Top-10 Most Popular Microsoft Azure Services for Beginners Guide

Microsoft Azure Services is a complete cloud computing platform that offers a wide range of services to build, test, deploy, and manage applications. Whether you’re looking for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS), Azure is also suitable with cutting-edge AI and machine learning apps, which makes it flexible for modern cloud solutions.

1. Azure Entra ID

The Microsoft Azure Entra ID formerly known as Azure Active Directory, or Azure AD, is a cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) service. Here, organizations can manage user identities and control how users within their organizations access both internal and external resources in this regard-for example, the Microsoft 365 portal, the Azure portal, or a wide range of SaaS applications.

Key features of Microsoft Entra ID include:

• Single Sign-On (SSO): Enables users to access multiple applications with a single set of login credentials.
• Multifactor Authentication (MFA): Provides an additional layer of security by requiring further verification methods.
• Conditional Access: Implements policies to regulate access based on specific criteria, such as user location or device status.
• Identity Protection: Identifies and responds to identity-related threats.
• Privileged Identity Management (PIM): Controls, manages, and monitors access within the organization.

Entra ID is essential for establishing a zero-trust security approach, ensuring that only authenticated and authorized users can access resources. Read More

2. Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps provides a set of integrated development tools and services from Microsoft for the full SDLC, which helps teams plan, develop, test, deliver, and monitor applications more efficiently.

Key components of Azure DevOps include:

• Azure Boards: It provides a set of Agile tools so that planning and tracking work, coding defects, and issues are done in either the Kanban or Scrum methods.
• Azure Repos: Offers Git repositories or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) for source control of your code.
• Azure Pipelines: Supports continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to build, test, and deploy applications.
• Azure Test Plans: Provides tools for manual and exploratory testing, as well as continuous testing.
• Azure Artifacts: Allows teams to share packages such as Maven, npm, and NuGet from public and private sources and integrate package sharing into your pipelines.

Azure DevOps promotes the agile culture and team of processes to involve developers, project managers, and contributors in developing software more efficiently and reliably.

3. Azure Computing Services

Azure Compute service is a main component of Microsoft Azure, providing the necessary infrastructure to host and run applications. It enables users to deploy, manage, and scale applications in real time, ensuring high availability and performance. Some services include virtual machines, app services, and serverless computing. With Azure Compute, organizations can effectively handle varied computing needs and improve their application development and deployment processes.

Virtual Machine

Azure Virtual Machine is a scalable computing resource that hosts operating systems like macOS, Linux, and Windows. You can access virtual machines within seconds to deploy or develop your applications.

• Deploy Workloads of Various Types: Virtual machines can be started or stopped as needed, allowing you to save costs when they are not in use.
• Monitoring Options: Track performance metrics such as CPU utilization and network activity.
• Virtual Machine Scale Sets: Deploy a group of identical virtual machines (Windows or Linux) to provide load balancing and ensure high availability. This helps enhance application performance by handling high-traffic loads. For more details, check out our blog on Virtual Machine Scale Sets.

Azure App Service

Azure App Service is part of the Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings. It enables you to run applications on the cloud, supporting various programming languages like .NET, .NET Core, Java, Ruby, Python, and more. Features like load balancing and auto-scaling are part of App Service. In essence, an App Service plan is a collection of completely user-abstracted virtual machines operating in the background.

4. Azure Storage Solutions

Azure Blobs

Azure Blob Storage is designed to store text and binary data. Azure Blob Storage can be used with Data Lake Storage Gen2 in cases of big data analytics. Images, PDFs, and documents can be accessed with a single link on which to click to view in a browser, and Blob Storage provides support for streaming audio and video, distributed file access, and log file management.

Azure Files

Azure File Storage is designed to meet the needs of the Azure VM environment by functioning as a network share. Files stored here can be accessed by different virtual machines, similar to Amazon EFS, which is a direct competitor.

Azure Queues

Azure Queue Storage is designed to connect components of your application, enabling the creation of flexible applications with decoupled and independent components that rely on asynchronous message queuing.

• Storage and Retrieval: Used for storing and retrieving messages.
• Decoupling Components: Ideal for decoupling application components.
• Message Capacity: Each message in the queue can be up to 64KB in size.
• Scalability: You can store millions of messages in the queue.

Azure Tables

Azure Table Storage is designed for storing structured NoSQL data. It is highly scalable and offers a cost-effective solution for storing table-like data, although it can become more expensive with frequent access.

• Structured NoSQL Data: Stores structured NoSQL data.
• Key-Attribute Store: Acts as a key-attribute store.
• Cost-Effective: A budget-friendly option for storing table-like data for applications.

5. Azure Data Factory

Azure Data Factory (ADF) is a fully managed, serverless data integration service offered by Microsoft. It enables you to create data-driven workflows for orchestrating data movement and transforming data at scale.
The key features and capabilities of Azure Data Factory:

• Data Integration: ADF supports both ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) processes, allowing for the integration of data from various sources.
• Data Movement: It facilitates seamless data flow by moving data between on-premises and cloud data stores.
• Data Transformation: ADF provides a comprehensive set of data transformation activities, enabling you to clean, transform, and enrich your data before loading it into the target data store.
• Customizable Data Flows: You can design custom data flows to define complex transformation logic using a code-free interface.
• Extensive Connectivity: ADF features over 90 built-in connectors to a wide range of data sources, including databases, SaaS applications, and file systems.
• Monitoring and Management: It offers a centralized monitoring and management experience, making it easy to track and manage your data workflows.
• Security: Integrated security features, such as Microsoft Entra ID integration and role-based access control, ensure your data is protected throughout the process.

Azure Data Factory is particularly well-suited for scenarios involving large volumes of data, such as data warehousing, big data analytics, and real-time data integration.

6. Azure Networking Services

Virtual Network

Azure Virtual Network functions similarly to a local network in an on-premise infrastructure, utilizing IP addresses and subnets to identify applications. It operates based on NAT, rules, and network security, serving as a private backend network within the Azure infrastructure.

• Secure Communication: It enables secure communication between various Azure resources, such as Virtual Machines (VMs), the internet, and on-premises networks.
• Traditional Network Benefits: While it resembles a traditional network found in data centres, it also offers the added advantages of Azure’s infrastructure, including scalability, availability, and isolation.
• Key Components: Important elements of Azure Virtual Networks include Subnets, Network Security Groups, and Application Security Groups.

Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer allows you to distribute traffic across your backend virtual machines, ensuring high availability for your applications. It is a fully managed service within Azure.

• Traffic Distribution: Load balances both internal and external traffic to Azure virtual machines.
• Increased Availability: Enhances availability by distributing resources within and across zones.
• Health Monitoring: Uses health probes to monitor the status of load-balanced resources.
• Port Forwarding: Enables access to virtual machines in a virtual network via public IP address and port.

Application Gateway

Azure Application Gateway offers load balancing at the transport layer, applying routing rules for efficient traffic management.

• SSL Termination Security: Provides secure load balancing through Secure Socket Layer (SSL) termination.
• HTTP-Based Load Balancing: Supports load balancing based on HTTP and session creation using cookies.

Traffic Manager

Azure Traffic Manager is a global DNS server hosted on Azure, functioning as an external DNS solution. It goes beyond basic name and IP resolution, incorporating load balancing and advanced features such as geo-fencing, weighted, and performance-based name resolution.

• Higher Availability: Enhances application availability.
• Performance Improvement: Boosts performance in running applications.
• Maintenance Without Downtime: Allows for service maintenance without affecting uptime.
• Hybrid Application Support: Facilitates complex deployments and hybrid applications by distributing traffic efficiently.

Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Azure CDN is one of the biggest leads in any of the major Azure services, which affords prompt response times and low load time. It has a rich range of security features that allow developers to spend less time developing content rather than bringing up new security solutions for each deployment. Additionally, data is segmented into detailed customer workflows with actionable engagement insights that benefit the enterprise.

7. Azure Security Solutions

Application Security Group

An Application Security Group (ASG) allows you to group virtual machines based on the applications they are running to manage security more effectively. Once virtual machines are grouped, the ASG is added to a Network Security Group (NSG) to apply inbound and outbound rules. These groups are logically organized based on the virtual network’s IP addresses and subnet assignments.

• Fine-Grained Security: ASG provides detailed network security policies tailored to specific workloads and applications.
• Granular Traffic Control: Enables precise control over security traffic.
• Enhanced Security: ASG facilitates the definition of security parameters, assigns moniker names, and protects against potential network attacks.

Azure Firewall

Azure Firewall is a dedicated cloud-based network protection service designed to secure Azure Virtual Network resources. It is a fully stateful firewall service that offers high availability and unlimited cloud scalability. Users can create, enforce, and manage application logs within virtual networks or assigned subscriptions.

• Azure Monitoring Integration: Supports Azure Monitoring, enabling log collection, archiving in a storage account, and event hub management with high security.
• Built-In High Availability: Ensures high availability as a built-in feature.
• Scalability: Allows up to 250 public IP address assignments in a single firewall.

Security Center

The Azure Security Center is a set of tools that identifies cloud and on-premises workloads. This product makes sure that every application and service in the cloud is protected from viruses, cyberattacks, and threats. This unified infrastructure security management system incorporates hybrid cloud environments and on-premises infrastructure.
Check our blog on Azure Secure Network Connectivity for more.

8. Azure Database Platform Services

Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed database service provided by Microsoft Azure. It offers low latency and high availability, ensuring that the database remains operational at all times.

• Supports Multiple Data Models: Handles documents, key-value pairs, and various NoSQL data models.
• Fully Managed Service: Users don’t need to manage virtual machines, configure software, or handle software upgrades.
• Consistency Levels: Offers five well-defined consistency levels.
• Global Distribution: Provides turnkey global distribution capabilities.

SQL Database

Azure SQL Database enables the hosting of Microsoft SQL Server workloads on Azure’s infrastructure. It is a fully managed service, always running the latest version of the SQL Server database engine, and guarantees 99.99% availability.

• Automatic Management: Includes software upgrades, backups, error patching, and monitoring to ensure high availability.
• Key Advantages: High security, high availability, cost-effectiveness, and a fully managed platform for databases.

NoSQL Database

NoSQL is a database service designed to handle large, unstructured, or rapidly changing datasets. It supports schema-less data and allows horizontal scaling by adding new servers. NoSQL databases provide agility and flexibility, operating efficiently at any scale. Data models such as key-value, document, columnar, and graph are supported in Azure’s NoSQL database.

9. Azure AI and Machine Learning Services

Azure Synapse Analytics

Azure Synapse Analytics delivers unparalleled insights through unrestricted analytics capabilities. It supports limitless data analysis and is ideal for handling large databases. This platform integrates seamlessly with Azure Machine Learning and Power BI for advanced data insights.

Azure Synapse Analytics also enables the integration of mathematical models and statistical analysis, with support for parallel processing. Key features include:

• Integration with Apache Spark
• Connections to multiple data sources
• SQL Cluster and SQL on-demand analysis

HDInsight

HDInsight is a robust data analysis platform supporting a wide range of open-source frameworks like Hadoop, Apache Kafka, and R, making it essential for data science. It offers cost-effective, fast processing of large datasets and provides unified data monitoring across all clustering services. Its global availability, including in regions like China and Germany, makes HDInsight a valuable tool for data analysis and big data integration.

Event Hubs

Azure Event Hubs is a big data platform service capable of processing millions of events per second. It offers real-time analytics, allowing data sharing during both the processing and final result stages. Event Hubs is perfect for creating live dashboards, filtering datasets, and building analytics pipelines.

Also, check out our blog post on Azure Managed Services. Click here to read more.

10. Azure Container Services

Container services offer small containers with special services or allow a microservices architecture that results in fast deliveries and enhanced output. It supports CI/CD tools for the development of an application to lower costs and deploy services faster by eliminating unused resources.

Container Instances

They also provide container instances with the ability to run applications in containers and without a virtual machine or full OS integration. This, in turn, makes the development and real-time production of applications much easier.
Use of containers no management requires a reduction in the management of operating systems. When a container happens to fail, it becomes automatically detected, and without any unnecessary delay in processing, a similar service container is started. This uses the container instance service, creating and managing containers in Docker.

Container Registry

Azure Container Registry is a private Azure registry that houses a collection of Docker container images. It facilitates rapid global replication of images, allowing for single registry images across multiple regions. The Container Registry supports various Azure services, including Azure Active Directory authentication, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and virtual networks.

Azure Kubernetes Service

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes service where Azure oversees the master node while users manage the worker nodes. As a managed service, AKS incurs no charges for the master nodes; users only pay for the worker nodes within their clusters. You can create an AKS cluster through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or template-driven deployment options like Resource Manager templates and Terraform.

In addition to Popular Microsoft Azure Services, It offers other important serverless service like Azure Functions.

Azure Functions

Azure Functions is a serverless compute service that allows you to run event-driven code without having to explicitly provision or manage infrastructure, enabling you to focus on building and deploying applications efficiently. The service supports multiple programming languages and integrates with numerous services from Azure, which makes it easy to scale and efficient in application building.

Here are some key highlights and updates for Azure Functions:

Event Sources Integration: Azure Functions is good at integration into any Azure service and any event-based system. It now supports more event sources, including SQL Server, Kafka, the newest version of Cosmos DB, Azure Table, and so many more.

Language version support: The Azure Functions have now allowed users to access the latest language versions, as all SKUs in .NET 7, Python 3.10, Node.js 18, Java 17, and PowerShell 7.2 are now supported.

Durable Functions: This has been one of the distinguishing features of Azure Functions whereby developers can build up stateful workflows and orchestration patterns. The updates include support for Java, making it available across all Azure Functions languages, along with performance enhancements for Node.js and the introduction of identity-based connections when using Azure Storage.

Programming Model Improvements: Azure Functions is committed to providing the best overall developer experience on languages. This includes some improvements, among them a new programming model for Python that simplifies development.

These are the Microsoft Azure services with brief details, to get an in-depth overview Read from the Official Microsoft Azure Consulting services.

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