Microsoft Azure
VMs, Blob storage, VNets, Azure SQL, Functions, AKS, Entra ID, and Azure Monitor
Core Compute — Virtual Machines & Scale Sets
Run Windows/Linux VMs and scale them elastically with VM Scale Sets behind a load balancer.
Object Storage — Blob Storage
Store massive unstructured data in containers with hot/cool/archive tiers and fine-grained access.
Networking — Virtual Network & NSGs
Build an isolated private network with subnets and control traffic with Network Security Groups.
Managed Databases — Azure SQL & Cosmos DB
Choose managed relational (Azure SQL) or globally-distributed NoSQL (Cosmos DB).
Serverless — Azure Functions
Run event-triggered code with automatic scaling and consumption-based billing.
Containers — AKS & Container Apps
Run containers via managed Kubernetes (AKS) or serverless containers (Container Apps/ACI).
Identity & Access — Entra ID & RBAC
Authenticate identities with Entra ID and authorize actions with role-based access control.
Observability — Azure Monitor & App Insights
Unify metrics, logs, and traces and query them with KQL to monitor and debug systems.
Messaging & Events — Service Bus, Event Grid & Storage Queues
Decouple services with the right Azure messaging service, and be able to say why it is not one of the others.
API Management — Gateway, Policies & Products
Put a managed gateway in front of your APIs, with auth, throttling and transformation handled before the backend.
Content Delivery — Front Door & Azure CDN
Serve content from the edge, fail over between regions, and filter traffic before it reaches your origin.
DNS & Traffic Routing — Azure DNS & Traffic Manager
Resolve names to endpoints and steer users between regions with DNS-level routing and health checks.
Load Balancing — Application Gateway & Load Balancer
Spread traffic inside a region and know which balancer belongs at which layer.
Caching — Azure Cache for Redis
Put a managed Redis in front of a database, and handle invalidation and failure properly.
Streaming — Event Hubs & Stream Analytics
Ingest millions of events per second, let several consumers read independently, and replay when needed.
Orchestration — Durable Functions & Logic Apps
Coordinate multi-step workflows with retries and compensation, in code or in a designer.
Disk & File Storage — Managed Disks & Azure Files
Choose between block, file and object storage, and size a disk for the IOPS it actually needs.
Encryption & Secrets — Key Vault & Managed Identity
Keep credentials out of code and configuration, and let workloads authenticate with no secret at all.
Infrastructure as Code — Bicep, ARM & Terraform
Define infrastructure in version control so environments are reproducible and changes are reviewable.
CI/CD — Azure Pipelines & GitHub Actions
Build, test and release automatically, with a deployment strategy that can be rolled back.
Cosmos DB Data Modelling — Partition Keys & RU/s
Choose a partition key for the access patterns and understand request units, or the bill and the throttling will tell you.
Resilience & Disaster Recovery — Zones and Paired Regions
Design for failure against a stated RTO and RPO, and pick a DR strategy the business will actually pay for.
Cost Management & the Well-Architected Framework
Cut spend without cutting capability, and name the five pillars an architecture review scores against.
Governance & Security — Management Groups, Policy & Defender
Organise subscriptions, set guardrails nobody can escape, and detect what RBAC cannot prevent.