So what is Microsoft Azure exactly? To understand Azure we should first have a look at how it all started.

Work started on Microsoft Azure started in 2006 as a project. Microsoft saw how Amazon and Google cloud initiatives got traction and realized it should jump on the cloud train. Amitabh Srivastava of Microsoft was head of the team that had a mission to develop a cloud solution. At that time, Microsoft was planning to offer more cloud services than "just" Hotmail.

The second member of the team was Dave Cutler. Cutler was the developer of VMS and Windows NT. One day, he and a couple of other Microsoft employees were driving in a car heading to a Hotmail datacenter. Cutler saw a really shady strip joint in San Jose called The Pink Poodle and thought that it could be a great name for the project.

The other guys in the car said no and thought of a different name. So, the project code name became Red Dog.

While this is the unofficial story, another story tells that the team developing...