Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals

Study for the certification

What is Microsoft Azure?

A Cloud Computing platform that has continually expanding set of cloud services to help meet current and future IT challenges

What is Cloud Computing?

The delivering of computing services over the internet

What do computing services include?

• Virtual Machines

• Storage

• Databases

• Networking

• Internet of Things (IoT)

• Machine Learning (ML)

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Pros of cloud computing

• Not constrained by physical infrastructure

• Changes infrastructure planning from long cycles to on-demand provisioning

Describe the shared responsiblity model

Cloud provider has responsibility of physical security, power, cooling, and network connectivity

Consumer is responsible for the data and information stored in the cloud, and access security

When can responsibility depend on the situation in the shared responsibility model?

• Cloud SQL database: cloud provider maintains actual database, consumer is responsible for data ingested into database

• Deployed VM + installed SQL database onto it: consumer is responsible for database patches and updates, as well as maintaining data and information shared

Which cloud service type places the most responsibility on the consumer?

IaaS

Which cloud service type places the most responsibility on the cloud provider?

SaaS

Which cloud service type evenly distributes responsibility between the consumer and the cloud provider?

PaaS

What are the responsibilities of the customer, cloud provider, and shared when the cloud service type is On-Premises?

• Customer:

  • Data, devices, accounts

  • Identity and access

  • Applications

  • Network controls

  • Operating systems

  • Infrastructure

  • Data centers, networks, physical hosts

What are the responsibilities of the customer, cloud provider, and shared when the cloud service type is IaaS?

• Customer:

  • Data, devices, accounts

  • Identity and access

  • Applications

  • Network controls

  • Operating systems

  
  

• Provider:

  • Infrastructure

  • Data centers, networks, physical hosts

What are the responsibilities of the customer, cloud provider, and shared when the cloud service type is PaaS?

• Customer:

  • Data, devices, accounts

  
  

• Shared

  • Identity and access

  • Applications

  • Network controls

  
  

• Provider:

  • Operating systems

  • Infrastructure

  • Data centers, networks, physical hosts

What are the responsibilities of the customer, cloud provider, and shared when the cloud service type is SaaS?

• Customer:

  • Data, devices, accounts

  
  

• Shared

  • Identity and access

  
  

• Provider:

  • Applications

  • Network controls

  • Operating systems

  • Infrastructure

  • Data centers, networks, physical hosts

What is the customer always responsible for?

• Information and data stored in the cloud

• Devices allowed to connect to cloud (cell phones, computers, etc)

• The accounts and identities of the people, services, and devices within your environment

What is the provider always responsible for?

• Physical datacenter

• Physical network

• Physical hosts

What are cloud models?

They define the deployment type of cloud resources

What is the private cloud?

Cloud environment used by a single entity, dedicated to 1 organization

What are the benefits of the private cloud?

Complete control over resources and security

What are the downsides of the private cloud?

Greater cost, few benefits over public cloud deployment

What is the public cloud?

Built, controlled, and maintained by third-party cloud provider. Anyone that wants to purchase cloud services can access and use resources

What is the hybrid cloud?

Computing environment that uses both public and private clouds in an inter-connected environment. Can be used to allow a private cloud to surge for increased, temporary demand by deploying public cloud resources. Can be used to provide and extra layer of security

List the details of the public cloud

• No capital expenditures to scale up

• Applications can be quickly provisioned and deprovisioned

• You pay only for what you use

• You don't have complete control over resources and security

List the details of the private cloud

• You have complete control over resources and security

• Data isn't collocated with other tenants' data

• Hardware must be purchased for startup and maintenance

• You are responsible for hardware maintenance and updates

List the details of the hybrid cloud

• Provides the most flexibility

• You determine where to run your applications

• You control security, compliance, or legal requirements

What is the multicloud?

Use multiple public cloud providers, possibly different features from different providers, possibly in the process of migrating to a different provider

What is Azure Arc?

Set of technologies that helps manage your cloud environment

What is Azure VMware Solution?

Run VMware workloads in Azure with seamless integration and scalability when in private cloud environment but want to migrate to a public or hybrid cloud

Describe the consumption-based model

You pay for the IT resources you use, and nothing more

What is capital expenditure (CapEx)?

Up-front spending on physical infrastructure like servers, network hardware, and datacenter space

What is operational expenditure (OpEx)?

Ongoing spending on services over time. Cloud computing is classified as an operational expense

What are the pros to a consumption-based model?

• No upfront costs for hardware or datacenter infrastructure

• No need to purchase and manage capacity that my go underutilized

• Ability to add resources when demand increases

• Ability to release resources when demand decreases

What is capacity planning like in a traditional datacenter?

• Estimate future resource needs in advance

• Can over and under estimate

• Fixing this mean ordering installing, and provisioning additional hardware, power, and cooling

What is capacity planning like in a cloud-based model?

Adjust resources to match your actual demand

What is pay-as-you-go cloud pricing?

Pay only for the services that you consume

What does cloud pricing help with?

• Plan and manage operating costs

• Run infrastructure more efficiently

• Scale as workload needs change

What is high availability?

Focuses on ensuring maximum availability, regardless of disruptions or events that may occurSer

What does SLA stand for, and what is it?

Service-level agreement. It’s a formal agreement between service prodiver and customer that guarantees the customer a stated level of service

Where can SLA be used?

inside organizations in an agreement between IT department and business users, or a commercial company like Microsoft

How does Azure represent their SLAs?

A percent related to the service or application’s availability

What is another term for availability when referencing an SLA?

Up time

What happens if the SLA is not met?

Might be entitled to credit

What is scalability?

The ability to adjust resources to meet demand, meaning you aren’t overpaying for services

What is vertical scaling?

Increasing or decreasing the capabilities of resources

Example of vertical scaling

• Need more processing power, add more CUPs or RAM to the virtual machine

• Need less, do the opposite

What is horizontal scaling?

Adding or subtracting the number of resources

Examples of horizontal scaling

• Experience a steep jump in demand, deployed resources could be scaled out automatically or manually

• Add additional VMs or containers

• If there’s a drop in demand, scale in

What is reliability?

The ability of a system to recover from failures and continue to function

What does the decentralized design of the cloud naturally support?

Reliable and resilient infrastructure. Even if one region has a catastrophic event, the other regions are up and running

What is predictability?

Lets you move forward with confidence

What is performance predictability?

Predicting the resources you needed to deliver a positive experience for your customers

Examples of performance predictability

• Autoscaling

• Load balancing

• High availability

What is cost predicability?

Predicting or forecasting the cost of the cloud spend

What can you do with the cloud when it comes to cost predictability?

• Track your resources in real-time

• Use cloud analytics and information to predict future costs and adjust resources

What is governance?

Templates and standards. Set standards at scale and update at scale.

What does it mean to set standards at scale?

Resource templates enforce technical standards and regulatory requirements

What does it mean to update at scale?

Use standards change, update deployed resources across your cloud footprint

What is compliance?

Auditing and mitigation. Audit and remediate, patches and maintenance

What does it mean to audit and remediate?

Cloud-based auditing flags non-compliant resources and suggests mitigations

What are patches and maintenance?

Software patches and updated applied automatically for governance and security

What is security used for?

DDoS, patches, controls. Built-in protections and match your security needs

What is management of the cloud?

Managing your cloud resources

What is the point of management of the cloud?

• automatically scale resource deployment based on need

• Deploy resources based on a preconfigured template, removing the need for manual configuration

• Monitor health of resources and automatically replace failing resources

• Receive automatic alerts based on configured metrics, for real-time metrics

What is management in the cloud?

How you manage your cloud resources

What are they ways to manage your cloud resources?

• Web Portal: visual management UI

• CLI: command line interface

• APIs: Programmatic access

• PowerShell: script and automate

What is included in sustainability in action?

• Right-size

• Automate

• Optimize

• Monitor

What is right-size in sustainability in action?

Match resources to demand

What is automate in sustainability in action?

Shut down and shut off unused resources

What is optimize in sustainability in action?

Choose efficient services and configurations

What is monitor in sustainability in action?

Track resource usage and spending

What is IaaS, in practice?

Renting the hardware in a cloud datacenter, but managing the data

What do you manage in IaaS?

• Applications

• Data

• Runtime

• Middleware

• Operating system

What does the provider manage in Iaas?

• Server

• Storage

• Networking

What are the two scenarios for IaaS? Describe them.

• Lift-and-shift migration: set up cloud resources similar to on-premises, then move workloads to IaaS infrastructure

• Testing and development: rapidly replicate dev/test environments. Start up or shut down with complete control

What do you manage in PaaS?

• Applications

• Data

What does the provider manage in PaaS?

• Runtime

• Middleware

• Operating system

• Servers

• Storage

• Networking

What are the two scenarios for PaaS? Describe them.

• Development framework: build cloud-based applications using built-in components with scalability and high availability

• Analytics and business intelligence: analyze and mine data, find insights, and predict outcomes using platform tools

What are the common examples of SaaS?

• Email

• Financial software

• Messaging applications

• Connectivity software

What do you manage in SaaS?

Data

What does the provider manage in Saas?

• Applications

• Runtime

• Middleware

• Operating system

• Servers

• Storage

• Networking

What does Microsoft Azure let you do?

Freedom to build, manage, and deploy apps on a massive global network

What does Azure offer?

Limitless innovation, through apps and solutions with advanced technology, tools, and services

What are the services that Azure provides?

• Compute

• Networking

• Storage

• Databases

• AI and ML

• Identity and security

• DevOps and Management

• Internet of Things

• Analytics

• Integration

How do Azure Accounts work?

You need an Azure subscription, then it’s free to create additional subscriptions. Each subscription lets you have resources with it

What is Azure’s physical infrastructure?

Datacenters are grouped into Azure Regions and Azure Availability Zones

What are datacenters in Azure’s physical infrastructure?

Facilities with servers arranged in racks with dedicated power, cooling, and network infrastructure

What is an Azure Region?

Geographical area on the planet that contains at least one datacenter that are nearby and networked together in low-latency network

What is an Availability Zone?

Physically separate datacenters within an Azure region. They are made up of one or more datacenters with independent power cooling and networking. Each is set up to be an isolation boundary

Why is each Availability Zone set up to be an isolation boundary?

If one zone goes down, the other continues working

How are Azure Availability Zones connected?

High-speed, private fiber-optic networks

What should be noted about Azure Regions?

Not all support availability zones. Those that do have a minimum of 3 separate availability zones.