Azure Self-Learning: Azure overview

Azure 10 main categories:

• Compute

Service name	Service function
Azure Virtual Machines	Windows or Linux virtual machines (VMs) hosted in Azure.
Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets	Scaling for Windows or Linux VMs hosted in Azure.
Azure Kubernetes Service	Cluster management for VMs that run containerized services.
Azure Service Fabric	Distributed systems platform that runs in Azure or on-premises.
Azure Batch	Managed service for parallel and high-performance computing applications.
Azure Container Instances	Containerized apps run on Azure without provisioning servers or VMs.
Azure Functions	An event-driven, serverless compute service.

 

• Networking: Linking compute resources and providing access to applications is the key function of Azure networking

Service name	Service function
Azure Virtual Network	Connects VMs to incoming virtual private network (VPN) connections.
Azure Load Balancer	Balances inbound and outbound connections to applications or service endpoints.
Azure Application Gateway	Optimizes app server farm delivery while increasing application security.
Azure VPN Gateway	Accesses Azure Virtual Networks through high-performance VPN gateways.
Azure DNS	Provides ultra-fast DNS responses and ultra-high domain availability.
Azure Content Delivery Network	Delivers high-bandwidth content to customers globally.
Azure DDoS Protection	Protects Azure-hosted applications from distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.
Azure Traffic Manager	Distributes network traffic across Azure regions worldwide.
Azure ExpressRoute	Connects to Azure over high-bandwidth dedicated secure connections.
Azure Network Watcher	Monitors and diagnoses network issues by using scenario-based analysis.
Azure Firewall	Implements high-security, high-availability firewall with unlimited scalability.
Azure Virtual WAN	Creates a unified wide area network (WAN) that connects local and remote sites.

• Storage

Service name	Service function
Azure Blob storage	Storage service for very large objects, such as video files or bitmaps.
Azure File storage	File shares that can be accessed and managed like a file server.
Azure Queue storage	A data store for queuing and reliably delivering messages between applications.
Azure Table storage	Table storage is a service that stores non-relational structured data (also known as structured NoSQL data) in the cloud, providing a key/attribute store with a schemaless design.

• Mobile: Features that used to take time and increase project risks, such as adding corporate sign-in and then connecting to on-premises resources such as SAP, Oracle, SQL Server, and SharePoint, are now simple to include.

　　Other features of this service include:

• • Offline data synchronization
  • Connectivity to on-premises data
  • Broadcasting push notifications
  • autoscaling to match business neeeds
• Databases

Service name	Service function
Azure Cosmos DB	Globally distributed database that supports NoSQL options.
Azure SQL Database	Fully managed relational database with auto-scale, integral intelligence, and robust security.
Azure Database for MySQL	Fully managed and scalable MySQL relational database with high availability and security.
Azure Database for PostgreSQL	Fully managed and scalable PostgreSQL relational database with high availability and security.
SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines	Service that hosts enterprise SQL Server apps in the cloud
Azure Synapse Analytics	Fully managed data warehouse with integral security at every level of scale at no extra cost.
Azure Database Migration Service	Service that migrates databases to the cloud with no application code changes.
Azure Cache for Redis	Fully managed service caches frequently used and static data to reduce data and application latency.
Azure Database for MariaDB	Fully managed and scalable MariaDB relational database with high availability and security.

 

• Web

Service name	Service function
Azure App Service	Quickly create powerful cloud web-based apps.
Azure Notification Hubs	Send push notifications to any platform from any back end.
Azure API Management	Publish APIs to developers, partners, and employees securely and at scale.
Azure Cognitive Search	Deploy this fully managed search as a service.
Web Apps feature of Azure App Service	Create and deploy mission-critical web apps at scale.
Azure SignalR Service	Add real-time web functionalities easily.

 

• Internet of Things(IoT)

Service name	Description
IoT Central	Fully managed global IoT software as a service (SaaS) solution that makes it easy to connect, monitor, and manage IoT assets at scale.
Azure IoT Hub	Messaging hub that provides secure communications between and monitoring of millions of IoT devices.
IoT Edge	Fully managed service that allows data analysis models to be pushed directly onto IoT devices, which allows them to react quickly to state changes without needing to consult cloud-based AI models.

 

• Big data

Service name	Description
Azure Synapse Analytics	Run analytics at a massive scale by using a cloud-based enterprise data warehouse that takes advantage of massively parallel processing to run complex queries quickly across petabytes of data.
Azure HDInsight	Process massive amounts of data with managed clusters of Hadoop clusters in the cloud.
Azure Databricks	Integrate this collaborative Apache Spark-based analytics service with other big data services in Azure.

 

• AI

Service name	Description
Azure Machine Learning Service	Cloud-based environment you can use to develop, train, test, deploy, manage, and track machine learning models. It can auto-generate a model and auto-tune it for you. It will let you start training on your local machine, and then scale out to the cloud.
Azure ML Studio	Collaborative visual workspace where you can build, test, and deploy machine learning solutions by using prebuilt machine learning algorithms and data-handling modules.
Vision	Use image-processing algorithms to smartly identify, caption, index, and moderate your pictures and videos.
Speech	Convert spoken audio into text, use voice for verification, or add speaker recognition to your app.
Knowledge mapping	Map complex information and data to solve tasks such as intelligent recommendations and semantic search.
Bing Search	Add Bing Search APIs to your apps and harness the ability to comb billions of webpages, images, videos, and news with a single API call.
Natural Language processing	Allow your apps to process natural language with prebuilt scripts, evaluate sentiment, and learn how to recognize what users want.

 

• DevOps

Service name	Description
Azure DevOps	Use development collaboration tools such as high-performance pipelines, free private Git repositories, configurable Kanban boards, and extensive automated and cloud-based load testing. Formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services.
Azure DevTest Labs	Quickly create on-demand Windows and Linux environments to test or demo applications directly from deployment pipelines.

 

Get started with Azure acccounts

 

 

Cloud service models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Three deployment models for cloud computing:

• Public cloud: Services are offered over the public internet and available to anyone who wants to purchase them. Cloud resources, such as servers and storage, are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider, and delivered over the internet.
• Provate cloud: A private cloud consists of computing resources used exclusively by users from one business or organization. A private cloud can be physically located at your organization's on-site (on-premises) datacenter, or it can be hosted by a third-party service provider.
• Hybrid cloud: A hybrid cloud is a computing environment that combines a public cloud and a private cloud by allowing data and applications to be shared between them.

 

Capital expenses vs. operating expenses

There are two different types of expenses that you should consider:

• Capital Expenditure (CapEx) is the up-front spending of money on physical infrastructure, and then deducting that up-front expense over time. The up-front cost from CapEx has a value that reduces over time.
• Operational Expenditure (OpEx) is spending money on services or products now, and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense in the same year you spend it. There is no up-front cost, as you pay for a service or product as you use it.