where can I find what each resource type do for azure resource providers

Question

for example, I have an application insight. I see a bunch of apiVersions. and it seems like there are different resource types in different apiVersion.

e.g. the latest contains a resource type called actionGroup. and some other version has a resource type called component.

I can't find anywhere that explains what "actionGroup" or "component" do. what are they? why does different version have different resource type. where can I find information about what resource type do for future reference.

I've seen these

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-manager-supported-services

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/metrics-supported#microsoftinsightscomponents

not very helpful in understanding what resource type actually are.

I'm fairly new to azure so a more detailed explanation would be deeply appreciated. thank you

Answer 1

In Azure, every resource in the subscription has its own resource type.

The full name of the resource type of actionGroup is microsoft.insights/actionGroups, it corresponds to the action group resource. Another is microsoft.insights/components, it corresponds to the application insight resource.

The API version corresponds to a version of REST API operations that are released by the resource provider. As a resource provider enables new features, it releases a new version of the REST API.

Answer 2

There are many resource providers in Azure. Each resource provider has many resource type. Each resource in Azure belongs to a resource type. For ex. Microsoft.Compute is a resource provider. VirtualMachines is resource type in Compute.

You can look at the swagger spec of all resource provider here.

VirtualMachines Spec