Azure Cloud Deployment Approaches
Azure supports several deployment strategies to suit varying business needs:
- Public Cloud: Utilizes Microsoft’s global infrastructure to host and maintain resources accessible to multiple clients.
- Private Cloud: Dedicated infrastructure is granted to a single organization, offering enhanced governance and privacy.
- Hybrid Cloud: Integrates both public and private clouds, enabling unified data and application management across environments.
Azure High Availability Structures
- Availability Zones: Separate datacenter sites within an Azure region, minimizing service disruption from localized failures.
- Availability Sets: Organize VMs across different fault and update domains to minimize single points of failure during planned or unplanned maintenance.
Traffic Management and Load Balancing Options
To handle network requests across resources and regions, Azure delivers multiple solutions:
- Azure Load Balancer: Directs network traffic across VMs within a region, with public and internal options for external and internal facing scenarios.
- Azure Traffic Manager: DNS-based distribution of requests across global endpoints for resilient cross-region architectures.
Azure Storage Offerings
Azure provides diverse storage services for different workloads:
- Blob Storage: Handles unstructured data like images or logs.
- File Shares: Provides SMB-based file storage.
- Queue Storage: Offers reliable message queuing for distributed systems.
- Table Storage: Delivers scalable NoSQL storage for structured datasets.
- Disk Storage: Supplies persistent disk support for VM instances.
Compute and Container Services
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | Responsible for deploying, scaling, and maintaining container clusters with full orchestration features. |
| Azure Container Instances (ACI) | Enables rapid, serverless container deployment for temporary or lightweight tasks. |
Enhancing Content Distribution and Application Performance
- Azure CDN: Reduces loading times and network delays by caching static assets at edge locations close to end users.
Connectivity Solutions
- VPN Gateway: Establishes encrypted tunnels over public networks for secure site-to-site or point-to-site connections.
- ExpressRoute: Delivers dedicated, high-speed connectivity that bypasses the public internet for private, stable links.
- Azure Bastion: Provides browser-based, secure shell or RDP session access to VMs without needing direct public IP exposure.
Security, Monitoring, and Compliance Tools
| Solution | Main Function |
|---|---|
| Azure Sentinel | Cloud-native SIEM/SOAR platform to aggregate, detect, and respond to security threats automatically. |
| Azure Defender | Advanced defense and alerting across VMs, databases, containers, storage, and networking resources. |
| Managed Identity | Internal identity for Azure resources, eliminating the need for credential management. |
| Service Principal | Designated identity for apps or scripts to authenticate with Azure. |
Private Networking and Access
- Private Link: Enables private network connections to Azure PaaS services, improving security and compliance posture by not exposing endpoints to the internet.
Data Integration and Analytics Suite
- Azure Data Factory: ETL/ELT pipeline creation for connecting and transforming data from mixed sources.
- Azure Synapse Analytics: Unified analytics platform handling both data warehousing and big data workloads.
- Azure Machine Learning: Accelerates machine learning model development and deployment with MLOps capabilities.
- Azure Cognitive Services: Prebuilt AI APIs for vision, speech, language, and decision tasks.
Monitoring, Automation, and Financial Management
- Azure Monitor: Centralized dashboard for performance metrics, log management, and proactive alerting.
- Cost Management: Real-time tracking, budget alerts, and detailed reporting for cloud expenditure control.
- Logic Apps: Workflow engine for automating integrations and tasks with minimal code.
Scenario-Specific Azure Solutions
- Building Global Applications: Traffic Manager for load distribution, CDN for faster loading worldwide, geo-replicated databases, and event-based automation using Functions and Logic Apps.
- Enabling Remote Workforce: Azure Virtual Desktop for secure desktops, VPN Gateway for encrypted access, and Conditional Access for enforcing security policies.
- Database Latency Optimization: Elastic Pool for resource scaling, read replicas to split read traffic, and in-memory caching using Azure Cache for Redis.
- Hybrid Environments: Azure Arc for unified resource management, ExpressRoute for private connectivity, and Hybrid AD Join for seamless authentication.
- Compliance in Regulated Industries: Enforce policies with Azure Policy, classify and govern data with Purview, and store secrets securely using Key Vault.
- Serverless Mobile Backends: Implement with Azure Functions, Cosmos DB for scalable storage, and API Management for secure API gateways.
Security Controls and Resource Governance
- Azure Policy: Establishes and enforces rules across resources to bolster compliance, security, and resource management.
- Key Vault: Central secure repository for secrets, certificates, and encryption keys, integrated with RBAC and Azure AD.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Unifies threat protection, monitoring, and compliance reporting for Azure resources.
- Comparing Sentinel and Defender: Sentinel centralizes analytics and incident automation, while Defender directly protects workloads with real-time defenses.
Networking and Connectivity Features
- Route Table: Customizes the paths network traffic follows between subnets, supporting isolation and advanced routing scenarios.
- Virtual WAN: Streamlines global site-to-site connectivity while integrating various Azure networking options.
Batch and Serverless Architectures
- Azure Batch: Executes large-scale parallel and compute-intensive workloads such as rendering or simulations.
- Differences: Azure Functions vs. Logic Apps: Functions run discrete code blocks in response to triggers, while Logic Apps visually string together workflows using connectors.
- Autoscale: Dynamically increases or decreases compute resources based on demand-driven signals.
Data Storage Models and Replication
- Cosmos DB: Multi-master, globally distributed NoSQL datastore for low-latency data access.
- Azure SQL: Scalable, managed relational database supporting various deployment patterns—single, managed, or elastic pools.
- Storage Replication Types:
- LRS: Intra-datacenter replication.
- ZRS: Zone-level redundancy.
- GRS/RA-GRS: Cross-region copying for additional disaster recovery.
DevOps and Infrastructure Automation
- Azure DevOps vs. GitHub Actions: DevOps provides an enterprise pipeline suite, while GitHub Actions excels for code-native automation in open-source and cloud-native workflows.
- Azure Blueprints: Standardizes resource, policy, and role deployment for governance.
- ARM Templates vs. Bicep: Bicep offers streamlined, readable syntax as an abstraction over the original ARM JSON templates.
AI/ML and Data Analytics Tools
- OpenAI Service: Deploys advanced AI models like GPT for text generation and AI conversation solutions.
- Data Lake vs. Blob Storage: Data Lake is tailored for analytics with hierarchical namespaces, while Blob is basic object storage.
- Stream Analytics: Real-time event processing and querying for IoT or log data scenarios.
Common Scenario Solutions
- Modern data warehousing: Combine Synapse Analytics, Data Factory, and Data Lake.
- High-concurrency e-commerce: Use Azure Front Door, Kubernetes, and Geo-replicated SQL servers.
- Access governance: Implement RBAC, Privileged Identity Management (PIM), and detailed auditing.
- Cost control: Commit to reserved instances, resize VMs, and monitor with Cost Management.
- VM migration: Leverage Azure Migrate, lift-and-shift for quick moves, and refactor for PaaS efficiencies.
- Ultra-high throughput processing: Combine Event Hubs, Cosmos DB, and serverless Functions.
Fundamental Azure Features
- Hybrid Benefit: Reduces cloud expenses by reusing on-premises Windows or SQL Server licenses.
- Managed versus Unmanaged Disks: Managed disks handle redundancy and scaling automatically, while unmanaged require manual storage account management.
- Azure Arc: Centralizes resource control across clouds and on-prem data centers.
- VM SKUs: Choice of VM series tailored for memory optimization (E-series), compute-heavy (F-series), or GPU tasks (N-series).
Identity and Security Management
- Privileged Identity Management (PIM): JIT access to sensitive roles to lower threat exposure.
- Zero Trust Framework: Comprehensive security via MFA, granular access policies, and adaptive controls.
- Confidential Computing: Runs workloads inside hardware-protected enclaves to secure data even during processing.
- DDoS Protection: Basic tier for always-on protection; Standard for advanced detection and custom mitigations.
- Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD): Identity solution built for cloud apps, unlike legacy on-premises Active Directory.
Advanced Networking
- Network Watcher: Monitors and troubleshoots networking issues through diagnostic tools and logging.
- Application Gateway: Offers HTTP(S) load balancing, SSL offloading, and web application firewall features; Load Balancer focuses on TCP/UDP traffic.
- Front Door vs. Traffic Manager: Front Door supports modern app delivery with caching and WAF; Traffic Manager uses DNS-level global balancing.
- Private Azure Access: Use ExpressRoute or Private Link for isolated, secure connections to the cloud.
Infrastructure as Code and Secure Pipelines
- Terraform: Multi-cloud, declarative infrastructure tool with persistent state tracking, compared to Azure-centric ARM templates.
- Pipeline Security: Protect build secrets using Key Vault, implement RBAC, and enforce approval workflows.
- Azure CLI vs. PowerShell: CLI is favored for cross-platform scripts; PowerShell aligns with Windows environments and object pipelines.
Enterprise Data and Analytics
- Synapse vs. Databricks: Synapse uses big data SQL analytics with warehouse capabilities; Databricks focuses on Spark processing for data engineering and ML.
- Purview: Automates discovery and compliance for hybrid data assets.
- Data Factory vs. SSIS: Data Factory is cloud-native for hybrid ETL; SSIS serves MSSQL on-premises ETL.
- Azure Cognitive Services: Provides APIs for computer vision, natural language, and voice interaction tasks.
Machine Learning and MLOps
- Provides AutoML for accelerated training, built-in CI/CD for ML pipelines, and registry/deployment support for custom models.
Real-World Azure Adoption Scenarios
- Disaster Recovery: Site Recovery for VM replication, geo-redundant backups, plus Traffic Manager for failover.
- Securing PaaS Services: Use Private Link and service endpoints to shield services from public networks.
- Cost Optimization: Embrace long-term reservations, Spot VMs for short-lived processes, and continuous spend analysis.
- Real-Time Customer Analytics: Deploy Event Hubs, Stream Analytics, and Synapse for aggregating and visualizing customer behavior.
- Mainframe Migration: Migrate via SQL Managed Instances and Database Migration Services; use Cosmos DB for NoSQL modernization if required.