Critical Analysis of Windows Azure

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Critical Analysis of SW Development tool/methodology
Object Oriented Analysis & Design:
Submitted By: David O' Connor (KCOMP_G_Y6)
Submitted on: 22nd
May 2015

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
2. Windows Azure .........................................................................................................................4
3. Operating in Azure....................................................................................................................4
4. The Windows Azure Portal .......................................................................................................5
5. How to setup a simple HTML site on Windows Azure...............................................................7
6. Storage within Windows Azure ...............................................................................................11
7. Management............................................................................................................................11
8. Security Concerns....................................................................................................................12
9. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................13
10. References:...........................................................................................................................14

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1. Introduction
Windows Azure is an operating system developed by Microsoft in the cloud and can be used to
form the core platform for all the other Azure Services. In other words Windows Azure is a
compendium of building blocks for online cloud services which consists of several different
geographically detached data centers at different locations which are situated all around the
world for delivering geo-located services for the end users of the cloud service and
recommending platform enterprise services, middleware, and consumer services groups to create
an end-to-end cloud service. This paper provides a readers with a walkthrough of the Windows
Azure platform and its related essential technologies which together as a whole comprise a cloud
infrastructure.

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2. Windows Azure
General Security. (2014) states that the Windows Azure operating system offers their users’ an
identical involvement as it enables the different developers and users to use prevailing various
Microsoft technologies such as for instance .NET, SQL Server, WCF, and many more
technologies to develop different applications in the cloud ambiance. Windows Azure provides
users’ a kind of virtual Windows Runtime for executing their applications and storing data on
computers in Microsoft data centers that includes a computational services, basic storage,
queues, web server, management services, and load-balancers. In fact, manufacturing
applications using the Windows Azure platform is not very complex, as developers can write
familiar .NET code using Visual Studio to build applications which have the capability to run in
the cloud. Moreover, it also offers a local development fabric for building and testing services
before they are deployed to Windows Azure in the cloud. The following diagram depicts the
diverse components of Windows Azure:
3. Operating in Azure
General Security. (2014) states that the initial movement for Azure application development to
the cloud is the Windows Azure Development portal which requires the user to have a Windows
Live account to be accessed through a remote login utility such as Putty or RDP. The typical
developer workflow involves the following steps for creating or deploying an application in
Windows Azure Platform.
Step 1: Create a Windows Azure account and Login using a Microsoft Live ID.
Step 2: Prepare the development fabric to create an application in the local cloud platform.
Step 3: Test the application in the development fabric
Step 4: Package the application for cloud deployment.
Step 5: Test the application on Windows Azure in the cloud.
Step 6: Deploy the application in the production farm.

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General Security. (2014)
4. The Windows Azure Portal

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Jacco Blankenspoor. (2013) refers to the Windows Azure portal as the place where the user
builds and managing their deployments. At the bottom of Windows Azure portal the user will
find the big “NEW” button. This is where the user starts all of their deployments. On the left of
the portal the user is able to see the number of services that they are currently using, with the
“All items” tab at the top showing a list of all of the services that the user is currently using.
Jacco Blankenspoor. (2013) also states that some applications are built up from a number of
different services. Like for instance my Magento demo, which is using a combination of a
storage account, a virtual machine and also using a cloud service. Some features of Microsoft
Azure are as follows:
 Web site: Microsoft Azure users can see azure as regular hosting. It can be easy for user to
quickly set up their website with a database or install an app from the Gallery like for
instance WordPress.
 Virtual machine: These are the servers in the cloud as most of computer user’s know them.
Users can configure their desired OS, on which they wish to add a LAMP stack for example.
 Storage Account: This is the network attached storage, which users can use for storing an
image, or add storage to a virtual machine.
 Cloud service: This provides a management console for the cloud user’s instances. This is
also where the user can set up scaling, and here the user can combine multiple number of
instances. As Microsoft states is, it allows users to focus on their app instead of their
infrastructure.
Azure provides users with an excellent help function. On the bottom of the users screen a
question mark can be found by the user. When the user clicks this question mark, it shows them
help information which is relevant to the page of which they are looking at. And it also provides
them with a fast and easy way to the excellent resource section.

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5. How to setup a simple HTML site on Windows Azure
The following step by step walk through is taken from Jacco Blankenspoor. (2013).
The user can set up a simple HTML site, without a database or anything fancy. This can be done
by simply clicking “Compute” –> “Web Site” –> “Quick Create”, filling in a temporary URL
and click “Create Web Site”.
Within less than a minute of clicking on the “Create Web Site” button, the user’s site is up and
running with a nice landing page, and is visible in my dashboard.

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From this point the user will find an impressive range of features. Some of these features are
covered in this critical analysis. The following focuses on getting the user’s newly created
HTML site up and running online.
The user can do this with FTP, or an alternative is to use a special tool called WebMatrix which
has to be downloaded. WebMatrix is a free application, and after an easy setup all the user is
required to do is to just keep hitting “Yes” and “Ok”, they will not be required to install any extra
services for now, the user can connect to their own site.

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After the user logs in using their Azure credentials, they can open their previously launched site.
Now the user can easily build a very simple HTML site. One of the best ways to start is by using
a Boilerplate template, which the user can load by selecting “File” –> “New” –> “Site from
Template Gallery”.

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Now select the “Boilerplate” template, click “Next” and then “Skip” to load it locally without
configuring. You now have a solid framework to work with.
As can seen in the above screenshot, it also takes care of proper loading of (in this case) jQuery
code (grabbing it from the Google CDN), and it also prepares Google Analytics code. There is
already an included style.css, which you can edit and expand. After the user is done editing, it is
easy to upload the user’s code to Azure.

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6. Storage within Windows Azure
As specified by General Security. (2014) the Windows Azure data storage provider enables their
users to store, access, analyse, and also enables the user to protect their data while making it
available from any location in the world and at any time they require their data. Windows Azure
provides various services from storing data in SQL databases on a server in the cloud to analysis
and reporting to meet the needs of the cloud users business needs. A vital aspect of Windows
Azure is that this cloud storage provider also ensures a very high standard of data security with
high throughput of application data in the cloud. Windows Azure typically offer three types of
cloud storage aspects for their users in the cloud atmosphere.
 Blob: BLOBs offers the user a mechanism for storing a large amounts of text or binary
data for users such as for instance user’s personal images, audio, or any visual files. This
aspect of cloud storage can scale anything up to 200 terabytes of data and can be accessed
using REST APIs. The user can move BLOB data as a single volume between online
private and public clouds using Windows Azure Drive.
 Table: Tables represent storage locations across different machines for user’s data which
are represented in the form of entities and properties on cloud. These tables can store
large amounts of unstructured data which can be accessed by the user by either using
REST APIs from within a service running in Windows Azure or directly over the Internet
using HTTP/HTTPS.
 Queue: Queue’s only objective is to enable communication between instances of the Web
and Worker Role, and this aids in storing different messages that may be accessed by a
client at any time. Instances of Web Role can initiate the user’s requests which need to be
processed in the background. On the other side, Worker Role observes the queue to
process the request and respond back via queue to the Web Role instance.
7. Management
General Security. (2014) specifies that the management fabric of Windows Azure automates the
deployment of virtualized operating systems images on server hardware and regulates the life
cycle of the deployment by allocating and withdrawing hardware and operating system image
resources as necessary. Besides, the management fabric provisions the hardware servers, deploys
operating system image on those servers, and deploys your service to those servers while service
deployment to the cloud is consumed later once deployed on the servers.

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8. Security Concerns
General Security. (2014) refers that the Windows Azure platform offers user developers with a
very high standard of on-demand compute and storage facility to host, scale, and to manage the
user’s web applications on the cloud through the Microsoft datacenters. Everything is managed
so easily by Window Azure in the cloud so that the user doesn’t need any special hardware,
software, and configuration of their own. But, the sole concern for many cloud users is that of
data or resource security, which a non-negotiable obligation for a cloud service provider. It is
vital that business information or any other sensitive data stored in the cloud needs to be
encrypted by the cloud storage provider not only during storage but also transport. Therefore it is
mandatory for the cloud storage provider to implement proper access control mechanisms to
prohibit unauthorized access to the stored data and applications on the cloud, because critical
data is one step away from falling into malicious hands. Secure channels across application
domains in the cloud should be constructed into the cloud service infrastructure. If the
environment and applications are not properly secured, any cloud platform could be
compromised. However, IT architects are repeatedly concerned about the risks of cloud
computing.

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9. Conclusion
Cloud computing is the next generation emerging in the technology world where everything will
be located on server on the cloud. Any personal device like a tablet PC, mobile phone equipped
which Internet connection, and a simple browser would be enough to get a taste cloud
computing.
Executing applications in Azure clouds offers users many different advantages over the
traditional way of running programs, like for instance a much faster service deployment, a
massive savings upfront, and also an easy management for their business growth by scaling up or
down the computing power and storage. Hence, this paper has provided a comprehensive tour for
users of Windows Azure cloud computing.

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10. References:
Jacco Blankenspoor. (2013). How to Use Windows Azure. Available:
http://www.sitepoint.com/use-windows-azure/. Last accessed 18th May 2015.
General Security. (2014). Windows Azure Platform. Available:
http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/windows-azure-platform/. Last accessed 16th May 2015.
Finally, it discusses the life cycle of application development with real experience of the Azure
portal and examines various potential threats while operating in the Azure cloud environment, in
terms of sensitive data protection and authentication.
Finally, it discusses the life cycle of application development with real experience of the Azure
portal and examines various potential threats while operating in the Azure cloud environment, in
terms of sensitive data protection and authentication.