A little while ago, Stéphane Eyskens reached out to ask if I would review the latest edition of his book. I’ve known and respected Stéphane for a long time, so of course I said yes!
Full disclosure: The very nice people at Pakt sent me a copy of the book with a clear understanding that it would be an honest review.
If you’ve ever seen him speak at a conference, Stéphane’s approach in this book should come as no surprise. Walking through a series of scenarios, the book uses the map conceit to provide something that is always a challenge in the broad and fast-moving world of Azure: context. As it says right at the start, this book isn’t just for architects. Engineers and technical executives will find it helpful as it positions Azure services in the overall landscape of IT, as well as offering guidance on using those services through a series of scenarios drawn from real customer engagements.
This isn’t a small book, and it covers a lot of ground. It’s never an exhausting read, however, and is welstructured. A game of two halves, the first focuses on fundamentals such as infrastructure and application hosting options. Each area explains the different choices, accepted standard architectures, and things to consider when choosing which is right for your scenario. Related services are clearly compared to explain the factors you should consider when choosing between, for example, Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Container Apps.
The second half of the book moves onto Data, AI, and Security. These three areas build nicely upon each other, whilst still referring back to the fundamentals covered in the previous section. The Ai section in particular is clear and without hyperbole - describing the different services that sit beneath the ‘AI’ umbrella in Azure and their appropriate uses.
Throughout the journey, Stéphane presents his maps as a way of grounding everything and connecting the scenarios.
In my opinion this is a great book for a very broad range of readers: Whilst not an introductory text, it is a great way to learn about many Azure services, where they are best used, and how they fit together. It’s definitely a good reference for architects tasked with designing solutions in Azure. I’d make the same case for engineers - knowing why a service is a better fit through context is important. Finally, there is value in here for people in operations and infosec. Azure is a complex beast and Stéphane makes strides in taming it here.
You can find the book on the Packt website or in a bookshop of your choice.