IaC Zoology

Infrastructure-as-Code has had its fair share of tech standards. Let's look at them.

• Terraform - multi-cloud, open-source Infrastructure-as-Code tool that works across AWS, Azure, GCP and more

For Microsoft landscape only, we have:

• ARM templates - Azure's native JSON-based IaC format, verbose but powerful. Many companies still have ARM templates in their arsenal, even though it's time has come
• Bicep - domain-specific language (DSL) for Azure (where said domain is IaC, or more broadly "declarative deployment of Azure resources") that simplifies ARM templates with cleaner syntax. A good one if you are not hybrid-clouding

Using Resource Manager templates to create virtual networks

Here is a good tutorial that covers a lot of infrastructure-as-code concepts in the context of creating a virtual network with two subnets using Resource manager templates (also referred to as Azure Resource Manager, or ARM, templates).

Windows 10 ARM Strategy

Microsoft is putting Windows 10 on ARM, and .NET 5 will include Windows Forms support on ARM. In short, plus points of using ARM vs Intel x86 components (microprocessors) include built-in LTE cellular connectivity, better battery life and cheaper hardware.