What is Azure Arc?
Azure Arc is a bridge that enables you to create applications and services that can run across data centres, at the
edge, and in multi-cloud environments. 
With a continuous development, operations, and security strategy, you can build cloud-native applications. 
It supports both new and legacy hardware, as well as virtualization and Kubernetes systems, IoT devices, and integrated
systems.

Azure Arc Features
Let us understand features of Azure Arc here.

• Azure management and security may be extended to any infrastructure.
• Customers use Azure administration daily to organise, regulate, and secure hundreds of millions of Azure resources. 
• Azure Arc extends Azure management features to Linux and Windows servers, as well as Kubernetes clusters running on any architecture, including on-premises, multi-cloud, and edge.
• Customers can now manage multiple environments consistently and unifiedly by leveraging sophisticated, well-established capabilities such as Azure Resource Manager, Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell, Azure portal, API, and Microsoft Azure Policy.
• With Azure Arc, developers can use their preferred tools to create containerized apps, and IT teams can use GitOps-based configuration management to ensure that the apps are deployed, configured, and managed consistently.

Run Azure data services anywhere
Thanks to Azure Arc, customers can now take advantage of cloud innovation such as always-updated data capabilities, deployment in
seconds (rather than hours), and dynamic scalability on any infrastructure.
Customers can now use Azure SQL Database and Azure Database for PostgreSQL Hyperscale on any Kubernetes cluster. 
Customers can use the Azure portal to gain a unified and consistent view of all their Azure data services running on-premises and in the cloud, allowing them to apply consistent policy, 
security, and data governance across environments.
If customers run out of on-premises capacity, they can gain limitless scale by simply spinning up new Kubernetes clusters via 
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Expanded Azure Stack offerings for any edge
Azure Stack Edge is a managed AI-enabled edge appliance that brings computation, storage, and intelligence to any edge. 
Customers will be able to take advantage of additional features such as Virtual Machine support, a GPU-based form factor,
high availability with many nodes, and multi-access edge computing (MEC).

Azure Arc Use cases
Azure Arc is heavily used to control Sprawling IT assets, to meet regulatory and data sovereignty requirements and ensuring 
consistent deployment and configuration.
Control sprawling IT assets
Organize, control, and secure Windows and Linux servers, SQL Server, and Kubernetes clusters across data centres, the
edge,and multi-cloud environments with ease. 
With both traditional and cloud applications, use Azure features such as Azure Policy and Azure Resource Graph.
Ensure consistent deployment and configuration
Kubernetes applications can be deployed and managed using GitHub and Azure Policy. 
Ensure that apps and clusters are consistently deployed and configured at scale from source control.
Meet regulatory and data sovereignty requirements
To meet data governance and security requirements while also managing costs, automating processes, and enforcing
regulations.
Get the most recent cloud innovation and automation, elastic scale, and unified management for hybrid infrastructure 
data workloads.

Azure Arc-enabled servers
Azure Arc enabled servers let you manage physical and virtual Windows and Linux servers that are hosted outside of Azure, 
on your corporate network, or with another cloud provider. 
This administration experience is designed to be similar to how you manage native Azure virtual machines, including the
use of standard Azure components such as Azure Policy and tag application.

The following Azure Arc control plane features are provided at no additional cost:

Azure management groups and tags are used for resource organization.
Searching and indexing through Azure Resource Graph
Access and security are provided using Azure RBAC and subscriptions.
Environments and automation via templates and extensions
Update management
Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes
Azure Arc Kubernetes connects to and configures Kubernetes clusters that are running everywhere. 
It can be linked to clusters on certain public cloud providers (such as GCP or AWS) as well as clusters within your data centre.
When a Kubernetes cluster is linked to Azure Arc, the following happens:

A unique ID will be assigned to you in Azure Resource Manager.
Be assigned an Azure subscription and a resource group
Tags are received in the same way that any other Azure resource is.
Azure Arc-enabled VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere powered by Azure Arc extends VMware vSphere infrastructure with Azure governance and management 
capabilities.
You get a consistent management experience across Azure and VMware vSphere infrastructure when you use Azure Arc-enabled VMware vSphere.
Arc-enabled With VMware vSphere, you can:

Perform VMware virtual machine (VM) lifecycle tasks such as create, start/stop, resize, and delete directly from Azure.
Using Azure role-based access control, enable developers and application teams to do on-demand VM operations (RBAC).
Browse your VMware vSphere resources (VMs, templates, networks, and storage) in Azure, allowing you to see your infrastructure in both environments through a single pane of glass. Existing VMware VMs can also be discovered and onboarded to Azure.
By enabling guest management, you may perform governance and monitoring actions across Azure and VMware VMs.
Azure Arc Architecture
It is essentially an extension of the Azure Control Plane. Let’s take a look at Azure’s basic architecture:
Azure controls the lifecycle of a variety of resources, including virtual machines, Hadoop clusters, and Kubernetes clusters. Azure’s control plane is known as the Azure Fabric Controller. Almost every Azure resource transmits its activities to the control plane.
Following that is the Azure Resource Manager (ARM), which sits between the fabric controller and the resources. It is in charge of automating the entire life cycle.
Each service has its own resource supplier. SQL Database, Azure Kubernetes Service, and VMs are just a few examples of them.