Understanding Azure Terminology

• Azure employs terminology to describe customer types, deployment hierarchies, data center locations, fault tolerance and scaling options, and service offerings.
• A mastery of the terminology can help organizations improve efficiency of Azure deployments and team communications.

Azure introduces many specialized terms to describe aspects such as the types of customers accommodated, the structure of deployments, the geographical layout of data centers, fault tolerance and scaling options, and service entities (such as VMs). The terminology has evolved since Azure debuted, and an understanding of the current terms can help organizations plan and communicate about Azure deployments.

Customer Types

Azure addresses multiple customer types through specific licensing, billing, deployment, and tool offerings. The customer types include the following:

Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers are large organizations that purchase Azure through an EA or similar enrollment. EA customers typically agree to an annual Azure monetary commitment, which is the minimum amount the customer will spend on Azure, whether or not its service usage consumes the amount. EA customers usually have extensive hierarchical Azure deployments that can be managed with Azure’s Web-based EA portal, which is separate from the Azure portal.