Future of Azure cloud service - azure

Majority of our line of business application hosted on Azure Cloud service.
We would like to understand Microsoft's future strategy on Cloud Service and how long this platform will be supported.
We also understand from different forum that , Microsoft progressively started disabling various feature from Cloud Service.
Should we continue to use cloud service or switch to other PAS offering like App Service

Related

How to develop Azure Functions app offline using Microsoft SignalR?

I have an application using Azure Functions and would like to add Azure SignalR. During development, myself and the other developers would like to avoid our local (potentially modified) applications talking to each other through SignalR.
Does any tool exist that would allow us to emulate / run SignalR offline for the purposes of development only?
If you're using Azure SignalR Service through the Azure portal, then no.
However, there's a free tier of the SignalR Service which you could use. Depending on the size of your dev team you could just create an instance each.

Is Azure DevOps a PaaS or IaaS?

This is regarding Microsoft's Azure DevOps(Formerly VSTS). Just wanted to clear things, can Azure DevOps be classified as a Platform as a Service. Since it is a cloud service it should be categorized into IaaS but it eliminates the middleware/OS in pipeline. If not then where does it go in the cloud services area? IaaS/SAAS?
Thanks.
Azure DevOps is SaaS for end users (Developers,PM,QA and other stakeholder). In the backend, all the services offer by "Azure DevOps" may run on VMs or Physical server. That mean Microsoft point of view, they may use combination of IaaS & PaaS solution for this platform. Ultimately all services running on VM or physical server.
Its a SaaS, since you are buying a service, not a platform, not virtual machines.
From learn.microsoft.com
Based on the on-premises capabilities, with additional cloud services, we manage your source code, work items, builds, and tests. Azure DevOps uses platform as a service (PaaS) infrastructure and many Azure services, including Azure SQL, to deliver a reliable, globally available service for your development projects.
So according to Microsoft it is PaaS.

Alternative to using Azure Cloud service in a CSP subscription

Team,
I have a complete running cloud service application upgraded to latest Azure SDK version and unfortunately need to dump this into a CSP subscription. But I came to know that Azure CSP supports only the Azure Resource Manager model, the cloud service is a classic deployment model. So we cannot create a cloud service within a CSP subscription.
Is there any other alternative within Azure CSP to using "cloud service" so that we can migrate with minimal changes. Please help
Firstly, here are some good reads on Microsoft Docs to help comparing the options available and make decisions based on your requirements:
(I mean requirements like Hosting features, Service Limits, 3rd party software installation and RDP access is required or not, Network isolation to a separate VNET is required or not, Cost considerations, minimum SLA, Regions available, instant deployment and auto-scaling, state management etc.):
Azure App Service, Virtual Machines, Service Fabric, and Cloud Services comparison
Decision tree for Azure compute services (This one covers a big spectrum.. simple virtual machines, Batch, Functions, Containers, AKS, ServiceFabric)
Criteria for choosing an Azure Compute Service
Also know that when looking for alternatives, it's not uncommon to make use of multiple compute or other Azure service options by breaking up an older solution into parts at the time of such migration (for e.g. A serverless compute option like Azure Function + Service Fabric + something else if needed).
Generally speaking (and without knowing much about your application from your question currently), Azure App Service and Service Fabric could be considerations IMHO when migrating from an existing Cloud Service, but this is exactly where detailed requirements help you in decision making.
On a side note, here is a list of Azure Services available in CSP - Available Azure services in Azure CSP

Azure Cloud Services and Web Jobs

I have an Azure cloud service in which there are multiple background processing tasks which I would like to turn into WebJobs. I've read all I could find on the subject but it seems that WebJobs are tightly related to Web Apps and not Cloud services. I managed to create a web job in my cloud service solution and it seems it deployed correctly but I can't find a way to see it or its output on the new Azure portal (I couldn't see it in the classic management portal either)
Can one have a set of WebJobs running with a cloud service?
Web Jobs is a feature specific to Azure Web Apps. You'd need to create a Web App (in an App Service Plan) to create your Web Jobs. These are unrelated to Cloud Services (web/worker roles).

Azure vs .NET Services

I am a little confused about two new technologies receiving a lot of buzz currently;
Can somebody please explain to me what the difference (or similarities) are between Azure and .NET Services?
Are they one and the same thing?
Is Azure the Cloud OS that my .NET Services run in?
Is .NET Services a component that makes up the greater Azure vision?
Thanks
You've basically got it right that .NET Services is a component that makes up part of the Azure platform. Check out the Azure Services graphic for a visual representation of the components.
Azure is composed of the operating environment and the base services that are used to host cloud applications. It provides the base capabilities (web and worker processes) as well as the simple data storage offerings.
.NET Services are the services that many applications will use to create cloud scale applications, although originally the services were mostly geared toward enterprise development. It includes the access service and service bus.
There are also a few other services that are provided:
SQL Azure is the SQL Server for the cloud offering. It is used like a regular SQL Server instance, for the most part, but is hosted and sericed by Microsoft.
Live Services are consumer focused services that make use of many Microsoft services: Mesh, Live ID, Messenger, etc.
One thing to note is that, although these services are offered as part of the Azure platform, the .NET Services should be usable from any platform. The are REST based services that can be consumed by any application that has the ability to call REST services.
Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that drivers the Azure Platform, which is an open platform that supports/will support multiple Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and evironments. Azure Platform
.Net Services are a set of libraries that aid in working with the Azure cloud based infrastructure services available. .Net Services

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