What is Azure ARM (Azure Resource Manager)?
Answer
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is the deployment and management service for Azure — all Azure portal, CLI, and SDK operations go through ARM. It provides a consistent management layer: Declarative templates (ARM templates): JSON files that describe the desired Azure infrastructure. Deploy with az deployment group create. ARM ensures idempotent deployments — re-running the same template produces the same result. Resource groups: ARM manages resources as groups with shared lifecycle and policies. RBAC: access control is enforced by ARM for all resource operations. Tags: key-value metadata on resources for cost allocation and organization. Locks: prevent accidental deletion or modification. ARM templates are now being supplemented by Bicep — a domain-specific language (DSL) that compiles to ARM JSON with cleaner, more readable syntax.