Architecture diagrams are a great way to communicate your design, deployment, topology or simply to be used for training decks, documentation, books and videos.
When it comes to Azure icons there are a few resources available to you, but keep in mind that Microsoft reserves the right to not allow certain uses of these symbols, stop their use, or ask for their removal from use regardless of the source.
Microsoft Azure Cloud and AI Symbol / Icon Set – SVG
This package contains a set of symbols/icons to visually represent resources for Microsoft Azure and related cloud and on-premises technologies. Once downloaded, you can drag and drop the SVG files into PowerPoint or Visio and other tools that accept SVG format, and you don’t need to import anything into Visio.
The latest version at the time of this post is v2019.9.11 and was updated September 19, 2019 and only contains SVG image files now.
You can download the resources from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41937
Azure Icon Pack for draw.io / diagrams.net
If you’re familiar with draw.io (soon to be renamed to diagrams.net), then your in luck as there is an icon pack for Microsoft Azure cloud resources. These are the same images that were originally created by Microsoft.
You can download and access these icons from the GitHub repository which will load them up in draw.io https://github.com/ourchitecture/azure-drawio-icons
Azure.Microsoft.com UX Patterns
This is a comprehensive list of icons that at the time of the post is made up of up 1388 icons.
You can access the resources from here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/patterns/styles/glyphs-icons/
Amazing Icon Downloader
With the Amazing Icon Downloader extension for Chrome or the new Microsoft Edge (chromium based), you can easily find and download SVG icons from the Azure portal.
When you’re in the Azure portal the extension will activate and automatically show you all the icons present for the view your in. As you will see some of the icons are named and so are easy to search for, however other icons have the following naming convention FxSymbol0-097 for example.
You can download the Amazing Icon Downloader extension from the Chrome web store https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazing-icon-downloader/kllljifcjfleikiipbkdcgllbllahaob/
Conclusion
The icons are designed to be simple so that you can easily incorporate them in your diagrams and put them in your whitepapers, presentations, datasheets, posters, or any technical material.
Until recently I mostly used the Microsoft Azure Cloud and AI Symbol / Icon Set. Although it seems to be updated on a yearly basis, I find it still lags in keeping up with the changes happening in Azure. Since I like using the current Azure icons, I prefer using the Amazing Icon Downloader as I’m usually in the Azure Portal working with a particular resource and its quick to just grab that icon.
If you know of any other resources please let me know and I’ll update this list.
Enjoy!
Resources
Related post: https://theflyingmaverick.com/2018/01/29/microsoft-azure-symbol-icon-set-download-visio-stencil-png-and-svg/
