Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform for building, deploying and managing applications, infrastructure and data services. This A–Z glossary explains common Azure terminology in clear, practical language, from subscriptions and resource groups to virtual machines, networking, storage, identity and governance.
A
Availability Zone
A physically separate datacentre location within an Azure region, designed to improve resilience by isolating failures.
Azure App Service
A managed platform for hosting web apps, APIs and backend services without managing the underlying servers.
B
Blob Storage
Azure object storage for large amounts of unstructured data such as documents, images, backups and logs.
C
Cloud Shell
A browser-based command-line environment for managing Azure using Bash or PowerShell.
D
Defender for Cloud
A cloud security service that helps assess security posture, protect workloads and identify threats across Azure and connected environments.
E
Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft’s cloud identity and access management service, formerly called Azure Active Directory.
F
Azure Functions
A serverless compute service that runs event-driven code without requiring users to manage servers.
G
Geo-redundant Storage
A storage replication option that copies data to a secondary Azure region to improve durability and disaster recovery.
H
Hybrid Cloud
An architecture combining public cloud services such as Azure with on-premises or private infrastructure.
I
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
A cloud model where computing resources such as virtual machines, storage and networking are provided on demand.
J
JIT VM Access
Just-in-time virtual machine access reduces exposure by opening management ports only when authorised access is needed.
K
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
A managed Kubernetes service for deploying and operating containerised applications at scale.
L
Load Balancer
A networking service that distributes incoming traffic across multiple resources to improve availability and performance.
M
Azure Monitor
A monitoring platform for collecting and analysing metrics, logs and telemetry from Azure resources and applications.
N
Network Security Group (NSG)
A set of inbound and outbound security rules that controls network traffic to Azure resources.
O
Azure OpenAI Service
An Azure service providing access to supported generative AI models with Azure security, governance and enterprise integration capabilities.
P
Private Endpoint
A private IP address in a virtual network used to connect securely to supported Azure services without traversing the public internet.
Q
Queue Storage
A messaging service for storing large numbers of messages that can be processed asynchronously by application components.
R
Resource Group
A logical container used to organise and manage related Azure resources throughout their lifecycle.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Azure’s permissions model for assigning access to users, groups and identities according to defined roles and scopes.
S
Subscription
A billing and management boundary that contains Azure resources and links them to an account and access controls.
T
Tenant
A dedicated Microsoft Entra ID instance representing an organisation and its identities, applications and access policies.
U
User-Assigned Managed Identity
A reusable Azure identity created as a separate resource and assigned to one or more Azure services for secure authentication.
V
Virtual Machine (VM)
A software-based computer running in Azure that provides configurable compute, operating system and storage resources.
Virtual Network (VNet)
A logically isolated Azure network used to connect resources securely and control routing, addressing and access.
W
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
A security layer that helps protect web applications from common attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
X
X.509 Certificate
A digital certificate format commonly used in Azure for identity, encryption and secure TLS connections.
Y
YAML
A human-readable data format often used to define Azure DevOps pipelines, Kubernetes resources and infrastructure configuration.
Z
Zero Trust
A security model based on verifying explicitly, using least privilege and assuming breach rather than trusting users or devices by location alone.
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