Comprehensive Guide to Azure Compute Services and Networking Services

Introduction to Azure Cloud Services

Microsoft Azure offers a wide range of cloud services, including compute, networking, storage, and more, enabling businesses to build, deploy, and manage applications through Microsoft-managed data centers. This guide focuses on two core areas: Azure Compute Services and Azure Networking Services, providing insights into the key offerings and when to use each.

Azure Compute Services Overview

Compute Services are on-demand computing services for resources, storage, and services for different applications. Vendors like Azure and AWS provide these services to run various applications on the cloud.
Different products available are

• Virtual machines
• Virtual Machine Scale Sets
• Container Instances (ACI)
• Kubernetes Services(AKA)
• App Services
• Functions

What is Virtualization in Cloud Computing?

Virtualization enables multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on a single physical server by emulating hardware. Key features include:

• Emulation of physical machines
• Different virtual hardware configurations per machine/app
• Different operating systems per machine/app
• Total separation of environments
• File systems, 
• Services,
• Ports,
• Middleware,
• Configuration,

Top Azure Compute Services

1. Azure Virtual Machines (VMs)

Key Characteristics 

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Total control over the operating system and the software
• Supports marketplace and custom images
• Best Suited for
  • Custom software requiring system configuration
  • Lift and shift scenarios
• Can run
  • Web apps & web services,
  • Databases
  • Desktop applications,
  • Jump Boxes,
  • gateways, etc.

2. Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets

Key Characteristics 

• Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS)
• Set of Identical virtual machines
• Built-in auto scaling features
• Designed for manual and auto-scaled workloads like web services, batch processing, etc

3. Azure Container Instances (ACI)

Key Characteristics

• Use the host’s operating system
• Emulate an operating system(VMs emulate hardware)
• Lightweight(no O/S)
  • Development Effort
  • Maintenance
  • Compute & Storage requirements
• Respond quickly to demand changes
• Designed for almost any scenario

4. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Key Characteristics

• Open-source container orchestration platform
• Platform as a Service 
• Highly scalable and customizable
• Designed for high-scale container deployments(anything really)

5. Azure App Service

Key Characteristics

• Designed as an enterprise-grade web application service 
• Platform as a Service 
• Supports multiple programming languages and containers

6. Azure Functions (Function Apps)

Key Characteristics

• Platform as a Service
• Serverless 
• Two hosting/pricing models
  • Consumption-based plan
  • Dedicated plan
• Designed for micro/nano-services

Azure Compute Services Summary Table

Service	Type	Best For
Azure VMs	IaaS	Custom deployments with full control
VM Scale Sets	Scalable, managed Kubernetes deployments	Autoscaled VM workloads
Container Instances	PaaS	Lightweight, quick-start container hosting
AKS	PaaS	Scalable, managed Kubernetes deployements
App Service	PaaS	Enterprise web app hosting
Azure Functions	Serverless (PaaS)	Microservices with event-based triggers

Reference – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/technology-choices/compute-decision-tree

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