Introduction

The book you are holding is the result of my 25 years of experience in the IT world, including 20 years of virtualization experience, which started with VMware, Virtual PC, and now Hyper-V, and many years focusing on public cloud solutions, especially Microsoft Azure. My goal for this book is simple: to make you knowledgeable and effective architecting an Azure-based infrastructure. If you look at the scope of Microsoft Azure functionality, a single book would be the size of the Encyclopedia Britannia to cover it, so my focus for this book is the infrastructure-related services, including VMs in Azure, storage, networking, and some complementary technologies. Additionally, the focus is on architecting a solution. I will also show how to automate processes using technologies such as templates and PowerShell/CLI, how to integrate Azure with your on-premises infrastructure to create a hybrid solution, and even how to use Azure as a disaster recovery solution.

There is a huge amount of documentation for each feature of Azure. The documentation walks through each feature's basic functionality and provides step-by-step instructions for the basic deployment. When performed through the GUI, these steps often change, as interfaces continue to evolve. Additionally, as this book will show, while the portal is great for learning about the options, you won't be using it for production deployments, preferring instead to use prescriptive technologies like templates. Therefore, the goal of this book is to help you understand the options, to understand how to use them as part of a solution to meet requirements, to enable architectures to be created using the right components, with best practices developed over years of working with many Fortune 500 organizations. Yes, this book will expose you to all the important Azure infrastructure services, but it will focus on providing real value to enable the most complete and optimal utilization of Azure. It will focus on walkthroughs only for more involved or complex scenarios where they really provide value. But don't worry-the basic step-by-steps will still be referenced so that you can easily find them.

Microsoft is one of only three vendors with a solution in the public cloud IaaS Gartner Magic Quadrant as a leader in addition to being used by many of the largest companies in the world and I will cover this in more detail in Chapter 12.

I am a strong believer that doing an action is the best way to learn something, so I encourage you to try out all the technologies and principles I cover in this book. Because Azure is a public cloud solution, you don't need any local resources except for a machine to connect to Azure. You can even run command-line interfaces (CLIs) directly within the Azure portal environment. Ideally, you will also have an on-premises lab environment to test the networking to Azure and hybrid scenarios. However, you don't need a huge lab environment; for most of the items, you could use a single machine with Windows Server installed on it and with 8 GB of memory to enable a few virtual machines to run concurrently. As previously mentioned, sometimes I provide step-by-step instructions to guide you through a process; sometimes I link to an external source that already has a good step-by-step guide; and sometimes I link to videos I have posted to ensure maximum understanding.

This book was one of the most challenging I've written. Because Azure is updated so frequently, it was necessary to update the book while writing, as capabilities would change. The Microsoft product group teams helped greatly, giving me early access to information and even environments to enable the book to be as current as possible. To keep the content relevant, I will be releasing a digital supplement and updating it as required. This will be available, along with any sample code, video links, and other assets, on the books GitHub page at:

https://github.com/johnthebrit/MasterIaaS2019

As you read each chapter, look at the GitHub repository for videos and other information that will help your understanding, as I do not specifically call these references out in the text of the book. The main page shows how to get a local copy of the repository, which has the benefit of making it easy to get updates as they occur.

Who Should Read This Book

I am making certain assumptions regarding the reader:

• You have basic knowledge about and can install Windows Server.
• You have basic knowledge of what PowerShell is.
• You have access to the Internet and can sign up for a trial Azure subscription.

This book is intended for anyone who wants to learn Azure Infrastructure services, but it is really focused on exposing the options and offering guidance on architecting solutions. If you have basic knowledge of Azure, that will help, but it is not a requirement. I start off with a foundational understanding of each technology and then build on that to cover more advanced topics and configurations. If you are an architect, a consultant, an administrator, or really anyone who just wants a better knowledge of Azure Infrastructure, this book is for you.

There are many times I go into advanced topics that may seem over your head, in which case don't worry. Focus on the preceding elements you understand, implement and test them, and solidify your understanding. Then, when you feel comfortable, come back to the more advanced topics, which will seem far simpler.

There are various Azure exams. The most relevant to this book are AZ-100 and AZ-101 (replacing the old 70-533 exam), which, when passed, give the participant the Azure Administrator Associate certification:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/azure-administrator.aspx

Additionally, exams AZ-300 and AZ-301 (replacing the old 70-534 exam), when passed, give the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/azure-solutions-architect.aspx

Will this book help you pass the exams? Yes, it will help. I took the exams for both certifications cold, without knowing what was in the exams and without any study, and I passed. Since most of my Azure brain is in this book, it will help. However, I advise you to look at the areas covered in the exams and use this book as one resource to help, but also use other resources that Microsoft references on the exam site. This is especially true of the architect certification, which includes a significant amount of content of application and database concepts, which I cover in this book only at a very high level.

What's Inside

Here is a glance at what's in each chapter.

• Chapter 1, "The Cloud and Microsoft Azure Fundamentals," provides an introduction to all types of cloud services and then dives into specifics about Microsoft's Azure-based offerings. After an overview of how Azure is acquired and used, the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will be introduced, with a focus on what is really the difference between a best-effort and a reliable service and why best-effort may be better!
• Chapter 2, "Governance," focuses on the first item companies must consider and address before using any service, including the public cloud and Azure. This chapter focuses on key concepts around Azure Resource Manager, understanding core governance around structure, role-based access control, naming, policy, cost and more.
• Chapter 3, "Identity," addresses the next consideration for service usage, understanding identity. This chapter walks through the importance of identity in the public cloud and how it becomes the key security perimeter for many services. Azure AD will be introduced, along with its population and authentication options.
• Chapter 4, "Identity Security and Extended Identity Services," builds on the previous chapter by looking at key security capabilities with Azure AD and how AD can be extended into the public cloud in a secure manner. Other identity services for custom applications will be explored.
• Chapter 5, "Networking," explores offering services running in Azure out to Internet-based consumers. It looks at key concepts such as endpoints to offer services and also providing load balanced services for greater service availability. Virtual Networks provide a construct to enable customizable IP space configurations that are used by many services in Azure. This chapter dives into architecting, configuring, and managing virtual networks. Finally, various types of connectivity between virtual networks and on premises are explored.
• Chapter 6, "Storage," examines the core capabilities of storage accounts in Azure and then walks through the storage capabilities used by infrastructure services in Azure, including managed disks. Services for large-scale data import and export are introduced.
• Chapter 7, "Azure Compute," starts by introducing virtual machines, the building block of nearly every Azure service, including their key capabilities, before moving on to more advanced concepts around availability and placement. An introduction to some of the Platform as a Service offerings is provided to provide a complete knowledge for architects for the key available options.
• Chapter 8, "Azure Stack," explores the on-premises Azure capability through partner appliances, including key scenarios and architecture...