1. Azure resource management
Let's get into Azure resource management.
2. Resource groups
Resources, like virtual machines, storage accounts, or any other manageable items in Azure, can be grouped into resource groups in Azure. When managing resources, you'll use this feature a lot.
It allows you to manage related resources collectively depending on your needs, for example, all virtual machines, all resources for a particular project, or all resources with specific data protection needs.
Resource tags and properties like access roles can then be assigned at the group level instead of to each resource separately.
You can compare this with having different specialized teams at a company.
3. Azure Resource Manager (ARM)
We've previously seen that Azure typically has a centralized service for specific management tasks.
For resource management, this is Azure Resource Manager. You'll use Azure Resource Manager for tasks like creating, updating, or deleting resources and to handle things like access control and resource properties.
Azure Resource Manager has two important features that assist in these tasks: resource providers and templates.
4. Resource providers
Resource providers support Azure Resource Manager by supplying and managing a specific type of resources.
For example, for virtual machines, Microsoft dot Compute is the resource provider.
Azure Resource Manager relies on resource providers to execute resource tasks.
Compare this with the architect or general contractor, Azure Resource Manager, overseeing specialized professionals like the electrician, the resource provider.
5. Azure Resource Manager templates
When creating resources or resource groups, often the same or a similar configuration is needed for different projects.
To help with this, Azure Resource Manager provides templates. With these, you can re-use a specific resource configuration.
These templates are modular, which means you can combine them for more complex deployments.
They are also able to integrate with Azure DevOps for automation with pipelines.
Azure Resource Manager templates follow Infrastructure as Code principles, assisting collaboration with versioning, for example.
Azure provides built-in templates for common resource deployments, or you can create your own using Bicep, an Azure-specific programming language.
6. Example use case: auto-scaling for seasonal spikes
Suppose you are consulting for a company that experiences seasonal spikes in online traffic during holidays. They need to deploy a solution that automatically scales resources based on demand.
Using Azure Resource Manager templates, resources like a virtual machine can be configured to automatically adjust using auto-scaling.
The template ensures that it can be applied to future resource deployments, but there is also flexibility to define adjustable scaling parameters to the needs of individual projects.
7. Let's practice!
Let's dive into some exercises to check what you've learned.