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Module 1
Getting Started with Microsoft Azure
Contents:
Module Overview
1-1
1-2
1-7
1-10
1-16
1-21
1-23
Module Overview
As organizations move their IT workloads to the cloud, IT professionals must understand the principles on
which cloud-solutions are based, and learn how to deploy and manage cloud applications, services, and
infrastructure. Specifically, IT professionals who plan to use Microsoft Azure must learn about the services
that Azure provides, and how to manage those services.
This module provides an overview of Azure, and it explains the various Azure services. It also describes
how to access these services from the Azure portal, and how to manage your Azure subscription and
billing.
Objectives
After completing this module, you will be able to:
Lesson 1
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Be pooled.
Most cloud solutions are built on virtualization technology, which abstracts physical hardware as a layer of
virtualized resources for processing, memory, storage, and networking. Many cloud solutions add further
layers of abstraction to define specific services that can be provisioned and used.
Regardless of the specific technologies that organizations use to implement cloud computing solutions,
the National Institute of Standards and Technology has identified that the technologist exhibit the
following five characteristics:
On-demand self-service. Cloud services are generally provisioned according to requirement, and need
minimal infrastructure configuration by the consumer. This enables users of cloud services to quickly
set up the resources they want, typically without having to involve IT specialists.
Broad network access. Consumers generally access cloud services over a network connection, usually
either a corporate network or the Internet.
Resource pooling. Cloud services can use a pool of hardware resources that consumers might share. A
hardware pool might consist of hardware from multiple servers that are arranged as a single logical
entity.
Note: As your use of resources increases, you might take on a greater proportion of the
hardware hosting your services until you have exclusive use of the physical server computer
hosting your resources.
Rapid elasticity. Cloud services scale dynamically to obtain additional resources from the pool as
workloads intensify, and release resources automatically when they are no longer needed.
Measured service. Cloud services generally include some sort of metering capability. Metering makes
it possible to track relative resource usage by the users, or subscribers of the services.
Managed datacenter. With cloud computing, your service provider can manage your datacenter. This
obviates the need for you to manage your own IT infrastructure. Cloud computing also enables you
to access computing services irrespective of your location and the hardware that you use to access
those services. Although the datacenter remains a key element in cloud computing, the emphasis is
on virtualization technologies that focus on delivering applications rather than on infrastructure.
Lower operational costs. Cloud computing provides pooled resources, elasticity, and virtualization
technology. These factors help you to alleviate issues such as low system use, inconsistent availability,
and high operational costs. It is important to remember that with cloud computing, you only pay for
the services that you use; this can mean substantial savings on operational costs for most
organizations.
Server consolidation. You can consolidate servers across the datacenter by using the cloud computing
model, because it can host multiple virtual machines on a virtualization host.
Better flexibility and speed. When you use the cloud computing model with products such as System
Center 2012, you can increase resources flexibility and the speed of access to resources.
Cloud Services
Cloud services generally fall into one of the
following three categories:
SaaS
SaaS offerings consist of complete software
applications that are delivered as a cloud-based
service. Users can subscribe to the service and use
the application, normally through a web browser
or by installing a client-side app. Examples of Microsoft SaaS services include Microsoft Office 365, Skype,
and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The primary advantage of SaaS services is that they enable users to
easily access applications without the need to install and maintain them. Typically, users do not have to
worry about issues such as updating applications and maintaining compliance, because the service
provider handles these tasks.
PaaS
PaaS offerings consist of cloud-based services that provide resources on which developers can build their
own solutions. Typically, PaaS encapsulates fundamental operating system (OS) capabilities, including
storage and compute, as well as functional services for custom applications. Usually, PaaS offerings
provide application programming interfaces (APIs), and configuration and management user interfaces.
Azure provides PaaS services that simplify the creation of solutions such as web and mobile applications.
PaaS enables developers and organizations to create highly-scalable custom applications without having
to provision and maintain hardware and OS resources. The main benefit PaaS provides to your
organization is that you can shift much, if not most of your infrastructure to the cloud, thus possibly
reducing management tasks and costs.
IaaS
IaaS offerings provide virtualized server and network infrastructure components that users can easily
provision and decommission as required. Typically, the management of IaaS facilities is similar to that of
on-premises infrastructure. IaaS facilities provide an easy migration path for moving existing applications
to the cloud.
A key point to note is that an infrastructure service might be a single IT resourcesuch as a virtual server
with a default installation of Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014or it might be a completely
pre-configured infrastructure environment for a specific application or business process. For example, a
retail organization might empower departments to provision their own database servers to use as data
stores for custom applications. Alternatively, the organization might define a set of virtual machine and
network templates that it can provision as a single unit to implement a complete, pre-configured
infrastructure solution, including all the required applications and settings, for a branch or store.
Private cloud. Individual organizations privately own and manage private clouds. Private clouds offer
benefits similar to those of public clouds, but are designed and secured for a single organizations
use. The organization manages and maintains the infrastructure for the private cloud in its datacenter.
One of the key benefits of this approach is that the organization has complete control over the cloud
infrastructure and services that it provides. However, the organization also has the management
overhead and costs that are associated with this model.
Hybrid cloud. In a hybrid cloud, a technology binds two separate clouds (public and private) together
for the specific purpose of obtaining resources from both. You decide which elements of your services
and infrastructure to host privately, and which to host in the public cloud.
Many organizations use a hybrid model when extending to the cloud; that is, they begin to shift some
elements of their applications and infrastructure to the cloud. Sometimes, an application and its
supporting infrastructure are shifted to the cloud, while the underlying database is maintained within
the organizations own infrastructure. This approach might be used to address security concerns with
that particular database.
Microsoft cloud services provide technology and applications across all of these cloud computing models.
Some examples of Microsoft cloud services are:
Azure. Azure is a public cloud environment that offers PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS. Developers can
subscribe to Azure services and create software, which is delivered as SaaS. Microsoft cloud
services use Azure to deliver some of its own SaaS applications.
Office 365. Office 365 delivers online versions of the Microsoft Office applications and online
business collaboration tools.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Dynamics CRM Online is the version of the on-premises
Microsoft Dynamics CRM application that Microsoft hosts.
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2 combines with System Center 2012 R2 to create the
foundation for building private clouds. By implementing these products as a combined solution,
you can deliver much of the same functionality that public clouds offer.
Microsoft provides a number of solutions that support the hybrid cloud model, by enabling
you to:
Connect and federate directory services that allow your users to access applications that are
constructed across a combination of on-premises, service provider, and public cloud types.
Lesson 2
What Is Azure?
Azure is the public cloud services offering from Microsoft. Microsoft datacenters deliver Azure services
over the Internet. Customers can subscribe to a variety of the Azure services that run in these datacenters,
typically at a cost lower than they might incur if they purchased or hosted their own hardware, or built
their own services and software.
Individuals, customers, and Microsoft partners can use several methods to access Azurebased services.
Partners have access to programs such as Microsoft Azure platform Cloud Essentials for Partners and
Cloud Accelerate. Both customers and partners can access resources through MSDN and through the
Microsoft BizSpark program, each of which provides a predefined amount of resources and services to
build solutions.
This lesson provides an overview of Azure and its services.
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Describe Azure.
Overview of Azure
Azure is a collection of cloud services that you
can use to build and operate cloud-based
applications and IT infrastructure. A global
network of datacenters host Azure services.
Microsoft technicians manage these data centers
on a 24-hours-a-day basis. Azure offers a 99.95
percent availability service level agreement (SLA)
for computing services.
Azure services enable you to:
Host workloads in the cloud on Azure PaaS services and IaaS infrastructure that comprise virtual
machines and virtual networks.
To use Azure services, you require a subscription. You can sign up for a subscription as an individual or as
an organization, and then pay for the services you use on a usage-based cost basis.
Note: Microsoft Azure was formerly known as Windows Azure.
Additional Reading: To download the Microsoft Azure free trial, go to
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517412.
Compute
Cloud services. Provides a platform that can host web applications and web services. Cloud services
use a modular architecture that allows you to scale your application to larger sizes while minimizing
costs.
Virtual machines. You can build virtual machine instances from scratch, or by using templates. You
also can build them on your own site, and then transfer them to Azure (or the other way around).
Virtual machines can run a variety of workloads, including many Microsoft-certified workloads such as
SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and BizTalk Server.
Mobile services. You can use these services to build mobile phone apps, including storage,
authentication, and notification services for Windows apps, Android apps, and Apple iOS apps.
Data Services
SQL Database. Azure includes a SQL Database offering. SQL Database provides interoperability, which
enables customers to build applications by using most development frameworks.
Storage. You can use the storage service to create and manage storage accounts for blobs, tables, and
queues.
Microsoft Azure HDInsight. Microsoft Azure HDInsight is the Hadoop-based solution from Microsoft.
Hadoop is used to process and analyze big data.
Recovery services. You can back up directly to Azure. You can configure the cloud backups from the
backup tools in Windows Server 2012 R2, or from System Center 2012 R2.
App Services
Media Services. You can use media services to create, manage, and distribute media across a large
variety of devices such as Xbox, computers running the Windows operating system, MacOS, iOS, and
Android.
Messaging. The Microsoft Azure Service Bus provides the messaging channel for connecting cloud
applications to on-premises applications, services, and systems.
Microsoft Azure AD. This is a modern, Representational State Transfer-based (REST-based) service that
provides identity management and access control capabilities for cloud applications. It is the identity
service that is used across Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Windows
Intune, and other non-Microsoft cloud services. Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD) also can
integrate with on-premises Active Directory deployments.
Visual Studio Online. You can use Visual Studio online to create and manage team projects and code
repositories. Visual Studio online enables you to write and deploy a variety of different types of apps,
including those for Windows Phone and Windows Store, desktop apps, web apps, and web services.
CDN. The Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) allows developers to deliver high-bandwidth
content by caching blobs and static content of compute instances at physical nodes throughout the
world.
BizTalk service. This service provides supporting tools that allow developers to build solutions that
connect services and systems with disparate data formats and protocols.
Network Services
Microsoft Azure Virtual Network. You can use the Microsoft Azure Virtual Network (Virtual Network)
to create a logically isolated section in Microsoft Azure, and then connect it securely either to your
on-premises datacenter or to a single client machine, by using an IPsec connection.
Note: The next topic discusses Virtual Network in more depth.
Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager. You can use Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager (Traffic Manager) to
load-balance inbound traffic across multiple Azure services. This helps ensure the performance,
availability, and resiliency of applications.
Note: Azure is continually being improved and enhanced, and new services are added on a
regular basis.
Additional Reading: For a full list of services currently available in Azure, go to the
Microsoft Azure website at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517413.
Lesson 3
Managing Azure
Azure provides web-based portals in which you can provision and manage your organizations Azure
subscriptions and services. These portals provide the initial environment in which you will work with
Azure, and it is important to know how to navigate and use the portals to manage Azure services.
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Provisioning Services
You can provision a new instance of a service by clicking the New button on any page. Most services
provide a dialog box in which you can enter the user-definable settings for the service before creating it.
Service provisioning is performed asynchronously, and an indicator at the bottom of the page shows
current activity. You can expand this indicator to show a list of completed and in-process tasks.
Managing Services
Your provisioned services are listed on the All Items page and on each service-specific page. The list shows
the name, status, and service-specific settings for each service. You can click a service name in the list to
view the dashboard for that service instance, where multiple tabbed sub-pages enable you to view and
configure service-specific settings. In most cases, you make changes to a service by using the dynamic
toolbar of context-specific icons at the bottom of the sub-page.
Adding Co-Administrators
When you provision an Azure subscription, you are automatically designated as the administrator for
that subscription, and you can manage all services and settings for the subscription. You can add coAdministrators in the Settings tab of the management portal by specifying the email address of each user
to whom you want to grant administrative privileges.
Note: The email account is the Microsoft account assigned to the user.
Startboard. The home page for your Azure environment, conceptually similar to the Start screen in
Windows. You can pin commonly used items to the Startboard to make it easier to navigate to them.
By default, the Startboard includes tiles that show global Azure service health, a shortcut to the Azure
gallery of available services, and a summary of billing information for your subscriptions.
Blades. Panes in which you can view and configure details of a selected item. Each blade is displayed
as a pane in the user interface, and it often contains a list of services or other items that you can click
to open another blade. In this way, you can navigate through several blades to view details of a
specific item in your Azure environment. These navigations through blades are referred to as journeys.
You can maximize and minimize some blades to optimize screen real estate and simplify navigation.
Hub Menu. A bar on the left side of the page, which contains the following icons:
o
Home. Returns the page to the left so that the Hub Menu and Startboard are visible.
Notifications. Opens a blade on which you can view notifications about the status of tasks.
Journeys. Lists recent blades that you have viewed, enabling you to quickly navigate back to
them.
Billing. Provides details of charges and remaining credit for your subscriptions. Billing is also
available on a resource group basis.
You can switch to the Preview portal from the existing portal by clicking your account name and then
clicking Switch to new portal. Conversely, to switch to the existing portal from the Preview portal, click
the Azure Portal tile in the Startboard.
Demonstration Steps
Use the Azure Management Portal
1.
2.
Start Internet Explorer, browse to http://azure.microsoft.com, click Portal, and sign in using the
Microsoft account that is associated with your Azure subscription.
3.
On the left side of the page, note the pane that contains icons for each service. Then, at the bottom
of this pane, click SETTINGS (you may need to use the scroll bar for the pane).
4.
On the settings page, on the SUBSCRIPTIONS tab, note the details of your subscription; click the
ADMINISTRATORS tab and verify that your Microsoft account is listed as the service administrator;
and then click the AFFINITY GROUPS tab and note that this is where you can add affinity groups to
your subscription.
5.
In the services pane on the left, click STORAGE, and at the bottom of the page, click NEW. Then, in
the panel that appears, click QUICK CREATE, enter the following details, and click CREATE STORAGE
ACCOUNT:
o
LOCATION / AFFINITY GROUP: Select the location that is closest to your geographic location
6.
At the bottom of the page, note the Active Progress indicator, which is animated to show that an
action is in progress.
7.
On the storage page, wait for your storage account status to become Online. Then click the name of
your storage account.
8.
On the page for your storage account, note the getting started information. Then view each of the
tabs for the storage account, noting that the context-aware tool bar at the bottom of the page
changes to reflect the current tab.
9.
Click the Back icon on the left to return to the storage page. Then click ALL ITEMS and note that the
storage account is listed on this page.
At the top right of the Microsoft Azure management portal, click your Microsoft account name, and
then click Switch to new portal. This opens a new tab in Internet Explorer.
Note: If the Welcome to Microsoft Azure dialog box appears, click Get started.
2.
When the new portal is loaded, view the tiles in the Startboard, noting the service health of the Azure
datacenters and the billing status for your subscription.
3.
Click the Service health tile, and in the resulting Service health blade, note the status for the
individual Azure services, and then click Storage.
4.
On the Storage blade, note the status for each region, and then click the region in which you
previously created a storage account.
5.
Review the status of the storage service in your selected region, and then on the Hub Menu, click
HOME. Note that the page scrolls to view the Startboard, but the blades that you opened remain
open.
6.
In the Hub Menu, click BROWSE, and then click Storage. Note that the currently open blades are
replaced with a new blade that shows your storage accounts.
7.
On the Storage blade, click your storage account, and on the blade that is opened, view the details of
your storage account, noting that it has been automatically assigned to a resource group named
Default-Storage-SelectedRegion.
8.
At the top of the blade for your storage account, click the Pin blade to Startboard icon and note
that a tile for this blade is added to the Startboard.
9.
On the Hub Menu, click JOURNEYS, and in the list of journeys, click Service health. Then close the
Journeys pane and note that the blades you opened to check the status of the storage service in
your selected region are reopened.
10. On the Hub Menu, click NEW, and in the New pane, click Website. Then in the Website blade, enter
the following settings, and click Create:
o
RESOURCE GROUP: Click the default resource group name, and then click Create a new resource
group. Then on the Create resource group blade, enter the name Demo-Web-App and click OK.
LOCATION: Click the default location, and then select the location nearest to you.
11. Wait for the website to be created, and then in the blade for the website (which opens automatically
after the website is created), note the information about the new website.
12. In Internet Explorer, switch to the tab containing the full Azure portal, and refresh the page. Note that
the website you created in the new portal is listed in the all items page.
Client Tools
The Azure portals provide a graphical user
interface for managing your Azure subscriptions
and services, and in many cases, these are
the primary management tools for service
provisioning and operations. However, it is
common to want to automate Dev/Ops tasks
by creating re-usable scripts, or to combine
management of Azure resources with
management of other network and infrastructure
services.
You can use Visual Studio, SQL Server
Management Studio, and Windows PowerShell to
manage some aspects of your Azure subscription and services.
Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell provides a scripting platform for managing Windows. You can extend this platform
to a wide range of other infrastructure elements, including Azure, by importing modules of encapsulated
code called cmdlets.
Azure PowerShell is the primary PowerShell library for managing Azure services, and you can install it by
using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer.
Additional Reading: You can find a link to the latest version of Azure PowerShell at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517416.
In many cases, you will need only the Azure PowerShell library. The Azure PowerShell module has a
dependency on the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5, and the Web Platform Installer checks for this during
installation.
Note: If you plan to implement Active Directory (AD) in Azure, you can install the Azure AD
PowerShell library to manage users, groups, and other aspects of the directory from Windows
PowerShell. Before you can install the Azure AD module, you must install the Microsoft Online
Services Single Sign-In Assistant.
Lesson 4
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Administrative Roles
There are three Azure administrative roles. These are:
Account administrator. There is one account administrator for each Azure account. The account
administrator is allowed to access the Account Center. This enables the account administrator to
create subscriptions, cancel subscriptions, change billing for a subscription, or change Service
Administrator, among other tasks.
Note: The Account Administrator for a subscription is the only person who has access to
the Account Center. They do not have any other access to services in that subscription.
Additional Reading: You can access the Azure Account Center from the Microsoft website:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517417.
Service administrator. There is one service administrator for each Azure subscription. The service
administrator is able to access the Azure Management Portal for all subscriptions in the account. By
default, the user account associated with this role is the same as the Account Administrator when
your subscription is created.
Co-administrator. You can have up to 200 co-administrators for each Azure subscription. This role
has the same functions as the Service Administrator, but it cannot change the association of
subscriptions to Azure directories.
Demonstration Steps
1.
In Internet Explorer, in the Microsoft Azure management portal, in the navigation pane, click
SETTINGS.
2.
3.
4.
In the Specify a co-administrator for subscriptions dialog box, in the EMAIL ADDRESS box, type
User1@Contoso.com.
5.
Select the check box next to your subscription in the SUBSCRIPTION list below, and then click OK
(the check box).
Azure Pricing
At the time of writing, there are three pricing
options. These are:
Buy from a Microsoft Reseller. To work with the same resellers from whom you currently purchase
Microsoft software under the Open Volume License Program, you can select this option. You must
purchase Azure in Open credits from your vendor. You can then activate your subscription using
those credits. You can apply Azure in Open Licensing credits towards any Azure Service that is eligible
for monetary commitments, when purchased online. Services that are not eligible for use with
monetary commitments, such as Azure Rights Management Services and Azure Active Directory
Premium, cannot be procured using Azure in Open.
Additional Reading: For further information about this plan, visit the Azure website:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517419.
Enterprise agreements. This option is best suited to large organizations that sign an Enterprise
Agreement (EA) and make an upfront commitment to purchase Azure services. Customers who select
this option can use the Enterprise Portal to administer their subscription. Customers are also billed
annually, based on their services usage. This can make it easier to accommodate unplanned growth.
Additional Reading: For more information about licensing Azure in the Enterprise, visit the
Azure website: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517420.
Microsoft also provides a number of benefits to members of specific programs, such as MSDN, the
Microsoft Partner network, and BizSpark:
Partner. Partners receive monthly credits toward their Azure subscription and receive access to
resources to help expand their cloud practice.
Additional Reading: For more information about members benefits, visit the Microsoft
Azure website: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517421.
Additional Reading: The Azure pricing website can be accessed at:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517422.
Pricing Calculator
When you plan the cost of your Azure
subscription, you can use the Microsoft Azure
pricing calculator. Within the calculator are nodes
for determining the cost of the various Azure
services. These are:
Websites
Virtual machines
Mobile services
Cloud services
Data management
Websites. Select between Free, Shared, and Standard models, and then configure the required sites,
virtual machines, bandwidth, and support options to determine the cost.
Virtual machines. Select between Windows, Linux, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, and Oracle Software
virtual machine types, and then configure the size, bandwidth, and support options.
Mobile services. Choose between Free, Basic, and Standard mobile services, and then select the
appropriate SQL Server database size, the appropriate bandwidth, the notification hubs, and the
support options.
Cloud services. Choose the size of your Web and Worker role instances, SQL database size,
bandwidth, and support options to determine the expected cost.
Data management. Select between Locally redundant, Zone redundant, Geo redundant, and Readaccess Geo redundant options. You can then choose the appropriate level for import and export,
backup size, site recovery options, SQL database number and sizing, machine learning, cache options,
bandwidth, and support. The calculator will then determine the likely cost.
You can also use the full calculator node for more complex Azure subscriptions. This node enables you to
select individual services and their configuration options from across all available Azure services.
Once you have selected and configured your Azure subscription services, you can proceed to purchase
and provision the subscription.
Billing Workspace
You can view and manage the charges for your
Azure subscription from either the portal or the
Preview portal.
From within the portal, on the OVERVIEW tab, you
can view the following information:
Download usage details. You can download your usage history into a CSV file. Selecting this option
moves the focus to the BILLING HISTORY tab.
Edit subscription details. Enables you to change the subscription name and associated service
administrator email account name. We recommend that you do this.
Microsoft ConfidentialInternal Use Only.
Change subscription address. You can change the subscription billing address.
You can use the BILLING HISTORY tab to review previous usage and view your current status.
Note: You access the billing workspace from the main Azure portal. Click your account
name in the Azure portal window, click View my bill, and then select your subscription. To access
the billing workspace from the Preview portal, click BILLING in the navigation pane.
Additional Reading: For further information on interpreting your Azure bill, visit the Azure
website: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=517424.
Demonstration Steps
1.
In Internet Explorer, at the top right of the Microsoft Azure management portal, click your Microsoft
account name, and then click View my bill. This opens a new tab in Internet Explorer. If prompted,
sign in using the Microsoft account credentials associated with your Azure subscription.
2.
On the subscriptions page, click your subscription. Then review the summary of usage and billing
that is displayed.
3.
At the top right of the Microsoft Azure management portal, click your Microsoft account name, and
then click Switch to new portal. This opens a new tab in Internet Explorer.
4.
5.
In the Billing list, click your subscription name. A summary screen appears. If you receive an error, try
this step again.
6.
Objectives
After completing this lab, you will be able to:
2.
Add a co-administrator.
2.
If necessary, start Internet Explorer, browse to http://azure.microsoft.com, click Portal, and sign in
using the Microsoft account that is associated with your Azure subscription.
2.
3.
Results: After you complete this exercise, you should have successfully added a co-administrator to your
Azure subscription.
2.
In Internet Explorer, at the top right of the Microsoft Azure management portal, click your Microsoft
account name, and then click View my bill.
2.
If necessary, sign in with the Microsoft account associated with your subscription.
3.
On the subscriptions page, click your subscription. Then review the summary of usage and billing
that is displayed.
2.
3.
Results: After you complete this exercise, you should have successfully viewed your Azure subscription
billing data.