Azure virtual desktop / containers/ functions Flashcards
What is an Azure Virtual Desktop
Another type of virtual machine
Azure Virtual Desktop is a desktop and application virtualization service that runs on the cloud. It enables you to use a cloud-hosted version of Windows from any location. Azure Virtual Desktop works across devices and operating systems and works with apps that you can use to access remote desktops or most modern browsers.
Azure Virtual Desktop provides centralized security management for users’ desktops with Microsoft Entra ID.
Give examples of how?
You can enable multifactor authentication to secure user sign-ins.
You can also secure access to data by assigning granular role-based access controls (RBACs) to users.
With Azure Virtual Desktop, the data and apps are separated from the local hardware.
How is this useful?
The actual desktop and apps are running in the cloud, meaning the risk of confidential data being left on a personal device is reduced. Additionally, user sessions are isolated in both single and multi-session environments.
Azure Virtual Desktop lets you use Windows 10 or Windows 11 Enterprise multi-session, the only Windows client-based operating system that enables multiple concurrent users on a single VM. Azure Virtual Desktop also provides a more consistent experience with broader application support compared to Windows Server-based operating systems.
While virtual machines are an excellent way to reduce costs versus the investments that are necessary for physical hardware, they’re still limited to a single operating system per virtual machine.
If you want to run multiple instances of an application on a single host machine, what is an alternative?
containers
What are containers?
Containers are a virtualization environment. Much like running multiple virtual machines on a single physical host, you can run multiple containers on a single physical or virtual host.
One of the most popular container engines is
Docker
How do containers and virtual machines differ?
virtual machines:
- manage operating systems
- appear to be an instance of an operating system that you can connect to and manage.
containers:
- don’t manage operating systems
- lightweight and designed to be created, scaled out, and stopped dynamically/ to meet demands.
- you can quickly restart if there’s a crash or hardware interruption.
It’s possible to create and deploy virtual machines as application demand increases, but containers are a lighter weight, more agile method.
What are Azure container instances?
Azure Container Instances is a platform as a service (PaaS) offering. Azure Container Instances allow you to upload your containers and then the service runs the containers for you.
offer the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure; without having to manage any virtual machines or adopt any additional services.
What are Azure Container Apps?
Azure Container Apps are similar in many ways to a container instance. They allow you to get up and running right away, they remove the container management piece, and they’re a PaaS offering.
Container Apps have extra benefits such as the ability to incorporate load balancing and scaling. These other functions allow you to be more elastic in your design.
What is Azure Kubernetes Service?
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a container orchestration service. An orchestration service manages the lifecycle of containers.
When you’re deploying a fleet of containers, AKS can make fleet management simpler and more efficient.
How can you use containers in your solution?
Containers are often used to create solutions by using a microservice architecture. This architecture is where you break solutions into smaller, independent pieces. For example, you might split a website into a container hosting your front end, another hosting your back end, and a third for storage. This split allows you to separate portions of your app into logical sections that can be maintained, scaled, or updated independently.
Imagine your website back-end reaches capacity, but the front end and storage aren’t stressed. With containers, you could scale the back-end separately to improve performance. If something necessitated such a change, you could also choose to change the storage service or modify the front end without impacting any of the other components.
What are Azure functions and how do they differ from containers and VMs?
Azure Functions is an event-driven, serverless compute option that doesn’t require maintaining virtual machines or containers. If you build an app using VMs or containers, those resources must be “running” for your app to function. With Azure Functions, an event wakes the function, alleviating the need to keep resources provisioned when no events occur.
What is it ideal/ common to use Azure functions?
Using Azure Functions is ideal when you’re only concerned about the code running your service and not about the underlying platform or infrastructure.
Functions are commonly used when you need to perform work in response to an event (often via a REST request), timer, or message from another Azure service, and when that work can be completed quickly, within seconds or less.
Functions scale automatically based on demand, so they may be a good choice when demand is variable.
Azure Functions runs your code when it triggers and automatically deallocates resources when the function is finished.
How does Azure charge you based on this model?
Azure only charges you for the CPU time used while your function runs.
