Top 3 Azure Services Every Cloud Engineer Should Know

As a cloud engineer, it's essential to stay updated with the latest tools and services that can help you build and manage cloud infrastructure effectively. Microsoft Azure offers a wide range of services, but some are more commonly used and valuable for cloud engineers. In this article, we'll explore the top 3 Azure services that every cloud engineer should know.

1. Azure Virtual Machines (VMs)

Azure Virtual Machines is a core service in Azure's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering. It allows you to create and manage virtual machines in the cloud, providing the flexibility to choose from a variety of operating systems, hardware configurations, and software packages. VMs are crucial for deploying applications, running development environments, and hosting databases.

Key benefits of?Azure VMs?include:

• Scalability: Easily scale your resources up or down based on your needs.
• Reliability:?Azure?provides built-in redundancies and automatic backups for VMs.
• Cost-effective: Pay only for the resources you use and take advantage of Azure's?cost management tools.

2. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Azure Kubernetes Service is a fully managed?container orchestration service?that simplifies the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications using Kubernetes. With?AKS, you can manage the underlying infrastructure, while Azure takes care of the?Kubernetes control plane.

Key benefits of AKS include:

• Simplified container management: Focus on application development and deployment without worrying about the complexities of?Kubernetes.
• Scalability: Automatically scale your containerized applications based on traffic and resource utilization.
• Integrated tooling: AKS works seamlessly with other Azure services, such as?Azure DevOps?and?Azure Monitor, to streamline the development and monitoring of your applications.

3. Azure Functions

Azure Functions is a serverless computing service that allows you to run event-driven code without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. It's ideal for building microservices,?processing data, or creating?APIs, and it supports a variety of?programming languages, including C#, JavaScript, and Python.

Key benefits of?Azure Functions?include:

• Cost-effective: Pay only for the?compute resources?consumed while your functions are running.
• Scalability: Azure Functions automatically scales based on the number of incoming events.
• Flexibility: Use a variety of triggers, such as?HTTP requests, timers, or changes in an?Azure Blob Storage, to execute your functions.

By familiarizing yourself with these essential Azure services, you'll be better equipped to design, deploy, and manage?cloud infrastructure?effectively. Stay up to date with the latest Azure offerings and continue to expand your knowledge as a cloud engineer to stay competitive in the industry.