Microsoft Azure – Benefits From Azure Dedicated Host

In recent times, there is an increasing adoption of cloud technology. As more and more companies start migrating to the cloud, it raises issues of security, isolation, and performance at the infrastructure level. As a solution, Microsoft’s Azure Cloud provides a service called “Dedicated Hosts”. Here we will be aiming to understand the fundamental concept and major benefits of using the Azure Dedicated host service. 

Let us prior discuss what is meant by a Dedicated host. The concept of a dedicated host is closely related to “Multitenancy“, so let’s understand that first. When you deploy a virtual machine in the cloud, you have control over the size of the VM, which region your VM is placed in, and so on. However, you do not have any control over which server within your specified region your VM is placed in. This is called Multitenancy, where multiple separate subscriptions share a common physical server. A good analogy is to think of yourself living with roommates, and sharing 1 house.

As opposed to this, a dedicated host is a service that provides separate physical servers to separate subscriptions. Only users from 1 subscription can place their VM within the server. Think of the same house analogy, but this time, you are the only one residing in your house. 

Multitenant Server 

Now let us do discuss working for a Dedicated host. A dedicated host is provisioned with the help of 3 resources as follows:

1. Host groups: Host groups contain a collection of dedicated host servers. Host groups can be created in a single availability zone or a region.
2. Hosts: Hosts are present within host groups. Each host maps to a separate server in the Azure data center. Hosts have associated SKUs, which determine the number and size of VMs that can be deployed within them.
3. Virtual machine: VMs are deployed and placed across hosts. One can manually configure which dedicated host each VM would reside in. 

Now we have had Benefits from Azure Dedicated Host. There are several benefits of using an Azure Dedicated host. Let us discuss some of them that are as follows:

1. Hardware isolation: Your VM will be isolated at the physical level. No other subscriptions can deploy their VMs to your reserved physical server. However, your server will share networking infrastructure with other, non-isolated servers.
2. Better security: Since your VM is isolated, there is less chance of accidental data access, as is a risk with Multitenant servers. For many organizations, security consideration is a major barrier in migrating to the cloud. Azure Dedicated host is the solution to those concerns.
3. Licensing benefits: If a user is operating on OS Windows or other proprietary licensing already purchased for the software. One can use those with Azure Dedicated hosts. This will also significantly reduce your Cloud cost. Azure has a feature called hybrid benefits.
4. Control over maintenance: With a dedicated host, you can select when, how, and how often maintenance to your physical server takes place. Maintenance is only a key consideration when your application is highly critical, and even a few seconds of downtime could affect business performance.