Azure Service Management with Python

Python has become an indispensable tool in the modern developer’s arsenal. Many of the high-traffic sites and popular desktop and networked applications use the modern, easy-to-use, cross-platform language for various purposes. Consequently, Microsoft has been relentlessly improving the capabilities in Python on Azure that had only five offerings, namely Python Client Libraries, Django & Cloud Services, Visual Studio, Integration for Python /Azure, Python on Windows, or Linux VM’s, and IPython when it was released in 2012. In this article, let us develop our understanding of Azure management with Python.

How to Use Service Management from Python?

Python can be used to programmatically perform common service management tasks in Azure. The Azure SDK for Python can make REST calls to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) to programmatically access most of the service management-related functionality that is available in the Azure portal. With its ability to create, update, and delete cloud services, deployments, data management services, and virtual machines, this functionality is particularly useful in building applications that need programmatic access to service management. Here are some of the typical Azure service management tasks that can be performed using Python.

• Creating a cloud service, deploying code to it, and deleting the deployment and hosted service.
• Creating a storage service in Azure blobs, tables, or queues, and deleting it.
• Generating a list of operating systems that are available for hosting services, adding operating system images to the repository, and deleting them.
• Creating virtual machines, capturing their images, using them to create new machines, and deleting virtual machines.

What Are the Azure Services That Support Python?

Python can be used with a wide range of Azure services for developing and deploying web apps, serverless apps, containers, and machine learning models. Here are some use cases and Azure services that support Python.

App hosting

Various app hosting options can use Python on Azure. Developers can use Azure App Service and Azure Monitor for web app hosting and monitoring. Similarly, Azure Functions, Azure CLI, and Azure Storage can be used for serverless hosting. Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure CLI can be used for container hosting, and batch jobs can be executed with Python API and Azure Batch.

Data solutions

Python can be used to connect and query data in Azure Database for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Azure SQL database, and MariaDB. Similarly, it can be used with Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Cache for Redis, and other services for building tables, blobs, files, and NoSQL. Additionally, it can be used to manage Azure Data Lake, Azure Data Bricks, Azure Event Hubs, and Azure HDInsights for big data and analytics.

Security and identity management

Azure provides identity and security options for Python apps. Developers can have users sign into their Python web apps with their Microsoft account. Similarly, the Microsoft Graph API can be used to get an access token using an application identity, instead of a user’s identity. Finally, Azure Key Vault can be used for securing certificates, keys, and other secrets.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

The Python SDK can be used to train machine learning models. Azure Machine Learning Python client library can be used to access datasets and Azure DevOps can be used to deploy pipelines for automating machine learning tasks.

Similarly, Python can be used with Azure Cognitive Services can be used for applications such as computer vision and image processing, language analysis and translation, speech, decision-making, and comprehensive search.

Messaging and Internet of Things (IoT)

Python can be used for performing a wide range of activities in the areas of messaging and IoT. Python back-end can be used to access Notification Hubs features using the Notification Hub REST interface. Similarly, Azure Service Bus and Azure Queues can be used for queueing. Additionally, Python can also be used with Azure IoT Hub, IoT Central, IoT Edge, and other managed services.

Apps4Rent Can Help with Azure Service Management

While Microsoft offers excellent documentation of all its Azure services, including Azure Python SDK, the problem for most developers is that there is so much documentation it could be hard to know where to start. As a Tier 1 Microsoft CSP with Gold competency in specializations such as Cloud Platform and Cloud Productivity, Apps4Rent provides managed Azure services to help businesses adopt Azure cloud solutions seamlessly. Contact our Microsoft certified experts, available 24/7 via phone, chat, and email for Azure services.