Cloud & DevOps
Where .NET meets ops. Containers (multi-stage, distroless, chiseled, AOT-friendly), Kubernetes for .NET (probes, graceful shutdown), Aspire as the modern cloud-native dev experience, the Azure essentials (App Service, Functions, Storage, Cosmos DB, Cache for Redis, Service Bus / Event Hubs, Key Vault, App Configuration, Monitor / App Insights, APIM, Container Apps / AKS, Entra ID / RBAC), Infrastructure-as-Code (Bicep / Terraform), the Azure CLI / azd toolbelt, CI/CD, and feature flags.
Topics (canonical order)
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Multi-stage builds, distroless, chiseled Ubuntu, non-root, read-only FS, AOT-friendly Dockerfiles
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Liveness/readiness, graceful shutdown (
SIGTERMhandling), sidecars, resource limits -
App host, integrations, service discovery, dev dashboard, deploy targets
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Hosting models, Functions isolated worker, cold start, scaling
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When to choose Container Apps vs AKS vs ACI; KEDA scaling; Dapr integration
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Blob (block / append / page), Queue, Table, Files; access tiers; SAS tokens; lifecycle
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NoSQL vs Mongo / Cassandra / Gremlin; consistency levels; partition keys; RU pricing; change feed
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Tiers (Basic / Standard / Premium / Enterprise); clustering; persistence; idiomatic .NET usage
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Azure Service Bus & Event Hubs
When to use which; sessions; dead-letter; partitioning; capture
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Azure Monitor & Application Insights
Logs, metrics, distributed tracing in Azure; KQL; Live Metrics; alerting
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Azure Key Vault & Managed Identity
Workload identity, RBAC for secrets, no-secret connection strings
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Centralized config; feature flags; Key Vault integration; refresh patterns
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Identity for apps and people; managed identities; RBAC scopes; conditional access
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Tiers; policies; products; OAuth integration; named values; routing
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Bicep deep, modules, parameters; Bicep vs Terraform vs Pulumi; state management
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The operator's toolbelt;
azd up; deployment automation; service principals -
GitHub Actions for .NET, Azure DevOps pipelines, multi-stage, deployment slots
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Microsoft.FeatureManagement, Azure App Configuration, percentage rollouts, kill switches -
AzureRM vs AzAPI, remote state with locking, modules, vs Bicep trade-offs, plan/apply CI patterns
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Azure Container Registry (ACR)
Tier comparison, geo-replication, ACR Tasks, content trust, retention, AAD auth
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Global L7 + CDN + WAF; vs App Gateway; caching, custom domains, managed certificates
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:material-workflow:{ .lg .middle } Azure Logic Apps & Power Automate
Consumption vs Standard; connectors; ALM; vs Functions for connector-heavy workflows
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System events; CloudEvents v1.0; topic types; vs Service Bus / Event Hubs; MQTT mode
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VNet, NSG, ASG, Service Endpoints vs Private Endpoints, peering, hub-and-spoke, Bastion
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Azure Regions & Zone Redundancy
Paired regions, AZs, zone-redundant SKUs, geo-replication, designing for region failure
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Reservations, Savings Plans, Spot VMs, tagging, idle resources, FinOps cadence
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Blob types, access tiers, lifecycle policies, immutable WORM, SAS variants, ADLS Gen2
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API mode drift, hierarchical partition keys, change feed processor, autoscale vs serverless
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Azure Cache for Redis Tiers — Deep
Premium clustering, Enterprise modules (RediSearch/JSON/Bloom), persistence, eviction policies
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Azure Monitor & App Insights — Deep
KQL deep, sampling, Live Metrics, Profiler, Snapshot Debugger, Workbooks, cost management
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Managed backplane, units pricing, serverless mode for Functions, vs self-hosted SignalR
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Build pipeline, app/API split, framework detection, built-in auth, custom domains
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"Just run a container" service; container groups; GPU SKUs; vs Container Apps vs App Service
Why this order
Containers → K8s → Aspire moves from primitive to highest-level abstraction. Then a sweep through Azure-specific services in the order an engineer typically encounters them: hosting → containers → storage → data → cache → messaging → observability → identity → APIM → IaC → CLI. CI/CD and feature flags close as cross-cutting deployment concerns.
Cross-references
- Containers reference NativeAOT & Trimming for AOT image strategies.
- K8s probes reference Health Checks.
- Aspire references Observability (Aspire dashboard is OTel-based) and Ollama & Aspire.
- Service Bus / Event Hubs link to Brokers Comparison.
- Managed identity links to Secrets Management.
- App Insights links to OpenTelemetry: Traces, Metrics, Logs.
- Cosmos DB Specifics extends NoSQL & Event Stores.
Coverage notes
This section covers the Azure surface a senior .NET dev typically navigates end-to-end.