Understanding responsibility

Before we dive in, let's discuss how responsibilities are assigned in Azure and what it means to choose IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS solutions.  In the following figure, there is a simplified view of Microsoft's responsibilities:

Microsoft responsibilities simplified

Let's look at some pros and cons based on responsibilities.

Infrastructure as a Service

IaaS is the simplest way to move or create an environment in Azure because this provides more synergy with the on-premise model.  It can be the most costly as well for supporting resources, but the most versatile. Let's look at some pros and cons of using IaaS:

• Pros
  • More control over the environment
  • Simple migration to the cloud, better compatibility with legacy code
• Cons
  • Need to continue to patch OS
  • Need to support network configuration
  • Need more support in the environment

Platform as a Service

PaaS provides some great overall services but will limit you in language and resources used.  This provides a consumption model that help...