Microsoft Azure, commonly referred to as Azure (/ˈæʒər/), is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. It provides software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and supports many different programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.
Azure was announced in October 2008, started with codename "Project Red Dog",and released on February 1, 2010, as Windows Azure before being renamed to Microsoft Azure on March 25, 2014.
Services Azure uses large-scale virtualization at Microsoft data centers worldwide and it offers more than 600 services.