Cloud Concepts Flashcards
What is the Azure Portal
Simply, a website you log into that gives you access to all services and resources on azure. Can ‘build, manage and monitor everything from simple web apps to complex cloud applications in a single, unified console”
What are the features of the Azure Portal?
Personalize portal: with own dashboards, layouts, workflows and colours
Access control: fine grain access control to all your resources. This will make management and governance much easier
Cost Management: Great tooling to keep track of current and projected spend for Azure resources
On Stop shop: single portal, single log in for all Azure Assets
Constantly updated: Portal features and products are constantly updated. Good as you get the latest and greatest, bad because it can be confusing
Multi platform: the azure portal functions are available through the web and on various mobile devices
What is Azure CLI
A text-only entry tool that allows you to make changes to your Azure environment
What are the advantages of using CLI to access your Azure environment?
Stable: text commands don’t change and CLI is in a stable state, and commands can be re-used
Structure: CLI commands are structured very logically and all follow the same pattern
Cross platform: CLI works on Windows, Mac and Linux
Automation: It is simple to automate the CLI commands for future use
Logging: Keep track of who ran what commands and when in various ways
What is Azure PowerShell
Azure PowerShell is a set of cmdlets for managing Azure resources directly from the PowerShell command line. PowerShell is designed to make it easy to learn and get started with, but provides powerful features for automation. Can be found pre-installed on windows machine (or go through simple install process)
What are the features of PowerShell
1) Lets you use cmdlets: a script that performs a specific task e.g. new-AzVm creates a new VM
2) Azure Resource Manager: PowerShell also users Resource Manager, like the portal, to manipulate Azure resources. You can deploy Azure resources directly by using Azure PowerShell, or deploy a Resource Manager template to create Azure resources.
3) Versatile: can be used for many other tasks, not just Azure. It has its own language. Can fit nicely into an existing area of workflow, its just another set of commands to learn
What is Azure CloudShell
Interactive, browser-accessible shell experience hosted in the cloud for managing Azure resources. Azure Cloud Shell gives you the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work. Both Bash and PowerShell experiences are available
What are the features of CloudShell
Access: anywhere using web/mobile app. Authenticated and secure
Shell: Choose between Bash (Azure CLI commands) or powershell
Tools: Includes tools: interpreters, modules, azure tools. Also supports languages Node.js, .NET and Python
Storage: Dedicated storage to persist data between sessions
File editor: complete file editor
Why would you use the Azure Cloud Shell instead of Azure CLI or Powershell
Cloud Shell can be used entirely in a web browser and used across multiple devices. It provides a complete environment for either Azure CLI or Powershell. It is always free and gets features at the same time as Azure CLI and PowerShell
What is PowerShell Cmdlet?
A small lightweight command to perform an action. Cmdlets make up the majority of Azure features for PowerShell. This makes its easier to be consistent and efficient when interacting with Azure resources
What is a good reason to use Azure CLI?
It rarely changes, and the commands stay the same for the most part. It is all text based so no UI to change
Azure CLI only works with Azure
Which Azure products and services are available through the portal?
All products are services that are generally available
What are some of the limitations with a free Azure account?
Included Azure credits will expire after 30 days, and included free services expire after 12 months. They are meant to evaluate services and not for production
What are the key points in cloud computing
High availability Fault Tolerance Disaster Recovery Elasticity Scalability Agility
What is high availability
Having a number of machines to cover one another incase of failure. Traditionally, you own the hardware and are limited by what you have. If this fails, you have to purchase and configure more. In Cloud, you don’t own the hardware but you can add more servers by a click of a button, so if hardware fails you can replace instantly. Tend to use clusters (group of VMs) to ensure high availability
What is Fault Tolerance
Used to describe the resilience of cloud computing, and suggests zero down-time. Faults caused by Azure are mitigated by Azure
What is Disaster recovery
In the case of a catastrophic disaster, this is a plan to recover critical business systems. This is configured with a designated time to recovery (how long recover takes) and recovery point (point of time data to recover)
What is elasticity
Ability to quickly expand or decrease computing processing and memory and storage resources, not just VMs. Elasticity enables scaling. Allows you to meet capacity demands
What is scalability
The ability to scale out (more/less identical resources) or up/down (bigger/smaller resources) to meet a new permanent demand on an as needed basis. Use auto-scaling for critical scenarios. With traditional computing, if there was an influx in demand the server would collapse or deny requests. With Azure/cloud, more capacity will be added to cope with demand
What is agility
The ability to rapidly develop, test and launch software applications that drive business growth, and allow businesses to focus on other areas rather than provisioning the resources
What is capital expenditure and operational expenditure
Capital expenditure: money spent by a business or organisation on acquiring or maintaining fixed assets, such as land, buildings and equipment. Large upfront investments
Operational Expenditure: An ongoing cost for running a product business or system on a day-to-day basis, including annual costs. Pay as you go costs
In cloud, you trade CAPEX for OPEX
What are the cloud pricing models
Hourly pricing
Consumption (pay for what you use, not time on). Pay per execution/second/combination
What are the 3 cloud service models
IAAS
PAAS
SAAS
What is IAAS
Provides servers, storage and networking as a service, you manage everything other than the infrastructure. Infrastructure refers to actual servers, provided by azure. This is as a service as you don’t need to provide them. Can scale up and down quickly and only pay for what you use. There is no ownership of hardware but you do purchase, install and configure own software, middleware and apps. Offerings include VMs, servers, networks and physical buildings
What is PAAS
Superset of Iaas, including Middleware and tools aswell. PaaS supports web application life cycle (build, test, deploy and update). Avoids software licence hell, you manage apps and services you develop and cloud provider managers everything else
What is SAAS
Build on top of Iaas and Paas, and provides a manged service, You don’t own the software but pay an access fee to use (or may be free), meaning you have to do no maintenance and always have the latest features e.g. office 365. You only manage the data within it
What is serverless computing
When all servers for a solution are abstracted away and managed by someone else. Azure functions is the best known serverless service. Takes Paas to the extreme, allowing you to hosted deployed, run and manage your code without having to maintain a full application
What is Azure Marketplace
Think of it as Azure app store, but for cloud services. Can buy with a single click (some paid for, some free).
Services and solutions from MS and partners. Easy to integrate from portal, CLI or PowerShell. Also able to publish your own services if you are an Azure partner
What are the 3 cloud architecture models
Private
Public
Hybrid
What is the private cloud and its pros and cons
Services in the cloud are available to select users only. Private cloud is Azure on your own hardware in a location of your choice. All the benefits of public cloud, but you can lock it down
Pros:
Complete control of infrastructure
Benefits of public cloud
Better security and privacy through company firewalls and internal hosting
Drawbacks:
Internal IT is responsible for the infrastructure, including maintenance and staffing. This would be to the same level as traditional on-prem data centres
What is the public cloud and its pros and cons
Anyone with internet connection can access this cloud. Public cloud is Azure, AWS, GCP etc. No upfront costs, but monthly usage. Little control over services and infrastructure
Pros
No purchase of hardware
Low monthly fees
Cloud provider has responsible for maintenance
Access from anywhere in the world
Cons
No control over features and versions
No physical access or control over where its stored
What is the hybrid cloud and its pros and cons
For many companies moving to cloud is not a simple one step. Combination of private and public, but may result in complex infra Pros Avoid disruption and outages Adhere to regulations, governance etc (not all services belong in the cloud) Span both public and private cloud Alleviate CAPEX investments Cons Complex infrastructure in two locations
Why is cloud agility important for business
Focus on business value instead of provisioning and maintaining resources
What is the difference between private and public cloud
Private cloud has restricted access to services. It is most often connected to the internet and works the same way as public cloud when it comes to security and azure management
Public cloud is accessible to any user.
What is high availability in cloud computing
If one resource on Azure dies unexpectedly, another resource will almost instantly take over
What is the benefit of hybrid cloud approach?
It enables companies to use a mix of on-prem and public cloud concepts
What is the difference between OPEX and CAPEX
OPEX is ongoing cost for running a business, CAPEX is the cost of acquiring assets
What does IaaS describe
Any hardware services provided by Azure such as VMs and VNets. IaaS is the foundation for cloud computing
How does scalability on Azure work
As resource demand increases, Azure can split the damand over more resources and scale the application
What are the two types of scaling on Azure?
Scale up/down and scale out
What is consumption-based pricing
You pay for the resource you use, not the time it is on. It’s one way to get the best value out of Azure, if usage is not time based.
