Understanding Core Azure Services (30-35%)

Big Data Analytics - Data Lake Analytics

Azure Data Lake Analytics is an on-demand analytics job service that simplifies big data. Instead of deploying, configuring, and tuning hardware, you write queries to transform your data and extract valuable insights. The analytics service can handle jobs of any scale instantly by setting the dial for how much power you need. You only pay for your job when it is running, making it cost-effective. Dynamic scaling Data Lake Analytics dynamically provisions resources and lets you do analytics on terabytes to petabytes of data. You pay only for the processing power used. As you increase or decrease the size of data stored or the amount of compute resources used, you don't have to rewrite code. Develop faster, debug, and optimize smarter using familiar tools Data Lake Analytics deep integrates with Visual Studio. You can use familiar tools to run, debug, and tune your code. Visualizations of your U-SQL jobs let you see how your code runs at scale, so you can easily identify performance bottlenecks and optimize costs. U-SQL: simple and familiar, powerful, and extensible Data Lake Analytics includes U-SQL, a query language that extends the familiar, simple, declarative nature of SQL with the expressive power of C#. The U-SQL language uses the same distributed runtime that powers Microsoft's internal exabyte-scale data lake. SQL and .NET developers can now process and analyze their data with the skills they already have. Integrates seamlessly with your IT investments Data Lake Analytics uses your existing IT investments for identity, management, and security. This approach simplifies data governance and makes it easy to extend your current data applications. Data Lake Analytics is integrated with Active Directory for user management and permissions and comes with built-in monitoring and auditing. Affordable and cost effective Data Lake Analytics is a cost-effective solution for running big data workloads. You pay on a per-job basis when data is processed. No hardware, licenses, or service-specific support agreements are required. The system automatically scales up or down as the job starts and completes, so you never pay for more than what you need. Learn more about controlling costs and saving money. Works with all your Azure data Data Lake Analytics works with Azure Data Lake Store for the highest performance, throughput, and parallelization and works with Azure Storage blobs, Azure SQL Database, Azure Warehouse. Words: U-SQL https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-lake-analytics/data-lake-analytics-overview https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50679909/azure-data-lake-vs-azure-hdinsight

Serverless Computing - Logic Apps

Key terms Workflow: Visualize, design, build, automate, and deploy business processes as series of steps. Managed connectors: Your logic apps need access to data, services, and systems. You can use prebuilt Microsoft-managed connectors that are designed to connect, access, and work with your data. See Connectors for Azure Logic Apps Triggers: Many Microsoft-managed connectors provide triggers that fire when events or new data meet specified conditions. For example, an event might be getting an email or detecting changes in your Azure Storage account. Each time the trigger fires, the Logic Apps engine creates a new logic app instance that runs the workflow. Actions: Actions are all the steps that happen after the trigger. Each action usually maps to an operation that's defined by a managed connector, custom API, or custom connector. Enterprise Integration Pack: For more advanced integration scenarios, Logic Apps includes capabilities from BizTalk Server. The Enterprise Integration Pack provides connectors that help logic apps easily perform validation, transformation, and more. ------------ Azure Logic Apps is a cloud service that helps you automate and orchestrate tasks, business processes, and workflows when you need to integrate apps, data, systems, and services across enterprises or organizations. Logic Apps simplifies how you design and build scalable solutions for app integration, data integration, system integration, enterprise application integration (EAI), and business-to-business (B2B) communication, whether in the cloud, on premises, or both. For example, here are just a few workloads you can automate with logic apps: Process and route orders across on-premises systems and cloud services. Send email notifications with Office 365 when events happen in various systems, apps, and services. Move uploaded files from an SFTP or FTP server to Azure Storage. Monitor tweets for a specific subject, analyze the sentiment, and create alerts or tasks for items that need review. To build enterprise integration solutions with Azure Logic Apps, you can choose from a growing gallery with 200+ connectors, which include services such as Azure Service Bus, Functions, and Storage; SQL, Office 365, Dynamics, Salesforce, BizTalk, SAP, Oracle DB, file shares, and more. Connectors provide triggers, actions, or both for creating logic apps that securely access and process data in real time. How does Logic Apps work? Every logic app workflow starts with a trigger, which fires when a specific event happens, or when new available data meets specific criteria. Many triggers include basic scheduling capabilities so that you can specify how regularly your workloads run. For more custom scheduling scenarios, start your workflows with the Schedule trigger. Learn more about how to build schedule-based workflows. Each time that the trigger fires, the Logic Apps engine creates a logic app instance that runs the actions in the workflow. These actions can also include data conversions and flow controls, such as conditional statements, switch statements, loops, and branching. For example, this logic app starts with a Dynamics 365 trigger with the built-in criteria "When a record is updated". If the trigger detects an event that matches this criteria, the trigger fires and runs the workflow's actions. Here, these actions include XML transformation, data updates, decision branching, and email notifications. Logic Apps Designer - example logic app You can build your logic apps visually with the Logic Apps Designer, which is available in the Azure portal through your browser and in Visual Studio. For more custom logic apps, you can create or edit logic app definitions in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) by working in the "code view" editor. You can also use Azure PowerShell commands and Azure Resource Manager templates for select tasks. Logic apps deploy and run in the cloud on Azure. For a more detailed introduction, watch this video: Use Azure Enterprise Integration Services to run cloud apps at scale Why use Logic Apps? With businesses moving toward digitization, logic apps help you connect legacy, modern, and cutting-edge systems more easily and quickly by providing prebuilt APIs as Microsoft-managed connectors. That way, you can focus on your apps' business logic and functionality. You don't have to worry about building, hosting, scaling, managing, maintaining, and monitoring your apps. Logic Apps handles these concerns for you. Plus, you pay only for what you use based on a consumption pricing model. In many cases, you won't have to write code. But if you must write some code, you can create code snippets with Azure Functions and run that code on-demand from logic apps. Also, if your logic apps need to interact with events from Azure services, custom apps, or other solutions, you can use Azure Event Grid with your logic apps for event monitoring, routing, and publishing. Logic Apps, Functions, and Event Grid are fully managed by Microsoft Azure, which frees you from worries about building, hosting, scaling, managing, monitoring, and maintaining your solutions. With the capability to create "serverless" apps and solutions, you can just focus on the business logic. These services automatically scale to meet your needs, make integrations faster, and help you build robust cloud apps with minimal code. Plus, you pay only for what you use, based on a consumption pricing model. To learn how companies improved their agility and increased focus on their core businesses when they combined Logic Apps with other Azure services and Microsoft products, check out these customer stories. Here are more details about the capabilities and benefits that you get with Logic Apps: Visually build workflows with easy-to-use tools Save time and simplify complex processes with visual design tools. Build logic apps from start-to-finish by using the Logic Apps Designer through your browser in the Azure portal or in Visual Studio. Start your workflow with a trigger, and add any number of actions from the connectors gallery. Get started faster with logic app templates Create commonly used solutions more quickly when you choose predefined workflows from the template gallery. Templates range from simple connectivity for software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps to advanced B2B solutions plus "just for fun" templates. Learn how to create logic apps from prebuilt templates. Connect disparate systems across different environments Some patterns and workflows are easy to describe but hard to implement in code. Logic apps help you seamlessly connect disparate systems across on-premises and cloud environments. For example, you can connect a cloud marketing solution to an on-premises billing system, or centralize messaging across APIs and systems with an Enterprise Service Bus. Logic apps provide a fast, reliable, and consistent way to deliver reusable and reconfigurable solutions for these scenarios. First-class support for enterprise integration and B2B scenarios Businesses and organizations electronically communicate with each other by using industry-standard but different message protocols and formats, such as EDIFACT, AS2, and X12. With the features in the Enterprise Integration Pack (EIP), you can build logic apps that transform message formats used by your partners into formats that your organization's systems can interpret and process. Logic Apps handles these exchanges smoothly and also securely with encryption and digital signatures. Start small with your current systems and services, and grow incrementally at your own pace. When you're ready, Logic Apps and the EIP help you implement and scale up to more mature integration scenarios by providing these capabilities and more: Build off these products and services: Microsoft BizTalk Server Azure Service Bus Azure Functions Azure API Management Process XML messages Process flat files Exchange messages with EDIFACT, AS2, and X12 protocols Store and manage these B2B artifacts and more in one place with integration accounts: Partners Agreements XML transform maps XML validation schemas For example, if you're using Microsoft BizTalk Server, logic apps can communicate with your BizTalk Server by using the BizTalk Server connector. You can then extend or perform BizTalk-like operations in your logic apps by including integration account connectors, which are available with the Enterprise Integration Pack. Going in the other direction, BizTalk Server can connect to and communicate with logic apps by using the Microsoft BizTalk Server Adapter for Logic Apps. Learn how to set up and use the BizTalk Server Adapter in your BizTalk Server. Write once, reuse often Create your logic apps as templates so that you can deploy and reconfigure your apps across multiple environments and regions. Built-in extensibility If you don't find the connector that you want or need to run custom code, you can extend logic apps by creating and calling your own code snippets on-demand through Azure Functions. Create your own APIs and custom connectors that you can call from logic apps. Pay only for what you use Logic Apps uses consumption-based pricing and metering unless you have logic apps previously created with App Service plans. Learn more about Logic Apps with these introductory videos: Integration with Logic Apps - Go from zero to hero Enterprise integration with Microsoft Azure Logic Apps Building advanced business processes with Logic Apps Key terms Workflow: Visualize, design, build, automate, and deploy business processes as series of steps. Managed connectors: Your logic apps need access to data, services, and systems. You can use prebuilt Microsoft-managed connectors that are designed to connect, access, and work with your data. See Connectors for Azure Logic Apps Triggers: Many Microsoft-managed connectors provide triggers that fire when events or new data meet specified conditions. For example, an event might be getting an email or detecting changes in your Azure Storage account. Each time the trigger fires, the Logic Apps engine creates a new logic app instance that runs the workflow. Actions: Actions are all the steps that happen after the trigger. Each action usually maps to an operation that's defined by a managed connector, custom API, or custom connector. Enterprise Integration Pack: For more advanced integration scenarios, Logic Apps includes capabilities from BizTalk Server. The Enterprise Integration Pack provides connectors that help logic apps easily perform validation, transformation, and more. How does Logic Apps differ from Functions, WebJobs, and Flow? All these services help you "glue" and connect disparate systems together. Each service has their advantages and benefits, so combining their capabilities is the best way to quickly build a scalable, full-featured integration system. For more information, see Choose between Flow, Logic Apps, Functions, and WebJobs. Get started Logic Apps is one of the many services hosted on Microsoft Azure. So before you start, you need an Azure subscription. If you don't have a subscription, sign up for a free Azure account. If you have an Azure subscription, try this quickstart to create your first logic app, which monitors new content on a website through an RSS feed and sends email when new content appears. ------- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-overview

Big Data Analytics - HDInsight

Learn how to use Azure HDInsight to analyze streaming or historical data. Tutorials and other documentation show you how to create clusters, process and analyze big data, and develop solutions using the most popular open-source frameworks, like Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache Hive, Apache LLAP, Apache Kafka, Apache Storm, and Microsoft Machine Learning Server. Azure HDInsight is a fully managed, full-spectrum, open-source analytics service for enterprises. HDInsight is a cloud service that makes it easy, fast, and cost-effective to process massive amounts of data. HDInsight also supports a broad range of scenarios, like extract, transform, and load (ETL); data warehousing; machine learning; and IoT. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/hdinsight/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUHQZ03HnTA

Artificial Intelligence - Machine Learning Studio

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio is a collaborative, drag-and-drop tool you can use to build, test, and deploy predictive analytics solutions on your data. Machine Learning Studio publishes models as web services that can easily be consumed by custom apps or BI tools such as Excel. Machine Learning Studio is where data science, predictive analytics, cloud resources, and your data meet. The Machine Learning Studio interactive workspace To develop a predictive analysis model, you typically use data from one or more sources, transform and analyze that data through various data manipulation and statistical functions, and generate a set of results. Developing a model like this is an iterative process. As you modify the various functions and their parameters, your results converge until you are satisfied that you have a trained, effective model. Azure Machine Learning Studio gives you an interactive, visual workspace to easily build, test, and iterate on a predictive analysis model. You drag-and-drop datasets and analysis modules onto an interactive canvas, connecting them together to form an experiment, which you run in Machine Learning Studio. To iterate on your model design, you edit the experiment, save a copy if desired, and run it again. When you're ready, you can convert your training experiment to a predictive experiment, and then publish it as a web service so that your model can be accessed by others. There is no programming required, just visually connecting datasets and modules to construct your predictive analysis model. Words: Datasets Modules Experiments https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/studio/what-is-ml-studio

Describe Regions

A region is a set of datacenters deployed within a latency-defined perimeter and connected through a dedicated regional low-latency network. With more global regions than any other cloud provider, Azure gives customers the flexibility to deploy applications where they need to. Azure is generally available in 42 regions around the world, with plans announced for 12 additional regions.

Serverless Computing - Azure Functions

Azure Functions is a solution for easily running small pieces of code, or "functions," in the cloud. You can write just the code you need for the problem at hand, without worrying about a whole application or the infrastructure to run it. Functions can make development even more productive, and you can use your development language of choice, such as C#, F#, Node.js, Java, or PHP. Pay only for the time your code runs and trust Azure to scale as needed. Azure Functions lets you develop serverless applications on Microsoft Azure. This topic provides a high-level overview of Azure Functions. If you want to jump right in and get started with Functions, start with Create your first Azure Function. If you are looking for more technical information about Functions, see the developer reference. Features Here are some key features of Functions: Choice of language - Write functions using your choice of C#, F#, or Javascript. See Supported languages for other options. Pay-per-use pricing model - Pay only for the time spent running your code. See the Consumption hosting plan option in the pricing section. Bring your own dependencies - Functions supports NuGet and NPM, so you can use your favorite libraries. Integrated security - Protect HTTP-triggered functions with OAuth providers such as Azure Active Directory, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft Account. Simplified integration - Easily leverage Azure services and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. See the integrations section for some examples. Flexible development - Code your functions right in the portal or set up continuous integration and deploy your code through GitHub, Azure DevOps Services, and other supported development tools. Open-source - The Functions runtime is open-source and available on GitHub. What can I do with Functions? Functions is a great solution for processing data, integrating systems, working with the internet-of-things (IoT), and building simple APIs and microservices. Consider Functions for tasks like image or order processing, file maintenance, or for any tasks that you want to run on a schedule. Functions provides templates to get you started with key scenarios, including the following: HTTPTrigger - Trigger the execution of your code by using an HTTP request. For an example, see Create your first function. TimerTrigger - Execute cleanup or other batch tasks on a predefined schedule. For an example, see Create a function triggered by a timer. CosmosDBTrigger - Process Azure Cosmos DB documents when they are added or updated in collections in a NoSQL database. For more information, see Azure Cosmos DB bindings. BlobTrigger - Process Azure Storage blobs when they are added to containers. You might use this function for image resizing. For more information, see Blob storage bindings. QueueTrigger - Respond to messages as they arrive in an Azure Storage queue. For more information, see Azure Queue storage bindings. EventGridTrigger - Respond to events delivered to a subscription in Azure Event Grid. Supports a subscription-based model for receiving events, which includes filtering. A good solution for building event-based architectures. For an example, see Automate resizing uploaded images using Event Grid. EventHubTrigger - Respond to events delivered to an Azure Event Hub. Particularly useful in application instrumentation, user experience or workflow processing, and internet-of-things (IoT) scenarios. For more information, see Event Hubs bindings. ServiceBusQueueTrigger - Connect your code to other Azure services or on-premises services by listening to message queues. For more information, see Service Bus bindings. ServiceBusTopicTrigger - Connect your code to other Azure services or on-premises services by subscribing to topics. For more information, see Service Bus bindings. Azure Functions supports triggers, which are ways to start execution of your code, and bindings, which are ways to simplify coding for input and output data. For a detailed description of the triggers and bindings that Azure Functions provides, see Azure Functions triggers and bindings developer reference. Integrations Azure Functions integrates with various Azure and 3rd-party services. These services can trigger your function and start execution, or they can serve as input and output for your code. The following service integrations are supported by Azure Functions: Azure Cosmos DB Azure Event Hubs Azure Event Grid Azure Notification Hubs Azure Service Bus (queues and topics) Azure Storage (blob, queues, and tables) On-premises (using Service Bus) Twilio (SMS messages) How much does Functions cost? Azure Functions has two kinds of pricing plans. Choose the one that best fits your needs: Consumption plan - When your function runs, Azure provides all of the necessary computational resources. You don't have to worry about resource management, and you only pay for the time that your code runs. App Service plan - Run your functions just like your web apps. When you are already using App Service for your other applications, you can run your functions on the same plan at no additional cost. For more information about hosting plans, see Azure Functions hosting plan comparison. Full pricing details are available on the Functions Pricing page. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/

Describe Artificial Intelligence (AI) and products that are available for AI such as Azure Machine Learning Service and Studio

Azure Machine Learning service is a cloud service that you use to train, deploy, automate, and manage machine learning models, all at the broad scale that the cloud provides. What is machine learning? Machine learning is a data science technique that allows computers to use existing data to forecast future behaviors, outcomes, and trends. By using machine learning, computers learn without being explicitly programmed. Forecasts or predictions from machine learning can make apps and devices smarter. For example, when you shop online, machine learning helps recommend other products you might want based on what you've bought. Or when your credit card is swiped, machine learning compares the transaction to a database of transactions and helps detect fraud. And when your robot vacuum cleaner vacuums a room, machine learning helps it decide whether the job is done. What is Azure Machine Learning service? Azure Machine Learning service provides a cloud-based environment you can use to prep data, train, test, deploy, manage, and track machine learning models. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/service/overview-what-is-azure-ml

Azure Tools - Powershell

Azure PowerShell provides a set of cmdlets that use the Azure Resource Manager model for managing your Azure resources. Azure PowerShell uses .NET Standard, making it available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Azure PowerShell is also available on Azure Cloud Shell. About the new Az module This documentation describes the new Az module for Azure PowerShell. This new module is written from the ground up in .NET Standard. Using .NET Standard allows Azure PowerShell to run under PowerShell 5.x on Windows or PowerShell 6 on any platform. The Az module is now the intended way to interact with Azure through PowerShell. AzureRM will continue to get bug fixes, but no longer receive new features. Learn the full details about the new module, including how commands have been renamed and the maintenance plans for AzureRM, in the Introducing the Azure PowerShell Az module. If you want to get started with using the new module right away, see Migrate from AzureRM to Az. The AzureRM documentation is also available. Important While the Azure documentation is being updated to reflect the new module cmdlet names, articles may still use the AzureRM commands. After installing the Az module, it's recommended that you enable the AzureRM cmdlet aliases with Enable-AzureRmAlias. See the Migrate from AzureRM to Az article for more details. Run or install You can install Azure PowerShell on any platform which supports PowerShell 5.x or PowerShell 6.x, or run in Azure Cloud Shell. To run in your browser with Azure Cloud Shell, see Quickstart for PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell. To install Azure PowerShell on your system, see Install Azure PowerShell. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/overview?view=azps-1.3.0

Resiliency

Resilience - the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Resilient computing is a form of failover that distributes redundant implementations of IT resources across physical locations. IT resources can be pre-configured so that if one becomes deficient, processing is automatically handed over to another redundant implementation. Within cloud computing, the characteristic of resiliency can refer to redundant IT resources within the same cloud (but in different physical locations) or across multiple clouds. Cloud consumers can increase both the reliability and availability of their applications by leveraging the resiliency of cloud-based IT resources (Figure 1).

Big Data Analytics - SQL Data Warehouse

SQL Data Warehouse is a cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) that leverages Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) to quickly run complex queries across petabytes of data. Use SQL Data Warehouse as a key component of a big data solution. Import big data into SQL Data Warehouse with simple PolyBase T-SQL queries, and then use the power of MPP to run high-performance analytics. As you integrate and analyze, the data warehouse will become the single version of truth your business can count on for insights. Key component of big data solution SQL Data Warehouse is a key component of an end-to-end big data solution in the Cloud. Data warehouse solution In a cloud data solution, data is ingested into big data stores from a variety of sources. Once in a big data store, Hadoop, Spark, and machine learning algorithms prepare and train the data. When the data is ready for complex analysis, SQL Data Warehouse uses PolyBase to query the big data stores. PolyBase uses standard T-SQL queries to bring the data into SQL Data Warehouse. SQL Data Warehouse stores data into relational tables with columnar storage. This format significantly reduces the data storage costs, and improves query performance. Once data is stored in SQL Data Warehouse, you can run analytics at massive scale. Compared to traditional database systems, analysis queries finish in seconds instead of minutes, or hours instead of days. The analysis results can go to worldwide reporting databases or applications. Business analysts can then gain insights to make well-informed business decisions. WORD: Polybase T-SQL MPP (Massive Parallel Processing) Hadoop Spark columnar storage 3 types of tables: Clustered Column store Heap Clustered B-Tree Index https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-overview-what-is

Describe Internet of Things (IoT) and products that are available for IoT on Azure such as IoT Fundamentals, IoT Hub and IoT Central

Sometimes called the Internet of Everything, the Internet of Things refers to a giant network of objects that connect to each other and exchange and analyze data. They can be everyday items such as cell phones, washing machines, vehicles, or wearable devices. Or, they can be components of larger machines and systems, such as airplane engines or oil rigs. More and more objects and devices are made with built-in sensors and Wi-Fi capabilities. At the same time, the internet is getting more sophisticated and technology costs are going down, making IoT more accessible than ever. Azure Functions Process events with serverless code Azure IoT Hub Connect, monitor and manage billions of IoT assets https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/about-iot-hub IoT Hub is a managed service, hosted in the cloud, that acts as a central message hub for bi-directional communication between your IoT application and the devices it manages. You can use Azure IoT Hub to build IoT solutions with reliable and secure communications between millions of IoT devices and a cloud-hosted solution backend. You can connect virtually any device to IoT Hub. IoT Hub supports communications both from the device to the cloud and from the cloud to the device. IoT Hub supports multiple messaging patterns such as device-to-cloud telemetry, file upload from devices, and request-reply methods to control your devices from the cloud. IoT Hub monitoring helps you maintain the health of your solution by tracking events such as device creation, device failures, and device connections. IoT Hub's capabilities help you build scalable, full-featured IoT solutions such as managing industrial equipment used in manufacturing, tracking valuable assets in healthcare, and monitoring office building usage. Azure IoT Edge Extend cloud intelligence and analytics to edge devices Azure IoT Central Experience the simplicity of SaaS for IoT, with no cloud expertise required https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-central/overview-iot-central Azure IoT Central is a fully managed IoT Software-as-a-Service solution that makes it easy to create products that connect the physical and digital worlds. You can bring your connected product vision to life by: Deriving new insights from connected devices to enable better products and experiences for your customers. Creating new business opportunities for your organization. Azure IoT Central, as compared to a typical IoT project, takes the hassle out of managing an IoT solution by: Reducing the management burden. Reducing operational costs and overheads. Making it easy to customize your application, while leveraging: Industry-leading technologies such as Azure IoT Hub and Azure Time Series Insights. Enterprise-grade security features such as end-to-end encryption. Azure IoT solution accelerators Create fully customizable solutions with templates for common IoT scenarios Azure Sphere Securely connect MCU-powered devices from the silicon to the cloud Azure Time Series Insights Explore and analyze time-series data from IoT devices Azure Maps Simple and secure location APIs provide geospatial context to data Event Grid Get reliable event delivery at massive scale Windows 10 IoT Core Services Long-term OS support and services to manage device updates and assess device health Azure Machine Learning service Bring AI to everyone with an end-to-end, scalable, trusted platform with experimentation and model management Machine Learning Studio Easily build, deploy, and manage predictive analytics solutions Azure Stream Analytics Real-time data stream processing from millions of IoT devices Logic Apps Automate the access and use of data across clouds without writing code Notification Hubs Send push notifications to any platform from any back end Azure Cosmos DB Globally distributed, multi-model database for any scale API Management Publish APIs to developers, partners, and employees securely and at scale Azure Digital Twins Build next-generation IoT spatial intelligence solutions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-fundamentals/iot-introduction

Describe the benefits and outcomes of using Azure solutions

Speed Agility Global presence Integrated development environment End-to-end delivery pipeline Superior disaster recovery Flexible expenditure Enterprise security Leading Compliance Azure Stack 1. Microsoft Azure is Fast Across the Board Speed is critical to businesses of all types, and is a key marker of competitive advantage. In the context of this Azure benefit, speed is prevelant across three key areas: Speed of deployment Speed of operation Speed of scalability With all three functions in place, on-premises solutions, even leading cloud providers will find it almost impossible match. 2. Increase your Business Agility with Azure Businesses using Microsoft Azure have faster development cycles that on-premises solutions. This means that when they are developing their applications they can get more responsive feedback and become more iterative. Which in-turn allows them to explore the outcomes of technologies in a manner that will suit business objectives. From a financial perspective — these product cycles allow for measured suitability without expensive outlay or setting up complex infrastructure . As you can see, business agility is more than just 'maintaining standard', it's about growing quicker and failing faster. 3. Azure can Match your Global Reach At RedPixie, we deal with clients that need to forfill their data capabilities at a global scale. Which, for those who are reliant on private data centres, have great difficulties in achieving. As such, Azure has the advantage of dynamically adapting in accordance with performance and utilisation requirements. This reduces the need for a team of architects to monitor behaviour, and enables them to focus on core objectives. Equally, from a user's perspective, they are always getting a great experience and aren't dependant on location. While some may argue that this scale can only be exploited by smaller organisations, this is not the case. Such that BP recently used this function as a driver for their migration. Want more details? Here's a map of the various Azure regions: azure cloud datacentres.png For those in the UK, you can see that Microsoft is making a substantial effort to enhance their local offering. Read about their latest announcements. 4. Azure's Integrated Development Environment In addition to the above, Azure has the benefit of having the world's leading development environment baked straight in - Visual Studio. This is a real game-changer. Whereby, the usual learning curb associated with a new platform is dramatically reduced. Which is good on two fronts: You avoid a mismatch of skills Teams can very quickly deploy and learn on the job Through this tight integration, Microsoft Azure demonstrates its willigness to adapt to the needs of developers. Who, in general terms, are the main benefiters from a daily perspective. Azure Development Examples In viewing of demonstrating the manner in which Azure can support challenging environments, we have a couple of supporting examples. Firstly, we have an Azure IoT model that brings together the latest components with regards to data science. In this cause, we have used a commercially available IoT device, and take the collected data through various different components in order to maximise the response and means of analysis. If you are interested to see this model explained in more detail, here is a step-by-step video. Secondly, we have also worked to solve a critical business process that is being pushed to its furthest point - Excel. Whereby we see many organisations that rely on this Microsoft solution for its business driven models and calculations. With the help on Azure we were able to build an engine that utilises scalability to increase capability. 5. Azure has a Fully Integrated Delivery Pipeline Having already noted the importance of development environment, the next matter is one of a entire end-to-end solution. As you may have noticed, this article is trying to show that comparing the benefits of Azure to that of AWS or Google is more than a pure storage play. It is about the entire package. So, if you were to examine this from an architectural perspective, you require a unified delivery pipeline. As for Azure's: Source control Unit testing Integration testing Delivery Go live tools In conjunction with this, some may argue that it is advantageous to use specific tools from different providers - whereby most providers great ease of use through APIs and so forth. However, for greater continuity and fear of integration issues, you are better placed when all tools are available under one umbrella. But here's the kicker: When future updates are rolled out, Azure has done so in a manner that still benefits the rest of their pipeline, thus ensuring long-term success, and cemeting the business case of a pure-play solution. 6. Disaster Recovery is Solved with Azure At RedPixie, we often work with organisations that have a global footprint, and they therefore require a solution that matches their need for a global transfer of data. In tandem with this, the CSOs equally have to maintain a stronghold so that there is a consideration for their disaster recovery capabilities. This includes subjects like fail-over locations and recovery points objectives. Fortunately, Azure covers this in spades. They have: Regional and global fail-over options Hot and cold standby models Rolling reboot capabilities All of which can work straight out of the box. Which, in short, puts them far beyond a typical on-premises option. While the topic of DR may not always be veiewed as a business critical decision, should a company be seperated from it's data for even a day, there can be enourmous legal consequences. 7. Delight your CFO with Flexible Expenditure Despite the common mis-conception, cloud computing, specifically Microsoft Azure, may not neccessarily be cheaper than a private cloud. However, this is not an issue. Whereby, one of the advantages of cloud computing is that you are able to very cost efficiently test new solutions and their impact. Once this is done, you can choose to tactically scale in areas that provide the best business outcomes. As such, your costings may increase, but the ROI is greater than ever before, whilst reducing the need to pay for inefficient resources. Equally, should you experience seasonal differences in demand, or choose to change revenue models, you need only adapt your Azure Portal. Which, in the eyes of a CFO, is essential to long-term success. 8. Become Secure with Microsoft Azure Amongst the various parts to Azure's security proposition, one of the most impactful is the facilitation of secure and seamless logon for their users. Whether that be business to business, or business to consumer. With the help of Azure Single Sign-On, users can easily access all of their relevant platforms without the requirements of remembering complex password. In doing so, you can reduce the ability of hacking into select accounts, and enable more gradular controls, such as location and device-specific. 9. Ensure Compliance with the Help of Azure In the grand scheme of things, organisations don't want to consider whether their data and solutions is meeting either industry specific, or location based policies. They want to focus on business outcomes. Microsoft's heritage has enabled them to continually provide a platforms that suites this requirement, and have dealt with all the heavy lifting. Especially in sectors like finance, which with GDPR, and policies around types of data, have built out solutions that enable great scope with maintaining soveringty. If you wish to read more on the matter: read about Microsoft's trust centre. 10. Azure can be Deployed Anywhere Lastly, while certain cloud providers, like AWS, very much push the agenda of a 'cloud-first' future, many consider a hybrid model to be more appropriate. With this in mind, Microsoft have build out an Azure Stack offering, which brings all of the benefits above to their clients, in addition to patterns and practices, while utilising a range of proven hardware providers for their on-premises requirements. Going forward, business can easily select where their data shall recide, and should they choose to press ahead with Azure's pure cloud solution, this transition can become very easy. Should you want to hear more, feel free to join our HPE Azure Stack event // arrow https://community.hpe.com/t5/Transforming-IT/10-Microsoft-Azure-Business-Benefits-in-One-Convenient-List/ba-p/7017544#.XHL3r4hKh1s

Understand Azure tools such as Azure CLI, PowerShell, and the Azure Portal - AZURE CLI

The Azure command-line interface (CLI) is Microsoft's cross-platform command-line experience for managing Azure resources. Use it in your browser with Azure Cloud Shell, or install it on macOS, Linux, or Windows and run it from the command line. The Azure CLI is easy to get started with, and best used for building automation scripts that work with the Azure Resource Manager. Using the Azure CLI, you can create VMs within Azure as easily as typing the following command: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/?view=azure-cli-latest

Describe Serverless computing and Azure products that are available for serverless computing such as Azure Functions, Logic Apps and App grid

The promise of serverless computing What if you could spend all your time building and deploying great apps, and none of your time managing servers? Serverless computing lets you do just that because the infrastructure you need to run and scale your apps is managed for you. Focus your efforts on your business. Redirect resources from infrastructure management into innovating and bringing apps to market faster. What is serverless computing? Serverless computing is the abstraction of servers, infrastructure, and operating systems. When you build serverless apps you don't need to provision and manage any servers, so you can take your mind off infrastructure concerns. Serverless computing is driven by the reaction to events and triggers happening in near-real-time—in the cloud. As a fully managed service, server management and capacity planning are invisible to the developer and billing is based just on resources consumed or the actual time your code is running. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/serverless-computing/

Understand Azure Advisor

What is Advisor? Advisor is a personalized cloud consultant that helps you follow best practices to optimize your Azure deployments. It analyzes your resource configuration and usage telemetry and then recommends solutions that can help you improve the cost effectiveness, performance, high availability, and security of your Azure resources. With Advisor, you can: Get proactive, actionable, and personalized best practices recommendations. Improve the performance, security, and high availability of your resources, as you identify opportunities to reduce your overall Azure spend. Get recommendations with proposed actions inline. You can access Advisor through the Azure portal. Sign in to the portal, locate Advisor in the navigation menu, or search for it in the All services menu. The Advisor dashboard displays personalized recommendations for all your subscriptions. You can apply filters to display recommendations for specific subscriptions and resource types. The recommendations are divided into four categories: High Availability: To ensure and improve the continuity of your business-critical applications. For more information, see Advisor High Availability recommendations. Security: To detect threats and vulnerabilities that might lead to security breaches. For more information, see Advisor Security recommendations. Performance: To improve the speed of your applications. For more information, see Advisor Performance recommendations. Cost: To optimize and reduce your overall Azure spending. For more information, see Advisor Cost recommendations. Advisor recommendation types You can click a category to display the list of recommendations within that category, and select a recommendation to learn more about it. You can also learn about actions that you can perform to take advantage of an opportunity or resolve an issue. Advisor recommendation category Select the recommended action for a recommendation to implement the recommendation. A simple interface will open that enables you to implement the recommendation or refer you to documentation that assists you with implementation. Once you implement a recommendation, it can take up to a day for Advisor to recognize that. If you do not intend to take immediate action on a recommendation, you can postpone it for a specified time period or dismiss it. If you do not want to receive recommendations for a specific subscription or resource group, you can configure Advisor to only generate recommendations for specified subscriptions and resource groups. Frequently asked questions How do I access Advisor? You can access Advisor through the Azure portal. Sign in to the portal, locate Advisor in the navigation menu, or search for it in the All services menu. You can also view Advisor recommendations through the virtual machine resource interface. Choose a virtual machine, and then scroll to Advisor recommendations in the menu. What permissions do I need to access Advisor? You can access Advisor recommendations as Owner, Contributor, or Reader of a subscription. What resources does Advisor provide recommendations for? Advisor provides recommendations for virtual machines, availability sets, application gateways, App Services, SQL servers, and Azure Cache for Redis. Can I postpone or dismiss a recommendation? To postpone or dismiss a recommendation, click the Postpone link. You can specify a postpone period or select Never to dismiss the recommendation. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/advisor/advisor-overview

Describe the Azure Marketplace and its usage scenarios

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/faq/ Azure Marketplace is an online applications and services marketplace. Customers (mostly IT pros and developers) can discover, try and buy cloud software solutions built on Azure or built for Azure. The catalog, includes over 8,000 listings, contains Azure building blocks like Virtual Machines (VMs), APIs, and Solution Templates, and SaaS Apps. For partners, Azure Marketplace is the launching point for all joint Go-To-Market activities with Microsoft to reach more customers. Using launch promotion, demand generation, and joint sales and marketing, partner marketplace listings can be the centerpiece of their cloud business engine.

Describe Big Data and Analytics and products that are available for Big Data and Analytics such as SQL Data Warehouse, HDInsight and Data Lake Analytics

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/product-categories/analytics/ Azure Databricks Fast, easy, and collaborative Apache Spark-based analytics platform Azure Stream Analytics Real-time data stream processing from millions of IoT devices SQL Data Warehouse Elastic data warehouse as a service with enterprise-class features HDInsight Provision cloud Hadoop, Spark, R Server, HBase, and Storm clusters Data Factory Hybrid data integration at enterprise scale, made easy Data Lake Analytics Distributed analytics service that makes big data easy Event Hubs Receive telemetry from millions of devices Power BI Embedded Embed fully interactive, stunning data visualizations in your applications Azure Analysis Services Enterprise-grade analytics engine as a service R Server for HDInsight Predictive analytics, machine learning, and statistical modeling for big data Data Catalog Get more value from your enterprise data assets Azure Data Lake Storage Massively scalable, secure data lake functionality built on Azure Blob Storage Azure Data Explorer Fast and highly scalable data exploration service

Describe products available for Networking such as Virtual Network, Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Application Gateway and Content Delivery Network

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/ Content Delivery Network Ensure secure, reliable content delivery with broad global reach ExpressRoute Dedicated private network fiber connections to Azure Azure DNS Host your DNS domain in Azure Virtual Network Provision private networks, optionally connect to on-premises datacenters Traffic Manager Route incoming traffic for high performance and availability Load Balancer Deliver high availability and network performance to your applications VPN Gateway Establish secure, cross-premises connectivity Application Gateway Build secure, scalable, and highly available web front ends in Azure Azure DDoS Protection Protect your applications from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks Network Watcher Network performance monitoring and diagnostics solution Azure Firewall Native firewalling capabilities with built-in high availability, unrestricted cloud scalability, and zero maintenance Virtual WAN Optimize and automate branch to branch connectivity through Azure Azure Front Door Service Scalable, security-enhanced delivery point for global, microservice-based web applications https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/networking/networking-overview Azure provides a variety of networking capabilities that can be used together or separately. Click any of the following key capabilities to learn more about them: Connectivity between Azure resources: Connect Azure resources together in a secure, private virtual network in the cloud. Internet connectivity: Communicate to and from Azure resources over the Internet. On-premises connectivity: Connect an on-premises network to Azure resources through a virtual private network (VPN) over the Internet, or through a dedicated connection to Azure. Load balancing and traffic direction: Load balance traffic to servers in the same location and direct traffic to servers in different locations. Security: Filter network traffic between network subnets or individual virtual machines (VM). Routing: Use default routing or fully control routing between your Azure and on-premises resources. Manageability: Monitor and manage your Azure networking resources. Deployment and configuration tools: Use a web-based portal or cross-platform command-line tools to deploy and configure network resources.

Describe products available for Databases such as CosmosDB, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database Migration service, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/ SQL Server on Virtual Machines Host enterprise SQL Server apps in the cloud Azure SQL Database Managed relational SQL Database as a service Azure Cosmos DB Globally distributed, multi-model database for any scale https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/introduction Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft's globally distributed, multi-model database service. With the click of a button, Cosmos DB enables you to elastically and independently scale throughput and storage across any number of Azure's geographic regions. You can elastically scale throughput and storage, and take advantage of fast, single-digit-millisecond data access using your favorite API among SQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Tables, or Gremlin. Cosmos DB provides comprehensive service level agreements (SLAs) for throughput, latency, availability, and consistency guarantees, something no other database service can offer. SQL Data Warehouse Elastic data warehouse as a service with enterprise-class features https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-overview-what-is SQL Data Warehouse is a cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) that leverages Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) to quickly run complex queries across petabytes of data. Use SQL Data Warehouse as a key component of a big data solution. Import big data into SQL Data Warehouse with simple PolyBase T-SQL queries, and then use the power of MPP to run high-performance analytics. As you integrate and analyze, the data warehouse will become the single version of truth your business can count on for insights. Data Factory Hybrid data integration at enterprise scale, made easy Azure Cache for Redis Power applications with high-throughput, low-latency data access SQL Server Stretch Database Dynamically stretch on-premises SQL Server databases to Azure Table Storage NoSQL key-value store using semi-structured datasets Azure Database for PostgreSQL Managed PostgreSQL database service for app developers Azure Database for MariaDB Managed MariaDB database service for app developers Azure Database for MySQL Managed MySQL database service for app developers Azure Database Migration Service Simplify on-premises database migration to the cloud The Azure Database Migration Service integrates some of the functionality of our existing tools and services. It provides customers with a comprehensive, highly available solution. The service uses the Data Migration Assistant to generate assessment reports that provide recommendations to guide you through the changes required prior to performing a migration. It's up to you to perform any remediation required. When you're ready to begin the migration process, the Azure Database Migration Service performs all of the required steps. You can fire and forget your migration projects with peace of mind, knowing that the process takes advantage of best practices as determined by Microsoft.

Describe products available for Compute such as Virtual Machines, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, App Service and Functions

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/technology-choices/compute-overview Virtual Machines are an IaaS service, allowing you to deploy and manage VMs inside a virtual network (VNet). App Service is a managed PaaS offering for hosting web apps, mobile app back ends, RESTful APIs, or automated business processes. Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform that can run in many environments, including Azure or on premises. Service Fabric is an orchestrator of microservices across a cluster of machines. Azure Container Service lets you create, configure, and manage a cluster of VMs that are preconfigured to run containerized applications. Azure Container Instances offer the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure, without having to provision any virtual machines and without having to adopt a higher-level service. Azure Functions is a managed FaaS service. Azure Batch is a managed service for running large-scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Cloud Services is a managed service for running cloud applications. It uses a PaaS hosting model.

Describe Azure Resource Manager

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-overview#resource-groups Azure Resource Manager is the deployment and management service for Azure. It provides a consistent management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure subscription. You can use its access control, auditing, and tagging features to secure and organize your resources after deployment. When you take actions through the portal, PowerShell, Azure CLI, REST APIs, or client SDKs, the Azure Resource Manager API handles your request. Because all requests are handled through the same API, you see consistent results and capabilities in all the different tools. All capabilities that are available in the portal are also available through PowerShell, Azure CLI, REST APIs, and client SDKs. Functionality initially released through APIs will be represented in the portal within 180 days of initial release. The following image shows how all the tools interact with the Azure Resource Manager API. The API passes requests to the Resource Manager service, which authenticates and authorizes the requests. Resource Manager then routes the requests to the appropriate service.

Describe Resource Groups

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-portal https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-overview#resource-groups A resource group is a container that holds related resources for an Azure solution. The resource group can include all the resources for the solution, or only those resources that you want to manage as a group. You decide how you want to allocate resources to resource groups based on what makes the most sense for your organization. Generally, add resources that share the same lifecycle to the same resource group so you can easily deploy, update, and delete them as a group. The resource group stores metadata about the resources. Therefore, when you specify a location for the resource group, you are specifying where that metadata is stored. For compliance reasons, you may need to ensure that your data is stored in a particular region. ------- There are some important factors to consider when defining your resource group: All the resources in your group should share the same lifecycle. You deploy, update, and delete them together. If one resource, such as a database server, needs to exist on a different deployment cycle it should be in another resource group. Each resource can only exist in one resource group. You can add or remove a resource to a resource group at any time. You can move a resource from one resource group to another group. For more information, see Move resources to new resource group or subscription. A resource group can contain resources that are located in different regions. A resource group can be used to scope access control for administrative actions. A resource can interact with resources in other resource groups. This interaction is common when the two resources are related but don't share the same lifecycle (for example, web apps connecting to a database). When creating a resource group, you need to provide a location for that resource group. You may be wondering, "Why does a resource group need a location? And, if the resources can have different locations than the resource group, why does the resource group location matter at all?" The resource group stores metadata about the resources. Therefore, when you specify a location for the resource group, you're specifying where that metadata is stored. For compliance reasons, you may need to ensure that your data is stored in a particular region

Describe products available for Storage such as Blob Storage, Disk Storage, File Storage, and Archive Storage

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-introduction Azure Storage is Microsoft's cloud storage solution for modern data storage scenarios. Azure Storage offers a massively scalable object store for data objects, a file system service for the cloud, a messaging store for reliable messaging, and a NoSQL store. Azure Storage is: Durable and highly available. Redundancy ensures that your data is safe in the event of transient hardware failures. You can also opt to replicate data across datacenters or geographical regions for additional protection from local catastrophe or natural disaster. Data replicated in this way remains highly available in the event of an unexpected outage. Secure. All data written to Azure Storage is encrypted by the service. Azure Storage provides you with fine-grained control over who has access to your data. Scalable. Azure Storage is designed to be massively scalable to meet the data storage and performance needs of today's applications. Managed. Microsoft Azure handles hardware maintenance, updates, and critical issues for you. Accessible. Data in Azure Storage is accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS. Microsoft provides SDKs for Azure Storage in a variety of languages -- .NET, Java, Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, and others -- as well as a mature REST API. Azure Storage supports scripting in Azure PowerShell or Azure CLI. And the Azure portal and Azure Storage Explorer offer easy visual solutions for working with your data. Azure Storage services Azure Storage includes these data services: Azure Blobs: A massively scalable object store for text and binary data. Azure Files: Managed file shares for cloud or on-premises deployments. Azure Queues: A messaging store for reliable messaging between application components. Azure Tables: A NoSQL store for schemaless storage of structured data. Blob storage Azure Blob storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. Blob storage is optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data. Blob storage is ideal for: Serving images or documents directly to a browser. Storing files for distributed access. Streaming video and audio. Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archiving. Storing data for analysis by an on-premises or Azure-hosted service. Objects in Blob storage can be accessed from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS. Users or client applications can access blobs via URLs, the Azure Storage REST API, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or an Azure Storage client library. The storage client libraries are available for multiple languages, including .NET, Java, Node.js, Python, PHP, and Ruby. Blob Storage Options: Premium storage (preview) provides high-performance hardware for data that is accessed frequently. Hot storage: is optimized for storing data that is accessed frequently. Cool storage is optimized for storing data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days. Archive storage is optimized for storing data that is rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days with flexible latency requirements (on the order of hours). Azure Files Azure Files enables you to set up highly available network file shares that can be accessed by using the standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. That means that multiple VMs can share the same files with both read and write access. You can also read the files using the REST interface or the storage client libraries. One thing that distinguishes Azure Files from files on a corporate file share is that you can access the files from anywhere in the world using a URL that points to the file and includes a shared access signature (SAS) token. You can generate SAS tokens; they allow specific access to a private asset for a specific amount of time. File shares can be used for many common scenarios: Many on-premises applications use file shares. This feature makes it easier to migrate those applications that share data to Azure. If you mount the file share to the same drive letter that the on-premises application uses, the part of your application that accesses the file share should work with minimal, if any, changes. Configuration files can be stored on a file share and accessed from multiple VMs. Tools and utilities used by multiple developers in a group can be stored on a file share, ensuring that everybody can find them, and that they use the same version. Diagnostic logs, metrics, and crash dumps are just three examples of data that can be written to a file share and processed or analyzed later. At this time, Active Directory-based authentication and access control lists (ACLs) are not supported, but they will be at some time in the future. The storage account credentials are used to provide authentication for access to the file share. This means anybody with the share mounted will have full read/write access to the share. Queue storage The Azure Queue service is used to store and retrieve messages. Queue messages can be up to 64 KB in size, and a queue can contain millions of messages. Queues are generally used to store lists of messages to be processed asynchronously. For example, say you want your customers to be able to upload pictures, and you want to create thumbnails for each picture. You could have your customer wait for you to create the thumbnails while uploading the pictures. An alternative would be to use a queue. When the customer finishes his upload, write a message to the queue. Then have an Azure Function retrieve the message from the queue and create the thumbnails. Each of the parts of this processing can be scaled separately, giving you more control when tuning it for your usage. Table storage Azure Table storage is now part of Azure Cosmos DB. To see Azure Table storage documentation, see the Azure Table Storage Overview. In addition to the existing Azure Table storage service, there is a new Azure Cosmos DB Table API offering that provides throughput-optimized tables, global distribution, and automatic secondary indexes. To learn more and try out the new premium experience, please check out Azure Cosmos DB Table API. For more information about Table storage, see Overview of Azure Table storage. Disk storage Azure Storage also includes managed and unmanaged disk capabilities used by virtual machines. For more information about these features, please see the Compute Service documentation.

Describe the benefits and usage of core Azure architectural components

https://intellipaat.com/blog/what-is-microsoft-azure/