Fortunately, Microsoft Azure has answered these questions with a platform that allows users to create a workflow that can ingest data from both on-premises and cloud data stores, and transform or process data by using existing compute services such as Hadoop. Then, the results can be published to an on-premise or cloud data store for business intelligence (BI) applications to consume, which is known as Azure Data Factory.

Microsoft Azure has quickly emerged as one of the market’s leading cloud service providers, and we want to help you get up to speed. Whether you are looking to study for an Azure certification or simply want to find out more about what this vendor can offer your enterprise, Cloud Academy’s robust Microsoft Azure Training Library has what you need. Contact us today to learn more about our course offerings and certification programs.

What is Azure Data Factory?

Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based data integration service that allows you to create data-driven workflows in the cloud for orchestrating and automating data movement and data transformation.

ADF does not store any data itself. It allows you to create data-driven workflows to orchestrate the movement of data between supported data stores and then process the data using compute services in other regions or in an on-premise environment. It also allows you to monitor and manage workflows using both programmatic and UI mechanisms.

Azure Data Factory use cases

ADF can be used for:

• Supporting data migrations
• Getting data from a client’s server or online data to an Azure Data Lake
• Carrying out various data integration processes
• Integrating data from different ERP systems and loading it into Azure Synapse for reporting

How does Azure Data Factory work?

The Data Factory service allows you to create data pipelines that move and transform data and then run the pipelines on a specified schedule (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.). This means the data that is consumed and produced by workflows is time-sliced data, and we can specify the pipeline mode as scheduled (once a day) or one time.

Azure Data Factory pipelines (data-driven workflows) typically perform three steps.

Step 1: Connect and Collect

Connect to all the required sources of data and processing such as SaaS services, file shares, FTP, and web services. Then,  move the data as needed to a centralized location for subsequent processing by using the Copy Activity in a data pipeline to move data from both on-premise and cloud source data stores to a centralization data store in the cloud for further analysis.

Step 2: Transform and Enrich

Once data is present in a centralized data store in the cloud, it is transformed using compute services such as HDInsight Hadoop, Spark, Azure Data Lake Analytics, and Machine Learning.

Step 3: Publish

Deliver transformed data from the cloud to on-premise sources like SQL Server or keep it in your cloud storage sources for consumption by BI and analytics tools and other applications.

Data migration activities with Azure Data Factory

By using Microsoft Azure Data Factory, data migration occurs between two cloud data stores and between an on-premise data store and a cloud data store.

Copy Activity in Azure Data Factory copies data from a source data store to a sink data store. Azure supports various data stores such as source or sink data stores like Azure Blob storage, Azure Cosmos DB (DocumentDB API), Azure Data Lake Store, Oracle, Cassandra, etc. For more information about Azure Data Factory supported data stores for data movement activities, refer to Azure documentation for data movement activities.

Azure Data Factory supports transformation activities such as Hive, MapReduce, Spark, etc that can be added to pipelines either individually or chained with other activities. For more information about ADF-supported data stores for data transformation activities, refer to the following Azure Data Factory documentation: Transform data in Azure Data Factory.

If you want to move data to/from a data store that Copy Activity doesn’t support, you should use a .NET custom activity in Azure Data Factory with your own logic for copying/moving data. To learn more about creating and using a custom activity, check the Azure documentation and see “Use custom activities in an Azure Data Factory pipeline”.

Azure Data Factory key components

Azure Data Factory has four key components that work together to define input and output data, processing events, and the schedule and resources required to execute the desired data flow:

• Datasets represent data structures within the data stores. An input dataset represents the input for an activity in the pipeline. An output dataset represents the output for the activity. For example, an Azure Blob dataset specifies the blob container and folder in the Azure Blob Storage from which the pipeline should read the data. Or, an Azure SQL Table dataset specifies the table to which the output data is written by the activity.
• A pipeline is a group of activities. They are used to group activities into a unit that together performs a task. A data factory may have one or more pipelines. For example, a pipeline could contain a group of activities that ingests data from an Azure blob and then runs a Hive query on an HDInsight cluster to partition the data.
• Activities define the actions to perform on your data. Currently, Azure Data Factory supports two types of activities: data movement and data transformation.
• Linked services define the information needed for Azure Data Factory to connect to external resources. For example, an Azure Storage linked service specifies a connection string to connect to the Azure Storage account.

How the Azure Data Factory components work together

The following schema shows us the relationships between the Dataset, Activity, Pipeline, and Linked Services components:

Azure Data Factory access zones

Currently, you can create data factories in the West US, East US, and North Europe regions. However, a data factory can access data stores and compute services in other Azure regions to move data between data stores or process data using compute services.
For example, let’s say that your compute environments such as Azure HDInsight cluster and Azure Machine Learning are running out of the West Europe region. You can create and use an Azure Data Factory instance in North Europe and use it to schedule jobs on your compute environments in West Europe. It takes a few milliseconds for Data Factory to trigger the job on your compute environment but the time for running the job on your computing environment does not change.

You can use one of the following tools or APIs to create data pipelines in Azure Data Factory:

• Azure portal
• Visual Studio
• PowerShell
• .NET API
• REST API
• Azure Resource Manager template

Data Migration in action

To get started with Data Factory, you should create a Data Factory on Azure, then create the four key components with Azure Portal, Virtual Studio, or PowerShell etc. Since the four components are in editable JSON format, you can also deploy them in a whole ARM template on the fly.

Now, we’ll set our scenario to migrate a simple table with two columns (name and type) for several records from Azure Blob storage to Azure Database.

To create a Data Factory with Azure Portal, you will start by logging into the Azure portal. Click NEW on the left menu, click Data + Analytics, and then choose Data Factory.

In the New data factory blade, enter TestDataFactoryDemo for the Name. Then choose your subscription, resource group, and region. Finally, click Create on the New data factory blade.

By using Visual Studio 2013 or 2015, you can create a Visual Studio project using the Data Factory project template, define Data Factory entities (linked services, datasets, and pipeline) in JSON format, and then publish/deploy these entities to the cloud.
If you’re using PowerShell, you can create a Data Factory by using the following command if you have a contributor or administrator for your subscription. In my case, I named it with TestDataFactoryDemo and placed it in the TestDataRG resource group:

New-AzureRmDataFactory -ResourceGroupName TestDataRG -Name TestDataFactoryDemo –Location "West US"

DataCopy Wizard on Azure

To start migrating the data on Blob storage to Azure SQL, the most simple way is to use Data Copy Wizard, which is currently in preview. It allows you to quickly create a data pipeline that copies data from a supported source data store to a supported destination data store. For more information on creating your migration related components with Data Copy Wizard, refer to the Microsoft tutorial: Create a pipeline with Copy Activity using Data Factory Copy Wizard.

After you specify each step of the copy wizard, you will see a recap at the end, like the one below:

Click ‘Next’ and the copy wizard will go into action. As in the following screenshot, you can see the details information about each task achieved by the wizard during deployment.

Custom DataCopy Activities

In addition to the DataCopy Wizard, the more general way is to customize your activities by creating each of the key components by yourself. As I mentioned before, Azure Data Factory entities (linked services, datasets, and pipeline) are in JSON format, so you can use your favorite editor to create these files and then copy to Azure portal (by choosing Author and deploy) or continue in the Data Factory project created by Visual Studio, or put them in the right folder path and execute them with PowerShell.

In the following screenshot, you can see where I deployed my custom DataCopy Activities.

Because we are migrating data from Azure Blob storage to Azure Database, we will start by creating Linked Services. Here, it is important is to specify the connection string of each data store.

The source store is Azure Blob Storage, so the linked service JSON is as follows:

{
   "name": "Source-BlobStorage-usz",
   "properties": {
       "hubName": "testdatafactorydemo_hub",
       "type": "AzureStorage",
       "typeProperties": {
"connectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=testdatafastorageaccount;AccountKey=**********"
       }
   }
}

Here, the sink store is Azure Database, so the linked service is as follows:

{
   "name": "Destination-SQLAzure-usz",
   "properties": {
       "hubName": "testdatafactorydemo_hub",
       "type": "AzureSqlDatabase",
       "typeProperties": {
           "connectionString": "Data Source=testdatafactorydatabase.database.windows.net;Initial Catalog=DataDB;Integrated Security=False;User ID=testdatafactorydblogin;Password=**********;Connect Timeout=30;Encrypt=True"
       }
   }
}

Then, we can create the input dataset and output dataset, which, in our case, contains the data structure. For more information about the dataset JSON, please refer to Datasets in Azure Data Factory.

Example for input dataset JSON:

{
   "name": "InputDataset-usz",
   "properties": {
       "structure": [
           {
               "name": "tdate",
               "type": "Datetime"
           },
           {
               "name": "amount",
               "type": "Double"
           }
       ],
       "published": false,
       "type": "AzureBlob",
       "linkedServiceName": "Source-BlobStorage-usz",
       "typeProperties": {
           "fileName": "testData.txt",
           "folderPath": "adf-data",
           "format": {
               "type": "TextFormat",
               "columnDelimiter": ",",
               "skipLineCount": 0,
               "firstRowAsHeader": true
           }
       },
       "availability": {
           "frequency": "Day",
           "interval": 1
       },
       "external": true,
       "policy": {}
   }
}

Example for output dataset JSON:

{
   "name": "OutputDataset-usz",
   "properties": {
       "structure": [
           {
               "name": "tdate",
               "type": "Datetime"
           },
           {
               "name": "amount",
               "type": "Decimal"
           }
       ],
       "published": false,
       "type": "AzureSqlTable",
       "linkedServiceName": "Destination-SQLAzure-usz",
       "typeProperties": {
           "tableName": "[dbo].[transactions]"
       },
       "availability": {
           "frequency": "Day",
           "interval": 1
       },
       "external": false,
       "policy": {}
   }
}

Finally, let’s create the pipeline that contains all the activities during the data migration process.  The most important part is schema mapping. For more information about the pipeline JSON, please refer to Pipelines and Activities in Azure Data Factory.

Here is an example:

{
   "name": "testCopyDataFactory",
   "properties": {
       "description": "test data",
       "activities": [
           {
               "type": "Copy",
               "typeProperties": {
                   "source": {
                       "type": "BlobSource",
                       "recursive": false
                   },
                   "sink": {
                       "type": "SqlSink",
                       "writeBatchSize": 0,
                       "writeBatchTimeout": "00:00:00"
                   },
                   "translator": {
                       "type": "TabularTranslator",
                       "columnMappings": "tdate:tdate,amount:amount"
                   }
               },
               "inputs": [
                   {
                       "name": "InputDataset-usz"
                   }
               ],
               "outputs": [
                   {
                       "name": "OutputDataset-usz"
                   }
               ],
               "policy": {
                   "timeout": "1.00:00:00",
                   "concurrency": 1,
                   "executionPriorityOrder": "NewestFirst",
                   "style": "StartOfInterval",
                   "retry": 3,
                   "longRetry": 0,
                   "longRetryInterval": "00:00:00"
               },
               "scheduler": {
                   "frequency": "Day",
                   "interval": 1
               },
               "name": "Activity-0-testData_txt->[dbo]_[transactions]"
           }
       ],
       "start": "2017-04-13T14:10:03.876Z",
       "end": "2099-12-30T23:00:00Z",
       "isPaused": false,
       "hubName": "testdatafactorydemo_hub",
       "pipelineMode": "Scheduled"
   }
}

Monitor and manage Azure Data Factory pipelines

As mentioned, Azure Data Factory also provides a way to monitor and manage pipelines. To launch the Monitor and Management app, click the Monitor & Manage tile on the Data Factory blade for your data factory.

There are three tabs on the left: Resource Explorer, Monitoring Views, and Alerts. The first tab (Resource Explorer) is selected by default.

You will see the following:

• The Resource Explorer tree view in the left pane
• The Diagram View at the top of the middle pane
• The Activity Windows list at the bottom of the middle pane
• The Properties, Activity Window Explorer, and Script tabs in the right pane

In Resource Explorer, you will see all resources (pipelines, datasets, linked services) in the data factory in a tree view, as in the following screenshot:

Final Result Test

To quickly verify that your data has been migrated in your Azure SQL, I recommend installing sql-cli via npm, then connect to your Azure SQL Database. The sql-cli is a cross-platform command line interface for SQL Server. You can install it by using the following command:

npm install -g sql-cli

Then, connect to your SQL Database by using the following command:

mssql -s yoursqlDBaddress -u username -p password -d databasename -e

Finally, you can test your Azure SQL Database with a normal SQL request like the following:

Azure Data Factory pricing

With Data Factory, you pay only for what you need. In fact, pricing for data pipeline is calculated based on:

• Pipeline orchestration and execution;
• Data flow execution and debugging;
• Number of Data Factory operations such as create pipelines and pipeline monitoring.

If you want to have a full overview, we recommend checking the Azure Data Factory documentation.

Learn Azure Data Factory on Cloud Academy

Look, the cloud is our future and Azure Data Factory is a great tool to let your data ‘GO CLOUD’ more rapidly in real life. We’ll be writing more posts using practice scenarios such as this one for Azure Data Factory, Data Lake Store, and HD-Insights.

In the meantime, If you want to have a full Azure Data Factory overview, we recommend you dive deep into all the ADF content in the Cloud Academy training library: you’ll find courses, lectures, and lab challenges to get you ready for the next project. Contact us today for more details.

The post What is Azure Data Factory: Key Components and Concepts, Use Cases, Pricing, and More appeared first on Cloud Academy.

This rapid growth has led to a dramatic increase in the number of jobs requiring Azure skills. One of the best ways to prove that you have those skills is by obtaining certifications.

But as a tech leader, how do you know which certifications to guide your team towards, and how do you assess their skill level/efficiency?

In this article, we’ll cover the most popular Microsoft Azure certification exams and help you get started with choosing a learning path that best meets your cloud computing goals.

Whether you are looking for study materials for an Azure certification or simply want to find out more about what Azure can offer your enterprise, Cloud Academy’s Microsoft Azure Training Library is loaded with learning paths, courses, practice certification exams, hands-on labs, lab challenges, and lab playgrounds. Our learning paths are guided learning experiences that provide step-by-step training to build your technical knowledge and hands-on skills using actual Azure accounts in live environments.

Fill out the form to learn more about how our tech skills assessments can help you save time by identifying the exact skills your team needs.

Fill out the form below and get a free demo!

Choosing the right Azure certification: What’s the value?

Azure certifications stand out for their intense evaluation of a candidate’s expertise, focusing on practical experience and proven techniques. 

Executives in charge of an IT team will find that obtaining Azure certification can be an excellent way to not only build foundational knowledge of Azure services and solutions, but also assess the capabilities of more seasoned team members.

Are Azure certifications worth it?

Any certification that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise within the IT industry is certainly worth obtaining. In a market that is full of competition, being able to stand out above a crowd can help you get noticed and put you on your journey to achieve your professional goals.

If there are a number of candidates applying for a position, and all have the same credentials and experience, but one of them has a number of recognized Azure credentials to reinforce their knowledge, then this goes a long way in making you the chosen candidate.

It is not just about validating your knowledge however, it says a lot about you as a person. It shows commitment, dedication, the willingness to learn, the drive to stay at the forefront of innovation, and sometimes this demonstrates more to people than what the actual certification stands for.

How do I become Azure certified?

While no particular approach is necessary when it comes to studying for the Azure certification,  the following steps are a great starting point: 

• Enroll in an Azure training class, such as any of the ones mentioned in this article. They will certainly increase your knowledge of cloud computing and Azure.
• Review any study or exam guides available.
• Read multiple Azure whitepapers. These hold some invaluable information, which may answer many of your questions.
• Practice, practice, practice. Practice exams will help ease any worries or stress you may be having about the certification exam.
• Schedule the exam once you are ready. It typically takes anywhere from 80-120 hours of practice/studying to be prepared for the exam based on experience and the certification you are pursuing.

Azure certifications: Which is best?

All Azure certifications are important and are a great asset to have from a professional standpoint. Deciding which one to take, or which one is ‘best’ largely depends on your interests, your role, and where you would like to take your career.

For example, If you are looking to move into application development, then the following route would be a great fit: 

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals  
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate
• Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert

So it really depends on what you are trying to achieve as an individual, and where you want to take your career.

Microsoft Azure currently offers 19 certifications. All certifications are role-based, with titles such as Azure Administrator, Azure Solution Architect, Azure Developer, and Azure AI Engineer. They’re organized into 4 levels: Fundamentals, Associate, Expert, and Specialty. These certifications focus on building knowledge and skills related to job roles. They were designed with the engagement of the community in identifying the requirements for each role. You can find a complete overview on Cloud Academy’s Azure certifications page.

Here are all the Azure certifications we’ll cover in this post:

• Microsoft Azure Fundamentals-Level certifications:
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals – Exam AZ-900
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals – Exam AI-900
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals – Exam DP-900
  • Microsoft Certified: Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals – Exam SC-900
    
• Microsoft Azure Associate-Level certifications:
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate – Exam AZ-104
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate – Exam AZ-204
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate – Exam AZ-500
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate – Exam AZ-700
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate – Exam AI-102
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate – Exam DP-100
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate – Exam DP-203
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate – Exam DP-300
  • Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate – Exam SC-200
  • Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate – Exam SC-300
    
• Microsoft Azure Expert-Level certifications:
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert – Exam AZ-305
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert – Exam AZ-400
    
• Microsoft Azure Specialty certifications:
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty – Exam AZ-120
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty – Exam AZ-140
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure IoT Developer Specialty – Exam AZ-220

Bringing your team up to speed on Azure can take time you may not have. But with our Cloud Certification Fast-track program, you can crush your certification goals with direct support from our team of cloud experts. 

Custom training, visibility into progress, and end-to-end program management are just some of the features. Contact our team today to find out how the program works.

Now, let’s take a closer look at each exam.

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals-Level certifications

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam. The Azure fundamentals certification is designed to validate a foundational knowledge level of Azure cloud services. It is intended for both technical and non-technical candidates.  

Areas Covered

• Understand foundational cloud concepts such as high availability, scalability, reliability, cloud models, and cloud service types
• Describe compute, networking, storage, and core architectural components of Azure
• Describe identity, access, and security
• Describe Azure management, governance, compliance, and monitoring tools

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 50
• Duration: 60 Minutes
• Passing Score Required: 700
• Cost: $99

To prepare for this exam, check out the AZ-900 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AI-900 Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals exam. Candidates who are interested in earning this fundamental level certification must have a basic knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions on Microsoft Azure.

Areas Covered

• Describe AI workloads and considerations, including features of common AI workloads and guiding principles for responsible AI
• Describe fundamental principles of machine learning on Azure, such as common machine learning types and scenarios
• Describe features of computer vision workloads on Azure
• Describe features of natural language processing (NLP) workloads on Azure, such as conversational AI

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 50 – 60
• Duration: 60 Minutes
• Cost: $99

To get ready for this exam, check out the AI-900 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the DP-900 Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals exam. Candidates who want to earn this certification should understand core data concepts, relational and non-relational data, and analytics workloads on Azure.

Areas Covered

• Describe core data concepts, such as common data workloads and ways to represent data
• Identify considerations for relational data on Azure, including relational concepts and relational Azure data services
• Describe considerations for working with non-relational data on Azure, including capabilities of Azure Storage and Azure Cosmos DB
• Describe analytics workloads on Azure, including large-scale analytics, real-time data analytics, data visualization in Microsoft Power BI

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 50
• Duration: 60 Minutes
• Cost: $99

If you want to get ready for this exam, go through the DP-900 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the SC-900 Microsoft Azure Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals exam. Candidates who want to earn this certification should have a general knowledge of the security, compliance, and identity capabilities of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure.

Areas Covered

• Describe the concepts of security, compliance, and identity
• Describe the capabilities of Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), part of Microsoft Entra
• Describe the capabilities of Microsoft security solutions
• Describe the capabilities of Microsoft compliance solutions

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 60 Minutes
• Cost: $99

To get ready for this exam, check out the SC-900 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Associate-Level certifications

Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate exam. The AZ-104 exam is the replacement for the AZ-103 exam.

This exam will test the knowledge and capabilities of candidates in the configuration and management of compute, storage, virtual networking, and monitoring in an Azure environment.

An Azure Administrator is a subject matter expert (SME) who is responsible for implementing the Azure-based cloud infrastructure of an organization.

Areas Covered

• Manage Azure identities and governance, including Azure AD objects, role-based access control (RBAC), and subscriptions and governance
• Implement and manage storage, including Azure Files and Azure Blob Storage
• Deploy and manage Azure compute resources, including virtual machines, containers, and Azure App Service
• Configure and manage virtual networking, including virtual networks and load balancers
• Monitor and maintain Azure resources

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

If you want to get ready for this exam, try the AZ-104 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Developer Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-204 Microsoft Azure Developer Associate exam. The AZ-204 exam is the replacement for the AZ-203 exam.

Candidates for this certification should be familiar with designing, building, and testing Azure-based apps and services. Candidates should also have 1-2 years of development experience with proficiency in data storage and connections, Azure SDKs, debugging, monitoring, performance tuning, etc.

Areas Covered

• Develop Azure compute solutions, including IaaS solutions, web apps, and Azure Functions
• Develop for Azure storage, including Cosmos DB storage and blob storage
• Implement Azure security, including authentication and authorization
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions
• Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services using API Management, event-based solutions, and message-based solutions

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To prepare for this exam, you should take the AZ-204 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate Certification

As a team leader, you are fully aware that the security concerns associated with cloud computing are one of the biggest impediments to its wide-spread adoption.
If you’re interested in understanding how to keep your cloud environment secure with Cloud Academy, contact us and request a free demo!

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate exam. This certification is designed for candidates who implement and manage security controls, identity, and access management and are responsible for securing cloud data, apps, and networks. As a Microsoft Azure security engineer, candidates are responsible for managing and securing cloud-based solutions and may also secure hybrid cloud solutions as part of an end-to-end infrastructure.

This exam requires strong skills in automation and scripting, a deep understanding of virtualization technology and virtual networking, and a strong familiarity with Microsoft cloud services and products.

Areas Covered

• Manage identity and access using Azure Active Directory and role-based access control (RBAC)
• Implement platform protection, including advanced security for compute and networks
• Manage security operations, including policy management, threat protection, and security monitoring solutions
• Secure data and applications

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, check out the AZ-500 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Network Engineer Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-700 Microsoft Azure Network Engineer Associate exam. This certification is designed for people who already have experience with Microsoft Azure networking.

Areas Covered

• Design, implement, and manage hybrid networking
• Design and implement core networking infrastructure
• Design and implement routing
• Secure and monitor networks
• Design and implement private access to Azure services

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To prepare for this exam, you should take the AZ-700 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AI-102 Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate exam. This associate-level certification is designed for candidates who implement Microsoft AI solutions like natural language processing, knowledge mining, speech, computer vision, bots, and agents using Cognitive Services, Cognitive Search, and the Bot Framework.

Candidates for this exam should have at least a general knowledge of IT architecture and software development experience, especially using REST APIs.

Areas Covered

• Plan and manage an Azure Cognitive Services solution
• Implement Computer Vision solutions
• Implement natural language processing solutions
• Implement knowledge-mining solutions
• Implement conversational AI solutions

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

If you want to get ready for this exam, you should check the AZ-102 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Data Scientist Associate Certification

The demand for this certification has increased significantly. As data sets grow, companies are looking to data scientists to uncover hidden trends and extract value from complex sets of data that will help inform business decisions.

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the DP-100 Microsoft Azure Data Scientist Associate exam. This certification is focused on designing and implementing a data science solution on Azure. You will learn how to apply Azure machine learning approaches in training, evaluation, and deployment of models that are used to solve business problems.

Areas Covered

• Design and prepare a machine learning solution
• Explore data and train models
• Prepare a model for deployment
• Deploy and retrain a model

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 180 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, check out the DP-100 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate Certification

To get this certification and become an Azure Data Engineer, you need to pass the DP-203 Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate exam. This certification is designed for people who know how to implement systems for exploring, processing, and analyzing data on Azure.

Areas Covered

• Design and implement data storage on Azure
• Design and develop data processing on Azure
• Design and implement data security on Azure
• Monitor and optimize data storage and data processing on Azure

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

If you want to get ready for this exam, take the DP-203 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Database Administrator Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the DP-300 Microsoft Azure Database Administrator Associate exam. This is a role-based Azure certification exam that would be ideal for candidates who are interested in administering cloud-based database systems. By achieving this certification, candidates prove they can manage Azure SQL Database and Microsoft SQL Server.

Areas Covered

• Plan and implement data platform resources
• Implement a secure environment
• Monitor, configure, and optimize database resources
• Configure and manage automation of tasks
• Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) environment

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, you should check out the DP-300 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Security Operations Analyst Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the SC-200 Microsoft Azure Security Operations Analyst Associate exam. This certification is designed for IT professionals who are familiar with threat mitigation using Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, and Microsoft Sentinel.

Areas Covered

• Mitigate threats using Microsoft 365 Defender
• Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Mitigate threats using Microsoft Sentinel

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

If you want to get ready for this exam, you should take the SC-200 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Identity and Access Administrator Associate Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the SC-300 Microsoft Azure Identity and Access Administrator Associate exam. This certification is designed for IT professionals who know how to manage identity and access on Microsoft 365 and Azure.

Areas Covered

• Implement identities in Azure AD
• Implement authentication and access management
• Implement access management for applications
• Plan and implement identity governance in Azure AD

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, take the SC-300 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Expert-Level certifications

Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass both the AZ-305 Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert exam and the AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate exam.

This certification is designed for candidates who have advanced knowledge of Azure architecture. You don’t have to take the AZ-104 exam before taking AZ-305, but you have to pass both of them to get the certification.

Areas Covered

• Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
• Design data storage solutions
• Design business continuity solutions
• Design infrastructure solutions

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: AZ-104 exam (or you can take the AZ-104 exam after AZ-305)
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To prepare for this exam, take the AZ-305 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-400 Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert exam as well as either the AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate exam or the AZ-204 Azure Developer Associate exam. This certification is designed for DevOps professionals who bring people, processes, and technologies closer to deliver valuable services and products that meet business requirements and objectives. DevOps engineers are responsible for delivering cloud services by improving collaboration and communications, designing, and implementing strategies for app coding, and creating automation, continuous delivery, monitoring, and feedback. For this job role, candidates should be proficient with Agile practices and familiar with both Azure development and operations processes.

Areas Covered

• Configure processes and communications
• Design and implement source control
• Design and implement build and release pipelines
• Develop a security and compliance plan
• Implement an instrumentation strategy

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: Azure Administrator Associate or Azure Developer Associate certification
• Number of Questions: 50 – 70
• Duration: 180 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, take the AZ-400 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Specialty certifications

Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-120 Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty exam. This certification is designed for people who have familiarity with SAP components and a general understanding of computing architecture such as networking, databases, and computer hardware.

Areas Covered

• Migrate SAP Workloads to Azure
• Design and implement an infrastructure to support SAP workloads on Azure
• Design and implement high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR)
• Maintain SAP Workloads on Azure

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, take the AZ-120 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-140 Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty exam. This certification is designed for people who have experience administering Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop.

Areas Covered

• Plan and implement an Azure Virtual Desktop infrastructure
• Plan and implement identity and security
• Plan and implement user environments and apps
• Monitor and maintain an Azure Virtual Desktop infrastructure

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, take the AZ-140 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Azure IoT Developer Specialty Certification

To get this Azure certification, you need to pass the AZ-220 Microsoft Azure IoT Developer Specialty exam. This certification is designed for people who want to become Azure IoT developers and already have experience with software development and Microsoft Azure.

Areas Covered

• Set up the Azure IoT Hub solution infrastructure
• Provision and manage devices
• Implement IoT Edge
• Implement business integration
• Process and manage data
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize IoT solutions
• Implement security

Exam Information

• Prerequisites: None
• Number of Questions: 40 – 60
• Duration: 120 Minutes
• Cost: $165

To get ready for this exam, take the AZ-220 Exam Preparation Learning Path on Cloud Academy.

How to renew Azure certification and stay up to date

Microsoft role-based (associate and expert) and specialty certifications are valid for one (1) year from the date that you complete all requirements to earn that certification.

To prevent your certification from expiring you must renew the certification before the expiration date. 

Renewals are free 

There’s no cost to renew your certification, just make sure you pass the online assessment before your certification expires. Fundamentals certifications do not expire.

Six-month renewal window

You can take the renewal assessment any time during your six-month eligibility window, via Microsoft Learn. Once you pass, your certification will be extended one year from the expiration date.

Assessments are short and unproctored

Assessments focus on recent technological and industry updates, so they’re shorter than the original exam(s) and are open-book. You can take the assessment as many times as you need as long as you pass before your certification expires.

If you are a tech team leader, you want to make sure your tech talents stay up to date with the latest releases and certifications. But bringing your team up to speed on AWS can take time you may not have. With our Cloud Certification Fast-track program, you can crush your certification goals with direct support from our team of cloud experts. Custom training, visibility into progress, and end-to-end program management are just some of the features. Contact our team today and request a free demo to find out how the program works.

Conclusion

Microsoft is one of the largest and fastest-growing players in the public cloud market. If you are interested in making a career using Microsoft Azure technologies, I highly recommend choosing one or more of the above-mentioned certifications.

These role-based certifications include configuration and management of compute, storage, networking, security, reliability, integration, development, and operations capabilities. Organizations are rapidly adopting Microsoft Azure cloud services, and the demand is growing for certified Azure administrators, solution architects, developers, and security engineers. To become certified and successfully land a job, you’ll not only need to learn how to configure, manage, and secure Azure cloud environments, but you’ll also need practical, hands-on experience. Cloud Academy offers Microsoft Azure Certifications Learning Paths that not only help you pass the Azure certification exams but also allow you to test your skills in real-world environments with hands-on labs, lab challenges, and lab playgrounds. From configuring Azure infrastructure for cloud administrators to integrating Azure services for cloud architects, these learning paths fully prepare you with the knowledge and experience you need to start or advance your Azure career.

To learn more about how we help companies go beyond training to upskill, reskill, and retain proven tech talent through our platform, contact us.

Good luck and Happy learning!

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

What are the top 3 certifications in Azure?

Some of the top Azure certifications include: 

• Azure Fundamentals
• Azure Administrator Associate
• Azure Developer Associate

What are the different levels of Azure certification?

Azure certifications are organized into 4 levels: Fundamentals, Associate, Expert, and Specialty. These certifications focus on building knowledge and skills related to specific job roles. 

How much does Azure certification cost?

The prices of the exams are different based on the level of the certification:

• Fundamentals = $99
• Associate = $165
• Expert = $165
• Specialty = $165

Can I get Azure certification online?

Yes! You can find Azure courses and training online from a variety of providers. Cloud Academy’s Microsoft Azure Training Library allows teams to access vital resources and education from anywhere.

How long does Azure certification last?

Microsoft role-based (associate and expert) and specialty certifications are valid for one (1) year from the date of completion.

Want to understand how Cloud Academy can help your team get Azure certified and always stay up to date?

With our Cloud Certification Fast-track program, you can crush your certification goals with direct support from our team of cloud experts. Custom training, visibility into progress, and end-to-end program management are just some of the features. Fill out the form to get a free demo and find out how the program works.

Fill out the form below and get a free demo!

The post Azure Certifications: Which is Right for You and Your Team? appeared first on Cloud Academy.

Have you found it quite challenging to use the Azure Portal GUI?

You’re not alone, and getting lost is simple. The azure overview blades might be awkward because so many changes and updates are made daily. Instead of navigating a graphical user interface, we may control Azure resources using PowerShell or Bash, thanks to Azure Cloud Shell.

What precisely is Azure Cloud Shell? Let’s dive in to know more!

Here’s everything we’ll cover:

• What is Azure Cloud Shell?
• How to access Azure Cloud Shell?
• Azure Cloud Shell Features and Tools
• Advantages of Azure Cloud Shell
• Azure Cloud Shell Pricing
• Learn Azure Cloud Shell on Cloud Academy

What is Azure Cloud Shell?

Azure PowerShell is essentially a Windows PowerShell extension. It enables users of Windows PowerShell to manage Azure’s extensive capability. Azure PowerShell programmers utilize pre-written scripts called cmdlets from the command line to carry out challenging operations like deploying virtual machines (VMs) or building cloud services. APS can also automate tasks by using programming. While some users say that the terminal feels “unfinished” and that assistance is inadequate, supporters point out that the ease of use helps with tasks that are generally difficult.

With Azure Cloud Shell, you can:

• Run commands and scripts against your Azure resources in a single command-line interface that supports tab completion, history, and more.
• Manage your Azure subscription with a rich command set that lets you create, list, and delete subscriptions and manage user access keys.
• Get started with interactive tutorials on using the most common features, such as creating VMs or Virtual Networks.

How to access Azure Cloud Shell?

An integrated, interactive, browser-based shell for building and administering Azure infrastructure is called the Azure Cloud Shell. You can browse https://shell.azure.com or use the Azure Web Portal to access the cloud shell directly. It lets you use either the PowerShell or Bash environment.

Direct link

The Cloud Shell can be accessed directly via its browser tab by visiting https://shell.azure.com. When the Azure Portal Cloud Shell is opened, you can open a new tab by clicking “Open new session”.

Using Azure Web Portal

Go to the Azure Portal and click the Cloud Shell icon at the top right.

Code Snippets (Bash and Powershell)

The Azure Account extension can be installed if you have Visual Studio Code. For installing the extension, you can add two new commands which can run from within VS Code. For this, open Bash in Cloud Shell and Open PowerShell in Cloud Shell.

Azure Cloud Shell Features and Tools

This browser-based shell experience enables you to manage Azure resources without installing, versioning and maintaining a virtual machine. It runs on Common Base Linux Delridge. Below are the Cloud Shell features.

$HOME Persistence Across Sessions

Cloud Shell enables $HOME persistence across various sessions. Cloud Shell allows you to attach Azure file share on its first launch to keep your files across multiple sessions. After it is completed, Azure Cloud Shell will attach your storage file ( $HOME\clouddrive) for all further sessions automatically. In addition, it keeps your $HOME directory as a .img in Azure File share.

Secure Automatic Authentication

This amazing feature of the Cloud Shell helps authenticate account access for the Azure PowerShell and Azure CLI securely and automatically.

Azure Drive (Azure:)

Azure drive (Azure:) is provided by PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell. Switching to and from the Azure drive is quite easy. You can use cd Azure: to switch to the Azure drive and cd ~ to switch back to your directory. The Azure drive enables easy navigation and discovery of Azure resources, including Network, Compute, etc. To refresh your Azure resources, run dir -Force.

Manage Exchange Online

There is a private build of the Exchange Online Module in the PowerShell of the Cloud Shell. Getting your Exchange cmdlets is also easy and can be done by running Connect-EXOPSSession.

Now run Get-Command -Module tmp_*.

Integration with Open-Source Tools

Azure Cloud Shell enables deep integration with open-source tools. It includes a pre-configured authentication for open-source tools, including Ansible, Terraform, and Chef InSpec.

Additional Azure Cloud Shell Features include:

• Executes on a temporary host based on per user, per session.
• Session times out after 20 minutes of interactive inactivity.
• Uses Azure file share for PowerShell and Bash.
• Assigns one machine per user account.
• $HOME is persisted using a 5-GB image in your file share.
• Sets permissions in Bash as a regular Linux user.

Azure Cloud Shell Tools

Azure Cloud Shell consists of several tools below.

• Linux Tools: Several Linux tools are present in the Azure Cloud shell, including bash, sh, zsh, tmux, and dig.
• Azure Tools: Azure CLI, AzCopy, Azure Functions CLI, blobxfer, Service Fabric CLI, Azure Classic CLI, and Batch Shipyard.
• Text Editors: Text Editors in Cloud Shell include code, nano, vim, and emacs. 
• Containers: Docker Machine, kubectl, Helm, and DC/OS CLI are included in containers.
• Databases: Cloud Shell databases consist of MySQL client, sqlcmd Utility, PostgreSql client, and mssql-scripter. 

Some new tools are also added to the Azure Cloud Shell that include:

• Azure Functions CLI: Azure Functions CLI allows you to create, run, test, and debug Azure functions. 
• Bolt: Puppet Bolt, an open-source application that helps you in automating the management of your virtual environment. 
• Packer: HashiCorp Packer allows you to automate the process of creating a machine image.

Moreover, updated tools include Java Development Kit, Azure PowerShell, and Azure CLI.

Advantages of Azure Cloud Shell

Azure management tools, including the PowerShell module and the Azure command-line interface enable admins to control their cloud shell resources. However, these may have downsides, such as potential configuration challenges, software dependencies, etc. A browser-based command-line tool, Azure Cloud Shell, can help reduce these burdens. Let’s have a look at some of its advantages. 

Browser-Based Shell Experience

Azure Cloud Shell is built with Azure management tasks in mind. It provides a browser-based command-line experience and enables unrestricted work from a local machine.

Choice of desired Shell Experience

Choice of preferred shell experience is a great advantage of the Azure Cloud Shell. It enables users to choose between PowerShell or Bash, whichever they like.

Configured & Authenticated Azure Workstation

Being managed by Microsoft, Azure Cloud Shell consists of popular command-line tools and enhanced language support. Also, Cloud Shell automatically authenticates for instant access through Azure PowerShell cmdlets or Azure CLI to your resources.

Integrated Shell Editor

An integrated graphical text editor is present in Cloud Shell based on the Monaco Editor. You can seamlessly create and edit configuration files by running the code and enabling deployment through Azure PowerShell or Azure CLI.

Various Points of Access

Azure Cloud Shell is a flexible tool with multiple access points. It can be used from shell.azure.com, Azure CLI documentation, portal.azure.com, Azure mobile app, and Visual Studio Code Azure Account extension.

Connectivity with your Microsoft Azure Files Storage

While the Cloud Shell machines are temporary, your files can be persisted in two ways, either through a mounted file share (cloud drive) or a disk image. You can map a single file share, which both PowerShell and Bash will use in Azure Cloud Shell.

Azure Cloud Shell Pricing

Ideally, there is no upfront and termination cost for Cloud Shell and you’ll only pay for what you use. Only the Azure Files share used to store your data for Cloud Shell billing is considered. Storage transactions, data transfers, and redundancy options will all affect your total cost. Cloud Shell makes locally-redundant storage (formally LRS) account with an Azure Files share on your behalf and this Azure File share also offers a 5 GB disk image for Bash. 

There are four tiers of pricing models for Cloud Shell that you can select from according to your need and requirements. These are given in the table below.

Learn Azure Cloud Shell on Cloud Academy

Now, you can easily streamline Azure administration with a browser-based shell and get authenticated shell access to Azure from anywhere in the world virtually. However, if you desire to use advanced Azure Files share features, you may select your preferred pricing plan.

If you’re looking to learn more about Azure Cloud Shell, Azure PowerShell and CLI Overview and Azure Cloud Shell Playground are very good choices for you to start. In Azure PowerShell and CLI Overview course, you’ll learn about the basic concepts of Azure Cloud Shell and the syntax of Bash and PowerShell.

Azure Cloud Shell Playground offers you a lab environment to learn about Azure resources. Cloud Academy also offers several Microsoft Azure Courses, labs, and learning paths to gain practical experience. 

If you have thoughts or questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact Cloud Academy.

Thanks and Happy Learning!

The post Azure Cloud Shell Overview: Manage and develop your Azure Resources on the Browser appeared first on Cloud Academy.

Azure SQL requires an adequately patched operating system and a reliable installation of SQL Server, preferably the most recent release. In addition, it aids in developing a highly accessible and fast data storage layer.

This post will give you a detailed introduction to Azure SQL databases and how you can begin utilizing them with your apps to get started. Continue reading if you want to learn more about what Azure SQL offers, regardless of whether this is your first time using Azure!

Here’s everything we’ll cover:

• Azure SQL Database Types
• Azure SQL Database
  • Features
  • Benefits
  • Use Cases
  • Pricing
  • Why should you choose Azure SQL Database?
• SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
  • Features
  • Benefits
  • Use Cases
  • Pricing
  • Why should you choose SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines?
• Azure SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI)
  • Features
  • Benefits
  • Use Cases
  • Pricing
  • Why should you choose Azure SQL Managed Instance?
• Azure SQL Edge
  • Features
  • Benefits
  • Use Cases
  • Pricing
  • Why should you choose Azure SQL Edge?
• Learn Azure SQL Databases on Cloud Academy

Azure SQL Database Types

Following are some types of Azure SQL Databases: 

• Azure SQL Database: It is a fully managed cloud-based relational database service. High availability and built-in AI are always maintaining its durability and performance with 99.95% of SLA. 
• SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines: This database type helps you migrate your SQL server with the hybrid connectivity and flexibility of Azure. You can register your virtual machines and benefit from automated management and built-in security. 
• Azure SQL Managed Instance: An advanced cloud database that combines engine compatibility for the broadest SQL Server and gives the benefits of up-to-date PaaS. 
• Azure SQL Edge: It is an IoT edge computing database that combines time series and data streaming with built-in graph features and machine learning.

Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is a relational database service for cloud infrastructures built on Microsoft’s SQL Server technology and offers all the benefits of a traditional SQL Server database, including high performance and scalability, robust security, and rich management capabilities.

Plus, it enables you to take advantage of the cloud’s flexibility and efficiency to scale your database on demand and pay only for the resources you use.

Features

Below are some features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database: 

• Automatic tuning: Azure SQL Database automatically tunes itself based on workload patterns, making it easier to maintain performance at scale.
• Dynamic scalability: Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be scaled up and down according to your needs without having to provision or manage any infrastructure.
• High availability: Azure SQL Database provides built-in high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities to keep your data safe and always available even during an outage or disaster.
• Enterprise security: Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers a comprehensive set of security features to help keep your data safe and secure, including encryption, authentication, and authorization.
• Flexible pricing: With Azure SQL Databases, you can have different pricing options according to your budget and requirements. You can choose a pay-as-you-go or subscription-based pricing model and scale up or down as your needs change.

Benefits

As I mentioned earlier, Azure SQL Database is a cloud-agnostic relational database service built on Microsoft’s robust and reliable SQL Server technology. It offers all the benefits of an SQL Server, including high availability, security, and scalability. Plus, it’s easy to use and manage, so you can get up and running quickly and focus on your business instead of your database.

Use Cases

There are different use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database and some of the most common are:

• Running production workloads: Azure SQL Database is an excellent option for running production workloads in the cloud. It offers high availability and performance and can scale to meet your application’s demands.
• Developing and testing applications: Azure SQL Database can create and test applications. It offers an easy way to provision databases in the cloud and can be quickly scaled up or down as needed.
• Migrating on-premises databases to the cloud: With Azure SQL Database, you can migrate your on-premises SQL databases to the Azure cloud easily. It offers an easy way to lift and shift your database to the cloud and can be quickly scaled up or down as needed.
• Building modern cloud applications: Azure SQL Database is an excellent option for building modern cloud applications. It offers high availability and performance and can scale to meet your application’s demands.

Pricing

There are three ways to pay for Azure SQL Database: 

• Subscription: You can purchase Microsoft Azure SQL Database as a subscription, which allows you to pay as you go. It is the most flexible payment option where you can scale up or down according to your requirements and usage.
• Server-level: You can also purchase Azure SQL Database at the server level, which gives you a fixed amount of storage and compute resources. This option is best for businesses with a predictable workload and doesn’t need the flexibility of a subscription.
• Database-level: Finally, you can purchase Azure SQL Database at the database level, which gives you a set amount of storage options for your database. This option is best for businesses that have a specific need for storage and don’t need the flexibility of a subscription.

Visit Azure SQL pricing details to know more about how much Azure SQL database can cost you. 

Why should you choose Azure SQL Database?

 There are many reasons why you should choose Azure SQL Database:

1. It offers a highly scalable and reliable platform for your data storage needs. 
2. Azure SQL Database provides comprehensive security features to protect your data.
3. Azure SQL Database offers several convenient features that make it easy to manage your data.

SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

You can run complete installations of SQL Server in the cloud using Microsoft SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, all without the hassle of maintaining any physical servers. When you use SQL Server VMs, and a pay-as-you-go license, model and licensing expenses are also simplified.

Features

The features include: 

• Deploy SQL Server in minutes
• Choose from different instance sizes and pricing options
• Enjoy built-in high availability and disaster recovery
• Get enhanced security with virtual machine isolation
• Benefit from Azure’s world-class infrastructure and 24/7 support

Visit the provider’s website to learn more about SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines.

Benefits

Some of the key benefits of running SQL Server on an Azure VM include:

• High Availability: Azure VMs offer built-in redundancy and fault tolerance, ensuring that your SQL Server instance is always available.
• Scalability: Azure VMs can be easily scaled up or down to meet changing demand, making them perfect for applications that experience fluctuating workloads.
• Cost-effective: Azure VMs provide a cost-effective way to run Microsoft SQL Server in the cloud, with pay-as-you-go pricing that can save you money on your overall IT costs.

Use Cases

The use cases for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines are:

• Take more control over your database environment than Azure SQL Database offers.
• Take advantage of features only available in the full version of SQL Server, such as In-Memory OLTP or column store indexes.
• Use the Windows Authentication option to connect to your database.
• Run an older version of SQL Server incompatible with Azure SQL Database.
• Deploy an Always-On Availability Group to provide HA and DR capabilities. 

Pricing

SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines pricing varies depending on the size and type of virtual machine you select and the region in which it’s located. You can save money by using Azure Reserved VM Instances, which offer up to 72 percent savings compared to pay-as-you-go prices.

Why should you choose SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines?

There are several reasons to choose SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines. Here are just a few:

1. Cost savings: With SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, you can save money on your infrastructure costs.
2. Flexibility: With SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, you can scale up or down as needed, making it easy to adjust your capacity to meet changing demands.
3. High availability: With SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, you can achieve high availability for your mission-critical applications.
4. Disaster recovery: With SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, you can quickly recover from disasters with little or no data loss.

Azure SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI)

Regarding cloud services, this database is an advanced and scalable option, providing the benefits of a completely managed and ever-upgraded platform as a service that combines engine compatibility for the broadest SQL Server. 

Features

Azure SQL Managed Instance provides many features unavailable in the Basic tier, Standard, and Premium service tiers. These features include:

• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) compatibility: SSIS is a tool that helps you build ETL (extract, transform, load) solutions. With Azure SQL Managed Instance, you can use your existing SSIS packages to load data into Azure SQL Database.
• Polybase Query Service for external data: Polybase Query Service lets you query data stored in Hadoop or Azure Blob Storage using T-SQL. With Azure SQL Managed Instance, you can use Polybase to query data stored in Hadoop or Azure Blob Storage without having to install and configure a Hadoop cluster.
• Stretch Database for near-infinite scale and availability: Stretch Database lets you dynamically stretch your database to Azure so that your data is always available and up-to-date. With Azure SQL Managed Instance, you can use Stretch Database to scale your database on demand and keep your data safe during an outage.
• TDE with BYOK support: TDE with Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) is a feature that encrypts your database files at rest. With Azure SQL Managed Instance, you can use TDE with your key, which allows you to keep your encryption keys safe and secure.

Benefits

The benefits of Azure SQL Managed Instance include:

• Near-complete compatibility with the latest version of Azure with SQL Server, including all significant features such as Always Encrypted and In-Memory OLTP.
• Built-in high availability and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Easy to deploy and manage, with no need to install or maintain any infrastructure.
• Highly scalable, allowing you to quickly add or remove storage capacity according to your needs.
• Cost-effective, with pay-as-you-go pricing that includes all software and infrastructure costs.

Use cases

 Some of the most common include the following:

• Web applications: Azure SQL Managed Instance is an excellent choice for powering web applications. It offers high availability and scalability, so you can quickly meet the demands of even the most popular websites. In addition, Azure SQL Managed Instance provides built-in security features that can help keep your web application safe from attacks.
• Mobile applications: Azure SQL Managed Instance can also be used for mobile applications. It offers the same high availability and scalability as it does for web applications, so you can easily support many users. Azure SQL Managed Instance also provides built-in security features that can help protect your mobile application from attacks.
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications: Azure SQL Managed Instance is an excellent choice for powering ERP applications because it offers high availability and scalability. Azure SQL Managed Instance also provides built-in security features that can help keep your ERP application safe from attacks.

Pricing

The Azure SQL Managed Instance pricing depends on the number of instances you create, the storage size, and the region where you deploy your model. Visit the Azure pricing page to see the current Azure SQL Managed Instance prices.

Why should You choose Azure SQL Managed Instance?

 Now that you know what a managed instance is, let’s look at why you might want to choose Azure SQL Managed Instance for your database needs.

1. First, managed database instances offer greater flexibility than traditional SQL databases. With a managed model, you can quickly scale up or down as needed without worrying about complex provisioning or management tasks.
2. Second, managed instances provide built-in HA and DR features where your data and mission-critical apps will always be available, even in an outage or significant incident.
3. Third, managed database instances improve performance and security over traditional SQL databases. With a managed model, you’ll get the benefits of advanced query optimization and enhanced security features while paying only for the resources you use.

Azure SQL Edge

An IoT and IoT Edge implementation can benefit significantly from Azure SQL Edge; a relational database engine tuned explicitly for use in such scenarios. It enables the development of an IoT application or solution’s high information storage and processing layer.

Features

Azure SQL Edge is built on the same technologies as Azure SQL Database and offers all of the same features, including:

• Automatic performance tuning: Azure SQL Edge automatically tunes database performance based on workload patterns.
• Built-in high availability: With multiple replicas of your database running in different regions, Azure SQL Edge provides built-in high availability and disaster recovery.
• Global distribution: Azure SQL Edge databases can be deployed in multiple regions worldwide, providing low-latency access to data no matter where it is located.

Benefits

Azure SQL Edge brings the benefits of cloud-based data management to the edge, allowing organizations to manage and analyze data closer to where it is generated. By bringing the power of the cloud to the edge, Azure SQL Edge helps organizations reduce latency, minimize bandwidth costs, and improve security and privacy.

Use Cases

 There are many potential use cases for Azure SQL Edge, including:

• Deploying a database engine on devices with limited resources, such as embedded systems;
• Collecting data from IoT devices and storing it in a centralized location;
• Running real-time analytics on streaming data from IoT devices;
• Building mobile apps that need offline access to data; and
• Creating a failover solution for on-premises databases.

Pricing

Pricing for Azure SQL Edge is based on the number of databases you create and the amount of storage resources used by each database. There are no additional charges for features like high availability or real-time analytics. For more pricing information, visit Azure SQL Edge here.

Why should you choose Azure SQL Edge?

There are several reasons to choose Azure SQL Edge for your data needs, including: 

1. First and foremost, Azure SQL Edge is incredibly scalable and can handle large data without any performance issues.
2. Azure SQL Edge is highly secure and ideal for handling sensitive data. 
3. Finally, AzureSQL edge is highly flexible and can be used in several ways to incorporate your particular requirements.

Learn Azure SQL Databases on Cloud Academy

Now that we’ve looked at Azure SQL Databases let’s take a moment to summarize what we’ve learned.

Azure SQL Databases are an excellent option for those looking for a cloud-based database solution that is highly available, scalable, and secure. With Azure SQL Databases, you can focus on developing your application rather than worry about managing the infrastructure.

If you’re considering moving your database to the cloud or are just starting with cloud-based databases, Azure SQL Databases is worth checking out.

Azure SQL is a powerful database platform that you can use to build and scale your applications. With Cloud Academy, you can learn how to use Azure SQL to create and implement Azure SQL databases, query data, and more.

I hope this blog post helped you understand Azure SQL Databases’ multiple aspects and features. If you have thoughts or questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact Cloud Academy.

Thanks and Happy Learning!

The post Azure SQL: Databases Overview appeared first on Cloud Academy.

What we’ll cover:

• What is Azure Container Registry (ACR)?
• Azure Container Registry Key Concepts
• Azure Container Registry Features
• Azure Container Registry Use Cases and Best Practices
• Azure Container Registry Pricing and Tiers
• Learn Azure Container Registry on Cloud Academy

What is Azure Container Registry (ACR)?

Azure Container Registry (ACR) is a highly scalable and secure Docker registry service that lets you to deploy, manage, and store Docker container images to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. It provides an easy way to use the same image across different environments, such as development, testing, and production.

ACR enables you to create private registries, which are only accessible by you and your team members, or public registries, which can be accessed by anyone with the registry’s name and a valid subscription ID.

ACR supports Docker image signing and can automatically build new images from commit messages. It lets you download your private photos for deployment into Kubernetes clusters or on-premises environments.

Use the Azure Container Registry client library to:

• Register pictures or relics.
• Obtain metadata for the repositories, tags, and photographs.
• On registry items, set the read/write/delete properties.
• Delete the repositories, designations, and artifacts.

Azure Container Registry Key Concepts

Here are some key concepts of Azure Container Registry:

Registry

You can store and distribute container images using Azure Container Registry, a hosted Docker registry service. Use it to store Docker images for later use, or use it as a private image repository for your applications.

Azure Container Registry is built on top of Azure Storage, so it has all the benefits of using Azure Storage, such as global availability and geo-replication supporting global distribution.

Each image in the registry has an associated tag that consists of a namespace and a name. You can either create new namespaces or use existing ones. The namespace could be used by you or someone else—it’s up to you!

A variety of content artifacts, such as Open Container Initiative (OCI) image formats and Helm charts, are supported by Azure Container Registry.

Repository

A repository is a container registry hosted by a Microsoft-hosted service (such as Azure Container Registry). Repositories are typically used for storing private images that you can share with other team members or applications within your organization.

Namespaces may also be included in repository names. By marking names with a forward slash, namespaces lets you identify linked repositories and artifact ownership inside your business. The registry controls each repository separately rather than in a hierarchical manner.

Artifacts

Artifacts are files that you’ve pushed to an ACR repository. These can be Dockerfile files, which contain instructions for creating a Docker image, or individual files placed inside the root directory of an image.

Azure Container Registry Features

Azure Container Registry uses docker distribution to store and distribute Docker images. The service includes features such as:

Registry Service Tiers

Azure Container Registry is available in two service tiers: Basic and Standard. 

• The Basic tier provides an image repository with limited storage capacity and retention time. 
• The Standard tier provides an image repository with unlimited storage capacity and retention time. 

Security and Access

Access a registry with the Azure CLI or with the usual docker login command. Using TLS encryption, Azure Container Registry encrypts connections to clients and sends container images over HTTPS.

You can specify which users can access your registry with either principal service accounts or Managed Identity Access Policies (MIPS). Service principal accounts are credentials used by Azure services to authenticate with Azure resources. At the same time, MIPs allow users to show using their organizational accounts on-premises or inside the Azure portal in addition to their organizational accounts on-premises without having to manage new credentials.

A Premium service tier features content trust for image tag signing, firewalls, and virtual networks (preview) for controlling registry access. Microsoft Defender for Cloud may scan an image when pushed to Azure Container Registry.

Versioned Storage

Azure Container Registry stores your container images as a collection of layers that can be versioned independently. This allows you to control access by tagging layers with access control lists (ACLs) or to use permissions on specific tags.

Supported Images and Artifacts

Azure Container Registry supports images and artifacts. You can use the registry to store your container images and use it as a repository for your application image layers.

You can upload an image to the registry and then deploy that image to your Kubernetes cluster or another environment. You can also store artifacts, such as binaries or configuration files, in the registry. You can then download these artifacts from the registry to deploy them on-premises or in another cloud provider’s environment.

Use normal Docker commands for pushing or pulling images. Azure Container Registry supports associated material types, including Helm charts and ideas created for the Open Container Initiative and Docker Container Images (OCI).

Automated Image Builds

Azure Container Registry provides Automated Image Builds feature that allows you to build container images from source code on a schedule. The built images are stored in the same registries as they were built. This feature helps you to avoid manual steps of pushing images to the registry and enables you to have a single source of truth for your container images. Azure Container Registry Tasks (ACR Tasks) help to create, test, and deploy images faster. By shifting docker build operations to Azure, ACR Tasks allow you to virtualize your development process.

Azure Container Registry Use Cases and Best Practices

ACR also supports the use cases listed below.

Manage Registry Size

Limit the storage capacity of an Azure Container Registry by specifying an Azure Storage account for it. This will allow you to track how much storage is being used by your registry and control capacity usage within the account.

Authentication and Authorization

These are key aspects when using Azure Container Registry. If you don’t configure it correctly, it could lead to unintended consequences like unauthorized access or privilege escalation attacks.

Dedicated Resource Group

A registry should be located in its resource group since container registries are resources that several container hosts access.

Even while you might test out a certain host type, like Azure Container Instances, you should probably destroy the container instance once you’re done. 

You might also wish to save the group of photos you uploaded to the Azure Container Registry. When you put your registry in its resource group, you reduce the chance that you’ll mistakenly delete the registry’s collection of photos when you delete the resource group for the container instance.

Network-Close Deployment

Azure Container Registry supports the ability to create a private repository that a single user or organization can use without requiring any network access to the registry server. This is accomplished by providing a tool in the Azure portal that allows you to generate an SSH key pair that will be used to authenticate your client with the registry server.

Azure Container Registry Pricing and Tiers

There are various service tiers (SKUs) for Azure Container Registry. These tiers offer predictable pricing and a range of choices for adjusting to your private Docker registry’s capacity and usage patterns in Azure.

Azure Container Registry Standard

Standard tier features, pricing, and limitations:

Features

• Azure containers for network-closed deployment
• Privately stored Docker images
• Large-scale accessibility
• Quick access to information

Pricing

Per day $0.667

Limitations

Azure Container Registry Premium

Premium tier features, pricing, and limitations:

Features

• Provides high-volume plans
• Content trust for image tag signing
• A private link with private endpoints restricting registry access
• Higher image throughput
• Geo-replication across multiple regions

Pricing

Per day $1.667

Limitations

Which One do I Need?

All tiers offer the same programmatic features. Additionally, they all benefit from picture storage wholly handled by Azure. Higher-level tiers provide greater performance and scale.

You can start with Basic and upgrade to Standard and Premium as your registry usage grows if numerous service tiers are available.

Learn Azure Container Registry on Cloud Academy

If you’re looking for a private container registry, the Azure Container Registry is a good choice. It has all of the features you’d expect, like creating and managing images, and it’s easy to set up and manage the service to get your developers working quickly and effectively. You can save your container images in ACR, allowing for quick and scalable retrieval of container workloads.

If you’re looking to learn, Cloud Academy offers several Microsoft Azure Courses, learning paths, and labs where you can learn and gain hands-on experience on Azure Container Registry.

Happy learning!

The post Azure Container Registry Overview: Build, Manage, and Store Container images and Artifacts in a Private Registry appeared first on Cloud Academy.

Microsoft Sentinel (formally Azure Sentinel) is a SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) and SOAR (Security Orchestration and Automated Response) solution that is used in Microsoft Azure – a public cloud platform – and offers a unified approach to threat awareness, proactive hunting, alert detection, and threat response. In Microsoft sentinel, data is gathered from several data sources, data correlation is carried out, and the processed data is visualized in a single dashboard. Microsoft Sentinel also assists in gathering, identifying, looking into, and responding to security risks and occurrences.

Consequently, it delivers threat intelligence and intelligent security analytics in Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. Microsoft Sentinel now incorporates Azure Logic Apps and Log Analytics, expanding its functionalities. Additionally, it features strong built-in machine learning capabilities that can identify both people that pose dangers and suspicious activities, greatly assisting security analysts in the analysis of their environment.

Cloud security engineers can use Microsoft Sentinel for analyzing security events in on-premises as well as cloud environments. Typical usage scenarios comprise:

• Data visualization for logs
• Finding anomalies and notifying
• Examination of security-related occurrences
• Active threat detection and response by automation to security events

How Does Microsoft Sentinel Work?

Microsoft Sentinel allows you to centrally manage the collection, detection, response, and investigation of security threats in the environment and provides tools for threat intelligence and intelligent security analysis that improves the visibility of threats, detection of alerts, threat response, and proactive hunting.

Microsoft Sentinel operates following a cycle that begins with log management and includes automated alert responses before moving on to schema normalization, data validation, detection, and investigation. 

How does Sentinel provide this end-to-end functionality?

Collection: Microsoft Sentinel gathers information on all hardware, users, software, and infrastructure, including elements that are housed on-site and in various cloud environments. What detections can be applied to data depends on how it is gathered.

Detection: Microsoft Sentinel offers analytics and threat intelligence capabilities to help identify security threats that have already been discovered and minimize false positives. KQL-written detections can be stored as code.

Investigation: Microsoft Sentinel offers Artificial Intelligence technology to assist you in investigating suspicious activity on a large scale. Successful SOC (Security Operation Center) operations are aided by automation in both enrichment and containment.

Retaliation: Teams employing Microsoft technology may respond quickly to incidents using Sentinel’s proprietary orchestration and automation of routine security operations and business integration tasks.

Components of Microsoft Sentinel

Below are the notable Microsoft Sentinel components:

Workbooks: After you connect data sources to Microsoft Sentinel, you can monitor data using Microsoft Sentinel connectivity with Azure Monitor Workbooks. You can create customized workbooks based on your data using Microsoft Sentinel’s pre-built workbook templates and adaptable solutions.

Workspace: A log analytics is a place where data and configuration settings are kept. Data gathered from various sources is stored there by Microsoft Sentinel.

Dashboard: With this Microsoft Sentinel component, you can define rules in real time and visualize data from several sources using a straightforward standalone dashboard. You can give the security administrator more information about the occurrences those services are responsible for producing.

Hunting: Before an incident is reported, hunting is responsible for carrying out independent and creative investigations to identify and evaluate security vulnerabilities across the data sources used by your association. The MITRE ATT&CK frame serves as the foundation for the powerful stalking hunt and query technologies included in Microsoft Sentinel. The search functionality of Microsoft Sentinel is enhanced by KQL (Kusto Query Language).

Playbooks: Playbooks are tools to automate and streamline security unity that is associated with Microsoft services. Playbooks leverage Azure Logic Apps and are a collection of generalities to execute in response to a guard suggestion. For security admins, playbooks are intended to automate and streamline activities including data intake, enrichment, and disquisition.

Notebooks: Azure machine learning workspaces that use Jupyter scrapbooks, which are pre-built collections of resources and modules for machine literacy, visualization, and data analysis, are supported by this Microsoft Sentinel component. Through the provision of security views and training, a notebook can review errors and look for dangerous behavior. Using a notebook component, you may run real-time visualizations and legal applications online.

Data Connectors: In Microsoft Sentinel, connectors are sent out to allow data from Microsoft users and products. The benefits of out-of-the-box access to the greater security ecosystem can benefit non-Microsoft goods.

Statistics: Microsoft Sentinel employs analytics rules to connect warnings to potentially serious security incidents and to alert security inquirers in advance. Users can create custom criteria to trigger cautions in Analytics using Kusto Query Language (KQL). There are a variety of built-in regulations and connections to Microsoft sources including Azure ATP and Cloud App Security.

Community: Community is a Microsoft Sentinel page that uses GitHub as a power source and has several data sources for orchestration and troubleshooting. Users can use it to issue warnings and react to risks and threats in their environment.

Investigation: You can pinpoint an implicit security issue’s direction and identify its underlying cause with the aid of Microsoft Sentinel’s discourse capabilities.

How do you deploy Microsoft Sentinel?

Microsoft Sentinel monitors linked sources for data incidents and notify you when action is required. Microsoft Sentinel overviews, dashboards, and custom queries can be used to get a better understanding of unprocessed data and possibly harmful occurrences.

Install Microsoft Sentinel connections on services to retrieve data from various data sources that your management needs to keep track of. Microsoft Sentinel performs cross-data-source correlation after obtaining the log data from the services. Utilizing the Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspace, you can manage that data.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are used by Microsoft Sentinel to perform:

• Threat assessment
• Alert recognition
• Quick action after an incident

To deploy Microsoft Sentinel in your environment, you can perform the following steps:

1.    Log in to the Azure website.

2.    Choose the subscription for which Microsoft Sentinel will be made. This entry ought to have:

a.    The subscription where the Microsoft Sentinel workspace will be created must have contributor permissions.

b.    The resource group to which the Microsoft Sentinel workspace will belong has Contributor or Reader rights.

1.    Select Add after searching for and choosing Microsoft Sentinel. No Microsoft Sentinel workspace to display pane appears as the message.

2.    Select Create Microsoft Sentinel. The page for adding Microsoft Sentinel to a workspace loads.

3.    To create a new workspace, select it. The workspace pane for creating log analytics appears.

4.    Use the dropdown menus to choose the settings listed below on the Basics tab:

a. Select the Pricing tier to proceed.

b. Decide on a pricing tier.

c. After selecting Review + Create and letting Azure verify your Log Analytics workspace’s configuration, choose to Create.

d. The process of creating your work could take some time. You will be notified and your workspace’s name will show up in the Workspace list once it has been deployed to your resource group. When the Notification icon is selected in the upper right of the Azure toolbar, choose Pin to the dashboard.

e. Select Create new on the Pin to dashboard pane, give your dashboard a name, and then click Add at the bottom of the pane. Your workspace’s Microsoft Sentinel dashboard appears.

f. Select Overview from the left menu.

Microsoft Sentinel Roles

With the help of the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) authorization paradigm, security admins can set up granular levels of permission based on various criteria and permissions while using Microsoft Sentinel. For Microsoft Sentinel, there are three pre-built roles.

• Reader: Only incidents and data can be seen by users with this position.
• Responder: Users who have been granted access to this position can examine incidents and data as well as participate in various activities related to adventures, such as assigning to another user or changing the incident’s severity.
• Contributor: Users with this job have access to examine incidents and data, interact with incidents, and add or remove analytical rules.

To deploy Microsoft Sentinel, the subscription where the workspace is situated must have contributor permissions. Use the Microsoft Sentinel roles to give specific rights to distinct groups so that different teams can have access based on how they use Azure Sentinel.

Connect Data Sources to Microsoft Sentinel

Connecting Microsoft Sentinel to the services you want to use is the next step after enabling it.

The following Azure and non-Azure services are compatible with Microsoft Sentinel natively:

• Azure AD (Active Directory)
• Azure Activity log
• Cloud-based Microsoft Defender
• Azure Web Application Firewall
• Azure AD Identity Protection
• Windows Defender Firewall
• AWS (Amazon Web Services) CloudTrail
• DNS
• Cloud ATP
• Defender for Cloud Apps
• Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Defender ATP
• Windows security events

Microsoft Sentinel Pricing

Microsoft Sentinel’s billing is determined by how much data it analyzes and saves in the Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspace. Analytics Logs and Basic Logs are two different forms of logs that can be used to absorb data.

Microsoft Sentinel may be purchased in Analytic Logs in two different methods:

Pay-as-you-Go

In this pricing model, you are charged per GB for the amount of data saved in the Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspace and ingested by Microsoft Sentinel for security analysis. The amount of data that will be stored in GB is used as a measure of data volume, and $2.45 is charged for each GB that is consumed.

Commitment Tiers

Commitment tiers enable a predictable overall cost for Microsoft Sentinel by billing you a fixed price based on the chosen tier. In comparison to Pay-as-you-Go pricing, the commitment tier offers you a reduction on the price based on your choice. After the initial 31 days of commitment, you have the choice to withdraw from the commitment tier at any time.

For 100 GB of data each day, it costs $123; for 200 GB, it costs $222; and for 300 GB, it costs $320. Visit Microsoft Sentinel Pricing for the complete details on pricing.

Microsoft Sentinel vs Splunk

The product portfolios of Microsoft Sentinel and Splunk are comparable. But some significant variations might affect how you decide:

• In general, Microsoft Sentinel is thought to be simpler to use, configure, and administer.
• Splunk consistently receives higher marks for customer service excellence and ease of use.
• Microsoft’s products, such as Network Management, Incident Management, and Security Intelligence, enjoy greater consumer trust.
• Only incident reporting and event management seem to be areas where Splunk truly shines.
• Splunk takes more time to learn as compared to Microsoft Sentinel due to its query language.

Cost is one area that could raise some red flags for your business. Depending on your company’s size and usage, Microsoft Sentinel and Splunk have different prices. Until you have quotations from both, it might not be possible for your company to determine which will be more inexpensive for it. Microsoft Sentinel and Splunk don’t offer free trials, however, you can ask for walkthroughs and samples.

Overall, Microsoft Sentinel has better technology, but Splunk is a smaller company and offers advantages unique to small businesses, such as customer support. Microsoft Sentinel will probably be successful for businesses that depend on its security and dependability services. Splunk does receive higher grades for support quality, but most of its technology receives lower marks. Regardless, an MSP will likely serve as the interface between your business and your solution.

Microsoft Sentinel training on Cloud Academy

Microsoft Sentinel is a powerful, SOAR-capable, cloud-native SIEM platform. If you just want to know the basics of Sentinel, we recommend our Introduction to Microsoft Sentinel course. But, If you want to master it, you can enroll in Cloud Academy’s Becoming a Microsoft Sentinel Expert learning path.

Learn how to leverage Data Connectors in the Sentinel workspace, construct and apply Analytics Rules to investigate risks, create Playbooks to automate threat response, and use the Threat Hunting dashboard to proactively search for threats with the aid of this course.

If you want to become an Azure Security Engineer, these courses will help you to achieve your career goal.

The post Microsoft Sentinel: AI-Powered Intelligent Security Analytics appeared first on Cloud Academy.

What is Azure Storage?

“Azure Storage is a cloud storage solution for modern data storage scenarios”
as reported in the Microsoft Azure documentation.

Azure Storage capacity is virtually limitless. It uses a pay-as-you-go service model that will fit your business whether you’re storing only a few hundred GBs or trillions of objects. Under the hood, it comes with Microsoft’s guaranteed, massively scalable, highly available, robust and economical architecture. For developers, Azure storage supports a variety of clients, such as .NET, Ruby, and Java for REST, and access from multiple Windows and Linux operating systems.

In this article, we’ll explore Azure Storage’s benefits and features, the services/solutions it offers, and more.

Azure Storage features and benefits

These features apply to all Azure Storage offerings:

Durability

Azure Storage data is replicated multiple times across regions. There are four ways you can make sure data is stored redundantly: Locally Redundant Storage (LRS), Zone-Redundant Storage (ZNS), Geo-redundant Storage (GRS), and Read Access Geo-redundant Storage (RA-GRS).

Using LRS, three copies of all data are maintained in a single facility within a single region. With ZRS, three copies of your data will be stored in multiple facilities of two or three regions. Obviously, this will achieve greater durability than LRS. For GRS, six copies of data are stored across two regions, with three copies in a so-called primary region, and the rest in a secondary region, usually geographically distant from your primary region. In case of primary region failure, the secondary region is used as part of a fail-over mechanism. RA-GRS data will be stored just like GRS, except that you get read-only access to the secondary region.

Geo-redundant Storage (GRS) and Read Access Geo-redundant Storage (RA-GRS) provide the highest level of durability but at a higher cost. GRS is the default storage redundancy mode. In case you need to switch from LRS to GRS or to RA-GRS, an additional one-time data transfer cost will be applied. But if you chose ZRS, you cannot subsequently change to any other redundancy mode.

High Availability

With such durable features, storage services will automatically be highly available. If you chose GRS or RA-GRS, your data will be replicated in multiple facilities across multiple regions. Any catastrophic failure of one data center will not result in permanent data loss.

Scalability

Data is automatically scaled out and load-balanced to meet peak demands. Azure Storage provides a global namespace to access data from anywhere.

Security

Azure Storage relies on a Shared Key model for authentication security. Access can be further restricted through the use of a shared access signature (SAS). SAS is a token that can be appended to a URI, defining specific permissions for a specified period of time. With SAS, you can access standard stores like Blob, Table, Queue, and File. You can also provide anonymous access, although that is generally not recommended.

Accessibility

Azure Storage data are accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS. A variety of languages are supported, such as NET, Java, Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, and Go.

Azure Storage Services

With an Azure Storage account, you can choose from different types of storage services:

1. Azure Blob Storage (Azure Blobs)
2. Azure File Storage (Azure Files)
3. Azure Queue Storage (Azure Queues)
4. Azure Table Storage (Azure Tables)
5. Azure Disk Storage (Azure Disks)

Let’s give an overview of each Azure Storage Data Service.

Azure Blob Storage (Azure Blobs)

Azure Blob Storage is basically a storage for unstructured data that can include pictures, videos, music files, documents, raw data, and log data…along with their meta-data. Blobs are stored in a directory-like structure called a “container”. If you are familiar with AWS S3, containers work much the same way as S3 buckets. You can store any number of blob files up to a total size of 500 TB and, like S3, you can also apply security policies. Azure Blob Storage can also be used for data or device backup.

Azure Blob Storage service comes with three types of blobs: block blobs, append blobs, and page blobs. You can use block blobs for documents, image files, and video file storage. Append blobs are similar to block blobs, but are more often used for append operations like logging. Page blobs are used for objects meant for frequent read-write operations. Page blobs are therefore used in Azure VMs to store OS and data disks.

Azure File Storage (Azure Files)

Azure File Storage is meant for legacy applications. Azure VMs and services share their data via mounted file shares, while on-premise applications access the files using the File Service REST API. Azure File Storage offers file shares in the cloud using the standard SMB protocol and supports both SMB 3.0 and SMB 2.1.

Azure Queue Storage (Azure Queues)

The Azure Queue Storage service is used to exchange messages between components either in the cloud or on-premise (compare to Amazon’s SQS). You can store large numbers of messages to be shared between independent components of applications and communicated asynchronously via HTTP or HTTPS. Typical use cases of Queue Storage include processing backlog messages or exchanging messages between Azure Web roles and Worker roles.

Azure Table Storage (Azure Tables)

Azure Table Storage, as the name indicates, is preferred for tabular data, which is ideal for key-value NoSQL data storage. Table Storage is massively scalable and extremely easy to use. Like other NoSQL data stores, it is schema-less and accessed via a REST API. Azure Table Storage is now part of Azure Cosmos DB.

Azure Disk Storage (Azure Disks)

Azure Disk Storage allows data to be persistently stored and accessed from an attached virtual hard disk. The available types of disks are ultra disks, premium solid-state drives (SSD), standard SSDs, and standard hard disk drives (HDD). Azure-managed disks are stored as page blobs, which are a random IO storage object in Azure.

Azure Storage Account Overview

An Azure Storage Account can be considered as a container that combines a set of Azure Storage services together. Integrating data services into a storage account allows you to manage them as a group. Azure Storage offers several types of storage accounts. Each type supports different features and has its own pricing model. Let’s take a look at each type of storage account you can choose.

Standard general-purpose v2

Supported storage services

Blob Storage (including Data Lake Storage), Queue Storage, Table Storage, and Azure Files.

Usage

Standard storage account type for blobs, file shares, queues, and tables. Recommended for most scenarios using Azure Storage.

Premium block blobs

Supported storage services

Blob Storage (including Data Lake Storage).

Usage

Premium storage account type for block blobs and append blobs. Recommended for scenarios with high transaction rates or that use smaller objects or require consistently low storage latency.

Premium file shares

Supported storage services

Azure File Storage.

Usage

Premium storage account type for file shares only. Recommended for enterprise or high-performance scale applications.

Premium page blobs

Supported storage services

Page blobs only.

Usage

Premium storage account type for page blobs only.

Learn about Azure Storage on Cloud Academy

Azure storage service is a fine example of well-designed architecture that fits many use cases, including enterprise needs. With an SLA ranging from 99.9% – 99.99%, it is an easy choice for users looking for scalable, reliable, and effectively infinite space. Microsoft itself uses Azure Storage for its popular services like Skype, XBOX, Bing, and SkyDrive.

In this post, we introduced you to the basics of the Azure Storage service. In subsequent posts, we will explore the features, architecture, and hands-on experiences with Azure Storage in greater detail. As you move forward in your learning, we strongly recommend the course Introduction to Azure Storage.

This course is completely free for those who register on the Cloud Academy Free Courses and Free Content page. Once you register (no credit card required) you’ll be able to take the Introduction to Azure Storage course.

If you’ve got something to add, please do add a comment below!

The post Azure Storage: Overview and Introduction to the Various Solutions appeared first on Cloud Academy.

AZ-900 Exam Topics

Here are the topics covered in the AZ-900 exam and the relative weight of each section:

• Describe cloud concepts (25-30%)
• Describe Azure architecture and services (35-40%)
• Describe Azure management and governance (30–35%)

The cloud concepts section covers key cloud computing terms, the benefits of using cloud services, and the different cloud service types. You’ll need to understand terms such as high availability, scalability, and manageability and be able to describe the differences between Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

The Azure architecture and services section covers a wide variety of topics, including Azure architectural components, such as subscriptions and availability zones, and some of the core resources available on Azure for compute, networking, and storage. The main compute services to know are Azure Virtual Machines and Azure App Service. The primary networking service is Azure Virtual Network, but you also need to know several other services that connect networks and their resources together, such as Azure ExpressRoute. You won’t be surprised to hear that the main storage service to know is Azure Storage, but there are a few other items as well, such as Azure Data Box.

This section also covers identity, access, and security services. The most important identity and access services are Azure Active Directory and role-based access control (RBAC). Another security service you need to know for the exam is Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

The Azure management and governance section covers tools for cost management, governance and compliance, managing and deploying resources, and monitoring. Some examples of cost management tools are the Total Cost of Ownership calculator and Azure Cost Management. Governance and compliance features are tools such as Azure Policy and resource locks. Tools for managing and deploying resources include Azure Cloud Shell, Azure Resource Manager templates, and several others. The primary monitoring tool is, of course, Azure Monitor, but you’ll also need to know about Azure Advisor and Azure Service Health.

Given the breadth of topics you’re required to know for the exam, you’ll likely need to learn more about many of them. I recommend taking self-paced courses and practice exams on the relevant areas of Azure. The best way to do that is to go through Cloud Academy’s AZ-900 Exam Preparation Learning Path, which includes video-based courses, hands-on labs, and a practice exam to test your knowledge before you take the actual exam.

Watch this short video for an overview of AZ-900 Exam Preparation:

The post Preparing for the Microsoft AZ-900 Exam appeared first on Cloud Academy.

A “serverless” approach called Azure Functions makes it possible to run lightweight application programs with the necessary infrastructure. Because Azure Functions are event-driven, your script or code can run in response to several different events. Regardless of the infrastructure settings, you can use this Azure service to code in languages like Node.js, PHP, Python, and Java. Now that a suitable platform will be made available to host your code, you can select a programming language.

On top of Azure’s PaaS architecture, Microsoft Azure Functions is an event-driven, on-demand compute service. With the addition of functionality that lets you implement your code in a variety of programming languages in response to events produced by the Azure services, it is an expansion of the WebJobs architecture.

It’s straightforward to develop your Azure Functions in any language; it’s similar to building a codebase utilizing the user-friendly browser-based UI provided by Azure and the underlying SaaS or PaaS solutions.

It works the same as utilizing any other Azure service, such as Amazon Lambda, which enables us to upload a piece of code and have it running right away. In addition, you can configure continuous Jenkins jobs and functions to execute on any triggered events, among other things. To try Microsoft Azure Functions, create a new account on the Azure Portal and create your function.

Features of Azure Functions

The following list includes some of Azure Functions’ major attributes:

A Variety of Programming Languages

When writing the code for functions, you can choose from C#, Java, Javascript, Python, and other languages. You can look at Supported languages to see the full list of languages.

On-Demand / Dynamic Pricing Model

Only the time you spent running your code is now what you must pay for. See the pricing section and create your own for a complete consumption and hosting plan.

Bring Your Own Dependencies

You can use the libraries of your choice because Microsoft Azure Functions supports NuGet and NPM.

Integrated Security

With the aid of well-known OAuth providers including Azure Active Directory, Twitter, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft Account, Microsoft Azure Functions secures its HTTP-triggered functions.

Easy and Simplified Integration

Easy access and very easy integration of SaaS and Azure services. In the section on integrations, a few instances are shown.

Flexible Development

We can use Microsoft Azure Functions directly from the site, or we can build up continuous integration and publish our code through open-source code providers like GitHub, Azure DevOps Services, and other supported development tools.

Open-Source

Microsoft Azure Functions is an open-source technology that is accessible on GitHub, just like many other programming tools.

Azure Functions Triggers

When it involves launching the execution of your code and bindings, Azure Functions

allow you to use triggers. In Azure Functions, triggers are employed to facilitate data input and output by streamlining the code. Azure Functions are utilized for numerous operations that can be done on a schedule, like processing orders or images, maintaining files, and many more things. You can use template triggers to get started with Azure Functions, each of which is for a particular scenario. A few examples are as follows:

HTTPTrigger

Code execution is triggered with the aid of an HTTP request. View create your first function for examples.

TimerTrigger

Azure Functions will execute, clear up, or carry out other operations following a specified schedule that you create. See Create a function triggered by a timer, such as a TimeTrigger.

CosmosDBTrigger

Documents are linked using Azure Cosmos DB triggers when they are added or streamlined in collections in a NoSQL database and you can see it in Azure Cosmos DB bindings for a further explanation.

BlobTrigger

For processing Azure Storage and resizing images, BlobTriggers are introduced to containers.

QueueTrigger

QueueTriggers are used to respond to messages arriving in an Azure Storage queue and you can see it in Azure Queue storage bindings or additional information on BlobTriggers.

EventGridTrigger

Responding to events provided to a subscription in Azure Event Grid uses EventGridTriggers and enables a subscription-based architecture for receiving events like filters. Creating event-based structures is a preferable option. You can see an illustration of EventGridTriggers in Automate resizing uploaded images using Event Grid.

EventHubTrigger

To react to events sent to an Azure Event Hub, EventHubTriggers are created. These triggers are employed in Internet-of-Things (IoT) settings, as well as for instrumenting applications, improving user experience, or workflow processing.

ServiceBusQueueTrigger

Your code can be connected to other Azure services using ServiceBusQueueTriggers and the message queue.

ServiceBusTopicTrigger

When you subscribe to topics, ServiceBuseTopicTrigger connects your code to other Azure services or on-premises services. See Service Bus bindings for further details.

Use Cases of Azure Functions

The following are use cases for Azure Functions:

Processing data

Incoming batches handle data processing. By ingesting a variety of formats, Azure Functions perform data filtering, cleaning, conversion, and other activities.

Integrating systems

We have a mechanism to link our code with the legacy systems thanks to Microsoft Azure Functions. Azure Functions can replace legacy apps. It accepts the user’s request and transforms it into a form that the legacy application can understand.

IoT technologies

IoT is a significant use case for Azure Functions in today’s contemporary surroundings. We can interface with IoT devices and contemporary apps more effectively thanks to Azure Functions.

Simple APIs and microservices

Microservices, which divide huge monolithic programs into discrete little function codes that are triggered by events, are another significant use case for Azure Functions. When necessary, these functions are linked to other functions.

Integrating Azure Functions

Numerous third-party services and Azure services are linked with Azure Functions. Such services act as the code’s input and output, start the execution of your function, and trigger it. The subsequent service integrations are supported by Azure Functions including:

• DB Azure Cosmos
• Event Hubs in Azure
• Event Grid Azure
• Notification Hubs for Azure
• Cloud Storage (blob, queues, and tables)
• Microsoft Service Bus (queues and topics)
• Within the same building (using Service Bus)
• Twilio (SMS messages)

Pricing and Requirements of Azure Functions

Customers of Azure Functions can choose between two different pricing tiers. Customers may pick any option that satisfies their needs, including Consumption Plan and Premium Plan.

Consumption Pricing Plan: Users are billed per second resource consumption and execution where execution time will be charged $0.000016/GB-s along with free 1 million requests per month.

Premium Plan: Azure functions premium plan offers the same capabilities as the consumption plan with enhanced performance, no cold start, and VNET access. The premium plan is billed on a number of cores per second ($0.173 vCPU/hour) and memory is allocated across instances ($0.0123 GB/hour).

How to Create an Azure Function?

Without publishing any web applications or virtual machines, Azure Functions enables you to run your code in a serverless environment. Create a free account using an Azure subscription and construct your first function after logging into the Azure portal.

Wrapping Up

Making application development quicker, simpler, and easier is the goal of the design of Azure Functions. Since the introduction of Azure Functions, we have abandoned the conventional approach to developing applications, which calls for a sophisticated IT infrastructure and needs us to work around its drawbacks of being cumbersome, expensive, and time-consuming. Things were slightly improved by cloud computing, but when serverless computing was launched, the world of app development underwent a significant transformation.

We can now devote all of our attention to writing and uploading appropriate code because of Azure Functions’ serverless architecture, which has allayed our earlier concerns regarding infrastructure issues. Only the triggers and events that will run the code and control the execution of the subsequent code need to be specified. Any other user’s application, notification hubs, or other cloud services may be the source of the triggers. The Azure Functions platform replaces EventHub and WebHook and focuses on narrowly focused quick activities and also integrates with Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Mobile Apps, and Azure Service Bus services.

The freedom to write your code in the simplest online interfaces and the ability to build and debug it locally on your machines are two of Azure Functions’ most significant features. Additionally, you can utilize the same function code on several targets, like IoT Edge, Azure Stack, Cloud Service, and others.

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