Azure Fundamentals COPY Flashcards
Cloud Definition & 4 Basic Services
Delivery of computing services (server, storage, networking, software, analytics) over the internet.
- Compute power: Linux servers or web applications.
- Storage: files and databases.
- Networking: secure connections between cloud providers.
- Analytics: visualizing telemetry (network device) and performance data.
Common Computing Services (3)
(Compute Power in Azure Training)
Virtual Machine: emulation of a computer, running on a server in one or more datacenters.
Containers: consistent, isolated environment for applications. Similar to VM’s but do not require a guest operating system. Applications and their dependencies are packaged and then a standard runtime environment is used to execute the app.
Serverless Computing: run application code without creating/configuring application or maintaining a server. Application is broken into separate functions that run when triggered by some action, ideal for automated task. Only pay for processing time.
Key Cloud Concepts (12)
Think about them in 4 buckets:
Resource Allocation
Risk Mitigation
Expanded Services
Cost & Productivity
Resource Allocation
- Scalability
- Elasticity
- Agility
Risk Mitigation
- Security
- Fault Tolerance
- Disaster Recovery
Expanded Services
- High Availability
- Global Reach
- Customer Latency
Cost & Productivity
- Predictive Cost
- Technical Skill Requirements
- Increased Productivity
Key Cloud Concepts: Resource Allocation Definitions (3)
Scalability: increase/decrease resources for a given workload (independent service or collection of code to execute)
a. Scaling out: add additional resources to service a
workload.
b. Scaling up: add additional capabilities to manage
increase in demand to existing resources.
Elasticity: automatically/dynamically (distinction from scalability) increase/decrease resource
Agility: allocate/deallocate resources quickly, on-demand via self-service.
Key Cloud Concepts: Risk Mitigation Definitions (3)
Security: broad set of policies, technologies, controls, and expert technology skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve.
Fault Tolerance: ability to remain active and running in the event of a component/service no longer functioning, redundancy.
Disaster Recovery: ability to recover from an event that has taken down a cloud service.
Key Cloud Concepts: Expanded Services Definitions (3)
High availability: keep services up and running for long periods of time, little downtime.
Global Reach: services presence in various regions across the globe.
Customer Latency: deploy resources in datacenters around the globe helps mitigate slowness with particular services.
Key Cloud Concepts: Cost & Productivity Definitions (3)
Predictive Cost Considerations: users ability to predict the costs they will incur for a particular cloud service.
Technical Skill Requirements & Considerations: less technical resources than having IT teams build and maintain a physical infrastructure for handling workloads.
Increased Productivity: reduced the amount of time consuming IT task such as hardware setup and software patching.
CapEx v. OpEx (Benefits of Cloud Services)
Physical infrastructure cost allows for upfront planning however demand can be hard to predict. Cloud services provides pay-per-use models meaning you are only billed for the services that are used. Expenses are harder to predict, but they are only incurred on an as needed basis (consumption based model).
Cloud Deployment Models (3)
(Advantages & Disadvantages)
Public: resources owned by cloud provider, no local hardware. Less overhead cost & maintenance, consumption based model, but specific security requirements and maintenance of legacy applications may not be feasible.
Private: resources owned by user, allowing completed control of hardware and software for compliance and business needs, but more overhead & maintenance and less agile (demand uncertainty).
Hybrid: combination of both, the most flexible, but management and administration can be more difficult.
3 Types of “As A Service” Cloud Options
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): most user management, OS, data and applications.
Platform as a Services (PaaS): cloud provider manages the OS and user is responsible for applications and data.
Software as a Services (SaaS): cloud provider manages everything and the end user just uses the software.
(reference image in notes for visual example)
Azure Geographic Components (3)
Regions: data-centers are organized by regions, geographic area containing multiple data-centers networked together.
Region pairs: 300 mile (preference) separation between data-centers, built for disaster recovery and minimizing downtime.
Geographies: discrete market containing two or more regions to maintain data residency, compliance needs, and fault tolerance to withstand complete region failure.
Availability Options (4)
Single VM w/ Premium Storage: migrate existing virtual machines to the cloud with “lift & shift” no-code migration. 99.9% availability.
Availability Sets: ensure your application remains online if a high-impact maintenance event is required, or if a hardware failure occurs. 99.95% availability.
Availability Zones: creating duplicate hardware environments, physically separated locations. Ensure your services and data are redundant to provide additional fault tolerance. 99.99% availability.
Region Paris: multi-region disaster recovery, region pairs protect at 99.99% availability and provide data residency boundaries.
What are Update Domains & Fault Domains
Both are part of availability sets.
Update Domain: logical sections of the datacenter utilized to ensure datacenter is available during platform updates and patches.
Fault Domain: physical separation of your workload across different hardware in the datacenter, utilized to ensure availability if hardware becomes unavailable.
What are Resource Groups and Resource Managers
Resource Group: a container that allows you to aggregate and manage all the resources required for your application in a single manageable unit instead of components.
Resource Manager: a management layer in which resource groups and all the resources within it are created, configured, managed, and deleted. Allows for deployment automation and configuration.
3 Virtual Machine Options/Services
(when are they utilized?)
VM Scale Sets: deploy and manage a set of identical VMs, for auto-scalling, targeting big compute, big data, and containerized workloads. Used in IaaS, when total control over the OS is needed.
App Services: quickly build, deploy, and scale enterprise-grade web, mobile, and API apps running on any platform. Used in PaaS offerings.
Functions: ideal when you’re concerned only about the code running your service and not the underlying platform or infrastructure. They’re commonly used when you need to perform work in response to an event (often via a REST request), timer, message from another Azure service, or work can be completed quickly (1s or less).
