Azure Database

Azure Database

Azure Database is a relational database-as-a-service that is reliable and secure, and it gives high performance without having to worry about any infrastructure.

• Azure SQL Database: It is a relational database hosted in Azure and built on SQL server technologies. It provides a scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant database.
• Azure DocumentDB: It is a NoSQL database-as-a-service whose features are a transactional process over no schema data, rich querying and query processing and transaction semantics that are similar to the relational databases.
• Azure Redis Cache: It is a data structure that implements a key-value database with optional durability.

So, those were the services of Azure but there is a lot to it. Coming back to our question, ‘what is Microsoft Azure?’, let us see why companies are opting for Azure, in the next section.

Database

This category includes Database as a Service (DBaaS) which offers SQL and NoSQL tools. It also includes databases like Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Database for PostgreSQL. It has the following components:

• SQL Database: It is a relational database service in the Microsoft cloud based on the market-leading Microsoft SQL Server engine.
• DocumentDB: It is a fully managed NoSQL database service which is It built for fast and predictable performance and ease of development.
• Redis Cache: It is a secure and highly advanced key-value store. It stores data structures like strings, hashes, lists, etc.

Azure Networking

Azure Networking

These networks allow enterprises to safely connect to their cloud resources through Azure ExpressRoute. It is also used to manage private virtual networks and, further, create multiple virtual networks.

• Azure Virtual Network: It performs network isolation and segmentation with filters which routes the traffic. It comprises of Azure Connect which allows easy setup of IP-based and Azure Traffic Manager.
• Azure Load Balancer: It balances a load of traffic going to virtual machines and isolates the external traffic to another virtual machine.
• Azure Traffic Manager: It provides load balancing features.
• Azure Express Route: It is a network that lets you extend the current network into Microsoft cloud over a private connection.
• Azure DNS: It translates a website to the IP address.
• Content Delivery Network (CDN): It helps in improving delivering the content and allows the streaming of content by using the location of 24 different locations that are distributed throughout the world.
• Azure VPN Gateway: It sends encrypted traffic across a public connection.

Content Delivery Network

Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches static web content at strategically placed locations. This helps you to offer speed for delivering content to users. It has the following components:

• VPN Gateway: VPN Gateway sends encrypted traffic across a public connection.
• Traffic Manager: It helps you to control and allows you to do the distribution of user traffic for services like WebApps, VM, Azure, and cloud services in different Datacenters
• Express Route: Helps you to extend your on-premises networks into the Microsoft cloud over a dedicated private connection to Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and CRM Online.

Azure Storage

Azure Storage

Azure storage provides storage solutions that are more durable and You can build large-scale applications, and still scale higher if needed, and it automatically balances the data based on traffic.

• Azure Blob Storage: Azure follows storage in terms of binary large objects (BLOBs) with blob service. It gives users the ability to describe their data by adding metadata.
• Azure Queue Storage: It allows applications to communicate via the exchange of messages on a queue hence it avoids lost or unprocessed messages.
• Azure File Storage: It offers file sharing in the cloud using standard protocol.
• Azure Table Storage: It stores semi-structured NoSQL data in the cloud.

Storage

Azure store is a cloud storage solution for modern applications. It is designed to meet the needs of their customer's demand for scalability. It allows you to store and process hundreds of terabytes of data. It has the following components:

• Blob Storage: Azure Blob storage is a service which stores unstructured data in the cloud as objects/blobs. You can store any type of text or binary data, such as a document, media file, or application installer.
• Queue Storage: It provides cloud messaging between application components. It delivers asynchronous messaging to establish communication between application components.
• File Storage: Using Azure File storage, you can migrate legacy applications. It relies on file shares to Azure quickly and without costly rewrites.
• Table Storage: Azure Table storage stores semi-structured NoSQL data in the cloud. It provides a key/attribute store with a schema-less design

Azure Compute

Azure Compute

It gives the products that are of building level which determines the execution of an application deployed in the Azure platform. Following are the different services that Azure provides:

Azure Virtual machine: it is an environment that allows the user to have a similar experience as that of while using dedicated hardware.

• Azure Virtual Machine Set: They are used to create thousands of identical virtual machines in a jiffy.
• Azure Container Service: Containers are packages that do not need virtual machines and instead depend on virtual isolation to run applications that have shared OS kernel. And Azure container service creates a container hosting solution.
• Azure Container Registry: It is used to store and manage container images.
• Azure Functions: It doesn’t have a server and lets you run code-on-demand without infrastructure.
• Azure Batch: It is used to scale N number of virtual machines at a time.
• Azure Service Fabric: It is a distributed platform that simplifies the deployment and lifecycle management of a small service-based application.
• Azure Cloud Services: They focus on apps and support Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, .Net, and Ruby.
• Web Apps: They create and deploy web apps at scale very quickly.
• Azure Mobile App: It is used in building and hosting backend for any application on mobile.
• API Apps: It is used to build cloud APIs easily.
• Azure Search: It provides search-as-a-service which is fully managed.
• Notification Hubs: They are used to send push notifications to any platform from any backend easily.
• Azure Logic Apps: It is a cloud service that will help you in automating workflows, business processes, etc.
• Azure Event Hub: It is a collection of events that can be stored.

Compute

It offers computing operations like app hosting, development, and deployment in Azure Platform. It has the following components:

• Virtual Machine: Allows you to deploy any language, workload in any operating system
• Virtual Machine Scale Sets: Allows you to create thousands of similar virtual machines in minutes
• Azure Container Service: Create a container hosting solution which is optimized for Azure. You scale and arrange applications using Kube, DC/OS, Swarm or Docker
• Azure Container Registry: This service store and manage container images across all types of Azure deployments
• Functions: Let's you write code regardless of infrastructure and provisioning of servers. In the situation when your functions call rate scales up.
• Batch: Batch processing helps you scale to tens, hundreds or thousands of virtual machines and execute computer pipelines.
• Service Fabric: Simplify microservice-based application development and lifecycle management. It supports Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, and Ruby.

Microsoft Azure Architecture

Microsoft Azure Architecture

Let us try to understand, Microsoft Azure Architecture by the diagram given below:

Image source: Mastering Cloud Computing, a book authored by Rajkumar Buyya

AppFabric is the middleware which comprises of services such as compute, storage, networking, and identity management. Azure is hosted within Microsoft data centers and is accessible from Microsoft Azure Management Portal. Next, let’s talk about the middleware in detail below, as services.

Let us now explore some of the services that are provided by Microsoft Azure in the segment below.

Want to become a Microsoft Certified Azure Professional? Check out Intellipaat’s Azure Course now!

Microsoft Azure Services

By now, you might be having a rough idea about the entire cloud services and what is Microsoft Azure. Let us deep-dive into the Azure services.

There is an endless list of services that Microsoft Azure provides you with. We will be focusing on all the important services which are frequently asked in the certification exams.

For better understanding, let’s categorize them into domains as follows:

1. Azure Compute
2. Azure Networking
3. Azure Storage
4. Azure Database

AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud

To understand what is Microsoft Azure, we must also know about other cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform. Without going into details, let us just compare them to avoid confusion.

Here are some of the differences between the three cloud service providers.

AWS	Microsoft Azure	Google Cloud Platform
12 years old	7 years old	6 years old
Amazon S3 is mostly used for secondary backup	Backup is built into Azure	Does not provide any backup
Gives managed virtual tape infrastructure across hybrid environments	Enterprise-grade hybrid cloud storage	It relies on partners like Egnyte
Dominant market position	Second largest provider	Recently launched and new
Pricing is per hour	Pricing is per minute	Pricing is per minute

Cloud Computing is in its nascent stage, and therefore there is a lot of scope to grow in this area as a professional with the right certification and the right platform.

Azure holds the largest market share, after AWS. With the extensive use of AWS, there are many professionals who already have mastered it and the job market for AWS has now become saturated. On the other hand, opting for Google Cloud would not help you much, since most of the Fortune 500 companies are not on Google Cloud right now. Hence, the number of jobs available for Google Cloud is comparatively less. Being in the middle ground, getting certified as an Azure Professional is going to be a strategically good choice.

Now that we know learning Azure is the right thing to do, let’s move on in this ‘what is Microsoft Azure’ blog and learn how Azure actually works by discussing the Microsoft Azure architecture.

Top 30 Microsoft Azure Interview Question

A list of top 30 frequently asked Microsoft Azure Interview Questions and answers are given below.

1) What is Cloud Computing?

It is a platform where we can store and access our data over the internet. We can store and access our data from anywhere in the world.

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2) What is Azure Cloud Service?

The Azure Cloud service offers multiple web applications in Azure; it categorizes the services and allows us the flexible scaling for our use. The Azure cloud service was launched in the year 2010. It is a dynamic cloud platform that offers development, data storage, service hosting, and service management.

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3) Which service in Azure can be used to manage resources?

Azure Resource Manager is used to manage resources in Microsoft Azure. It is used to deploy, manage, and delete all the resources together using a simple JSON script.

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4) What type of web application can be deployed with Azure?

Microsoft released SDKs for both Java and Ruby to allow applications written in those languages to place calls to the Azure Service Platform API to the AppFabric Service.

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5) Explain Role in terms of Microsoft Azure.

Roles are nothing, but the servers are layman terms. Servers are managed, load-balanced, platform as a Service virtual machines that work together to achieve a common goal.

These roles are divided into three parts

• Web Role: It is used to deploy a website, using the languages supported by the IIS platform (like PHP, .NET, etc.). It was configured and customized to run web applications.
• Worker Role: It helps the web role to execute background processes, unlike the web Role, which is used to deploy the website.
• VM Role: It can be used by a user to schedule tasks and other windows services. We can use the VM role to customize the machine on which the web and worker role is running.

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6) What is Virtual Machine scale sets?

It is an Azure compute resource that we can use to deploy and manage a set of identical VMs. It is easy to build large-scale services that target big compute, big data, and containerized workloads if all the VMs configured the same.

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7) What are the principal segments of the Windows Azure platform?

Windows Azure has the following three principal segments:

• Windows Azure Compute: It gives a code that can be managed by the hosting environment. It provides the benefit of calculation through parts. It consists of three types of roles - Web Role, Worker Role, and VM Role.
• Windows Azure Storage: It gives four types of Storage services - Queue, Tables, Blobs, and Windows Azure Drives (VHD)
• Windows Azure AppFabric: AppFabric provides five services - Service bus, Access, Caching, Integration, and Composite.

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8) What do you understand by autoscaling in Azure?

Azure provides the scaling of the services automatically when needed. It depends upon the use, time, and traffic that comes to our application. For example - The traffic will be higher during the examination on any exam-related application or website. Then Azure will automatically modify the setting and provide the resources as required.

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9) What is the storage key?

A storage key is an authentication method that can be used to validate access for the storage service account to control data based on our prerequisites. We have an alternative to give a primary access key and a secondary access key. The main reason for using a secondary access key is to avoid downtime to the application or website.

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10) Explain the SQL Azure database.

Microsoft Azure SQL database is a way to get associated with cloud services where we can store our database into the cloud. It has a similar component of SQL Server, i.e., high accessibility, versatility, and security in the core.

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11) Explain cmdlet in Azure?

A cmdlet is a lightweight command that can be used as a part of the Microsoft Azure PowerShell environment. The cmdlets are summoned by the Azure PowerShell that automates the script, which is in the command line. Azure PowerShell runtime additionally invokes them automatically through Azure PowerShell APIs.

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12) Explain the Migration Assistant tool in Microsoft Azure.

The migration assistant tool examines our IIS installation and recognizes the sites that can be migrated to the cloud, featuring any components which can't be relocated or not supported by the platform. This tool similarly creates websites and databases provided under the given Azure membership.

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13) What is Azure SLA (Service Level Agreement)?

The SLA ensures that when we send two or more role instances for each role. Access to our cloud service will be maintained with an accuracy of 99.95 % of the time. The identification and re-correction activities will be started 99.9 % of the time whenever a role instance's procedure is not running.

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14) What is Availability Set in Azure?

Availability Set is a grouping of Azure Virtual Machines. The availability set allows the Azure cloud to build and understand how the application for a user is constructed to provide availability and redundancy.

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15) What steps should we take in case of drive failure?

In case of a drive failure, we should follow these steps:

• Unmount the drive, which allows the Azure storage object to function without fault.
• In the case of replacement, we will format and remount the drive.

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16) Why we use VNet? Name the power states of a Virtual Machine.

We can represent our network within the cloud using VNet. VNet logically isolates our instances launched in the cloud, from the rest of our resources. The various power state of a Virtual Machine is: Running, Starting, Stopping, Deallocating, etc.

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17) What is network security groups?

A network security group allows us to manage the network traffic to NIC or subnets etc. The network load will be distributed as needed if it is connected wisely.

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18) What is cspack?

Cspack is a command-line tool, which is used to generate a service package file. It helps us to prepare an application for deployment, either in compute emulator or Microsoft Windows Azure.

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19) Name two blobs used in Microsoft Azure.

The two types of blobs in Azure are:

• Block Blob
• Page Blob

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20) Can we add an existing VM to an availability set?

No, if we want our VM to be part of an availability set, then we need to create the VM within the set.

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21) How much storage can we use with a virtual machine?

In Azure, each data disk can be up to 1 TB. The number of disks we can use depends upon the size of the virtual machine. Azure Managed Disks are the recommended disk storage offering to use with Azure Virtual Machines for persistent storage of data. We can use multiple Managed Disks with each Virtual Machine.

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22) How to create a VM in Azure CLI?

1. az vm create `   
2. --resource-group myResourceGroup `   
3. --name myVM --image win2016datacenter `   
4. --admin-username Azureuser `   
5. --admin-password myPassword12  

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23) What is Azure Search?

It is a cloud search-as-a-service solution that delegates server and infrastructure management to Microsoft, leaving us with a ready-to-use service that we can populate with our data and then use to add search to our web or mobile application. Azure search allows us to easily add a robust search experience to our applications using a simple REST API or .NET SDK without managing search infrastructure or becoming an expert in search.

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24) Explain stateful and stateless micro-services for Service Fabric?

Service Fabric enables us to build applications that consist of microservices. Stateless micro-service doesn't maintain a mutable state outside a request. Azure Cloud Service's worker role is an example of a stateless service. Stateful microservice maintains a mutable, authoritative state beyond the request and its response.

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25) What is a Web role in Azure Cloud Service?

A web role in Azure is a virtual machine instance running Microsoft IIS Web server that can accept and respond to HTTP or HTTPS requests.

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26) Can we create a VM using Azure Resource Manager in a Virtual Network that was created using classic deployment?

It is not supported by the Azure portal. We cannot use Azure Resource Manager to deploy a Virtual machine into a virtual network which was created using classic deployment.

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27) What are the options available in Azure for data storage?

Options for storing data includes:

• Azure files
• OS drive
• Scale set
• Temp drive
• Azure data service
• External data service

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28) What is Azure Redis Cache?

Redis cache is an open-source, in-memory data structure store, which is used as a database, cache, and message broker. Azure Redis Cache resembles the famous open-source Redis cache. It provides access to a secure and dedicated Redis cache that is managed by Microsoft and accessible from any application inside Azure.

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29) What are Redis databases?

It is a fully managed, open-source, compatible in-memory data store to power fast and scalable applications.

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30) How to create a VM in PowerShell?

1. # Define a credential object   
2. $cred = Get-Credential   
3. # Create a virtual machine configuration   
4. $vmConfig = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName myVM -VMSize Standard_DS2 |  
5. ` Set-AzureRmVMOperatingSystem -Windows -ComputerName myVM -Credential $cred |   
6. ` Set-AzureRmVMSourceImage -PublisherName MicrosoftWindowsServer -Offer WindowsServer `   
7. -Skus 2016-Datacenter -Version latest | Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -Id $nic.Id