What is Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure is the cloud computing platform run by Microsoft. It rents out computing power, storage, networking and other IT services over the internet, so a business can run servers and software without buying or housing the equipment.

Azure is a separate product from Microsoft 365, the email and office software many businesses already pay for. The two share a sign-in system, Microsoft Entra ID, so the accounts your staff use for email can also be given access to Azure.

The main kinds of service

Microsoft lists more than 200 Azure products. Most businesses only ever meet a few kinds.

• Compute is virtual servers that run your software. The product is called Azure Virtual Machines.
• Storage is space for files, backups and archives, sold under the name Azure Storage.
• Databases such as Azure SQL Database are run by Microsoft, which looks after the servers and operating system while you look after the data.
• Networking and security covers virtual networks, firewall rules and the controls that decide who may sign in and what they may touch.

Where the data lives in Australia

Azure groups its data centres into regions. Some regions are split into availability zones, which are separate sites with their own power, cooling and networking.

Microsoft lists four regions in Australia. Australia East is in New South Wales and has three availability zones. Australia Southeast is in Victoria. Australia Central and Australia Central 2 are both in Canberra, and access to Central 2 is restricted to particular uses such as disaster recovery.

You choose the region each time you create something. Australia East and Australia Southeast are a pair, which means some services can keep a second copy of your data in the other one.

How it is charged

The standard arrangement is pay as you go. Microsoft describes it as paying only for what you use, with no upfront commitment and the freedom to cancel at any time. Microsoft also publishes a pricing calculator that turns expected usage into an estimated cost before anything is switched on.

Many small businesses buy Azure through an IT provider instead of directly, and in that case the provider sends the bill. Either way, ask for a budget with an alert on it. Azure can warn the account owner when spending passes a set amount, and a virtual server can be set to shut down on a schedule so that it is not charged overnight.

Who is responsible for what

Microsoft calls this shared responsibility. Microsoft looks after the physical data centres, the network inside them and the physical servers. What happens above that depends on the service. On a virtual server, you look after the operating system and the applications. On a managed service such as Azure SQL Database, Microsoft takes over the operating system.

Four things stay with the customer whatever the service:

• the data, including how it is classified and protected
• the laptops, phones and desktops used to reach it
• the user accounts
• the rules for who has access, including multi-factor authentication

The Australian Signals Directorate makes the same point about every cloud provider: the risk to your data stays with you and cannot be handed to the provider. Before anything goes onto Azure, find out who will patch the servers, who controls the sign-ins and where the backups are kept.