Azure as a cloud platform

Microsoft Azure was announced in October 2008 with the code name Red Dog and was officially released in February 2010 with the name Windows Azure. It offered web roles and SQL databases. In March 2014, Microsoft rebranded its cloud platform from Windows Azure to Microsoft Azure.

The general availability of Azure and Microsoft has added many services to its platform to fit most customers' needs. It has expanded its data centers to the continents across the globe. The services that Azure supports at the moment include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Mobile services
• Web services
• Compute services
• Storage services
• Messaging
• Network services
• Media services
• Machine learning
• Internet of Things