Azure Compute

• A set of services that provide on-demand compute power (CPU + Memory)
• Compute itself is not a service, it’s just logical grouping of several services related to running application workloads

Compute services:

• Virtual machines (IaaS offering)
• Containers (Docker, AKS, Service Fabric - similar to AKS but developed by Microsoft)
• Azure App Service
  • PaaS
  • WebJobs is part of App Service
• Serverless Computing (run applications without worrying about underlying infrastructures)
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Logic Apps (workflows in cloud)
  • Azure Event Grid (applications that respond to events)

Azure App Service

• Similar to traditional web hosting
• Framework runtimes installed on servers
• Azure manages web servers for you

Azure Functions

• Runs the (custom) code you write
• Initiated by triggers
• See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/

Azure Logic Apps

• Logic as a Service (LaaS) offer from Azure
• When to use? :
  • want to execute a logic against an event triggered by other Azure service (using connectors)
  • want to execute a logic tiggered by your app
  • Design workflows in Azure Portal
• Initiated by triggers (similar to Azure Functions)
• Has huge library of connectors
• See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/

Messaging Services

• Details: Messaging Services in Azure
• Azure Event Grid
  • PaaS for discrete events. Connects data sources and event handlers
  • See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-grid/overview
• Azure Event Hub
  • PaaS for streaming events. A big data streaming platform and event ingestion service
  • See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-hubs/
• Azure Service Bus
  • Fully managed enterprise message broker (messaging broker is used to communicate between applications in loosely couple manner)
  • See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-bus-messaging/service-bus-messaging-overview

Networking

• Secure networks for Azure resources (so that resources can communicate with each-other and with the internet)
• Underlying physical networking components are managed by Microsoft and can be configured by Azure portal (or other tools i.e. Azure Cloud Shell, Azure CLI etc.)
• Azure Virtual Network (vNet)
  • Inter-resource communications i.e. virtaul machine to virtual machine
  • Networking components:
    • Azure firewall
    • Application gateway (web traffic load balancer + more feature)
    • VPN gateway (OnPremise Network <-> Azure vNet)
• vNet Peering: inter-vNet communictions (Virtual Network A <-> Virtual Network B)
• Load balancer
  • Public load balancer (internet traffic)
  • Private load balancer (intra-net traffic in hybrid scenario i.e. Azure <-> OnPremise)
• NSG (Network Security Group)
  • Applies to VMs
  • Acts as lite-weight firewall
• Public IP address
  • A seperate resource in Azure
  • Can be attached to VMs and application gateways

Application Gateway

Application Gateway Features:

• SSL Termination
• Autoscaling
• Session Affinity
• HTTP Header Rewriting
• Advanced Routing
• Web Application Firewall (WAF)
  • Protects web applications from common exploits and vulnaribilities
  • i.e. SQL Injection, CSRF

Azure VPN Gateway

• A specific type of virtual network gateway that is used to send encrypted traffic between an Azure virtual network and an on-premises location over the public Internet
• Enables you to establish secure, cross-premises connectivity between your virtual network within Azure and on-premises IT infrastructure
• Can also be used a VPN gateway to send encrypted traffic between Azure virtual networks over the Microsoft network

Azure VPN gateway for hybrid cloud

Windows Virtual Desktop

• Full desktop for users
• Apps running remotely
• Similar to Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
• Fully managed solution in the cloud
• Multi-session: multiple user can use same VM (with personalized experience)
• Authentication:
  • Authentication using Azure AD
  • Azure Multi-factor Authentication

Supported clients:

• Windows
• MacOS
• Android
• iOS
• HTML5 Browser

Supported operating systems:

• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows 10 Enterprise
• Windows 7 Enterprise

Azure CDN

• Distributed network of servers
• Store cached data
  • Minimize latency to global users
  • Offload traffic from source servers
• Typically static data
• Also dynamic data using Dynamic Site Acceleration (DSA)

Dynamic Site Acceleration (DSA)

• Route Optimization
  • Finds fastest route to origin server
  • Compares paths
  • Performs health checks
• TCP Optimization
  • Avoids “TCP slow start”
  • Persistent connections
  • Tuning packet parameters
• Object Prefetch
  • Parses HTML
  • Serves embedded images and scripts
  • Adaptive Image Compression
  • Monitors network quality
  • Provides smaller files when network speed is slower

Azure CDN Overview

Data Storage Services

• Azure provides storage services for specific data types
• Benefits to Azure data storage solutions
  • Automated backup and recovery
  • Replication across the world
  • Encryption options
  • Security and platform integration
  • Development features and support

Storage solutions according to category of data

• Structured Data (Relational data)
  • Azure SQL Database
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • MariaDB
• Unstructured Data (Binary)
  • Azure Blob Storage
  • Azure File Storage
  • Azure Disk Storage
• Semi-structured Data (NoSQL)
  • CosmosDB

Other data storage options

• Table storage
• Queues
• Radis Cache

Self hosted databases in VMs

• MongoDB
• Cassandra
• Neo4j

Raw data storage for big data analysis

• Azure Data Lakes (based on Azure Blob Storage, built for analytics)

Azure SQL Database

• PaaS
• Fully managed platform-as-a-service
• Always running the latest version of SQL Server
• Flexible pricing model
  • Vcores
  • DTU’s
• Single database or Elastic Pool
• Automatic scaling
• Service tiers for different workloads
  • Standard (general purpose)
  • Premium (for applications with high transaction rates)
  • Hyper-scale (very large transactional databases)

Azure SQL Managed Instance

• Broadest set of SQL Server capabilities
• Benefits of managed platform
• Deploy VM onto your own VNET
• Lift-and-shift OnPremise DB with minimal changes

Azure CosmosDB

• Globally distributed
• Multi-modal (Graph / Gremlin, Table, NoSQL, Relational)
• Fast response times (good fit for serverless applications)
• Ability to scale rapidly and globally
• Elastically scale throughput and storage across any number of Azure regions
• Add or remove regions easily
• Backed by SSD storage
• Consistency options to ensure distributed data is updated

Cosmos DB use cases

• Retail Applications
  • Attributes can vary and change over time
  • Flexible schema
• Gaming Applications
  • Millions of simultaneous updates
  • Millisecond reads
• Social Media Applications
  • Flexible data schemas needed for user generated content

Cosmos DB APIs

• SQL API (document databases)
• Mongo DB (document databases)
• Azure Table Storage (key-value databases)
• Gremlin (graph databases)
• Cassandra (column family databases)

Storage Services

• Blob Storage
• File Storage
• Disk Storage
• Queue Storage
• Table Storage

Azure Storage Account

• Azure storage account contains all of your Azure Storage data objects: blobs, files, queues, tables, and disks
• The storage account provides a unique namespace for your Azure Storage data

Programatic access to Azure Storage Account

• REST APIs
• SDKs
• PowerShell
• Azure CLI
• Azure Storage Explorer (GUI)
• AzCopy (CLI)

Azure Files

• Supports the SMB protocol
  • Attach to multiple VMs
  • File share with drive letter
• Good for migration scenarios
• Files accessible through REST interface
  • Mechanisms for restricting access

Azure Blob Storage

• Blob:
  • Acronym for Binary Large OBject
  • Unstructured data: Data that doesn’t adhere to a particular data model or definition
• Azure Blob Storage is optimized for storing massive amount of unstructured data

Blob types:

• Block Blob:
  • Composed of blocks
  • Suitable for text, binary data
• Append Blob
  • Can only Append Blocks
  • Ideal for logs
• Page Blob
  • 8TB max blob size
  • VM disks and databases
  • Frequent random read/write applications

Blob access tier:

• Hot tier:
  • Highest storage cost
  • Lowest data access cost
• Cold tier
  • Lower storage cost
  • Higher data access cost
• Archive tier
  • Lowest storage cost
  • Highest data retrieval cost
  • Data is offline

Azure Database Migrasion Service

• Managed Service to migrate database data to Azure data platforms
  • On-premises databases
  • Azure databases
  • Amazon Web Services
• Compatibility: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/dms/resource-scenario-status
• Create target database in Azure
• Assess source database for compatibility
• Create instance of Azure DMS
• Configure source and target databases
• Migrate data
• Switchover production applications

Online Data Transfer Options:

• Azure Storage Explorer
• Azure Portal
• AzCopy
• PowerShell / Azure CLI
• Storage Client Libraries
• Azure Data Factory

Azure Data Box:

• Data Box Disk
  • Solid State Disks
  • 35TB per order
  • USB 3.0 connection
• Data Box
  • Device on network
  • 80TB capacity
  • RJ45 or SFP+ 10GbE
• Data Box Heavy
  • 1PB Capacity
  • 40GbE connection

Import / Export Service:

• Ship your own disks
• For Azure Blob or File Service
• Can use for exporting data from Azure also
• Prepare drives with encryption software

Data analysis

• Event Hubs (Data ingestion)
• Data Factory (ETL - extract, transform, load)
• Stream analysis:
  • Azure HDInsights (allows to use open source tools in Azure -> Spark, Hadoop, Hive, Storm, Kafka, HBase)
  • Azure Databricks (Cloud-optimized Spark service, easy integration with other Azure services)

Analytics

• PowerBI
• Azure Synapse Analytics

Additional Azure Services

• Media Services
• Mobile Services
• IoT
• Mixed Reality
• Blockchain
• Bot Service
• Search