for 95% of Fortune 500 companies,
supporting key applications like SAP, Databricks, VMware, SAP, and high-
performance computing.
Extensive partner network
Microsoft offers an extensive network of Azure partners to support customers at
every stage of their cloud adoption. Customers choose from a wide range of
partners with the expertise, services, and industry knowledge needed to identify
and implement the right Azure solutions tailored to their specific requirements.
Industry-leading AI developer services
Azure fosters open-source innovation by offering organizations the flexibility to
choose tools and technologies that best meet their needs:
 More than 60% of Azure customer cores run on Linux—and customers
have the freedom to use any distribution.
 Azure also supports a vast array of popular technologies, including
Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Apache, Cassandra, and MongoDB.
The list is constantly growing.
 Some of the most popular AI developer tools, frameworks and experiences
in the world are built around open communities. Here are a few featured
Azure open-source collaborations of note: Azure OpenAI Service, GitHub,
Canonical, Red Hat, Databricks, Hashicorp, Redis, and SUSE, as well as
contributions to Python, Node.js, the Linux kernel, and Kubernetes. Learn
more about open source on Azure.
To support AI-powered innovation, the Azure AI model catalog features more than
1,800 models. These include open and frontier models, the latest from
OpenAI, large language models, and the Microsoft Phi family of small language
models.
Built-in security
Azure customers gain peace of mind knowing their workloads are protected by
built-in security solutions designed to safeguard their data from code to cloud. A
dedicated team of more than 10,000 security experts continuously monitors
systems, detects vulnerabilities, and tracks breach patterns and bad actors. The
team synthesizes 78 trillion security signals daily with AI and advanced analytics
to understand and protect against cyberthreats. Microsoft reinforces this
commitment with a planned $20 billion investment in security over the next five
years.
Solutions
What does Azure do?
Taking businesses to the next level
Designed to help businesses bring new solutions to life, the Azure cloud platform
provides industry-leading AI and cloud services. Developers use the tools and
frameworks of their choice to build, run, and manage applications across cloud,
hybrid, and edge environments
Optimizing operations
Azure provides more than 200 cloud-based products and cloud services ,
empowering businesses to optimize their operations across data storage,
networking, virtual computing, databases, analytics, and AI. By reducing costs,
automating workflows, and improving decision-making, Azure helps companies
turn ideas into action.
Managing distributed environments
Azure hybrid solutions easily extend Azure services to on-premises, multicloud,
and edge environments. Organizations smoothly manage, govern, and secure
their servers, Kubernetes clusters, and applications from a unified platform.
Hybrid solutions are ideal for modernizing legacy applications, improving disaster
recovery, and supporting remote or hybrid work models.
Providing cost-effective scalability
Azure is flexible and scalable, allowing businesses to dynamically adjust their
cloud resources based on demand, paying only for what they use. Whether
responding to seasonal spikes in customer engagement or scaling operations for
growth, Azure provides a cost-efficient foundation to adapt quickly and efficiently.
Improving decision-making
Azure unifies disparate data— wherever it resides. This empowers businesses to
generate actionable insights, enhance applications with AI, and make intelligent
decisions faster. With tools for managing analytics, machine learning, and
databases, organizations stay agile while safeguarding their data with built-in
governance.
Accelerating developer productivity
Azure streamlines app development with tools like GitHub, Visual Studio, and
Azure DevOps, offering a highly secure platform for building, collaborating, and
deploying code faster. Developers use built-in provisioning, automated security
patching, and continuous integration to efficiently build next-generation
applications.
See innovation in action
Browse Azure customer stories to how companies are using Azure to take their
businesses to the next level.
Supporting AI-powered innovation
Microsoft is recognized as a leader in enterprise-ready AI services, delivering
highly secure, adaptive, and proven solutions. Azure AI offers a comprehensive
portfolio of cloud-based AI services and tools, empowering developers to build AI
apps—without requiring direct AI or data science expertise. Whether developers
use prebuilt models or build, train, and manage custom models with their own
data, Azure provides the tools and flexibility to bring AI initiatives from idea to
code to production.
Supercomputing power for AI
Azure is designed for the world’s most sophisticated AI workloads, hosting the
world’s most advanced supercomputer and serving as the exclusive cloud
provider for OpenAI. The Azure AI infrastructure delivers the most complete
compute platform for AI workloads, with a diversity of silicon across AMD,
NVIDIA, and the Microsoft Maia AI accelerators.
End-to-end AI platform
Azure AI Foundry provides an end-to-end AI platform across models, tools, safety
features, and monitoring capabilities—to help organizations efficiently and cost-
effectively design and scale their AI applications. By integrating with popular
developer tools like GitHub, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Copilot Studio, Azure AI
Foundry offers developers seamless access to its comprehensive portfolio of
services. This includes state-of-the-art AI models, tools for building agents on
Azure, and a unified toolchain for accessing AI services through one interface.
Empowering responsible AI
To support the responsible use of AI, Azure provides built-in tools and
technologies to build AI apps responsibly and efficiently, from development to
deployment, while keeping content safe. Guided by the Microsoft Responsible AI
Standard, Azure is committed to the advancement of AI driven by ethical
principles that put people first.
Providing cloud service models
A cloud service model outlines how cloud services are delivered and consumed.
Azure cloud service models support businesses at any stage of digital
transformation:
 Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) delivers essential IT infrastructure
for businesses to flexibly create and manage resources.
 Platform as a service (PaaS) offers a cloud platform to develop, run,
and manage applications without the need to handle underlying
infrastructure.
 Software as a service (SaaS) provides seamless access to software
applications over the internet, eliminating local installation needs.
 Artificial intelligence as a service (AIaaS) provides AI tools and
services via the cloud to accelerate innovation.
 Model as a service (MaaS) delivers machine learning models as
serverless APIs for simplified app deployment.