Azure Arc

In this article, we’ll learn about Azure Arc, Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes, Azure Arc enabled Application services, Azure Arc enabled Data services and more. We dive into understanding about the Azure Arc and various different capabilities enabled by it along with numerous other services in Azure supported by Azure Arc to perform activities which were priorly inconceivable. Let us dive into the world of Azure Arc.

Azure Arc

Azure Arc provides a platform which makes it extremely easy to manage environments thus simplifying the process of management and governance with consistent delivery of on-premises and multicloud. We’ll have a single control plane with Azure Arc which can extend Azure management and services anywhere from management of databases, virtual machines and Kubernetes clusters. Developers and Architects can now gain the central visibility, operations, and compliance with Azure Arc. Moreover, building cloud native apps across platforms has never been this easier that can scale so easily. Furthermore, we can run Azure services anywhere with the Azure Arc.

The single control plane in Azure Arc helps connect and operate hybrid resources as native Azure resources which falls under the Azure Arc enabled infrastructure. Also, with Azure Arc enabled services, developers can now deploy and run Azure services even from the outside of Azure while still operating it from Azure. Azure Arc makes it feasible to bring Azure Services to any infrastructure. Similarly, datacenters are modernized with Azure Stack and apps can be extended to edge with Azure IoT. Multi-cloud, Datacenter and Edge are all supported and can be accessed through the use of Azure Arc.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack refers to the multitudes of portfolio of different products which expands the Azure services to various environments. It helps developers to build and deploy applications in hybrid and edge computing and supports to have then run-in different boundaries.

Azure IoT

Azure IoT is basically the group of different cloud services managed by Microsoft Azure which enables the connection, usage, monitoring and control of over billions of existing IoT devices and assets in operation currently and more to come in future.

Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes

As we discussed above, Azure Arc supports Kubernetes. With the Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes we can conveniently connect, manage, and operate Kubernetes clusters and applications. The clusters that are running in other public clouds such as AWS or GCP can be connected. Even the clusters that are running on on-premises data centers can also be connected to Azure Arc. Hence, to list the functionality offered by Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes we can list it as follows.

Connect

Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes makes it easier to support for various choices of services and resources. We can easily deploy to an existing cluster and it is also Operations Support System (OSS) ecosystem friendly.

Configure

Azure Arc makes it easier to configure the GitOps workflows. Also, it helps developers enforce desired state across clusters. Moreover, the Cluster and Namespace support is also provided.

Operate and Monitor

Azure Arc provides the Azure Monitor Integration. This helps developers maximize the performance and availability of different services and their applications. Moreover, Health status reporting is also supported along with cluster and app observability made convenient.

Govern and Secure

With Azure Arc, we can access the built-in Azure Policies. This makes it more secure and it is more enhanced with the cluster security baseline. Besides, the access control are role-based making the compliance across different environments and requirements easier to navigate and follow.

With the Azure Arc it supports any infrastructure and any Kubernetes. The different infrastructures and Kubernetes it supports are listed below.

Kubeadm
AKS
OpenShift
EKS
GKE
VMware Tanzu

Azure Arc enabled Application Services

With the Azure Application services, applications can now be run anywhere. App Service, Functions, Logic Apps, API Management and Event Grid are all supported and with the Azure Arc we can use Azure with On-premises, AWS and GCP seamlessly.

Azure Arc helps accelerate the development with various turnkey service, support the productivity of PaaS with the control of Kubernetes and then run apps using Azure Arc.

App Service

The Azure Apps Services makes it convenient to build, deploy and manage all the APIs in the environment and all the web apps quickly as possible.

Functions

Easily deployable applications can be built which are moreover event-driven with the Azure Functions.

Logic Apps

With the Azure Logic Apps, apps, data and devices can be connected seamlessly.

API Management

The APIs that are required and used can be managed across all the possible environments with the API Management Service in Azure.

Event Grid

With the Azure Event Grid, events from any source directed to any specific destination can be managed flawlessly.

Azure Arc enabled Data Services

With Azure Arc, one can now experience and use the cloud PaaS experience for the data workloads in multi-cloud, on-premises along with edge. From Azure SQL Manage Instance to Azure Database for PostgreSQL Hyperscale, the Azure Arc supports it all. Moreover, it also supports the various connection modes.

Always Current

With the automatically applied updates, users need not wait for months and even years to access the features for their data workloads which was the industry standard on the traditional on-premises solution. Azure Arc makes it easy to innovate fast while running the on-premises or multicloud environment in the cloud-based database. Basically, we can obtain the automated updates making the SQL evergreen.

As-a-Service

Azure Arc makes it easy to use the built-in HA and backup service. The automation of the services at scalable making all of this accessible as a service.

Elastic Scale

One of the benefits of cloud is scalability and Azure Arc builds on top of it. With Azure Arc, data services can now be scaled up or scale down as per the demand instantly making it elastic. Moreover, Hyperscale is also available.

Unified Management

With unified management, one can access and manage all the services as the single plane of glass along with the consistent workflows for the data services.

Azure Stack HCI

Azure provides the finest performance, security with the enabled hybrid capabilities enabled with Azure Arc through Azure Stack HCI which is basically a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) operating system that is delivered in the form of Azure Service. From secured-core server, to robust host security along with GPU enabled system for better performance in the machine learning models and even maximized performance for the virtual machines, Azure Stack HCI provides it all. Efficiency, modernized infrastructure along with the support for demanding workloads, Azure Stack HCI supports all of it.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ll learnt about Azure Arc and various other capabilities enabled by Azure Arc from Application Services, Kubernetes and Data Services. We dived into details of these services and understood the basics of numerous others like Azure Stack, Azure Stack HCI and Azure IoT too.