Compute

Virtual Machines

Windows or Linux virtual machines (VMs) hosted in Azure.

  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

  • Full control over the OS and environment.

  • The ability to run custom software.

  • To use custom hosting configurations.

When to use VMs

  • During development and testing.

  • When running applications in the cloud.

  • When extending your data center to the cloud.

  • During disaster recovery.

Virtual Machine Scale Sets

Scaling for Windows or Linux VMs hosted in Azure.

  • create and manage a set of identical, load-balanced VMs.

  • scaling can be done manually or it can even be automated or both

Azure Batch

Managed service for parallel and high-performance computing applications

  • enables large scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) batch jobs with the ability to scale to tens, hundreds, or thousands of VM

Azure Container Instances

Containerized apps run on Azure without provisioning servers or VMs.

  • Platform as a Service (PaaS)

  • allows you to upload and run your containers

Azure Container Instances

  • quickest and easiest way to run a container in azure

  • serverless

  • Use Cases

    • CI build agents

      • scale out to support multiple concurrent builds

    • short lived experiments

      • eg. trying database, or performing a load test

    • batch jobs

      • running for few hours overnight

    • elastic scale for kubernetes cluster

      • "virtual kubelet"

  • Features

    • Azure CLI, Powershell, C# SDK, ARM

    • public IP Address

    • domain name prefix

    • expose ports

    • Windows and Linux containers

    • restart policy

    • mount volumes for azure file share, secrets ..

    • can be specified which command to run on start

    • configure environment variables

    • access container logs

    • container groups - runs on the same server and share resources

Azure Kubernetes Service

Cluster management for VMs that run containerized services.

  • an orchestration service for containers with distributed architectures and large volumes of containers.

Azure Logic Apps

  • low-code/no-code development platform

  • Logic apps are designed in a web-based designer and can execute logic triggered by Azure services without writing any code.

  • execute logic triggered by Azure services without writing any code

  • execute workflows that are designed to automate business scenarios and are built from predefined logic blocks.

For example, let's say a ticket arrives in Zendesk. You could:

  • Detect the intent of the message with cognitive services.

  • Create an item in SharePoint to track the issue.

  • Add the customer to your Dynamics 365 CRM system if they aren't already in your database.

  • Send a follow-up email to acknowledge their request.

All of those actions could be designed in a visual designer, which makes it easy to see the logic flow.

Functions vs. Logic Apps

  • Functions and Logic Apps can both create complex orchestrations.

  • orchestration is a collection of functions or steps that are executed to accomplish a complex task.

  • You can call Azure Functions from Azure Logic Apps, and vice versa.

  • Azure Functions is a serverless compute service, and

  • Azure Logic Apps is intended to be a serverless orchestration service.

Functions

Logic Apps

With Functions, you write code to complete each step.

With Logic Apps, you use a GUI to define the actions and how they relate to one another.

State

Stateless or Stateful

Stateful

Development

Code-first(imperative)

Designer-first(declarative

Actions

Each activity is an Azure function

large collection of ready-made actions

Monitoring

Azure Application Insights

Azure Portal, Log Analytics

Management

REST API, Visual Studio

Azure Portal, REST API, Powershell, Visual Studio

Execution

Local or Cloud

Cloud only

Windows Virtual Desktop

  • Windows Virtual Desktop on Azure is a desktop and application virtualization service that runs on the cloud.

  • It enables your users to use a cloud-hosted version of Windows from any location.

Features

  • Simplified management

  • Performance management

  • Multi-session deployment

Azure Service Fabric

  • scalable and reliable microservices

  • multiple hosting models

  • monitor services health

  • powers many key Azure services eg., Cortana, Skype, Cosmos DB, ..

Why Choose?

  • microservices applications

  • windows container

  • ability to deploy outside azure

  • orchestration features

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