Technical requirements
To carry out the hands-on labs in this chapter, you will need the following:
- An Azure subscription so that you can create and delete resources in the subscription. If you do not have an Azure subscription, you can create a free Azure account from this URL: https://azure.microsoft.com/free.
- Access to an internet browser; you will be logging into the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com.
Alternatively, you can use the Azure desktop app: https://portal.azure.com/App/Download.
Azure resources
In the previous chapter, we covered resource groups and learned that they are a logical grouping of Azure resources; but what is a resource in Azure?
An Azure resource is an Azure entity that can be managed; these resources are the building block components combined to create services, and it is these services we use to provide solutions.
These services and resources can be broken down into more manageable identities and categories, almost like a service catalog of Azure services you can browse through and select to build your solution. There are approximately 200 unique services within the Azure services catalog that can be used to create solutions, which can be made up of several thousand individual resources.
To build a solution, we know we need some compute resources, networking services, storage services, data services, management services, security and identity services, and so on. You can then browse through the categories and view all the options available in each of those that meet your needs for the solution you need to build; you can then take the pre-packaged service and some individual service you need. This service catalog, which allows you to browse all these services and select one to create, is known as the Azure Marketplace; we will look at the Azure Marketplace later in this chapter in the Azure Marketplace section.
The following are the Azure resources categories that are available for building cloud solutions at the time of writing:
- AI + Machine Learning, Analytics, Blockchain
- Compute, Containers, Databases
- Developer Tools, DevOps
- Identity, Integration, Internet of Things, IT, Management Tools
- Media, Migration
As we can see, Azure provides many opportunities to create a cloud solution that can fulfill almost any need or requirement. This section introduced Azure resources in general and those specific to meet the exam’s objectives. In the next section, we will look at the Azure Marketplace and how these resources and additional resources from Microsoft and other providers can be created using the Azure Marketplace.