I was going through the Azure portal and completed most of its offered services like app service, VM, Storage etc. Now when I am reading questions about it I got to know one another service 'Azure Cloud Services'. I am now a little confused as I didn't find it on portal. I want to know does it exists now and if yes where can I find it in Azure portal.
3
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It's one of the Azure Classic offering. It has been retired and replaced with Service Fabric.
– hendryanw
Thank you so much @hendryanw but I have a doubt. I am reading an article 'mindmajix.com/azure-interview-questions' and this is updated on 24 april, 2018. This article never mentioned it as a old service. So do you mean that I should not believe in this article and treat it as a lagacy part of Azure.
– Raj Kumar Sharma
@hendryanw Cloud Service is not retired. It is very much alive and kicking though Microsoft is not encouraging the use of them. For new applications, recommendation is to use other PaaS offerings instead of Cloud Services.
– Gaurav Mantri
@GauravMantri thanks for correcting me. Yes that’s what I mean, I choose a wrong word.
– hendryanw
3 Answers
7
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Azure Cloud Service (read Web/Worker Roles) is one of the earliest Platform as a Service (PaaS) offered by Microsoft Azure. In fact, when Azure started in 2008, Cloud Services was the only Compute option available in Azure (Virtual Machines, Websites etc. came a bit later).
With Cloud Services you can run web applications (typically by hosting your application in a Web Role) or run background applications (typically by hosting your application/background service in a Worker Role). Since it is a PaaS offering, you need not worry about the issues that comes with IaaS (i.e. patching, configuring etc.). You simply provide your application and the desired settings in form of a package to Microsoft and based on that Azure will create VMs for you and deploy your applications in those VMs.
Cloud Services offer you a lot of flexibility (when compared with WebApps), yet take away the complexities that you would normally face when working with Virtual Machines (IaaS).
Though not officially deprecated, Cloud Services is heading that way. Microsoft is pushing for the use of other PaaS offerings (like WebApps, WebJobs, Functions, Service Fabric etc.). If you're building a new app, my recommendation would be not to use Cloud Services.
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Azure offers several ways to host web sites: Azure App Service, Virtual Machines, Service Fabric, and Cloud Services.
This article helps you understand the options and make the right choice for your web application.
What is the best way to host Web Apps in Azure?
Azure App Service (formerly Azure Websites) has very little responsibility to complete, and relatively less control. It is the best choice for most web apps. Deployment and management are integrated directly into the platform we get. It is scalable, can handle high traffic loads. It can provide you high availability.
Azure Virtual Machines could be your choice if you want frequent modifications and changes in your web server environment. It provides you rich set of features; however, correctly configuring, securing and maintaining VMs require much more time and more IT expertise compared to Azure Cloud Services and Azure Websites. You will need to make more effort on frequent maintenance and update patches to manage the VM environment.
Azure Cloud Services If you want more, web server like environment you might want to go with Azure Cloud Services. You can remote into your cloud services and configure startup tasks. Cloud Services provide you more Ease of Management and Agility than Azure Websites, but less control than it. Cloud Service provides you multiple deployment environments same as of Azure Websites but this is not available in Virtual Machines. Apart from the websites you can install any packages you want which provides you more flexibility.
The following figure explains you more about choosing the right option:
