Azure, Microsoft’s cloud service platform, offers a wide range of services designed to meet various needs for development, storage, artificial intelligence, analytics, and more.
These types of platforms, like AWS, can be a bit difficult to use at first due to their complexity and the large number of services available.
Personally, every time I log in, I forget what half of them do 😅. So, to prevent you from experiencing the same, in this article we will explore the main Azure services, their functionalities, and compare these services with their equivalents in Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Let’s look at a table with some of the most notable Azure services and their functionalities.
| Service Name | Functionalities |
|---|---|
| Azure Virtual Machines | Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), allows running virtual machines in the cloud. |
| Azure App Service | Platform as a Service (PaaS), enables creating and hosting web applications and APIs. |
| Azure Functions | Serverless computing (FaaS), allows running code on demand without managing servers. |
| Azure Storage | Cloud storage for unstructured and structured data. |
| Azure SQL Database | Managed relational database as a service (DBaaS). |
| Azure Cosmos DB | Globally distributed and scalable NoSQL database. |
| Azure Cognitive Services | Artificial intelligence services for vision, language, speech, and more. |
| Azure Synapse Analytics | Analytics for large volumes of data and data warehousing. |
| Azure Kubernetes Service | Container orchestration service to manage and deploy containerized applications. |
| Azure DevOps | A set of development tools for collaboration, continuous integration, and continuous delivery. |
Explanation of Services
Azure Virtual Machines (VMs): Allows the creation of virtual machines with Windows and Linux operating systems. VMs can be used to host applications, run tests, and execute custom workloads.
Azure App Service: A platform service that simplifies the development and deployment of web applications, RESTful APIs, and mobile apps. It offers auto-scaling and update management.
Azure Functions: A serverless computing service that allows running code snippets in response to events, such as HTTP requests, database changes, or messages from a queue. Ideal for microservices applications and scheduled tasks.
Azure Storage: Provides cloud storage for blob data, files, queues, and tables. It offers high availability and data redundancy.
Azure SQL Database: A relational database as a service that provides scalability, security, and automated management. Compatible with SQL Server and other SQL tools.
Azure Cosmos DB: A globally distributed NoSQL database that supports multiple data models, including documents, graphs, and wide columns. It offers low latency and high availability.
Azure Cognitive Services: A set of APIs that enable the integration of artificial intelligence capabilities into applications. Includes services for speech recognition, image analysis, natural language understanding, and more.
Azure Synapse Analytics: A data analytics service that combines data storage, processing large volumes of data, and real-time analytics. It allows integration with other analysis and visualization tools.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): A managed Kubernetes service that simplifies the deployment, management, and operation of containerized applications. It offers scalability and automated management.
Azure DevOps: A set of tools that facilitate team collaboration, continuous integration, and continuous delivery (CI/CD). Includes code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, project tracking boards, and more.
Comparison with AWS
Azure and AWS are two of the leading cloud service platforms, each with a wide range of similar services.
Let’s look at a comparative table of some equivalent services between Azure and AWS.
| Azure Service | Functionality | AWS Service |
|---|---|---|
| Azure Virtual Machines | Virtual machines in the cloud | Amazon EC2 |
| Azure App Service | Hosting web applications and APIs | AWS Elastic Beanstalk |
| Azure Functions | Serverless computing | AWS Lambda |
| Azure Storage | Cloud storage | Amazon S3 |
| Azure SQL Database | Managed relational database | Amazon RDS |
| Azure Cosmos DB | Globally distributed NoSQL database | Amazon DynamoDB |
| Azure Cognitive Services | Artificial intelligence services | AWS AI Services |
| Azure Synapse Analytics | Analytics for large volumes of data | Amazon Redshift |
| Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | Container orchestration | Amazon EKS |
| Azure DevOps | Development and CI/CD tools | AWS CodePipeline and AWS CodeBuild |