Describe Azure data services

  • 5 minutes

Azure Data Services

Cloud services provide a popular solution for building scalable enterprise data storage. Organizations are rapidly moving their solutions to cloud services, rather than hosting on-premises servers. Cloud solutions can be more secure and cost-effective than deploying in-house solutions that have the added overhead of hardware, backups, and other maintenance tasks.

Microsoft Azure is a powerful cloud platform that offers extensive services for storing, processing, and analyzing data:

  • Azure SQL - Azure SQL is a family of relational database services based on the Microsoft SQL Server database engine. Options include Azure SQL Database (a fully managed PaaS service), Azure SQL Managed Instance (a hosted SQL Server instance with more flexible configuration), and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (full control with maximum configurability). All options offer high scalability, excellent performance, and automated backups.

  • Azure Cosmos DB - Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed, globally distributed NoSQL database designed for high-performance applications such as mobile, gaming, and IoT. Unlike relational databases, Cosmos DB stores data in flexible, non-tabular formats such as JSON documents, key-value pairs, and graphs, making it well suited to applications that need fast reads and writes at global scale.

  • Azure Storage - Azure Storage is a general purpose data store for keeping and retrieving files in the cloud. For example, you can export files from a third-party service, upload them to the cloud, then process them into your Azure SQL database using application code. A secure and stable service, Azure Storage is also fully managed.

  • Microsoft Fabric - Microsoft Fabric is a unified, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) analytics platform that brings together data ingestion, data engineering, data warehousing, real-time analytics, and business intelligence into a single service. All data is centrally stored in Microsoft OneLake, and you can use built-in Power BI to create dashboards and reports without moving data between separate tools.

These are a handful of the cloud services that Microsoft offers. They can be combined with other services to create end-to-end cloud solutions for applications and reporting.

In this video, you'll see how the above services seamlessly combine to create an analytics solution for reporting: