Azure Fundamentals: In plain english

What is Azure

In simple terms, it is a collection of Microsoft's cloud computing services. Azure offers services including remotely hosted and managed versions of proprietary Microsoft technologies, and open technologies, such as various Linux distributions deployable inside a virtual machine. Range of services may include computing, analytics, storage and networking. Users can pick and choose from these services to develop and scale new applications, or transfer existing applications to Azure. Azure provides more than 100 services that enable you to do everything from running your existing applications on virtual machines, to exploring new software paradigms, such as intelligent bots and mixed reality.

What is Azure Portal

The Azure portal is a web-based, unified console that provides an alternative to command-line tools. With the Azure portal, you can manage your Azure subscription by using a graphical user interface. You can:
- Build, manage, and monitor everything from simple web apps to complex cloud deployments.
- Create custom dashboards for an organized view of resources.
- Configure accessibility options for an optimal experience.

Types of Azure Cloud

- IAAS is the foundational cloud platform layer. This Azure service is used by IT administrators for processing, storage, networks or any other fundamental computer operations.
- PAAS is a computing platform which includes an operating system, programming language execution environment, database or web services.
- SAAS is software which is centrally hosted and managed. It is a single version of the application is used for all customers. You can scale out to multiple instances. This helps you to ensure the best performance in all locations.

The Skills You Need to Learn Azure

Azure is known for being user-friendly, but it's helpful to understand some related technologies before you dive head-first into a new platform. Here are some skills that will help you learn Azure:
- Cloud computing: One should understand what cloud is and how the core services like VM, networking, databases, servers and software function in the cloud.
- Microsoft knowledge: Experience using products like Office 365 and PowerShell will help you understand how these services integrate with Azure.
- Programming: If you plan on developing applications in Azure, knowledge of open-source frameworks like ASP.NET and programming languages like SQL Server, will help you get ahead.

Azure key Terms

-Regions: When you request a service, application, or VM in Azure, you are first asked to specify a region. The selected region represents datacenter where your application runs. The cost of the service is often connected to the Regions.
-Azure command-line interface(CLI) is a tool that you can use to create, manage, and remove Azure resources from the command line.
-Resources is an individual computer, networking data or app hosting services which charged individually. Some common resources are virtual machines( VM), storage account, or SQL databases.

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Azure Components

These services are only a glimpse of what Azure can do for your business. Azure services falls mainly in following categories:

Compute

Compute services are often one of the primary reasons why companies move to the Azure platform. Azure Virtual Machines, Kubernetes, Serverless, Distributed Systems Platform are some of the most common services in this category.

Networking

Linking compute resources and providing access to applications is the key function of Azure networking. Networking functionality in Azure includes a range of options to connect the outside world to services and features in the global Azure datacenters.

Storage

When it comes to storage, Azure has 4 main services: Bob, File, Queue, and Table Storage services.

Mobile

With Azure, developers can create mobile back-end services for iOS, Android, and Windows apps quickly and easily.

Databases

Azure provides multiple database services to store a wide variety of data types and volumes. And with global connectivity, this data is available to users instantly.

Web

Having a great web experience is critical in today's business world. Azure includes first-class support to build and host web apps and HTTP-based web services

BigData

HDInsight and Databricks are the 2 main services for Bigdata from Azure.

AI

Azure offers multiple AI amd ML services; Vision, Speech, NLP, Bing, ML studio, only to name some.

DevOps

With Azure DevOps, you can create build and release pipelines that provide continuous integration, delivery, and deployment for your applications. You can integrate repositories and application tests, perform application monitoring, and work with build artifacts

CDN

CDN caches static web content at strategically placed locations. This helps you to offer speed for delivering content to users.

Security and Identity

This feature of Microsoft Azure will provide the cloud with the capability to spot and react to the cloud-related security threats. It also helps you in managing the encryption keys and other sensitive data.

Azure Bots

The bot framework offers everything required for building and connecting bots, and thus it does not exert any sort of pressure on the developers. Consequently, bots can help to interact with consumers on different types of platforms.

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Azure Certification

The Azure Fundamentals Certification is an opportunity to prove your knowledge of cloud concepts, core Azure services, Azure pricing, SLA, lifecycle, and the fundamentals of cloud security, privacy, compliance, and trust. Certifications are the de-facto passport to a successful start for a great career.

Microsoft Azure Best Practices

Once you start using Azure, there are some best practices you should follow to ensure you get the full benefit of the platform.

Data migrations. You're more likely to have successful migrations if you truly understand the in's and out's of your business applications, as well as what Azure has to offer. Some applications can be easily rebuilt in the cloud rather than transitioned, like those that indirectly support front-end services and hold no actual data. Becoming familiar with available options will make your job easier, and will ultimately save you time in the long run.

Cloud access management. Administrators need access to your Azure resources, but some form of gatekeeping is necessary for data protection. Azure Multi-Factor Authentication is Microsoft's two-step verification solution. It requires two or more of the following verification methods from users requesting access: something you know (like a password); something you have (like a phone); and something you are (like a fingerprint). We recommend enabling this feature in Azure to manage access to your application.

Resource management. It's important to keep track of all your resources by giving them defining parameters. To do that, take advantage of Azure Resource Manager. It gives you the tools you'll need to help track and manage your resources. For example, Resource Manager provides the ability to create 'resource groups'-think of them as containers that hold related resources for your different Azure solutions, whether they are IaaS, PaaS or SaaS offerings.

Cloud security. Security should be a top priority for your business, and you need a strategy in place before you make the transition to the cloud. While cloud platforms like Azure and AWS secure their physical datacenters and server hardware by offering tools like Azure's Security Center to assist you in protecting your workloads-it's up to you to keep your virtual machines and applications going.

Conclusion

Azure has acquired a permanent position in the cloud computing industry with its unique and business-centric advantages. Organizations across the world are moving to cloud from the traditional storage systems because of the advantages that they gain. The number of employment opportunities is growing in the cloud computing segment. At its core, Azure replaces or supplements your on-premise infrastructure. However, it delivers a vast range of other services that improve the functioning of several departments in your organization and help you resolve critical business problems.

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