What are ARM templates?

ARM templates are JSON files and they enable Infrastructure as Code for Azure Cloud Platform. ARM templates help to provision and configure resources in a predictable, consistent, and repeatable manner.

ARM templates help in the following ways:

• Specifying resources and their configurations in a declarative manner. There is no scripting involved in provisioning resources.
• Providing intent and what should be provisioned by defining the resources rather than how to deploy the resources.
• Offers idempotent deployments by ensuring that the end state of the deployment is always consistent and predictable. This means that even during incremental deployments, the end state will remain consistent. It also means that templates deployed over and over will not change the end result, and environments will be equivalent when used to create multiple environments.
• Orchestrates the provisioning and configuration process by declaring dependencies between resources.
• Parameterizes the deployment process by enabling reusability, modular, and generic development.
• Cross-subscription, cross-region, and multiple resource group deployment and configuration of resources.
• Enables DevOps in the continuous integration and the continuous deployment of resources and the environment.