Create and configure an Azure App service

Question 1

What is azure app service?

Answer 1

It’s a service where you upload code presumable for some kind of service or application but you do not manage or interact with the server or operating system itself.

Question 2

What types of apps can you create with azure app service?

Answer 2

• Function apps
• Web apps (includes api app, mobile app)
• Logic apps

These are options available after clicking the ‘Create Resource’ button from the Azure portal.

Question 3

Do apps need to be in a ResourceGroup?

Answer 3

Yes

Question 4

When creating a web app, what is the runtime stack?

Answer 4

What is the language and version of the software running your web app. It could be Python, Java, Ruby, PhP, and more.

ASP.net is a windows only language so the choice of runtime stack will affect the possible OS choices available.

.NET is cross platform so you can choose from linux and windows as your operating system.

Question 5

What is the app hosting plan?

Answer 5

It’s a pricing tier which affects the performance you can expect from your web app.

Question 6

What is a streamlined approach to linking Github to your app service app?

Answer 6

During the app creation wizard you can enable continuous deployment using github actions. This will add a workflow file to the github repo your configure which will deploy the app to your app service app automatically as you commit or merge to your configured master branch.

Question 7

How much network configuration is required for hosting an App Service web app?

Answer 7

Only two boolean choices which manifest as checkboxes in the Networking tab of the web app setup wizard. The choices are Enable public access and Enable network injection. Microsoft azure is responsible for all the backend network setup.

Enable network injection means to place the app within an existing network available in your azure resources.

Question 8

How much can you expect a standard S1 app service web app?

Answer 8

Around €80 per month at the time of writing (Jan 24)

Question 9

A created web app when hosted has a domain. Where can you see this?

Answer 9

There is a default domain link in the azure portal ui for the newly created web app.

Question 10

What are deployment slots when it comes to an azure app service web app?

Answer 10

They are different environments to deploy your app to and in different states e.g. production and development. You can add more than two development slots.

DEPLOYMENT SLOTS ARE NOT IN THE AZ400 EXAM

Question 11

How to manage traffic distribution between deployment slots of an azure app service web app?

Answer 11

In the deployment link in the blade of the azure app service web app portal ui, you can set the traffic to be sent to each shot and/or swap between sending traffic from one to the other.

Question 12

From which git storage services can you automate CI/CD?

Answer 12

GitHub
Bitbucket
Local git
Azure Repos

External git services are also sorted but require manual configuration and push events.

Question 13

Can you you integrate with FTP with an azure app service web app?

Answer 13

Yes, secure ftp can be configured to push automatically to an azure app service web app

Question 14

What are application settings of an azure app service web app?

Answer 14

They are settings which your code relies on but you don’t want on your code. This can be used to simplify dynamic variables or to separate the management of secrets to a more secure service.

You may even put app settings in to your app service configuration to remove that data from version control where proper have access.

Question 15

Where are connection strings for databases best stored in an azure app service web app?

Answer 15

Best stored in azure key vault and referenced directly from there but they can also be stored in the settings of an azure app service web app

Question 16

What is ARR affinity in the settings of an azure app service web app?

Answer 16

When true, users will be directed to the same instance of an app continuously.

Question 17

What is the purpose of the path mappings tab of an azure app service web apps settings ui?

Answer 17

To map paths dumb dumb. But you can map paths to azure fileshares too which is cool.

Question 18

How can you scale the performance of an existing azure app service web app?

Answer 18

From the scale options in the blade menu of an azure app service web app

Question 19

What is the ACU?

Answer 19

It means azure compute units and is useful to compare two plans against each other for performance.

It is often stated as ACU/ vCPU which means for each core of the cou how much raw processing performance can you expect. This way you can compare and contrast whether you should move to increasing just the number of CPU’s or vertical scaling to a better CPU or a combination of them both.

Question 20

What happens when you scale up an azure app service web app?

Answer 20

A new instance of the app is created on the new hardware specs, then the traffic is migrated to the new instance. Finally when all traffic is now migrated to the new instance, the old instance is removed.

Question 21

What is the latest pricing on app service apps?

Answer 21

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/app-service/windows/

Question 22

What is the difference between scaling up and scaling out an azure app service web app?

Answer 22

Scaling up refers to vertical scaling ( same number of instances but increased performance hardware) whereas scaling out refers to horizontal scaling which is increasing the number of instances without changing their base hardware.

Question 23

How to manually vs automatically scale out an azure app service web app?

Answer 23

On a basic tier and up ( not on free tier) go to the scale out button of the app’s azure portal ui and increase the instance count as required ( note that you will be charged for the newly created instances).

For automatic scaling, click the ’Rules based’ scale out method and proceed to configure the conditions or schedule for scaling out.

Question 24

What is an auto scale setting?

Answer 24

It is the set of configurations saved as a resource which trigger scaling events to resources requiring automatic scale up and down logic.

Question 25

What is automatic scaling as of January 2024?

Answer 25

It is another rules based scaling configuration available in preview mode for premium VMs and its goal is to automate the scaling without any user configuration to speak of. It in theory should react to changing workload or metrics and likely includes AI predictive reasoning. This is only in preview at the time of writing and may change.

Question 26

How is an azure app service web app backed up?

Answer 26

an azure app service app comes with a built in automatic back up, the history of which you can see from the backups button in the azure portal ui or the app and you can restore a previous version from the ui and see the details of the backups like are linked dbs backed up, the max size of the back up , if any storage account is being used to hold the backup, retention policies etc.

Question 27

What is a custom backup in an azure app service app?

Answer 27

It’s a standard backup in concept but the user constricts a lot more options like the retention, the scope of the backup ( you can backup linked databases) target storage account etc.

It’s more config but you have much more control.

Question 28

How to configure the networking of an azure app service web app?

Answer 28

In the azure portal app ui click the networking button to see the overview of the network traffic rules. From here you can jump to the other portal urls to control each of those configurations ( access policies, firewalls etc.).

Question 29

What are the two major networking options for your azure app service web app?

Answer 29

If it uses public or private networks.