READING TIME -1 HOUR 

AZ-900: Azure Fundamentals

 

Notes are prepared after completing below 2 course 

 

1.Azure fundamental : 

 

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/azure-fundamentals/
• Took  me 14 days to finish 

2.Microsoft Azure fundamental :AZ900

• https://oxa.microsoft.com/courses/course-v1:Microsoft+AZ-900+2019_T2/course/
• Took  me 2 days to finish 

 

 

 

The goal is to minimize study time to  4 hours to pass MICROSOFT AZURE FUNDAMENTAL EXAM -AZ900 

 

In this course you will learn :

• Understand general cloud computing concepts
• Understand core services available with Microsoft Azure
• Understand security, privacy, compliance and trust with Microsoft Azure
• Understand pricing and support models available with Microsoft

The course structure is as follows:

• Module 1 – Cloud Concepts
  • Lesson 1 – Why Cloud Services?
  • Lesson 2 – Types of Cloud models
  • Lesson 3 – Types of Cloud Services
• Module 2 – Core Azure Services
  • Lesson 1 – Core Azure Architectural components
  • Lesson 2 – Core Azure Services and Products
  • Lesson 3 – Azure Solutions
  • Lesson 4 – Azure management tools
• Module 3 – Security, Privacy, Compliance and Trust
  • Lesson 1 – Securing network connectivity in Azure
  • Lesson 2 – Core Azure Identity services
  • Lesson 3 – Security tools and features
  • Lesson 4 – Azure governance methodologies
  • Lesson 5 – Monitoring and Reporting in Azure
  • Lesson 6 – Privacy, Compliance and Data Protection standards in Azure
• Module 4 – Azure Pricing and Support
  • Lesson 1 – Azure subscriptions
  • Lesson 2 – Planning and managing costs
  • Lesson 3 – Support options available with Azure
  • Lesson 4 – Azure Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
  • Lesson 5 – Service lifecycle in Azure

Module 1 – Cloud Concepts

 

Reading time -1 hour 

 

• Module 1 – Cloud Concepts
  • Lesson 1 – Why Cloud Services?
  • Lesson 2 – Types of Cloud models
  • Lesson 3 – Types of Cloud Services

 

Module-1 objective:

• cloud services and their benefits.
• key terms  when working with cloud services.
• public, private, and hybrid cloud models.
• infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
• platform as a service (PaaS).
• software as a service (SaaS).

Lesson 1 – Why Cloud Services?

• High availability.

  • The ability to keep services up and running for long periods of time, with very little downtime, depending on the service in question.

 

• Scalability

• • The ability to increase or decrease resources for any given workload.
  • You can add additional resources to service a workload (known as scaling out), or add additional capabilities to manage an increase in demand to the existing resource (known as scaling up).
  • Scalability doesn’t have to be done automatically

 

• Elasticity

  • The ability to automatically or dynamically increase or decrease resources as needed.
  • Elastic resources match the current needs, and resources are added or removed automatically to meet future needs when it’s needed, and from the most advantageous geographic location.
  • A distinction between scalability and elasticity is that elasticity is done automatically

• Agility

  • The ability to react quickly.
  • Cloud services can allocate and deallocate resources quickly.
  • They are provided on-demand via self-service, so vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes.
  • There is no manual intervention in provisioning or deprovisioning services.

 

• Reliable

  • When you’re running a business, you want to be confident your data is always going to be there.
  • Cloud computing providers offer data backup, disaster recovery, and data replication services to make sure your data is always safe.
  • In addition, redundancy is often built into cloud services architecture so if one component fails, a backup component takes its place.
  • This is referred to as fault tolerance and it ensures that your customers aren’t impacted when a disaster occurs.

 

•  Fault tolerance

  • The ability to remain up and running even in the event of a component or service no longer functioning.
  • Typically, redundancy is built into cloud services architecture so if one component fails, a backup component takes its place.
  • The type of service is said to be tolerant of faults.

• Disaster recovery.

  • The ability to recover from an event which has taken down a cloud service. Cloud services disaster recovery can happen very quickly with automation and services being readily available to use.

• Global reach

  • The ability reach audiences around the globe.
  • Cloud services can have presence in various regions across the globe which you can access, giving you a presence in those regions even though you may not have any infrastructure in that region.

 

• Customer latency capabilities

  • If customers are experiencing slowness with a particular cloud service, they are said to be experiencing some latency.
  • Even though modern fiber optics are fast, it can still take time for services to react to customer actions if the service is not local to the customer.
  • Cloud services have the ability deploy resources in data centers around the globe, thus addressing customer latency issues.

• Predictive cost considerations

  • The ability for users to predict what costs they will incur for a particular cloud service.
  • Costs for individual services are made available, and tools are provided to allow you predict what costs a service will incur.
  • You can also perform analysis based on future growth.

 

• Technical skill requirements and considerations

  • Cloud services can provide and manage hardware and software for workloads.
  • Therefore, getting a workload up and running with cloud services demands less technical resources than having IT teams build and maintain physical infrastructure for handling the same workload.
  • A user can be expert in the application they want to run without having to need skills to build and maintain the underlying hardware and software infrastructure.

 

• Increased productivity

  • On-site datacenters typically require a lot of hardware setup (otherwise known as racking and stacking), software patching, and other time-consuming IT management chores.
  • Cloud computing eliminates the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.

 

• Security

  • Cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, controls, and expert technology skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve.
  • The result is strengthened security, which helps to protect data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.

• It’s current

  • When you use the cloud, you’re able to focus on what matters: building and deploying applications.
  • Cloud usage eliminates the burdens of maintaining software patches, hardware setup, upgrades, and other IT management tasks.
  • All of this is automatically done for you to ensure you’re using the latest and greatest tools to run your business
  • Additionally, the computer hardware is maintained and upgraded by the cloud provider.
  • For example, if a disk fails, the disk will be replaced by the cloud provider.
  • If new hardware update becomes available, you don’t have to go through the process of replacing your hardware.
  • The cloud provider will ensure that the hardware updates are made available to you automatically

• It’s cost-effective

 

Cloud computing provides a pay-as-you-go or consumption-based pricing model.

This consumption-based model brings with it many benefits, including:

• No upfront infrastructure costs
• No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that you may not use to its fullest
• The ability to pay for additional resources only when they are needed
• The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed

 

 

The concept of economies of scale is the ability to do things more cheaply and more efficiently when operating at a larger scale in comparison to operating at a smaller scale.

CapEx Vs OpEx

 

CapEx computing costs

A typical on-premises datacenter includes costs such as:

• Server costs
• Storage costs
• Network costs
• Backup and archive costs
• Organization continuity and disaster recovery costs
• Datacenter infrastructure costs
• Technical personnel

Benefits of CapEx

• With capital expenditures, you plan your expenses at the start of a project or budget period.
• Your costs are fixed, meaning you know exactly how much is being spent.
• This is appealing when you need to predict the expenses before a project starts due to a limited budget.

OpEx cloud computing costs

• Leasing software and customized features
• Scaling charges based on usage/demand instead of fixed hardware or capacity.
• Billing at the user or organization level.

Benefits of OpEx

• Demand and growth can be unpredictable and can outpace expectation, which is a challenge for the CapEx model as shown in the following graph.
• OpEx is particularly appealing if the demand fluctuates or is unknown. Cloud services are often said to be agile.

 

This consumption-based model brings with it many benefits, including:

• No upfront costs
• No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that they may or may not use to its fullest
• The ability to pay for additional resources if and when they are needed
• The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed

 

Lesson 2 – Types of Cloud models

Types of cloud models 

Public cloud 

 

• A public cloud is owned by the cloud services provider (also known as a hosting provider).
• It provides resources and services to multiple organizations and users, who connect to the cloud service via a secure network connection, typically over the internet.

Public cloud models have the following characteristics:

• Ownership.
  • This is the resources that an organization or end user uses.
  • Examples include storage and processing power.
  • Resources do not belong to the organization that is utilizing them, but rather they are owned and operated by a third party such as the cloud service provider.
• Multiple End Users.

• • Public cloud modes may make their resources available to multiple organizations.
• Public Access.

This provides access to the public.

• Availability.
  • This is the most common cloud-type deployment model.
• Connectivity.
  • Users and organizations are typically connected to the public cloud over the internet using a web browser.
• Skills.
  • Public clouds do not require deep technical knowledge to set up and use its resources.
• Maintenance

Advantages

• High scalability/agility
  • – you don’t have to buy a new server in order to scale
• Pay-as-you-go pricing
  • – you pay only for what you use, no CapEx costs
• You’re not responsible for maintenance or updates of the hardware
• Minimal technical knowledge to set up and use – you can leverage the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure workloads are secure, safe, and highly available
• With a public cloud, there is no local hardware to manage or keep up to date; everything runs on the cloud provider’s hardware.
• In some cases, cloud users can save additional costs by sharing computing resources with other cloud users.

Disadvantages

Not all scenarios fit the public cloud. Here are some disadvantages to think about:

• There may be specific security requirements that cannot be met by using public cloud
• There may be government policies, industry standards, or legal requirements which public clouds cannot meet
• You don’t own the hardware or services and cannot manage them as you may want to
• Unique business requirements, such as having to maintain a legacy application might be hard to meet

A common use case scenario

• Deploying a web application or a blog site on hardware and resources that are owned by a cloud provider.
• Using a public cloud in this scenario allows cloud users to get their website or blog up quickly, and then focus on maintaining the site without having to worry about purchasing, managing or maintaining the hardware on which it runs.
• Businesses can use multiple public cloud service provider companies of varying scale. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud provider.

PRIVATE CLOUD 

 

• A private cloud is owned and operated by the organization that uses the resources from that cloud.
• They create a cloud environment in their own datacenter, and provide self-service access to compute resources to users within their organization.
• The organization remains the owner, entirely responsible for the operation of the services they provide.

Private cloud models have the following characteristics:

• Ownership.
  • The owner and user of the cloud services are the same.
• Hardware.
  • The owner is entirely responsible for the purchase, maintenance, and management of the cloud hardware.
• Users.
  • A private cloud operates only within one organization and cloud computing resources are used exclusively by a single business or organization.

• Connectivity.
  • A connection to a private cloud is typically made over a private network that is highly secure.
• Public access.
  • Does not provide access to the public.
• Skills.
  • Requires deep technical knowledge to set up, manage, and maintain.

 

Advantages

• You can ensure the configuration can support any scenario or legacy application
• You have control (and responsibility) over security
• Private clouds can meet strict security, compliance, or legal requirements

Disadvantages

Some reasons teams move away from the private cloud are:

• You have some initial CapEx costs and must purchase the hardware for startup and maintenance
• Owning the equipment limits the agility – to scale you must buy, install, and setup new hardware
• Private clouds require IT skills and expertise that’s hard to come by

A use case scenario

• for a private cloud would be when an organization has data that cannot be put in the public cloud, perhaps for legal reasons.
• An example scenario may be where government policy requires specific data to be kept in-country or privately.
• For example, they may have medical data that cannot be exposed publicly.
  Another scenario may be where government policy requires specific data to be kept in-country or privately.
• A private cloud can provide cloud functionality to external customers as well, or to specific internal departments such as Accounting or Human Resources.

 

 

HYBRID CLOUD 

 

A hybrid cloud combines both public and private clouds, allowing you to run your applications in the most appropriate location.

Hybrid cloud models have the following characteristics:

• Resource location. Specific resources run or are used in a public cloud, and others run or are used in a private cloud.
• Cost and efficiency. Hybrid cloud models allow an organization to leverage some of the benefits of cost, efficiency, and scale that are available with a public cloud model.
• Control. Organizations retain management control in private clouds.
• Skills.

 

• Technical skills are still required to maintain the private cloud and ensure both cloud models can operate together.

Advantages

Some advantages of a hybrid cloud are:

• You can keep any systems running and accessible that use out-of-date hardware or an out-of-date operating system
• You have flexibility with what you run locally versus in the cloud
• You can take advantage of economies of scale from public cloud providers for services and resources where it’s cheaper, and then supplement with your own equipment when it’s not
• You can use your own equipment to meet security, compliance, or legacy scenarios where you need to completely control the environment

Disadvantages

Some concerns you’ll need to watch out for are:

• It can be more expensive than selecting one deployment model since it involves some CapEx cost up front
• It can be more complicated to set up and manage

scenario

 

 

• An example of a hybrid cloud usage scenario would be hosting a website in the public cloud and linking it to a highly secure database hosted in a private cloud.
• Hybrid cloud scenarios can be useful when organizations have some things that cannot be put in a public cloud, possibly for legal reasons.
• For example, you may have medical data that cannot be exposed publicly.
• Another example is one or more applications that run on old hardware that can’t be updated.
• In this case, you can keep the old system running locally in your private cloud, and connect it to the public cloud for authorization or storage.

COMPARISON:

Lesson 3 – Types of Cloud Services

Types of cloud services:

 

IaaS

• IaaS is the most basic category of cloud computing services.
• With IaaS, you rent IT infrastructure
  • servers
  • virtual machines (VMs),
  • storage,
  • networks, and
  • operating systems from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.
• It’s an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet.

IaaS has the following characteristics:

• Upfront costs.
  • IaaS has no upfront costs. Users pay only for what they consume.
• User ownership.
  • The user is responsible for the purchase, installation, configuration, and management of their own software operating systems, middleware, and applications.
• Cloud provider ownership.
  • The cloud provider is responsible for ensuring that the underlying cloud infrastructure (such as virtual machines, storage and networking) is available for the user.

Note: When using IaaS, ensuring that a service is up and running is a shared responsibility: the cloud provider is responsible for ensuring the cloud infrastructure is functioning correctly; the cloud customer is responsible for ensuring the service they are using is configured correctly, is up to date, and is available to their customers. This is referred to as the shared responsibility model.

Common usage scenarios:

• Migrating workloads.
  • Typically, IaaS facilities are managed in a similar way as on-premises infrastructure, and provide an easy migration path for moving existing applications to the cloud.
• Test and development.
  • Teams can quickly set up and dismantle test and development environments, bringing new applications to market faster.
  • IaaS makes scaling development testing environments up and down fast and economical.
• Website hosting.
  • Running websites using IaaS can be less expensive than traditional web hosting.
• Storage, backup, and recovery.
  • Organizations avoid the capital outlay and complexity of storage management, which typically requires a skilled staff to manage data and meet legal and compliance requirements.
  • IaaS is useful for managing unpredictable demand and steadily growing storage needs.
  • It can also simplify the planning and management of backup and recovery systems.
• Web apps. 
  • IaaS provides all the infrastructure to support web apps, including storage, web and application servers, and networking resources.
  • Organizations can quickly deploy web apps on IaaS and easily scale infrastructure up and down when demand for the apps is unpredictable.

• High-performance computing. 
  • High-performance computing (HPC) on supercomputers, computer grids, or computer clusters helps solve complex problems involving millions of variables or calculations.
  • Examples include earthquake and protein folding simulations, climate and weather predictions, financial modeling, and evaluating product designs.
• Big data analysis. 
  • Big data is a popular term for massive data sets that contain potentially valuable patterns, trends, and associations.
  • Mining data sets to locate or tease out these hidden patterns requires a huge amount of processing power, which IaaS economically provides.

 

Advantages of IaaS

Eliminates capital expense and reduces ongoing cost.

•  IaaS sidesteps the upfront expense of setting up and managing an onsite datacenter, making it an economical option for start-ups and businesses testing new ideas.

Improves business continuity and disaster recovery. 

• Achieving high availability, business continuity, and disaster recovery is expensive, since it requires a significant amount of technology and staff.
• But with the right service level agreement (SLA) in place, IaaS can reduce this cost and access applications and data as usual during a disaster or outage.

Innovate rapidly. 

• As soon as you’ve decided to launch a new product or initiative, the necessary computing infrastructure can be ready in minutes or hours, rather than the days or weeks—and sometimes months—it could take to set up internally.

Respond quicker to shifting business conditions.

•  IaaS enables you to quickly scale up resources to accommodate spikes in demand for your application— during the holidays, for example—then scale resources back down again when activity decreases to save money.

Focus on your core business. 

• IaaS frees up your team to focus on your organization’s core business rather than on IT infrastructure.

Increase stability, reliability, and supportability. 

• With IaaS there’s no need to maintain and upgrade software and hardware or troubleshoot equipment problems.
• With the appropriate agreement in place, the service provider assures that your infrastructure is reliable and meets SLAs.

Better security.

•  With the appropriate service agreement, a cloud service provider can provide security for your applications and data that may be better than what you can attain in-house.

Gets new apps to users faster.

•  Because you don’t need to first set up the infrastructure before you can develop and deliver apps, you can get them to users faster with IaaS.

PaaS

• PaaS provides an environment for building, testing, and deploying software applications.
• The goal of PaaS is to help create an application as quickly as possible without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure.
  • For example, when deploying a web application using PaaS, you don’t have to install an operating system, web server, or even system updates.
• PaaS is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable organizations to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated cloud-enabled enterprise applications.
• Resources are purchased from a cloud service provider on a pay-as-you-go basis and accessed over a secure Internet connection.

PaaS has the following characteristics:

• Upfront costs.
  • There are no upfront costs, and users pay only for what they consume.
• User ownership.
  • The user is responsible for the development of their own applications. However, they are not responsible for managing the server or infrastructure. This allows the user to focus on the application or workload they want to run.
• Cloud provider ownership.
  • The cloud provider is responsible for operating system management, and network and service configuration.
  • Cloud providers are typically responsible for everything apart from the application that a user wants to run.
  • They provide a complete managed platform on which to run an application.

Common usage scenarios:

• Development framework.
  • PaaS provides a framework that developers can build upon to develop or customize cloud-based applications.
  • Similar to the way you create a Microsoft Excel macro, PaaS lets developers create applications using built-in software components.
  • Cloud features such as scalability, high-availability, and multi-tenant capability are included, reducing the amount of coding that developers must do.
• Analytics or business intelligence.
  • Tools provided as a service with PaaS allow organizations to analyze and mine their data.
  • They can find insights and patterns, and predict outcomes to improve business decisions such as forecasting, product design, and investment returns and other business decisions.

SaaS

• SaaS is software that is centrally hosted and managed for the end customer.
• It allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the internet. Common examples are email, calendars, and office tools such as Microsoft Office 365.
• SaaS is typically licensed through a monthly or annual subscription, and Office 365 is an example of SaaS software.

 

SaaS has the following characteristics:

• Upfront costs.
  • Users have no upfront costs; they pay a subscription, typically on a monthly or annual basis.
• User ownership.
  • Users just use the application software; they are not responsible for any maintenance or management of that software.
• Cloud provider ownership.
  • The cloud provider is responsible for the provision, management, and maintenance of the application software.

Common usage scenarios:

• Examples of Microsoft SaaS services include Office 365, Skype, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

 

Cloud computing Terms