3.4.2. š” First Principle: Azure Arc
First Principle: Azure Arc extends Azure's management and governance capabilities to hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Its core purpose is to provide a single, unified control plane to manage resources consistently, no matter where they are located.
What It Is: A set of technologies that allows you to manage your on-premises servers, Kubernetes clusters, and databases as if they were running in Azure.
How It Works: By deploying an agent to your on-premises or multi-cloud resources, you can "project" them into Azure. Once they appear as Azure resources, you can manage them using familiar Azure tools.
Key Use Cases:
- Unified Governance: Apply Azure Policy and tags to your on-premises servers.
- Centralized Management: Manage servers and Kubernetes clusters from the Azure portal.
- Azure Services on-premises: Run Azure data services (like Azure SQL Managed Instance) on your own infrastructure.
Scenario: A company has a large number of servers in its own data center and also uses another cloud provider. They want to use a single set of tools and policies to manage all their servers, regardless of their physical location.
Reflection Question: How does Azure Arc help this company achieve a consistent management and governance experience across their hybrid and multi-cloud environment?
š” Tip: Think of Azure Arc as the "bridge" that brings Azure management to your non-Azure resources.