This article introduces some of the key Azure services that are used most frequently as a developer. For a comprehensive list of all Azure services, see the Azure documentation hub page.
App hosting and compute
Whether you need to host a web app's static resources or an API, or host long running back-end processes using containers, VMs or serverless technologies, here are the Azure services that can help you architect your entire solution.
Host .NET, Java, Node.js, and Python web applications and APIs in a fully managed Azure service. You only need to deploy your code to Azure. Azure takes care of all the infrastructure management like high availability, load balancing, and autoscaling.
Host static web apps built using frameworks like Gatsby, Hugo, or VuePress, or modern web apps built using Angular, React, Svelte, or Vue. Static web apps automatically build and deploy based off of code changes and feature API integration with Azure Functions.
Run Docker containers on-demand in a managed, serverless Azure environment. Azure Container Instances is a solution for any scenario that can operate in isolated containers, without orchestration.
Quickly deploy a production ready Kubernetes cluster to the cloud and offload the operational overhead to Azure. Azure handles critical tasks, like health monitoring and maintenance. You only need to manage and maintain the agent nodes.
Host your app using virtual machines in Azure when you need more control over your computing environment. Azure VMs offer a flexible, scalable computing environment for both Linux and Windows virtual machines.
A serverless compute platform for creating small, discrete segments of code that can be triggered from a variety of different events. Common applications include building serverless APIs or orchestrating event-drive architectures.
Host Spring Boot microservice applications in Azure, no code changes required. Azure Spring Apps provides monitoring, configuration management, service discovery, CI/CD integration and more.
You may wonder "why so many different ways to host an application?" The answer is explained in the next article, Hosting applications on Azure.
Azure AI services
Azure AI services help you create AI apps with pre-built and customizable APIs and models. Example applications include natural language processing for conversations, search, monitoring, translation, speech, vision, and decision-making.
Use powerful language models including the GPT-3, Codex and Embeddings model series for content generation, summarization, semantic search, and natural language to code translation.
A secure data cache and messaging broker that provides high throughput and low-latency access to data for applications.
Storage
Azure Storage products offer secure and scalable cloud and hybrid data storage services. Offerings include services for hybrid storage solutions, and services to transfer, share, and back up data.
Azure Blob Storage allows your applications to store and retrieve files in the cloud. Azure Storage is highly scalable to store massive amounts of data and data is stored redundantly to ensure high availability.
Azure Data Lake Storage is designed to support big data analytics by providing scalable, cost-effective storage for structured, semi-structured or unstructured data.
Messaging
These are some of the most popular services that manage sending, receiving, and routing of messages from and to apps.
A fully managed enterprise message broker supporting both point to point and publish-subscribe integrations. It's ideal for building decoupled applications, queue-based load leveling, or facilitating communication between microservices.
A simple and reliable queue that can handle large workloads.
Identity and security
One of Azure's strengths lie in its secure by default security posture. This can be enhanced for application level security with the following services.
Store and access application secrets like connection strings and API keys in an encrypted vault with restricted access to make sure your secrets and your application aren't compromised.
A fast and scalable service to centrally manage application settings and feature flags.
Management
Most applications benefit from allowing DevOps, developers and admin to have deep visibility into the code running in the cloud. The following services provide insight into application performance and logging.
This feature of Azure Monitor provides Application Performance Management (APM) for enhancing the performance, reliability, and quality of your live web applications.
Now that you have an overview of the services that can be combined into a robust cloud solution, we'll take a closer look at building and hosting applications that target the cloud.
Build end-to-end solutions in Microsoft Azure to create Azure Functions, implement and manage web apps, develop solutions utilizing Azure storage, and more.