Difference Between Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Web and Worker Roles
There are three options for subscribing (Azure virtual machines / IAAS, Microsoft Azure Web Role /PAAS, Microsoft Azure Website / PAAS) Microsoft Azure and all of them can host site. It is essential to be understand the differences among them before deciding the options to adopt.
Azure Virtual Machines are the common instances of full server operating systems hosted on a virtual platform. Just like with any VM, users can remote into it and having the right access rights, can control everything on that machine. Nothing new here, just a good-old virtual machine service offer.
On the other hand, Worker and Web Role compute instances are also in their essence virtual machines, yet with limited access. Web Roles are primarily used for hosting websites and web applications, while Worker Roles – long running or resource intensive processes. With a Web Role, users only have access to the IIS, and with a Worker Role – runtime environment for running processes and services without a public facing website. Essentially the IIS and the runtime environment are the only things you have access to. All changes outside of these environments will be erased upon a system restart, a restart of a virtual machine hosting the role. This means that users have almost no control over the rest of the server configuration, although, it is possible to write startup scripts to make changes upon a reboot.
So in their essence, Web and Worker Roles are hosted by VMs, and when purchasing a role, by selecting the size of the VM in the Cloud section of the Azure calculator, you are selecting the size of the compute instance (VM) hosting the role. This is why Microsoft calls both of these options virtual machines, however, it is important to understand the difference, as it is what distinguishes the IaaS and PaaS services.
Pros and Cons
Recommended Azure Environment for Sitecore
The Pure PaaS approach (versus Hybrid) is the recommended option, primarily because of the SLA and scalability applied to the CM environment, allowing for a high availability and spikes of content edits and visits on large websites. This approach is especially preferred if the rest of the company infrastructure is also hosted on Azure.
Some of the reasons to go with a hybrid solution include:
- budget considerations
- large number of on premise resources
- tight security requirements
- need for control over the hardware
- other business reasons
Azure Compare to Amazon on Webhosting
Netcraft posted an article in Feb 2014 showing that Microsoft is slightly ahead of Amazon in public facing website hosting of Windows computers. The numbers are close with Netcraft listing 23,400 web-facing Windows computers at Microsoft and 22,600 at Amazon. List of notable users of Windows Azure, including
- the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games,
- Aston Martin (sports car manufacturer),
- McDonald's Happy Studio, and
- BenQ, a Taiwanese electronics brand.
Pricing
Reference
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