Microsoft Azure is an open, flexible, enterprise-grade cloud computing platform from Microsoft that was first released as Windows Azure on February 1, 2010 and then was renamed as Microsoft Azure on March 25, 2014. You can build, deploy, and manage applications and services using the Azure portal, which is globally available through the Microsoft data centers.

It basically delivers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) and supports different programming languages, tools, and frameworks that help us to build and manage applications/services.

In this chapter, we will discuss the following topics:

• Understanding cloud computing basics
• Creating your free Azure account
• Configuring Visual Studio 2019 for Azure development
• Creating an Azure website from the portal
• Managing Azure websites (web apps) from the portal
• Creating an Azure website from Visual Studio 2019
• Updating an existing Azure website from Visual Studio
• Building a mobile app
• Integrating Mobile App Service in a Windows application
• Scaling an App Service plan