Cloud computing fundamentals and Azure architecture overview.
Introduction
This report covers fundamental concepts of cloud computing and an introduction to Azure architecture. The primary focus is on cloud services, payment models, Azure regions, resource management, and tools for handling Azure resources.
What We Covered Last Week
Daily use of cloud services.
Free vs paid cloud services for business purposes.
Benefits of cloud computing.
Cloud models: Private, Public, Hybrid.
High availability does not equal zero downtime in cloud environments.
IaaS, PaaS, SaaS: The “pizza sauces” analogy.
Difference between Scale Out and Scale Up.
Expenditure
Capital Expenditure (CapEx)
Company’s costs for acquiring and maintaining assets like land, buildings, or servers.
Operational Expenditure (OpEx)
Expenditure on supporting existing systems such as electricity, domain registration, and server settings.
Methods of Payment
Per hour: Virtual Machines (VM), App Services.
By resource use: Pay based on the resources consumed regardless of time (e.g., per request or per second of use).
Serverless
Serverless computing focuses on executing tasks without managing traditional server infrastructure, allowing automatic scaling and only paying for the time code runs.
Traditional Data Centers
Large, renewable-energy-powered areas.
Safe, reliable, with a long-term perspective.
Custom-built servers for cloud services.
Natick Project
Microsoft’s underwater, self-maintained data center project off the coast of Scotland, housing 800 servers.
Azure Architecture
Regions
Azure regions consist of several data centers connected by high-speed networks.
Each region includes more than one data center to minimize latency.
Availability Zones
Zones within a region ensure data redundancy and resiliency.
Paired Regions
Azure pairs regions to ensure backup during failures and planned maintenance.
Resource Groups
Resource groups are mandatory in Azure and allow for better organization, management, and access control of resources across regions.
Group creation, modification, and monitoring are centralized.
Can manage multiple regions and control access.
Azure Resource Manager (ARM)
ARM is the primary tool for deploying and managing Azure resources. All requests to Azure resources pass through ARM.
Advantages of ARM
Centralized resource management.
Consistency across management tools.
Setting resource dependencies.
Easy management rights assignment.
Tagging and organizing resources.
Azure Management Tools
Azure Portal
Web-based interface to manage and monitor Azure services.
Supports custom dashboards, access control, and cost management.
Azure Command Line Interface (CLI)
Allows automating tasks and managing Azure via commands, available across Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Azure PowerShell
Command line tool for managing Azure resources with scripts and Cmdlets, especially useful in Windows environments.
Azure Cloud Shell
Browser-based interactive environment for managing Azure using Bash or PowerShell.