Textbook in PDF format Learn the essential skills and concepts for working with data in the cloud using Microsoft Azure. With this practical guide, professionals new to data management and Azure will learn how to leverage Azure services such as Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Storage, Azure SQL, and Microsoft Fabric to create, store, process, analyze, and visualize data. Author Michael John Peña, principal data and application engineer, also shows you how to apply security, monitoring, and optimization techniques to your data solutions in Azure. Ideal as a resource for the Azure Data Fundamentals certification, this book also provides knowledge you can apply in your daily work even after platforms evolve and new technologies emerge. Azure’s data platform has grown from a few services into an expansive, integrated ecosystem. That breadth creates a paradox: more capability—but also more decision friction. When do you choose a fully managed relational platform versus a distributed NoSQL option? How do workload characteristics influence architecture? How do roles collaborate across ingestion, modeling, analytics, governance, and visualization? I wrote this book to connect those dots through enduring principles rather than short-lived marketing slogans. My goals are twofold: Help you pass the DP-900 exam by truly understanding—not memorizing—the conceptual domains. Prepare you to make informed architectural and career decisions in real-world Azure environments. You'll gain insights that will help you apply the fundamentals of data operations and engineering in the Azure ecosystem. Learn core data concepts and the corresponding Microsoft Azure data services Discover how to work with relational and nonrelational data on Azure Build data analytics solutions using various Azure data services Identify and describe core data workloads and data analytics workloads on Azure Articulate how to work with data security and privacy on Azure Explain the use cases, benefits, and limitations of different Azure data services Who Should Read This Book: Whether you’re an IT professional, a data analyst, or a data scientist, I wrote this book for you. If you’re studying for the DP-900 certification exam, this could be your new best friend. And hey, even if you’re new to cloud computing and data concepts, don’t worry. We’ll start with the basics before we delve into the more complex stuff