Microsoft has been on a roll recently to ensure that Azure management can be streamlined for the enterprises. Enterprises are often confused regarding the choice of public cloud hosting as there are quite a few big names involved in it with stiff competition among them in terms of qualities and range of services. Hence, enterprises need to focus on specific enterprise needs and see if the companies can serve them that. Here are some important aspects of Azure that have come up in the recent weeks-

The new Resource Manager and automation options

• Often abbreviated as ARM, the new resource manager ensures that the earlier management portal doesn’t slow it down one bit. So, most people who are looking to use a smart and swift portal, Azure may well be your go-to destination. It saves plenty of time by automatically grouping the resources sharing similar features. In fact, you can locate resource groups using pre-defined tags if something goes off the chart. The manager is secured by hierarchical distribution of access.
• On the other hand, automation has arrived big time in IT and Azure has used it to ensure easy transformation. Now, with the help of automation, administrators can now clone VMs or tweak security policies for specific reasons. There are two important techniques that are used frequently, Azure DSC or Desired State Configuration and Azure runbooks. You can choose either of them depending on the necessity. For example, if you are thinking about doing something the services or the resources, then Runbooks is your destination. There are third party options too.
• In fact, this automating of the processes can be done by simply using a webhook. Basically, it allows you call the runbooks from anymore as remote access. If you are connected via internet, then it is better to use command-line methods. Webhook is strictly prohibited if you are accessing highly secured layer because the http packet is not safe at all.

The new security centre and better backup facility

Any public cloud should manage the security threats comprehensively and detect them as they come. The security centre dedicates itself to ensure that resources are under continuous monitoring and security policies are active always. In fact, in case of third party applications, it provides an extra layer of security for a comprehensive security package. Machine learning has its presence too as it helps to detect changes in behavioural pattern of the server and helps the admin to become prescient about the attacks.

In case of a threat, immediate alerts are sent to specific administrators and even provide risk tackling strategies. For the azure users, the good news is that there is a free trial period of 90 days with only storage costs. So, they can start examining it right now and enjoy three months of free, unhindered security of the applications.

As it is public cloud, there is obviously an issue of redundancy as well as necessity for comprehensive backup. All big names in public cloud abide by that and Azure has taken the disaster recovery option to a different level in their recent effort, ensuring that backup is no longer insanely costly or time consuming.

The new site recovery system has an automatic backup feature for VMs and data. They allow smooth movement from private situation to public cloud while taking relentless backup. However, the feature is mostly focused towards big firms and not the smaller ones. There are some advanced features like automated recovery of fail over and remote monitoring capabilities which can only be of use to the tech giants. However, first prioritize the applications or there will be disruption at every step.