Azure Essentials

MODULE 2: CORE AZURE SERVICES

 Understand the breadth of services available in Azure including compute, network, storage, and
database
 Identify virtualization services such as Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Container Instances,
Azure Kubernetes Service, and Windows Virtual Desktop
 Compare Azure's database services such as Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL, Azure Database for
MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Azure's big data and analysis services
 Examine Azure networking resources such as Virtual Networks, VPN Gateways, and Azure
ExpressRoute
 Summarize Azure storage services such Azure Blob Storage, Azure Disk Storage, and Azure
File Storage
 3

Azure Database and Analytics Services

 Azure SQL Managed Instance is a scalable cloud data service that provides the broadest
SQL Server database engine compatibility with all the benefits of a fully managed platform
as a service.
Azure database for MySQL 7
Azure Database for PostgreSQL 8

 Azure Database for PostgreSQL is a relational database service in the cloud. The server software is
based on the community version of the open-source PostgreSQL database engine.
 Azure Database for PostgreSQL delivers the following benefits:
 Built-in high availability compared to on-premises resources. There's no additional configuration,
replication, or cost required to make sure your applications are always available.
 Simple and flexible pricing. You have predictable performance based on a selected pricing tier choice
that includes software patching, automatic backups, monitoring, and security.
 Scale up or down as needed, within seconds. You can scale compute or storage independently as needed,
to make sure you adapt your service to match usage.
 Adjustable automatic backups and point-in-time-restore for up to 35 days.
 Enterprise-grade security and compliance to protect sensitive data at-rest and in-motion. This security
covers data encryption on disk and SSL encryption between client and server communication.
 9

Azure Compute
Compute Services 10
Azure Virtual Machines 11
 During testing and development. VMs provide a quick and easy way to create different OS and application
configurations. Test and development personnel can then easily delete the VMs when they no longer need them.
 When running applications in the cloud. The ability to run certain applications in the public cloud as opposed
to creating a traditional infrastructure to run them can provide substantial economic benefits. For example, an
application might need to handle fluctuations in demand. Shutting down VMs when you don't need them or
quickly starting them up to meet a sudden increase in demand means you pay only for the resources you use.
 When extending your datacenter to the cloud. An organization can extend the capabilities of its own on-
premises network by creating a virtual network in Azure and adding VMs to that virtual network. Applications
like SharePoint can then run on an Azure VM instead of running locally. This arrangement makes it easier or
less expensive to deploy than in an on-premises environment.
 During disaster recovery. As with running certain types of applications in the cloud and extending an on-
premises network to the cloud, you can get significant cost savings by using an IaaS-based approach to disaster
recovery. If a primary datacenter fails, you can create VMs running on Azure to run your critical applications
and then shut them down when the primary datacenter becomes operational again.
Virtual machine scale sets 12

 Virtual machine scale sets let you create and manage a group of identical, load-balanced VMs.
 Scale sets allow you to centrally manage, configure, and update a large number of VMs in minutes
to provide highly available applications.
 The number of VM instances can automatically increase or decrease in response to demand or a
defined schedule.
 With virtual machine scale sets, you can build large-scale services for areas such as compute, big
data, and container workloads.
Azure Batch 13

 Azure Batch enables large-scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) batch jobs with
the ability to scale to tens, hundreds, or thousands of VMs.
 When you're ready to run a job, Batch does the following:
 Starts a pool of compute VMs for you.
 Installs applications and staging data.
 Runs jobs with as many tasks as you have.
 Identifies failures.
 Requeues work.
 Scales down the pool as work completes.
Azure Container Instances 14
 Azure Container Instances offers the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure without
having to manage any virtual machines or adopt any additional services.
 It's a platform as a service (PaaS) offering that allows you to upload your containers, which it runs
for you.
 The task of automating, managing, and interacting with a large number of containers is known as
orchestration.
 Azure Kubernetes Service is a complete orchestration service for containers with distributed
architectures and large volumes of containers. Orchestration is the task of automating and
managing a large number of containers and how they interact.
Azure App Service 15
 App Service enables you to build and host web apps, background jobs, mobile back-ends, and
RESTful APIs in the programming language of your choice without managing infrastructure.
 It offers automatic scaling and high availability. App Service supports Windows and Linux and
enables automated deployments from GitHub, Azure DevOps, or any Git repo to support a
continuous deployment model.
 App Service handles most of the infrastructure decisions you deal with in hosting web-accessible
apps:
 Deployment and management are integrated into the platform.
 Endpoints can be secured.
 Sites can be scaled quickly to handle high traffic loads.
 The built-in load balancing and traffic manager provide high availability.
Azure Functions 16

 Functions are a key component of serverless computing. They're also a general compute platform for
running any type of code.
 If the needs of the developer's app change, you can deploy the project in an environment that isn't
serverless. This flexibility allows you to manage scaling, run on virtual networks, and even
completely isolate the functions.
 Functions scale automatically based on demand, so they're a solid choice when demand is variable.
For example, you might receive messages from an IoT solution that's used to monitor a fleet of
delivery vehicles. You'll likely have more data arriving during business hours.
 Functions can be either stateless or stateful. When they're stateless (the default), they behave as if
they're restarted every time they respond to an event. When they're stateful (called Durable
Functions), a context is passed through the function to track prior activity.
Azure Logic Apps 17
 Logic apps are similar to functions. Both enable you to trigger logic based on an event. Where
functions execute code, logic apps execute workflows that are designed to automate business
scenarios and are built from predefined logic blocks.
 Every Azure logic app workflow starts with a trigger, which fires when a specific event happens or
when newly available data meets specific criteria.
 Many triggers include basic scheduling capabilities, so developers can specify how regularly their
workloads will run.
 Each time the trigger fires, the Logic Apps engine creates a logic app instance that runs the actions
in the workflow.
 These actions can also include data conversions and flow controls, such as conditional statements,
switch statements, loops, and branching.
Functions vs Logic Apps 18
 19

Azure Storage
Azure Storage Accounts 20
Disk storage 21

 Disk Storage provides disks for Azure virtual machines. Applications and other services can
access and use these disks as needed, similar to how they would in on-premises scenarios.
 Disk Storage allows data to be persistently stored and accessed from an attached virtual hard
disk.
 Azure Blob storage 22

 Azure Blob Storage is an object storage solution for the cloud. It can store massive amounts of data, such
as text or binary data.
 Azure Blob Storage is unstructured, meaning that there are no restrictions on the kinds of data it can hold.
 Blob Storage can manage thousands of simultaneous uploads, massive amounts of video data, constantly
growing log files, and can be reached from anywhere with an internet connection.
 Blob Storage is ideal for:
 Serving images or documents directly to a browser.
 Storing files for distributed access.
 Streaming video and audio.
 Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archiving.
 Storing data for analysis by an on-premises or Azure-hosted service.
 Storing up to 8 TB of data for virtual machines.
Azure Files 23

 Azure Files offers fully managed file shares in the cloud that are
accessible via the industry standard Server Message Block and
Network File System (preview) protocols.
 Azure file shares can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-
premises deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Applications running in Azure virtual machines or cloud services
can mount a file storage share to access file data, just as a
desktop application would mount a typical SMB share.
 Any number of Azure virtual machines or roles can mount and
access the file storage share simultaneously. Typical usage
scenarios would be to share files anywhere in the world,
diagnostic data, or application data sharing.
Blob access tiers 24

 Azure Storage offers different access tiers for your blob storage, helping you store object
data in the most cost-effective manner. The available access tiers include:
 Hot access tier: Optimized for storing data that is accessed frequently (for example, images for
your website).
 Cool access tier: Optimized for data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days
(for example, invoices for your customers).
 Archive access tier: Appropriate for data that is rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days,
with flexible latency requirements (for example, long-term backups).
 25

Azure Networking
Azure Virtual Network 26

 Azure virtual networks enable Azure resources, such as VMs, web apps, and databases, to
communicate with each other, with users on the internet, and with your on-premises client
computers. You can think of an Azure network as a set of resources that links other Azure
resources.
 Azure virtual networks provide the following key networking capabilities:
 Isolation and segmentation
 Internet communications
 Communicate between Azure resources
 Communicate with on-premises resources
 Route network traffic
 Filter network traffic
 Connect virtual networks
Azure Virtual Network 27
Azure VPN Gateway 28
 A virtual private network (VPN) is a type of private interconnected network.
 VPNs use an encrypted tunnel within another network. They're typically deployed to connect two
or more trusted private networks to one another over an untrusted network (typically the public
internet).
 Traffic is encrypted while traveling over the untrusted network to prevent eavesdropping or other
attacks.
 A VPN gateway is a type of virtual network gateway. Azure VPN Gateway instances are deployed
in Azure Virtual Network instances and enable the following connectivity:
 Connect on-premises datacenters to virtual networks through a site-to-site connection.
 Connect individual devices to virtual networks through a point-to-site connection.
 Connect virtual networks to other virtual networks through a network-to-network connection.
Azure ExpressRoute 29