Azure Quick Reference Cheat Sheet
Prices are approximate (2026, US East). Always verify with Azure Pricing Calculator.
Compute Decision
| Need | Choose | Why |
|---|
| Web App/API | App Service | Simple PaaS |
| Microservices | AKS | Full Kubernetes |
| Serverless Containers | Container Apps | Scale to zero |
| Event-driven | Functions | Pay-per-use |
| Legacy | VMs | Full control |
| Static + API | Static Web Apps | Built-in CI/CD |
Data Store Decision
| Data Type | Choose | Why |
|---|
| Relational | Azure SQL | ACID |
| NoSQL global | Cosmos DB | Low latency |
| Open-source | PostgreSQL | Managed |
| Cache | Redis | Fast |
| Analytics | Synapse | MPP |
| Big Data | Databricks | Spark |
| Storage | Blob / Files | Cheap, scalable |
Load Balancer Decision
| Need | Choose | Why |
|---|
| L4 | Load Balancer | High performance |
| L7 Regional | App Gateway | WAF + routing |
| Global | Front Door | Anycast |
| DNS-based | Traffic Manager | Cheap |
Pricing Snapshot
| Service | Cost |
|---|
| VM B2s | ~$30 |
| App Service B1 | ~$13 |
| App Service S1 | ~$70 |
| PostgreSQL B1ms | ~$25 |
| Cosmos DB 400 RU/s | ~$24 |
| Redis Basic | ~$16 |
| Azure Firewall | ~$500+ |
| Front Door | ~$35+ |
Key Limits
| Service | Limit |
|---|
| VMs per region | 25,000 |
| VNets | 1,000 |
| Subnets | 3,000 |
| Blob Storage | 5 PB |
| SQL DB | 4 TB (GP), 100 TB (Hyperscale) |
| Cosmos partition | 20 GB |
What's New (2024–2026)
- AKS Automatic (fully managed K8s)
- Container Apps v2
- Azure OpenAI (GPT-4o, DALL-E)
- Microsoft Fabric
- Security Copilot
- Azure Arc expansion
Azure vs AWS
| Azure | AWS |
|---|
| VMs | EC2 |
| App Service | Elastic Beanstalk |
| AKS | EKS |
| Functions | Lambda |
| Cosmos DB | DynamoDB |
| Blob Storage | S3 |
| Entra ID | IAM + Cognito |
| Front Door | CloudFront |
Interview Cheat Sheet
- Always clarify requirements first
- Always mention security + cost
- Explain WHY, not just WHAT
- Use 5-step structure:
- Compute
- Data
- Network
- Security
- Monitoring