Microsoft Azure represents a number of cloud services, most of which are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a server (SaaS) providing virtual computers hosting, application services like MSSQL and storage in the cloud, among other services. Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft managed data centers.

Microsoft  Azure is similar to Amazon Web Services, but has a different pricing structure and includes additional tools that provide integration advantages for Microsoft environments.  Azure requires location–wide coordination due to the administrative structure, and users must specify the region at which they want their data stored.  Microsoft will not move the data from the location selected.