Azure Internet of Things
Internet of Things (IoT) is the ability for devices to garner and then relay information for data analysis.
Azure IoT Central
Azure IoT Central is like a control center for managing all your internet-connected devices. It simplifies the process of connecting, monitoring, and managing these devices without needing to build and maintain the underlying infrastructure. Think of it as a user-friendly platform that lets you oversee and control your IoT devices from anywhere, making it easier to handle large numbers of devices efficiently and securely.
Azure IoT Hub
Azure IoT Hub is a cloud-based service that acts as a communication bridge between your IoT devices and your applications. It enables devices to send data to your applications and receive commands or updates from them. This service helps ensure reliable and secure two-way communication, allowing you to manage and interact with your devices effectively. Think of it as a message exchange center where devices and applications can talk to each other seamlessly.
Azure Sphere
Azure Sphere is a comprehensive platform designed to secure and manage internet-connected devices. It includes a secure microcontroller unit (MCU), a custom operating system, and a cloud-based security service. These components work together to provide robust security, seamless connectivity, and easy management for devices, ensuring they are protected against threats and can communicate safely over the internet. Think of it as a fortified foundation for building secure and reliable IoT devices.
Big Data and Analytics
Azure Synapse Analytics
Azure Synapse Analytics is a comprehensive analytics service that brings together big data and data warehousing. It enables you to analyze large amounts of data, run complex queries, and gain insights quickly and efficiently.
Azure HDInsight
Azure HDInsight is a cloud-based service that makes it easy to process massive amounts of data using popular open-source frameworks such as Apache Hadoop, Spark, Hive, LLAP, Kafka, Storm, and HBase.
Azure Databricks
Azure Databricks is a fast, easy, and collaborative analytics platform based on Apache Spark, designed to make big data and AI more accessible. It combines the best of Databricks and Azure to provide a unified analytics platform for data engineering, data science, and business analytics.
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Azure Machine Learning
Azure Machine Learning is a cloud-based service that provides tools and resources for building, training, deploying, and managing machine learning models.
Congnitive Services
Azure Cognitive Services is a suite of AI services and APIs designed to help developers build intelligent applications without having expertise in machine learning or AI. These services allow you to add cognitive capabilities such as vision, speech, language understanding, decision-making, and more to your applications.
Azure Bot Service
Azure Bot Service is a cloud platform for developing, deploying, and managing intelligent bots. It integrates with the Microsoft Bot Framework to provide a comprehensive environment for building conversational AI experiences.
Serverless Computing
Azure Functions
Azure Functions is a serverless computing service that lets you run small pieces of code, called functions, in the cloud without needing to manage the underlying infrastructure. You simply write the code and Azure takes care of running it when triggered by events, such as an HTTP request, a timer, or changes in a database. This allows you to build scalable and efficient applications while only paying for the compute resources you use. Think of it as a way to run your code in response to events without worrying about servers or maintenance.
Azure Logic Apps
Azure Logic Apps is a cloud service that helps you automate workflows and integrate apps, data, and services across different systems. With a visual designer, you can easily create workflows that automate business processes and connect various applications and services without writing much code. Logic Apps can be triggered by events, schedules, or conditions and can handle complex tasks like data transformation, notifications, and approvals.
DevOps and GitHub
Azure DevOps
Azure DevOps is a set of cloud services that provide tools for software development, including version control, agile planning, continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD), and collaboration. It helps development teams plan, build, test, deploy, and monitor applications, all in one place. Azure DevOps includes services such as Azure Repos (for version control), Azure Boards (for agile planning), Azure Pipelines (for CI/CD), Azure Artifacts (for package management), and Azure Test Plans (for test management). Think of Azure DevOps as a comprehensive platform that supports the entire software development lifecycle, from idea to deployment and monitoring.
GitHub
GitHub is a platform for hosting and sharing code, as well as collaborating on software development projects. It uses Git, a distributed version control system, to track changes to files and allows multiple developers to work on projects simultaneously. GitHub provides features such as issue tracking, pull requests, code review, and project management tools, making it easier for teams to collaborate and manage their software development process.
GitHub Actions for Azure
GitHub Actions for Azure is a feature that allows you to automate workflows for building, testing, and deploying applications directly from your GitHub repositories. It integrates with Azure services, enabling you to deploy applications to Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and other Azure services. With GitHub Actions for Azure, you can define workflows using YAML files in your repository, specifying the steps to build, test, and deploy your application. These workflows can be triggered automatically on events such as pushes to the repository, pull requests, or scheduled intervals.
Azure DevTest Labs
Azure DevTest Labs is a service that helps developers and testers quickly create environments in Azure while minimizing waste and controlling costs. It provides a way to set up pre-configured environments for development, testing, and training purposes, allowing users to create and manage virtual machines (VMs), containers, and other resources easily. With Azure DevTest Labs, you can define policies to control costs by setting limits on the number of VMs, specifying allowed VM sizes, and automating shutdown schedules. This helps ensure that resources are only used when needed, reducing unnecessary costs.
Management tools available in Azure
- Azure Portal (Website)
- CLI: Azure Powershell and Azure Cloud Shell
- Azure Mobile App
- Azure REST APIs
Azure Advisor
Azure Advisor is a service in Azure that analyzes your deployed Azure resources and provides recommendations to optimize your Azure deployments. It evaluates your configurations and usage telemetry data against Azure best practices and offers suggestions across various categories such as performance, security, high availability, and cost. For example, Azure Advisor might recommend resizing or shutting down underutilized virtual machines, enabling specific Azure features for improved security, or identifying opportunities to save costs by modifying resource configurations.
Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor is a comprehensive monitoring solution in Azure that helps maximize the availability and performance of applications and services. It collects and analyzes telemetry data from both cloud and on-premises environments, providing insights into the health and performance of your resources.
Application Insights
A feature of Azure Monitor that helps developers monitor the performance and usage of their applications. It provides real-time insights into application performance, user interactions, and usage patterns, helping you identify and diagnose issues quickly.
Log Analytics
A tool in Azure Monitor that collects and analyzes log and performance data from your resources. It enables you to query and visualize this data, helping you gain deep insights into the operations and performance of your applications and infrastructure.
Smart Alerts
Azure Monitor provides smart alerting capabilities that use machine learning to analyze telemetry data and provide intelligent alerts. These alerts can help you proactively identify and respond to issues before they impact your users.
Automation Actions
Azure Monitor allows you to automate responses to alerts using Azure Automation. This helps you quickly remediate issues without manual intervention, improving the overall reliability of your applications and services.
Customized Dashboards
Azure Monitor provides customizable dashboards that allow you to visualize telemetry data from your resources. You can create dashboards tailored to your specific monitoring needs, helping you monitor and manage your resources more effectively.
Azure Service Health
Azure Service Health provides a personalized view of the health of Azure services and the regions being used. It includes communication regarding outages, planned maintenance, and other health advisories that may affect your Azure resources.
Communication Regarding Outages
Azure Service Health notifies you about any outages affecting the Azure services or regions you are using.
Planned Maintenance
Azure Service Health informs you about planned maintenance events that may impact your resources. It provides advance notice of maintenance windows, allowing you to schedule any necessary downtime and minimize disruption to your services.
Other Health Advisories
In addition to outages and planned maintenance, Azure Service Health provides other health advisories that may affect your resources.
Azure Resource Manager Templates
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are JSON files used to define and deploy Azure infrastructure. They enable you to create and manage resources without writing extensive programming commands.
Declarative Syntax
ARM templates use a declarative syntax, meaning you define the desired state of your infrastructure rather than writing step-by-step commands to create it.
Repeatable Results
By using ARM templates, you can ensure that your deployments are consistent and repeatable.
Orchestration
ARM templates allow you to orchestrate the deployment of multiple resources. You can specify dependencies between resources, ensuring they are created in the correct order and configured properly.
Modular Files
ARM templates can be modular, meaning you can break them down into smaller, reusable components. This makes them easier to manage and maintain, allowing you to reuse common configurations across different deployments.
Build-in Validation
ARM templates include built-in validation to check for syntax errors and ensure that the defined resources can be created successfully.
Exportable Code
You can export ARM templates from existing Azure resources, allowing you to capture the configuration of your current infrastructure.