In the last chapter, we learned that the classic model had changed a lot. In the classic world, you had complete control over the hardware and software that is deployed. This has led to hardware decisions that focus on massive scaling. An example is purchasing a server with more cores to satisfy peak performance needs. Unfortunately, this infrastructure might be underutilized outside the demand window. With Azure, you can deploy only the infrastructure that you need, and adjust this up or down at any time. This leads to a focus on scaling out through the deployment of additional compute nodes to satisfy a performance need. Although this has consequences for designing an appropriate software architecture. These days it's sure that scaling out cloud services is more cost-saving than scaling up through racks and servers.
Microsoft has built many Azure datacenters around the globe. There are even more planned, especially sovereign clouds in regions like China and Germany. Only the largest global enterprises can deploy datacenters in this manner, so using Azure makes it easy for enterprises of any size to deploy their services close to their customers.
For small businesses, Azure allows for a low-cost entry point, with the ability to scale on demand. This prevents a large capital investment in infrastructure and provides the flexibility to architect and re-architect systems as needed. Using cloud technologies supports the startup mentality of growing fast and failing fast.
In the next chapter, we will take a look at Azure Resource Manager and the Azure resource manager tools.
