Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Describe cloud

concepts.
1- Describe cloud computing

Introduction to Microsoft Azure Fundamentals:

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform with an ever-expanding set of services to help you build solutions
to meet your business goals. Azure services support everything from simple to complex. Azure has simple web
services for hosting your business presence in the cloud. Azure also supports running fully virtualized computers
managing your custom software solutions. Azure provides a wealth of cloud-based services like remote storage,
database hosting, and centralized account management. Azure also offers new capabilities like artificial
intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) focused services.

What is Azure Fundamentals?

Azure Fundamentals is a series of three learning paths that familiarize you with Azure and its many services and
features.

Whether you're interested in compute, networking, or storage services; learning about cloud security best
practices; or exploring governance and management options, think of Azure Fundamentals as your curated guide
to Azure.

Azure Fundamentals includes interactive exercises that give you hands-on experience with Azure. Many exercises
provide a temporary Azure portal environment called the sandbox, which allows you to practice creating cloud
resources for free at your own pace.

Technical IT experience isn't required; however, having general IT knowledge will help you get the most from your
learning experience.

Why should I take Azure Fundamentals? >

- NOT important

If you're just beginning to work with the cloud, or if you already have cloud experience, Azure Fundamentals
provides you with everything you need to get started.

No matter your goals, Azure Fundamentals has something for you. You should take this course if you:

 Have general interest in Azure or in the cloud

 Want to earn official certification from Microsoft (AZ-900)

The Azure Fundamentals learning path series can help you prepare for Exam AZ-900: Microsoft Azure
Fundamentals. This exam includes three knowledge domain areas:
 Expand table:

wo
portant
Each domain area maps to a learning path in Azure Fundamentals. The percentages shown indicate the relative
weight of each area on the exam. The higher the percentage, the more questions that part of the exam will
contain. Be sure to read the exam page for specifics about what skills are covered in each area.

This training helps you develop a broad understanding of Azure.

Introduction to cloud computing important

No

In this module, you’ll be introduced to general cloud concepts. You’ll start with an introduction to the cloud in
general. Then you'll dive into concepts like shared responsibility, different cloud models, and explore the unique
pricing method for the cloud.

If you’re already familiar with cloud computing, this module may be largely review for you.

What is cloud computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet. Computing services include common IT
infrastructure such as virtual machines, storage, databases, and networking. Cloud services also expand the
traditional IT offerings to include things like Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), and artificial
intelligence (AI).

Because cloud computing uses the internet to deliver these services, it doesn’t have to be constrained by physical
>
-

infrastructure the same way that a traditional datacenter is. That means if you need to increase your IT
-

infrastructure rapidly, you don’t have to wait to build a new datacenter—you can use the cloud to rapidly expand
your IT footprint.

-This short video provides a quick introduction to cloud computing.

Describe the shared responsibility model

You may have heard of the shared responsibility model, but you may not understand what it means or how it
impacts cloud computing.

Start with a traditional corporate datacenter. The company is responsible for maintaining the physical space,
ensuring security, and maintaining or replacing the servers if anything happens. The IT department is responsible

Data centers
cloud
computing
Responsibility Responsibility
-

between

between the provider

company cloud 3 consumer

& IT Department
for maintaining all the infrastructure and software needed to keep the datacenter up and running. They’re also
likely to be responsible for keeping all systems patched and on the correct version.

With the shared responsibility model, these responsibilities get shared between the cloud provider and the
consumer. Physical security, power, cooling, and network connectivity are the responsibility of the cloud provider.
= >

The consumer isn’t collocated with the datacenter, so it wouldn’t make sense for the consumer to have any of
those responsibilities.

At the same time, the consumer is responsible for the data and information stored in the cloud. (You wouldn’t
want the cloud provider to be able to read your information.) The consumer is also responsible for access
security, meaning you only give access to those who need it.
> PaaS
-

Then, for some things, the responsibility depends on the situation. If you’re using a cloud SQL database, the cloud
provider would be responsible for maintaining the actual database. However, you’re still responsible for the data
>

that gets ingested into the database. If you deployed a virtual machine and installed an SQL database on it, you’d
be responsible for database patches and updates, as well as maintaining the data and information stored in the
database.

With an on-premises datacenter, you’re responsible for everything. With cloud computing, those responsibilities mostRespons
shift. The shared responsibility model is heavily tied into the cloud service types (covered later in this learning on provider
&
path):Qinfrastructure as a service (IaaS),⑳platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). IaaS places
the most responsibility on the consumer, with the cloud provider being responsible for the basics of physical ↳ saas
-

security, power, and connectivity. On the other end of the spectrum, SaaS places most of the responsibility with
the cloud provider. PaaS, being a middle ground between IaaS and SaaS, rests somewhere in the middle and most Respons
evenly distributes responsibility between the cloud provider and the consumer.
on consumer

The following diagram highlights how the Shared Responsibility Model informs who is responsible for what, ↳ IddS

depending on the cloud service type.

custome
1 Her cons
this

cond provide
1 For this
por

You’ll always be responsible for:

 The information and data stored in the cloud

  Devices that are allowed to connect to your cloud (cell phones, computers, and so on)
 The accounts and identities of the people, services, and devices within your organization

The cloud provider is always responsible for:

 The physical datacenter

 The physical network
 The physical hosts

Your service model will determine responsibility for things like:

 Operating systems
 Network controls
 Applications
 Identity and infrastructure
Define cloud models
What are cloud models? The cloud models define the deployment type of cloud resources. The three main cloud
models are: private, public, and hybrid.

Private cloud
* an control

M4 cost
Let’s start with a private cloud. A private cloud is, in some ways, the natural evolution from a corporate *
UN benefit
datacenter. It’s a cloud (delivering IT services over the internet) that’s used by a single entity. Private cloud *

provides much greater control for the company and its IT department. However, it also comes with greater cost comparing to
and fewer of the benefits of a public cloud deployment. Finally, a private cloud may be hosted from your on site public
datacenter. It may also be hosted in a dedicated datacenter offsite, potentially even by a third party that has
dedicated that datacenter to your company.

Public cloud

A public cloud is built, controlled, and maintained by a third-party cloud provider. With a public cloud, anyone
that wants to purchase cloud services can access and use resources. The general public availability is a key
difference between public and private clouds.

Hybrid cloud >

- Most flexible ? User can
flexibly choose which service to keep in public 3 which in private

A hybrid cloud is a computing environment that uses both public and private clouds in an inter-connected
environment. A hybrid cloud environment can be used to allow a private cloud to surge for increased, temporary
demand by deploying public cloud resources. Hybrid cloud can be used to provide an extra layer of security. For
example, users can flexibly choose which services to keep in public cloud and which to deploy to their private
cloud infrastructure.

The following table highlights a few key comparative aspects between the cloud models.
- E >
- most flexible
NO CAPEX ?
No purchase of

HW

No
complete
-

control over

resources
& Security
Multi-cloud >
-
Multiple public cloud

A fourth, and increasingly likely scenario is a multi-cloud scenario. In a multi-cloud scenario, you use multiple
public cloud providers. Maybe you use different features from different cloud providers. Or maybe you started
your cloud journey with one provider and are in the process of migrating to a different provider. Regardless, in a
multi-cloud environment you deal with two (or more) public cloud providers and manage resources and security
in both environments.

Azure Arc >

-
Manage cloud environment

Azure Arc is a set of technologies that helps manage your cloud environment. Azure Arc can help manage your
cloud environment, whether it's a public cloud solely on Azure, a private cloud in your datacenter, a hybrid
configuration, or even a multi-cloud environment running on multiple cloud providers at once.

Azure VMware Solution

What if you’re already established with VMware in a private cloud environment but want to migrate to a public or
hybrid cloud? Azure VMware Solution lets you run your VMware workloads in Azure with seamless integration
and scalability.

Describe the consumption-based model

When comparing IT infrastructure models, there are two types of expenses to consider. Capital expenditure
(CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx).

CapEx is typically a one-time, up-front expenditure to purchase or secure tangible resources. A new building,
repaving the parking lot, building a datacenter, or buying a company vehicle are examples of CapEx.

In contrast, OpEx is spending money on services or products over time. Renting a convention center, leasing a
company vehicle, or signing up for cloud services are all examples of OpEx.

Cloud computing falls under OpEx because cloud computing operates on a consumption-based model. With
cloud computing, you don’t pay for the physical infrastructure, the electricity, the security, or anything else
associated with maintaining a datacenter. Instead, you pay for the IT resources you use. If you don’t use any IT
resources this month, you don’t pay for any IT resources.

This consumption-based model has many benefits, including:

 No upfront costs.
 No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that users might not use to its fullest
potential.
 The ability to pay for more resources when they're needed.
 The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed.

With a traditional datacenter, you try to estimate the future resource needs. If you overestimate, you spend more
on your datacenter than you need to and potentially waste money. If you underestimate, your datacenter will
quickly reach capacity and your applications and services may suffer from decreased performance. Fixing an
under-provisioned datacenter can take a long time. You may need to order, receive, and install more hardware.
You'll also need to add power, cooling, and networking for the extra hardware.
In a cloud-based model, you don’t have to worry about getting the resource needs just right. If you find that you
need more virtual machines, you add more. If the demand drops and you don’t need as many virtual machines,
you remove machines as needed. Either way, you’re only paying for the virtual machines that you use, not the
“extra capacity” that the cloud provider has on hand.

Compare cloud pricing models

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet by using a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
You typically pay only for the cloud services you use, which helps you:

 Plan and manage your operating costs.

 Run your infrastructure more efficiently.
 Scale as your business needs change.

To put it another way, cloud computing is a way to rent compute power and storage from someone else’s
datacenter. You can treat cloud resources like you would resources in your own datacenter. However, unlike in
your own datacenter, when you're done using cloud resources, you give them back. You’re billed only for what
you use.

Instead of maintaining CPUs and storage in your datacenter, you rent them for the time that you need them. The
cloud provider takes care of maintaining the underlying infrastructure for you. The cloud enables you to quickly
solve your toughest business challenges and bring cutting-edge solutions to your users.

on the customer >

- Iaas

Saas
on the provider >
-
 2- Describe the benefits of using cloud services

Describe the benefits of high availability and scalability in the cloud

When building or deploying a cloud application, two of the biggest considerations are uptime (or availability) and
the ability to handle demand (or scale).
up-time >
-
Availability
Ability to handle >
-
sealability
High availability >
- Part of SLA demand

When you’re deploying an application, a service, or any IT resources, it’s important the resources are available
when needed. High availability focuses on ensuring maximum availability, regardless of disruptions or events that
may occur.

When you’re architecting your solution, you’ll need to account for service availability guarantees. Azure is a highly
available cloud environment with uptime guarantees depending on the service. These guarantees are part of the
service-level agreements (SLAs).

Scalability

Another major benefit of cloud computing is the scalability of cloud resources. Scalability refers to the ability to
adjust resources to meet demand. If you suddenly experience peak traffic and your systems are overwhelmed, the
ability to scale means you can add more resources to better handle the increased demand.

The other benefit of scalability is that you aren't overpaying for services. Because the cloud is a consumption-
based model, you only pay for what you use. If demand drops off, you can reduce your resources and thereby
reduce your costs.

Scaling generally comes in two varieties: vertical and horizontal. Vertical scaling is focused on increasing or
decreasing the capabilities of resources. Horizontal scaling is adding or subtracting the number of resources.

Vertical scaling >

- &↓ CPU , RAM
, ---
etc
.

With vertical scaling, if you were developing an app and you needed more processing power, you could vertically
scale up to add more CPUs or RAM to the virtual machine. Conversely, if you realized you had over-specified the
needs, you could vertically scale down by lowering the CPU or RAM specifications.

Horizontal scaling >

- Add , Remove VM

With horizontal scaling, if you suddenly experienced a steep jump in demand, your deployed resources could be
scaled out (either automatically or manually). For example, you could add additional virtual machines or
containers, scaling out. In the same manner, if there was a significant drop in demand, deployed resources could
be scaled in (either automatically or manually), scaling in.

Describe the benefits of reliability and predictability in the cloud

Reliability and predictability are two crucial cloud benefits that help you develop solutions with confidence.
Reliability

Reliability is the ability of a system to recover from failures and continue to function. It's also one of the pillars of
the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework.

The cloud, by virtue of its decentralized design, naturally supports a reliable and resilient infrastructure. With a
decentralized design, the cloud enables you to have resources deployed in regions around the world. With this
global scale, even if one region has a catastrophic event other regions are still up and running. You can design
your applications to automatically take advantage of this increased reliability. In some cases, your cloud
environment itself will automatically shift to a different region for you, with no action needed on your part. You’ll
learn more about how Azure leverages global scale to provide reliability later in this series.

Predictability

Predictability in the cloud lets you move forward with confidence. Predictability can be focused on performance
predictability or cost predictability. Both performance and cost predictability are heavily influenced by the
Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework. Deploy a solution that’s built around this framework and you have
a solution whose cost and performance are predictable.

Performance >
-
Autoscaling , Load balancing , high
Availability

Performance predictability focuses on predicting the resources needed to deliver a positive experience for your
customers. Autoscaling, load balancing, and high availability are just some of the cloud concepts that support
performance predictability. If you suddenly need more resources, autoscaling can deploy additional resources to
meet the demand, and then scale back when the demand drops. Or if the traffic is heavily focused on one area,
load balancing will help redirect some of the overload to less stressed areas.

Cost

Cost predictability is focused on predicting or forecasting the cost of the cloud spend. With the cloud, you can
track your resource use in real time, monitor resources to ensure that you’re using them in the most efficient way,
and apply data analytics to find patterns and trends that help better plan resource deployments. By operating in
the cloud and using cloud analytics and information, you can predict future costs and adjust your resources as
needed. You can even use tools like the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) or Pricing Calculator to get an estimate of
potential cloud spend.

Describe the benefits of security and governance in the cloud

Whether you’re deploying infrastructure as a service or software as a service, cloud features support governance
and compliance. Things like set templates help ensure that all your deployed resources meet corporate standards
and government regulatory requirements. Plus, you can update all your deployed resources to new standards as
standards change. Cloud-based auditing helps flag any resource that’s out of compliance with your corporate
standards and provides mitigation strategies. Depending on your operating model, software patches and updates
may also automatically be applied, which helps with both governance and security.

On the security side, you can find a cloud solution that matches your security needs. If you want maximum
control of security, infrastructure as a service provides you with physical resources but lets you manage the
operating systems and installed software, including patches and maintenance. If you want patches and
maintenance taken care of automatically, platform as a service or software as a service deployments may be the
best cloud strategies for you.
For of
Maximum control
security >
- Faas
 And because the cloud is intended as an over-the-internet delivery of IT resources, cloud providers are typically
well suited to handle things like distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, making your network more robust
and secure.

By establishing a good governance footprint early, you can keep your cloud footprint updated, secure, and well
managed.

Describe the benefits of manageability in the cloud

A major benefit of cloud computing is the manageability options. There are two types of manageability for cloud
computing that you’ll learn about in this series, and both are excellent benefits.

①
Management of the cloud >
- Managing Cloud Resources

Management of the cloud speaks to managing your cloud resources. In the cloud, you can:

 Automatically scale resource deployment based on need.

 Deploy resources based on a preconfigured template, removing the need for manual
configuration.
 Monitor the health of resources and automatically replace failing resources.
 Receive automatic alerts based on configured metrics, so you’re aware of performance in real
time.

②
Management in the cloud

Management in the cloud speaks to how you’re able to manage your cloud environment and resources. You can
manage these:

 Through a web portal.

 Using a command line interface.
 Using APIs.
 Using PowerShell.
 3- Describe cloud service types

Describe Infrastructure as a Service -

> most flexible , max control For cloud Resources

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the most flexible category of cloud services, as it provides you the maximum
amount of control for your cloud resources. In an IaaS model, the cloud provider is responsible for maintaining
the hardware, network connectivity (to the internet), and physical security. You’re responsible for everything else:
operating system installation, configuration, and maintenance; network configuration; database and storage
configuration; and so on. With IaaS, you’re essentially renting the hardware in a cloud datacenter, but what you
do with that hardware is up to you.
>
-
Renting HW ,
what you do it's up to you

Shared responsibility model

The shared responsibility model applies to all the cloud service types. IaaS places the largest share of
responsibility with you. The cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the physical infrastructure and its access
to the internet. You’re responsible for installation and configuration, patching and updates, and security.

Fads >
- Largest respons
-

On you

Scenarios

Some common scenarios where IaaS might make sense include:

 Lift-and-shift migration: You’re standing up cloud resources similar to your on-prem datacenter,
and then simply moving the things running on-prem to running on the IaaS infrastructure.
 Testing and development: You have established configurations for development and test
environments that you need to rapidly replicate. You can stand up or shut down the different
environments rapidly with an IaaS structure, while maintaining complete control.

Describe Platform as a Service

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a middle ground between renting space in a datacenter (infrastructure as a service)
and paying for a complete and deployed solution (software as a service). In a PaaS environment, the cloud
provider maintains the physical infrastructure, physical security, and connection to the internet. They also
maintain the operating systems, middleware, development tools, and business intelligence services that make up
a cloud solution. In a PaaS scenario, you don't have to worry about the licensing or patching for operating
systems and databases.

PaaS is well suited to provide a complete development environment without the headache of maintaining all the
development infrastructure.

Shared responsibility model

The shared responsibility model applies to all the cloud service types. PaaS splits the responsibility between you
and the cloud provider. The cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the physical infrastructure and its access
to the internet, just like in IaaS. In the PaaS model, the cloud provider will also maintain the operating systems,
databases, and development tools. Think of PaaS like using a domain joined machine: IT maintains the device
with regular updates, patches, and refreshes.

Depending on the configuration, you or the cloud provider may be responsible for networking settings and
connectivity within your cloud environment, network and application security, and the directory infrastructure.

Scenarios

Some common scenarios where PaaS might make sense include:

 Development framework: PaaS provides a framework that developers can build upon to develop
or customize cloud-based applications. Similar to the way you create an Excel macro, PaaS lets
developers create applications using built-in software components. Cloud features such as
scalability, high-availability, and multi-tenant capability are included, reducing the amount of
coding that developers must do.
 Analytics or business intelligence: Tools provided as a service with PaaS allow organizations to
analyze and mine their data, finding insights and patterns and predicting outcomes to improve
forecasting, product design decisions, investment returns, and other business decisions.
Describe Software as a Service >
- least
Flexibile , easiest , less technical
knowledge

Software as a service (SaaS) is the most complete cloud service model from a product perspective. With SaaS,
you’re essentially renting or using a fully developed application. Email, financial software, messaging applications,
and connectivity software are all common examples of a SaaS implementation.

While the SaaS model may be the least flexible, it’s also the easiest to get up and running. It requires the least
amount of technical knowledge or expertise to fully employ.

Shared responsibility model

The shared responsibility model applies to all the cloud service types. SaaS is the model that places the most
responsibility with the cloud provider and the least responsibility with the user. In a SaaS environment you’re
responsible for the data that you put into the system, the devices that you allow to connect to the system, and
the users that have access. Nearly everything else falls to the cloud provider. The cloud provider is responsible for
physical security of the datacenters, power, network connectivity, and application development and patching.

Scenarios

Some common scenarios for SaaS are:

 Email and messaging.
 Business productivity applications.
 Finance and expense tracking.