¶ Learning Path Navigator
- 1. Core Foundations
- 2. Compute Services
- 3. Networking Architecture
- 4. Identity & Security
- 5. Data & Storage
- 6. App Integration
- 7. Monitoring & Management
- 8. Cost & Governance
- 9. Architecture Patterns
- 10. DevOps & Automation
- 11. Data & Analytics
- 12. AI & Machine Learning
- 13. Security & Compliance
- 14. Disaster Recovery
- 15. Hybrid & Multi-Cloud
- 16. IoT & Edge Computing
- 17. Serverless Architecture
- 18. Containers & Kubernetes
- 19. Enterprise Integration
- 20. Performance Optimization
- 21. Business Continuity
- 22. Migration Strategy
- 23. Well-Architected Framework
- 24. Leadership & Communication
- 25. Architecture Excellence
- 26. Industry Expertise
- 27. Professional Development
¶ 📐 1. Core Azure Foundations
¶ 🏗️ Platform Fundamentals
- Azure Resource Manager (ARM) architecture & concepts
- Subscriptions, Resource Groups, and Resource Providers
- Azure regions, availability zones, and geography
- Azure Portal, PowerShell, CLI, and Cloud Shell mastery
- Azure Service Health and outage management
¶ 🧩 Core Services Overview
- Compute services ecosystem (VMs, VMSS, App Service, ACI)
- Storage tiers and replication options
- Networking fundamentals (VNets, Subnets, NSGs)
- Identity and access management basics
- Pricing models and cost management principles
¶ 💻 2. Compute Services Mastery
¶ 🖥️ Virtual Machines
- VM sizing, generations, and specialized workloads
- Virtual Machine, Scale Sets and autoscaling
- Azure Dedicated Hosts and isolated compute
- Ephemeral OS disks and temporary storage
- VM availability sets and fault domains
¶ 📦 Containers & Orchestration
- Azure Container Instances (ACI) patterns
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) architecture
- Service Mesh patterns with Istio/Linkerd
- Container image optimization and security
- GitOps workflows with AKS and ArgoCD
¶ ⚡ Platform Services
- App Service plans and scaling strategies
- Function Apps and serverless computing
- Logic Apps for workflow orchestration
- Azure Batch for large-scale compute
- Azure Service Fabric for microservices
¶ 🌐 3. Advanced Azure Networking
¶ 🔗 Network Architecture
- Hub-spoke topology with Virtual Network Peering
- Virtual WAN and SD-WAN integration
- Azure Firewall Premium and network security
- Network Security Groups and Application Security Groups
- Traffic routing with User Defined Routes (UDR)
¶ 🔀 Load Balancing & Traffic Management
- Azure Load Balancer (Standard vs Basic)
- Application Gateway with WAF
- Azure Front Door for global load balancing
- Traffic Manager for DNS-based routing
- Private Link and Private Endpoints
¶ 🌐 Hybrid Connectivity
- Site-to-Site VPN configurations
- Point-to-Site VPN and always-on VPN
- ExpressRoute circuit design and redundancy
- ExpressRoute Direct and premium add-ons
- Virtual Network Gateway optimization
¶ 🔐 4. Identity & Security Architecture
¶ 👤 Identity Management
- Azure Active Directory (Entra ID) architecture
- B2B and B2C identity scenarios
- Privileged Identity Management (PIM)
- Conditional Access policy design
- Identity Protection and risk policies
- Application registration and service principals
¶ 🛡️ Security Services
- Azure Security Center and Defender for Cloud
- Key Vault HSM and secrets management
- Managed Identity patterns
- Azure Sentinel SIEM architecture
- DDoS Protection Standard
- Azure Information Protection
¶ 💾 5. Data & Storage Solutions
¶ 🗄️ Storage Services
- Blob Storage tiers and lifecycle management
- Azure Files Premium and NFS 4.1 support
- Managed Disks performance tiers
- Azure NetApp Files for enterprise NAS
- Data Lake Storage Gen2 architecture
- Storage redundancy and geo-replication
¶ 🗃️ Database Services
- Azure SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance
- Cosmos DB multi-model and multi-API
- PostgreSQL/MySQL flexible servers
- Azure Cache for Redis Premium
- Azure Database Migration Service
- Database backup and restore strategies
¶ 🔄 6. Application Integration
- Azure Service Bus (queues, topics, relay)
- Event Grid for event-driven architectures
- Event Hubs for big data streaming
- API Management Premium tier
- Logic Apps enterprise integration
- Azure Data Factory for ETL/ELT
- Stream Analytics for real-time processing
¶ 📊 7. Monitoring & Observability
- Azure Monitor and Log Analytics workspace design
- Application Insights distributed tracing
- Azure Monitor Alerts and Action Groups
- Azure Dashboards and workbooks
- Network Watcher and NSG flow logs
- Azure Arc for hybrid monitoring
- Third-party integration (Datadog, Splunk)
¶ 💰 8. Cost Management & Governance
¶ 💵 Cost Optimization
- Azure Cost Management APIs and automation
- Reserved Instances optimization
- Spot VMs and Spot Node Pools
- Azure Advisor recommendations
- Tagging strategies for showback/chargeback
¶ 📋 Governance
- Azure Policy and Initiative definitions
- Blueprint inheritance and assignment
- Management Group hierarchy design
- Azure Resource Graph queries
- Azure Arc for hybrid governance
¶ 🏛️ 9. Enterprise Architecture Patterns
- Reference architectures and best practices
- Microservices on Azure with API Management
- Event-driven architecture patterns
- CQRS and Event Sourcing implementations
- Saga patterns for distributed transactions
- Circuit breaker and retry patterns
- Blue-Green and Canary deployment strategies
¶ ⚙️ 10. DevOps & Automation
¶ 🔄 CI/CD Pipelines
- Azure DevOps enterprise strategies
- GitHub Actions for Azure workflows
- Azure Container Registry and image scanning
- Helm charts and GitOps with AKS
- Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, ARM, Terraform)
- Azure Automation and runbooks
¶ 🔧 Configuration Management
- Azure Automation State Configuration
- Azure Arc-enabled servers configuration
- Azure Update Management
- PowerShell DSC at scale
- Ansible on Azure
¶ 📈 11. Data & Analytics Architecture
- Azure Synapse Analytics workspace design
- Data Lake analytics patterns
- Azure Databricks and Delta Lake
- Power BI Premium and embedded analytics
- Azure Purview data governance
- Azure Data Share cross-organization collaboration
- Real-time analytics with Azure Stream Analytics
¶ 🤖 12. AI & Machine Learning
- Azure Machine Learning workspace architecture
- MLOps pipelines and model management
- Cognitive Services API design
- Azure OpenAI Service integration
- Azure Applied AI Services
- ML compute cluster optimization
- Responsible AI and model governance
¶ 🔒 13. Advanced Security & Compliance
- Zero Trust architecture implementation
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud advanced features
- Azure Sentinel advanced hunting
- Compliance Manager automation
- Data residency and sovereignty
- Azure Confidential Computing
- Security baselines and CIS benchmarks
¶ ⛑️ 14. Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
- Azure Site Recovery architecture
- Cross-region replication strategies
- Azure Backup at scale
- RPO/RTO planning and testing
- Automated DR orchestration
- Multi-site active-active patterns
- Database failover strategies
¶ ☁️ 15. Hybrid & Multi-Cloud Strategy
- Azure Arc for hybrid infrastructure
- Azure Stack Hub and HCI deployment
- Multi-cloud networking with Azure
- Hybrid identity federation
- Cross-cloud data replication
- Azure Lighthouse partner scenarios
- VMware Solution on Azure
¶ 📡 16. IoT & Edge Computing
- Azure IoT Hub enterprise patterns
- IoT Edge module deployment
- Azure Digital Twins modeling
- IoT security and device management
- Time Series Insights analytics
- Edge AI with ONNX models
- Industrial IoT patterns
¶ λ 17. Serverless Architecture Patterns
- Azure Functions Premium plan optimization
- Durable Functions orchestration patterns
- Logic Apps enterprise integration
- Serverless API design with API Management
- Serverless security best practices
- Event-driven serverless architectures
- Static Web Apps with functions
¶ 🐳 18. Containers & Kubernetes Excellence
- AKS cluster architecture and sizing
- Azure Container Registry Premium features
- Service mesh implementations
- Multi-tenancy on AKS
- GitOps with Flux v2
- Container monitoring and security
- Windows containers on AKS
¶ 🔗 19. Enterprise Integration Patterns
- API Management enterprise patterns
- BizTalk migration to Azure Logic Apps
- Enterprise service bus patterns
- B2B integration with Azure
- EDI and AS2 message processing
- Enterprise application patterns
- Legacy system modernization
¶ ⚡ 20. Performance Architecture
- Application performance profiling
- CDN strategies with Azure Front Door
- Database performance tuning
- Network optimization techniques
- Caching architectures
- Auto-scaling optimization
- Performance testing at scale
¶ 🔄 21. Business Continuity Planning
- High availability design patterns
- Multi-datacenter architectures
- Database HA and failover
- Application resilience patterns
- Chaos engineering practices
- Business impact analysis
- DR testing and validation
¶ 🚀 22. Cloud Migration Excellence
- Azure Migrate assessment strategies
- Lift-and-shift optimization
- Database migration patterns
- Application refactoring strategies
- Network migration planning
- Change management processes
- Post-migration optimization
¶ 🏗️ 23. Azure Well-Architected Framework
- Five pillars of well-architected design
- Cost Optimization pillar mastery
- Operational Excellence practices
- Performance Efficiency principles
- Reliability design patterns
- Security baseline architecture
- Framework assessment tools
¶ 👥 24. Leadership & Communication
¶ 💬 Technical Communication
- Architecture documentation standards
- Technical decision documentation
- Stakeholder presentation skills
- Architectural Decision Records (ADRs)
- Executive communication strategies
¶ 👨💼 Team Leadership
- Technical mentoring programs
- Architecture review processes
- Team skill development planning
- Agile architecture practices
- Knowledge transfer strategies
¶ 🎯 25. Architecture Excellence
- Design pattern library development
- Reference architecture creation
- Technical debt management
- Innovation pipeline development
- Architecture governance models
- Quality attribute analysis
- Technology radar maintenance
¶ 🏭 26. Industry-Specific Patterns
- Healthcare and HIPAA compliance
- Financial services (PCI-DSS, PSD2)
- Retail and e-commerce architectures
- Manufacturing and Industry 4.0
- Public sector and government cloud
- Media and content delivery
- Gaming and real-time applications
¶ 📚 27. Continuous Professional Development
¶ 🎓 Certifications Path
- Azure Solutions Architect Expert
- Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
- Azure Security Engineer Associate
- Azure Administrator Associate
- Azure Developer Associate
- Azure Data Engineer Associate
- Azure Database Administrator Associate
- Azure Network Engineer Associate
- Azure Cybersecurity Architect Expert (when available)
¶ 📖 Continuous Learning
- Microsoft Learn path completion
- Azure Architecture Center deep dive
- Microsoft Virtual Training Days
- Azure MVP community engagement
- Speaking at conferences and meetups
- Contributing to open source projects
- Azure Beta program participation
Technical Mastery
Deep expertise across all Azure services and integration patterns
Strategic Vision
Aligning technical solutions with business objectives
Leadership Excellence
Guiding teams and influencing architectural decisions
Continuous Innovation
Staying ahead with emerging technologies and patterns
¶ Professional Certification Journey
Build credibility and validate expertise with industry-recognized certifications
¶ Fundamentals
- Azure Fundamentals
- Azure Data Fundamentals
- Azure AI Fundamentals
¶ Associate Level
- Azure Administrator
- Azure Developer
- Azure Security Engineer
- Azure Data Engineer
¶ Expert Level
- Solutions Architect Expert
- DevOps Engineer Expert
- Azure Cybersecurity Expert
¶ Specialty
- Database Administrator
- Network Engineer
- Enterprise Data Analyst
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