Configure subscriptions

Question 1

Things to know about regional pairs

Answer 1

Most Azure regions are paired with another region within the same geography to make a regional pair (or paired regions). Regional pairs help to support always-on availability of Azure resources used by your infrastructure.

Question 2

Physical isolation

Answer 2

Azure prefers at least 300 miles of separation between datacenters in a regional pair. This principle isn’t practical or possible in all geographies. Physical datacenter separation reduces the likelihood of natural disasters, civil unrest, power outages, or physical network outages affecting both regions at once.

Question 3

Platform-provided replication

Answer 3

Some services like Geo-Redundant Storage provide automatic replication to the paired region.

Question 4

Region recovery order

Answer 4

During a broad outage, recovery of one region is prioritized out of every pair. Applications that are deployed across paired regions are guaranteed to have one of the regions recovered with priority.

Question 5

Sequential updates

Answer 5

Planned Azure system updates are rolled out to paired regions sequentially (not at the same time). Rolling updates minimizes downtime, reduces bugs, and logical failures in the rare event of a bad update.

Question 6

Data residency

Answer 6

Regions reside within the same geography as their enabled set (except for the Brazil South and Singapore regions).

Question 7

Consider resource and region deployment

Answer 7

Plan the regions where you want to deploy your resources. For most Azure services, when you deploy a resource in Azure, you choose the region where you want your resource to be deployed.

Question 8

Consider service support by region.

Answer 8

Research region and service availability. Some services or Azure Virtual Machines features are available only in certain regions, such as specific Virtual Machines sizes or storage types.

Question 9

Consider services that don’t require regions.

Answer 9

Identify services that don’t need region support. Some global Azure services that don’t require you to select a region. These services include Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager, and Azure DNS.

Question 10

Consider exceptions to region pairing.

Answer 10

Check the Azure website for current region availability and exceptions. If you plan to support the Brazil South region, note this region is paired with a region outside its geography. The Singapore region also has an exception to standard regional pairing.

Question 11

Consider benefits of data residency

Answer 11

Take advantage of the benefits of data residency offered by regional pairs. This feature can help you meet requirements for tax and law enforcement jurisdiction purposes.

Question 12

Things to know about subscriptions

Answer 12

Every Azure cloud service belongs to a subscription.

Each subscription can have a different billing and payment configuration.

Multiple subscriptions can be linked to the same Azure account.

More than one Azure account can be linked to the same subscription.

Billing for Azure services is done on a per-subscription basis.

If your Azure account is the only account associated with a subscription, you’re responsible for the billing requirements.

Programmatic operations for a cloud service might require a subscription ID

Question 13

Consider the types of Azure accounts required.

Answer 13

Determine the types of Azure accounts your users will link with Azure subscriptions. You can use a Microsoft Entra account or a directory that’s trusted by Microsoft Entra ID like a work or school account. If you don’t belong to one of these organizations, you can sign up for an Azure account by using your Microsoft Account, which is also trusted by Microsoft Entra ID.

Question 14

Consider multiple subscriptions.

Answer 14

Set up different subscriptions and payment options according to your company’s departments, projects, regional offices, and so on. A user can have more than one subscription linked to their Azure account, where each subscription pertains to resources, access privileges, limits, and billing for a specific project.

Question 15

Consider a dedicated shared services subscription

Answer 15

Plan for how users can share resources allocated in a single subscription. Use a shared services subscription to ensure all common network resources are billed together and isolated from other workloads. Examples of shared services subscriptions include Azure ExpressRoute and Virtual WAN.

Question 16

Consider access to resources

Answer 16

Every Azure subscription can be associated with a Microsoft Entra ID. Users and services authenticate with Microsoft Entra ID before they access resources.

Question 17

Consider trying Azure for free

Answer 17

An Azure free subscription includes a monetary credit to spend on any service for the first 30 days. You get free access to the most popular Azure products for 12 months, and access to more than 25 products that are always free. An Azure free subscription is an excellent way for new users to get started.

To set up a free subscription, you need a phone number, a credit card, and a Microsoft account.
The credit card information is used for identity verification only. You aren’t charged for any services until you upgrade to a paid subscription.

Question 18

Consider paying monthly for used services

Answer 18

A Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) subscription charges you monthly for the services you used in that billing period. This subscription type is appropriate for a wide range of users, from individuals to small businesses, and many large organizations as well.

Question 19

Consider using an Azure Enterprise Agreement

Answer 19

An Enterprise Agreement provides flexibility to buy cloud services and software licenses under one agreement. The agreement comes with discounts for new licenses and Software Assurance. This type of subscription targets enterprise-scale organizations.

Question 20

Consider supporting Azure for students

Answer 20

An Azure for Students subscription includes a monetary credit that can be used within the first 12 months.

Students can select free services without providing a credit card during the sign-up process.
You must verify your student status through your organizational email address.

Question 21

Things to know about Microsoft Cost Management

Answer 21

Microsoft Cost Management shows organizational cost and usage patterns with advanced analytics. Costs are based on negotiated prices and factor in reservation and Azure Hybrid Benefit discounts. Predictive analytics are also available.

Reports in Microsoft Cost Management show the usage-based costs consumed by Azure services and third-party Marketplace offerings. Collectively, the reports show your internal and external costs for usage and Azure Marketplace charges. The reports help you understand your spending and resource use, and can help find spending anomalies. Charges, such as reservation purchases, support, and taxes might not be visible in reports.

The product uses Azure management groups, budgets, and recommendations to show clearly how your expenses are organized and how you might reduce costs.

You can use the Azure portal or various APIs for export automation to integrate cost data with external systems and processes. Automated billing data export and scheduled reports are also available.

Question 22

Consider cost analysis.

Answer 22

Take advantage of Microsoft Cost Management cost analysis features to explore and analyze your organizational costs. You can view aggregated costs by organization to understand where costs are accrued, and to identify spending trends. Monitor accumulated costs over time to estimate monthly, quarterly, or even yearly cost trends against a budget.

Question 23

Consider budget options.

Answer 23

Use Microsoft Cost Management features to establish and maintain budgets. The product helps you plan for and meet financial accountability in your organization. Budgets help prevent cost thresholds or limits from being surpassed. You can utilize analysis data to inform others about their spending to proactively manage costs. The budget features help you see how company spending progresses over time.

Question 24

Consider recommendations.

Answer 24

Review the Microsoft Cost Management recommendations to learn how you can optimize and improve efficiency by identifying idle and underutilized resources. Recommendations can reveal less expensive resource options. When you act on the recommendations, you change the way you use your resources to save money. Using recommendations is an easy process:

View cost optimization recommendations to see potential usage inefficiencies.
Act on a recommendation to modify your Azure resource use and implement a more cost-effective option.
Verify the new action to make sure the change has the desired effect.

Question 25

Consider exporting cost management data

Answer 25

Microsoft Cost Management helps you work with your billing information. If you use external systems to access or review cost management data, you can easily export the data from Azure.

Set a daily scheduled export in comma-separated-value (CSV) format and store the data files in Azure storage.
Access your exported data from your external system.

Question 26

Things to know about resource tags

Answer 26

Each resource tag has a name and a value.

The tag name remains constant for all resources that have the tag applied.

The tag value can be selected from a defined set of values, or unique for a specific resource instance.

A resource or resource group can have a maximum of 50 tag name/value pairs.

Tags applied to a resource group aren’t inherited by the resources in the resource group.

Question 27

Consider searching on tag data.

Answer 27

Search for resources in your subscription by querying on the tag name and value.

Question 28

Consider finding related resources.

Answer 28

Retrieve related resources from other resource groups by searching on the tag name or value.

Question 29

Consider grouping billing data.

Answer 29

Group resources like virtual machines by cost center and production environment. When you download the resource usage comma-separated values (CSV) file for your services, the tags appear in the Tags column.

Question 30

Consider creating tags with PowerShell or the Azure CLI.

Answer 30

Create many resource tags programmatically by using Azure PowerShell or the Azure CLI.

Question 31

Reservations

Answer 31

Save money by paying ahead. You can pay for one year or three years of virtual machine, SQL Database compute capacity, Azure Cosmos DB throughput, or other Azure resources. Pre-paying allows you to get a discount on the resources you use. Reservations can significantly reduce your virtual machine, SQL database compute, Azure Cosmos DB, or other resource costs up to 72% on pay-as-you-go prices. Reservations provide a billing discount and don’t affect the runtime state of your resources.

Question 32

Azure Hybrid Benefits

Answer 32

Access pricing benefits if you have a license that includes Software Assurance. Azure Hybrid Benefits helps maximize the value of existing on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server license investments when migrating to Azure. There’s an Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator to help you determine your savings.

Question 33

Azure Credits

Answer 33

Use the monthly credit benefit to develop, test, and experiment with new solutions on Azure. As a Visual Studio subscriber, you could use Microsoft Azure at no extra charge. With your monthly Azure credit, Azure is your personal sandbox for development and testing.

Question 34

Azure regions

Answer 34

Compare pricing across regions. Pricing can vary from one region to another, even in the US. Double check the pricing in various regions to see if you can save by selecting a different region for your subscription.

Question 35

Budgets

Answer 35

Apply the budgeting features in Microsoft Cost Management to help plan and drive organizational accountability. With budgets, you can account for the Azure services you consume or subscribe to during a specific period. Monitor spending over time and inform others about their spending to proactively manage costs. Use budgets to compare and track spending as you analyze costs.

Question 36

Pricing Calculator

Answer 36

The Pricing Calculator provides estimates in all areas of Azure, including compute, networking, storage, web, and databases.