Describe The Core Architectural Components Of Azure Summary
Tags: azure, cloud, microsoft, microsoftcloud
Published: 2023-06-08 17:59:23

This module teaches about the main parts of Azure's architecture, like datacenters, availability zones, and regions. It explains how Azure is organised, including its resources and resource groups, subscriptions, and management groups. Azure is a platform that helps businesses achieve their goals by providing a variety of cloud computing services. They provide virtual machines, website and database hosting, and advanced services such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and IoT. With Azure services, businesses can pay only for the computing resources they use, thanks to the pay-as-you-go model.

Azure has over 100 services that allow you to do a variety of things, such as running applications on virtual machines and trying out new software ideas. You'll need an Azure subscription to make and utilise Azure services. To get started with Azure, you can create a free account on the Azure website if you're new to it. This will allow you to explore without any charges. Once you're prepared, you can either upgrade your current account or start a new subscription.

The video transcript on "Create an Azure Account - Microsoft Learn" shows you how to create and handle an Azure account. This explains the various ways you can create an account, like getting a free Azure account, buying access through a Microsoft representative or partner, or purchasing access directly from the azure.com website. You only pay for what you use each month with pay-as-you-go pricing. The video also shows how to make more subscriptions in an Azure account that's already active. This can help with managing resources and billing. After activating your account and setting up billing, you can access different support resources such as online documentation that's available 24/7, community support, and demo videos that provide information on new Azure capabilities. The video explains how to create an Azure account and covers various options, managing billing, and support resources.

Link to that video: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RWK1QU?postJsllMsg=true

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The Azure free account is a great option for people who are new to Azure and want to try it out. You get free access to popular Azure products for a year, a credit to use for the first month, and access to over 25 products that are always free. With the Azure free student account, you can get free access to specific Azure services for a year, a credit to use during that time, and certain software developer tools for free. The Microsoft Learn sandbox is a tool that lets you make temporary subscriptions on your Azure account. This way, you can make Azure resources while you're doing a Learn module. Using the sandbox is a great way to create and test Azure resources without any cost to you.

There is a exercise which is about the Learn sandbox. You can interact with it in three different ways. Click on the "Activate sandbox" button above to activate the Learn sandbox. If you get a message from Microsoft Learn asking for your permission to make an Azure resource, just click the Review permission button to check and agree to the permissions.


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This module is all about the main parts of Azure's architecture, such as datacenters, regions, and availability zones. Datacenters are buildings that have a lot of computer equipment arranged in shelves. They have their own power, cooling, and internet connections. Regions are places on a map that have one or more datacenters, while availability zones are separate datacenters in a region that are connected by fast, private networks.

Azure has different services that help with availability zones, like zonal services, zone-redundant services, and non-regional services. Azure also has Region Pairs that are paired with another region within the same area, but at least 300 miles away. If Azure goes down, they prioritise restoring one region out of each pair as quickly as possible so that applications hosted in that region can still work. Also, Azure has separate regions called sovereign regions that are kept apart from the main Azure instance. Microsoft and 21Vianet have partnered up to offer access to regions such as US DoD Central, US Gov Virginia, US Gov Iowa, China East, and China North.


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Azure management infrastructure consists of different components such as Azure resources, resource groups, subscriptions, and accounts. Resource groups are groups of resources. Each resource can only be in one resource group at a time, but a resource group can contain many resources. Azure subscriptions are like a way to manage, pay for, and grow your resources. It's kind of like how resource groups help you keep your resources organised. You can use Azure subscriptions to set up various billing methods and control who has access to them. There are two types of subscription boundaries: billing boundary and access control boundary.

You can create more subscriptions for managing resources or billing. The text talks about the various types of subscriptions that can be made in Azure, like environments, organisational structures, billing, and management groups. These are the main details you should know. You can create different environments for development, testing, security, or compliance purposes. We can create different organisational structures and use billing to keep track of costs. Management groups help manage large-scale operations by grouping subscriptions into containers called management groups and applying governance rules to them.

Management groups can be used in various ways such as setting up a structure to enforce a policy, allowing users to access multiple subscriptions, and assigning one Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) to the management group. You can have up to six levels of depth in management groups. Also, each management group and subscription can only have one parent.

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There is also a exercise which is making an Azure resource using the Azure portal. To make a virtual machine, just log in and click on Create a resource. Then select Compute, followed by Virtual Machine, and finally click on Create. When you open the basic tab, you can enter or check the values for each setting. After the VM is set up, you can check if Azure has created all the necessary resources for the VM. When you finish a project, it's a good idea to check if you still need the resources you made. You have the option to either delete each resource one by one or delete the entire group of resources to remove them all at once.

Link to that learning module: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/describe-core-architectural-components-of-azure/