Azure architecture is built upon a foundation of datacenters distributed globally, organized into regions. These regions provide a variety of services, each built for different purposes. Core architectural components include:
* **Regions:** Geographically distinct locations containing one or more datacenters. They provide fault tolerance and low latency. They are paired to provide business continuity.
* **Availability Zones:** Physically separate locations within an Azure region. Each zone has independent power, network, and cooling. They offer higher availability through redundancy.
* **Resource Groups:** Logical containers for grouping Azure resources for simplified management. They allow managing related resources as one unit.
Azure offers a broad range of services, categorized as:
* **Compute:** Services for running applications, including virtual machines (IaaS), containers (Docker, Kubernetes), and serverless functions (Azure Functions).
* **Networking:** Services for connecting and controlling access to resources, such as Virtual Network, Load Balancer, and Application Gateway.
* **Storage:** Services for storing data, including Blob Storage (unstructured data), Azure Files (file shares), and Azure SQL Database.
* **Databases:** Managed database services like Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB (NoSQL), and Azure Database for MySQL.
* **AI + Machine Learning:** Services for developing and deploying AI models like Azure Machine Learning.
* **Identity:** Services for managing identities and controlling access to resources, like Azure Active Directory.
Understanding these core components and service categories forms a fundamental basis for working with Azure.Azure architecture is built upon a foundation of datacenters distributed globally, organized into regions. These regions provide a variety of services, each built for different purposes. Core architectural components include:
* **Regions:** Geographically distinct locations containing one or mo…