Key Azure services for developers

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This is part two in a series of 7 articles to help developers get started with Azure.

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.

        Service Description
Azure App Service 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.
Azure Static Web Apps 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.
Azure Container Apps Azure Container Apps allows you to run containerized applications without worrying about orchestration or infrastructure via a serverless platform.
Azure Container Instances 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.
Azure Kubernetes Services 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.
Azure Virtual Machines 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.
Azure Functions 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.
Azure Spring Apps 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.

        Service Description
Azure OpenAI 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.
Azure AI Speech Transcribe audible speech into readable, searchable text or convert text to lifelike speech for more natural interfaces.
Azure AI Language Use natural language processing (NLP) to identify key phrases and conduct sentiment analysis from text.
Azure AI Translator Translate more than 100 languages and dialects.
Azure AI Vision Analyze content in images and video.
Azure AI Search Information retrieval at scale for traditional and conversational search applications, with security and options for AI enrichment and vectorization.
Azure AI Document Intelligence Document extraction service that understands your forms allowing you to quickly extract text and structure from documents.

Data

Azure boasts a wide array of relational and NoSQL storage options, including managed versions of many popular open source database products.

        Service Description
Azure SQL A family of SQL Server database engine products in the cloud.
Azure SQL Database A fully managed, cloud-based version of SQL Server.
Azure Cosmos DB A fully managed, cloud-based NoSQL database. Azure Cosmos DB features multiple APIs, including APIs compatible MongoDB, Cassandra and Gremlin.
Azure Database for PostgreSQL A fully managed, cloud-based PostgreSQL database service based on PostgreSQL Community Edition.
Azure Database for MySQL A fully managed, cloud-based MySQL database service based in the MySQL Community Edition.
Azure Database for MariaDB A fully managed, cloud-based MariaDB database service based on the MariaDB community edition.
Azure Cache for Redis 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.

        Service Description
Azure Blob Storage 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 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.

        Service Description
Azure Service Bus 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.
Azure Event Hubs Azure Event Hubs is a managed service that can ingest and process massive data streams from websites, apps, or devices.
Azure Queue Storage 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.

        Service Description
Microsoft Entra ID Manage user identities and control access to your apps, data, and resources.
Azure Key Vault 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.
App Configuration 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.

        Service Description
Azure Monitor A comprehensive monitoring solution for collecting, analyzing, and responding to monitoring data from your cloud and on-premises environments.
Application Insights 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.

Continue to part 3: Hosting applications on Azure