Common Cloud Services

Compute services

Virtual Machines: Windows/Linux VMs with configurable CPU/RAM/disk; shared physical hosts
Container Instances: Run containers without managing servers; per-second billing
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): Managed Kubernetes with integrated CI/CD and security
Service Fabric: Distributed systems platform for reliable microservices
Functions: Event-driven serverless compute; pay only for execution time
Batch: Schedule and run large-scale parallel jobs; supports Spot VMs for cost savings

Storage services

Blob Storage: Massively scalable object storage; multiple access tiers and lifecycle management
Disk Storage: Durable block storage for VMs; SSD/HDD options; encryption at rest
File Shares: SMB/NFS file shares; lift-and-shift file servers to Azure
Queue Storage: Asynchronous messaging; up to millions of messages per queue
Table Storage: NoSQL key-value store for semi-structured data
Data Box: Rugged devices to move tens of TBs–PBs offline into/out of Azure
Archive Storage: Lowest-cost tier for long-term, rarely accessed data
Data Lake Storage: HDFS-compatible data lake for analytics workloads

Database services

Cosmos DB: Globally distributed, multi-model NoSQL with 99.999% availability options
Azure SQL Database: Managed relational database with autoscale and advanced security

Exam tips