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Review: Azure Knowledge Map - From Cloud Basics to Implementation and Operations
Prerequisites
Many book reviews have been published from the perspective of Azure experts, but this post approaches the subject from the viewpoint of a Web developer.
Web developers can no longer afford to be completely ignorant of Azure; it is essential to develop with cloud infrastructure constantly in mind.
How helpful is this book for acquiring Azure knowledge from a Web developer's perspective?
And, can it serve as a starting point for deciphering the incredibly dense and intimidating Microsoft Learn documentation?
I intend to explore the book with these questions in mind.
Basics of Cloud Services and Azure
Learning about Cloud Services
From a Web developer's perspective, the existence of the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) is impossible to ignore when creating a project plan during the initial phases. While this content is touched upon briefly, I felt it would have been better if it delved a bit deeper.
As for the content, it seemed to explain an overview of what is called the "motivation for cloud adoption" in CAF.
Also, it was disappointing that there was a lack of consistency in terminology, such as using both "server" (in Japanese katakana) and "server" (in English).
Learning Azure Basics
From a developer's perspective, I felt it would have been nice to have at least one specific mention of the integration features with Visual Studio.
Of course, features change over time, so it's a difficult area to cover...
Learning Azure PaaS
Building Applications on the Web
App Service is likely one of the most important resources for Web developers.
Understanding the relationship between App Service Plans and App Service is a common stumbling block, but it is explained very clearly here, so I can highly recommend it.
Also, sometimes containers are chosen with portability in mind. In such cases, it can be difficult to know how to choose between features like Azure App Service and Container Instances. I found it very helpful for developers that these areas are explained clearly as well.
Saving Data
This section covers the choice between SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance, which is often the most confusing part when building general applications.
I felt it was useful that documentation and hints regarding these choices were provided here as well.
For example, from a developer's perspective, if you need to run a database in JST (Japan Standard Time) due to migration from on-premises, you can learn that SQL Managed Instance is the choice by following the documentation.
It is also great that the book provides use cases for each storage function of storage accounts.
Analytics
I am grateful that the book demonstrates the differences in use cases for Service Bus, Event Grid, and Event Hubs.
Since these are difficult to understand even when looking at official documentation, having this summarized information is very helpful.
Building a Secure PaaS Environment
This is likely the field that developers are least familiar with.
In the on-premises era, this was often left to the infrastructure team, or keys were hardcoded, so it is good to gain a solid fundamental understanding of these considerations.
Understanding Application Development Environments
I feel that the content regarding application development environments is mostly common knowledge for developers. However, for those who are new to cloud development, while they may have concepts of version control using CVS or Subversion, they might lack understanding of CI/CD concepts. Therefore, having this covered comprehensively is helpful.
Building and Operating Systems on Azure
Strengthening Security and Governance
It has become standard practice to use managed authentication via Microsoft Entra ID rather than keys provided by individual resources when aiming to operate Azure securely.
Writing such code is likely no problem for developers, but the issue arises with "How should I configure this on the Azure side?" Since this can be somewhat confusing, I appreciate the explanations provided based on the mechanisms.
Understanding Common Architectures for Practical Azure Usage
This section covers the so-called CAF (Cloud Adoption Framework) and W-AF (Well-Architected Framework).
However, speaking as a developer—or from the position of a developer leading a project—the most important part of CAF is the adoption strategy.
Why Azure?
What is the cost-effectiveness?
Because I am in a position where I am persistently asked about project planning details, I wish there had been a bit more focus on the adoption strategy.
Needless to say, W-AF and the Architecture Center are very convenient.
By finding something close to what you are trying to do and using it as a reference, you can prevent design effort wastage and omissions in your Azure infrastructure design.
Conclusion
Overall, my impression is that the book does an excellent job of compactly summarizing the vast domain of Azure within this volume.
For example, even if you isolate just one representative service, App Service, the Japanese documentation alone spans 2,363 pages when exported as a PDF as of May 29, 2025.
I felt that this content is well-suited as an introductory book and can be highly recommended to developers as well.
To reiterate, Web developers can no longer afford to know nothing about cloud technology.
Even if the specific details are not mastered, you must be able to answer questions at a certain level: what features does each service have? What are the differences between several similar services? What is the rationale for selecting one?
Therefore, whether you are a developer or a leader about to start using Azure, as long as you are involved in the project in any capacity, I believe it is worth reading at least once.
Discussion