1. Azure architecture & services overview
Hello and welcome to the course!
I'm Florin Angelescu, and I'm here to help you better understand Azure architecture and services.
2. What is Azure?
Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, offering a range of services like storage, computing, networking, and applications, to name a few.
Instead of relying on your own computer or servers, Azure lets you use Microsoft's provided infrastructure over the Internet.
It's a way to access and use computing resources without managing your own physical hardware.
3. What can you do with Azure?
Azure offers a wide range of services for storing data, running virtual machines, hosting websites and applications, machine learning, database services, and many more.
In the next slides, we'll take a look at the architectural design of Azure, and upcoming lessons will focus on the key services that Azure provides.
4. Physical infrastructure
Azure's physical infrastructure consists of a global network of data centers located around the world.
These data centers are each equipped with compute, storage, and networking hardware.
Data centers are grouped into regions or availability zones designed to ensure redundancy, scalability, and high availability of services.
Microsoft maintains and manages these data centers, while customers access Azure services over the Internet.
5. Regions
An Azure region is a geographical area that contains a group of data centers offering Azure services.
A data center is a physical facility used to store computers and other components for the purpose of storing, processing, and managing large amounts of data.
Regions are strategically located globally, allowing creation of resources in proximity to consumers of cloud-hosted services.
Therefore, they offer improved performance and compliance with local regulations.
When you create a resource in Azure, you typically must designate the region where the resource will be deployed.
6. Availability zones
Azure availability zones are separate, physically independent data centers within a region.
They ensure that if something goes wrong in one zone, your applications and data can still be accessed from another zone.
It's a way to make sure Azure services stay available even if there are technical issues in one location.
7. Azure portal
Azure offers a user-friendly website where you can easily access, manage, and control cloud resources.
It is called Azure portal and it helps you organize, monitor, and handle all your cloud services and data in an easy and efficient way.
8. Resources
Resources are the building blocks you use to create and run operations in Azure cloud.
It could be a website, a database, a virtual machine, or other tools that help online activities.
When you create a resource, you have to assign it to a resource group.
9. Resource groups
Resource groups are like virtual folders for organizing resources.
They provide an easy way to group cloud resources together.
Each resource belongs to only one group at a time, but they can be moved between resource groups if needed.
Resource groups can't be nested, so you can't put one inside another.
10. Subscriptions
Just as resource groups help organize resources, subscriptions let you organize your resource groups and simplify the billing process.
An Azure subscription is like a membership that gives you access to cloud services.
Having multiple Azure subscriptions can serve purposes like security, cost management, or separating multiple environments.
Every subscription is linked to an Azure account.
11. Azure account
An Azure account is the access pass to Microsoft's cloud services.
It allows you to use and manage all tools and resources provided by Azure.
To start using Azure services, you must first create an Azure account.
12. Management groups
Azure management groups are an optional layer that can help you organize and control multiple subscriptions at once.
Unlike the other organizational structures we've talked about earlier, management groups are the only ones that can be nested.
This means you can place one management group inside another, creating a parent-child relationship.
13. Azure hierarchical structure
To summarize the hierarchical structure of Azure:
When we create Azure resources we need to place them in a resource group.
Resource groups are organized under subscriptions, for security and billing separation.
Optionally, subscriptions can be placed under management groups, for easier organization and control.
We can achieve all of the above only by having an Azure account that enables us to use Azure services.
14. Let's practice!
Let's review what we've learned with some exercises!