azure-architecture

# Azure Architecture Skill

This skill provides expert guidance for designing Azure solutions using Azure Architecture. Covers reference architectures, solution ideas, design patterns, technology choices, architecture styles, best practices, anti-patterns, example workloads, and migration guides. It combines local quick-reference content with remote documentation fetching capabilities.

## How to Use This Skill

> **IMPORTANT for Agent**: Use the **Category Index** below to locate relevant sections. For categories with line ranges (e.g., `L35-L120`), use `read_file` with the specified lines. For categories with file links (e.g., `[security.md](security.md)`), use `read_file` on the linked reference file

> **IMPORTANT for Agent**: If `metadata.generated_at` is more than 3 months old, suggest the user pull the latest version from the repository. If `mcp_microsoftdocs` tools are not available, suggest the user install it: [Installation Guide](https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/mcp/blob/main/README.md)

This skill requires **network access** to fetch documentation content:
- **Preferred**: Use `mcp_microsoftdocs:microsoft_docs_fetch` with query string `from=learn-agent-skill`. Returns Markdown.
- **Fallback**: Use `fetch_webpage` with query string `from=learn-agent-skill&accept=text/markdown`. Returns Markdown.

## Category Index

| Category | Lines | Description |
|----------|-------|-------------|
| Reference Architectures | L37-L87 | End-to-end Azure solution blueprints: production-ready patterns for networking, AKS, data/ML, SAP, hybrid/Arc, security, DR, and mission-critical app architectures. |
| Solution Ideas | L88-L125 | End-to-end solution patterns for AI, data, security, DevOps, and migration on Azure—covering design, integration, scaling, and automation across real-world workloads. |
| Design Patterns | L126-L175 | Patterns for resilient, scalable, event-driven cloud apps: messaging, CQRS/event sourcing, retries, rate limiting, security gateways, identity, caching, sharding, and migration strategies. |
| Technology Choices | L176-L210 | Guidance on choosing Azure/Fabric services and architectures for AI/ML, data, analytics, storage, compute, containers, networking, messaging, and hybrid connectivity workloads. |
| Architecture Styles | L211-L222 | Guidance on choosing and designing Azure app architectures (big compute, big data, event-driven, microservices, N-tier, web-queue-worker) with patterns, components, and best practices. |
| Best Practices | L223-L280 | Best-practice patterns for Azure architectures: secure APIs/RAG/ML, AKS ops, networking/DNS, DR, multitenancy, IoT scale, caching/CDN, monitoring, autoscale, and CI/CD. |
| Anti-patterns | L281-L295 | Diagnosing and fixing common Azure performance and scalability anti-patterns (busy DB/front end, chatty I/O, no caching, noisy neighbors, retry storms, sync I/O, monolithic persistence). |
| Example Workloads | L296-L389 | End-to-end Azure solution blueprints and reference architectures for real-world workloads (data, AI, AKS, networking, IoT, mainframe, SAP, security, DR, and compliance scenarios). |
| Migration Guides | L390-L419 | Guides for migrating from AWS/GCP/on-prem (Oracle, Kafka, EKS) to Azure, mapping services and concepts, comparing architectures, and securing and optimizing Azure replacements. |

### Reference Architectures
| Topic | URL |
|-------|-----|
| Automate video analysis with Azure ML and Vision | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/ai-ml/architecture/analyze-video-computer-vision-machine-learning |
| Deploy baseline enterprise chat with Microsoft Foundry | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/ai-ml/architecture/baseline-microsoft-foundry-chat |
| Implement baseline Foundry chat in an Azure landing zone | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/ai-ml/architecture/baseline-microsoft-foundry-landing-zone |
| Deploy MLOps v2 CI/CD and retraining architectures | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/ai-ml/guide/machine-learning-operations-v2 |
| Implement DR-ready Azure enterprise data platform architecture | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/data-guide/disaster-recovery/dr-for-azure-data-platform-architecture |
| Enterprise-hardened Azure Data Factory lakehouse architecture | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/databases/architecture/azure-data-factory-enterprise-hardened |
| Mission-critical Azure Data Factory analytics architecture | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/databases/architecture/azure-data-factory-mission-critical |
| Implement Azure Data Factory medallion lakehouse baseline | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/databases/architecture/azure-data-factory-on-azure-landing-zones-baseline |
| Deploy MongoDB Atlas securely on Azure | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/databases/architecture/mongodb-atlas-baseline |
| Move archive data from mainframes to Azure storage | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/mainframe/move-archive-data-mainframes |
| Deploy a hub-spoke AKS cluster with Azure Firewall | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/aks/aks-firewall |
| Architect mission-critical global content delivery on Azure | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/networking/global-web-applications/mission-critical-content-delivery |
| Implement mission-critical global HTTP ingress on Azure | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/networking/global-web-applications/mission-critical-global-http-ingress |
| Design global routing redundancy for mission-critical web apps | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/networking/global-web-applications/overview |
| Implement multiregion load balancing with Traffic Manager and Application Gateway | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/high-availability/traffic-manager-application-gateway |
|