Getting started with Microsoft Azure for your research
There are so many ways that cloud computing can be used for research projects, it’s often hard to know where to start. Microsoft Azure is very easy to use, and once you’ve managed to do a few things it will seem second nature to take advantage of its more advanced capabilities. So if you’re just getting started, here are a few tips to start you on your way:
- Start out by deploying a WordPress blog with a few mouse clicks - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/web-sites-php-web-site-gallery/
- Spin up a Windows virtual machine using the web portal - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-windows-tutorial-classic-portal/
- Deploy a Linux virtual machine using the Linux command-line interface -https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-tutorial/
Once you’ve whizzed through those, then here are some more details to really make you fly:
- Everything you need to know on Linux and open source computing on Microsoft Azure in one place - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-opensource/
- Developing on Azure can be done from any language or development platform on Windows or Linux, including Python, Java, PHP, Ruby, Node.js, and .NET (C#, F#) - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/
- Deploy an IPython Notebook in the cloud - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-python-ipython-notebook/
- Big Data is a breeze with HDInsight, including Hadoop, Spark, Giraph and Solr, deployable with a few mouse clicks - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/services/hdinsight/
- See our more detailed walkthrough on https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/azure/technical-papers.aspx
And Azure Machine Learning brings the black art of predictive analytics to everyone. You don’t even need an account to get started - https://studio.azureml.net/
So whether you need to scale out beyond your desktop, tackle big data analytics, apply machine learning, or build an internet of things project, Microsoft Azure can help you a get there lot quicker than you might imagine. Apply for one of our Azure for Research Awards if you want to try out the cloud at scale for your project.