Learn Azure Administration: Explore cloud administration concepts with networking, computing, storage, and identity management

✍ Scribed by Kamil Mrzygłód

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 346
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Build cloud infrastructure expertise by elevating your Azure admin skills, mastering core services, and boosting productivity with helpful tools

Key Features

• Learn about infrastructure as code, deploy resources with ARM templates, and migrate to Azure Bicep
• Deploy Azure Policy and explore ideas for implementing policies based on real-world scenarios
• Understand the structure and hierarchy of Azure resources and Azure subscriptions and the authorization and authentication mechanism

Book Description

Complete with the latest advancements in Azure services, this second edition of Learn Azure Administration is a comprehensive guide to scaling your cloud administration skills, offering an updated exploration of Azure fundamentals and delving into the intricacies of Azure Resource Manager and Azure Active Directory.

Starting with infrastructure as code (IaC) basics, this book guides you through the seamless migration to Azure Bicep and ARM templates. From Azure virtual networks planning to deployment, you’ll get to grips with the complexities of Azure Load Balancer, virtual machines, and configuring essential virtual machine extensions. You'll handle the identity and security for users with the Microsoft Entra ID and centralize access using policies and defined roles. Further chapters strengthen your grasp of Azure Storage security, supplemented by an overview of tools such as Network Watcher.

By the end of the book, you’ll have a holistic grasp of Azure administration principles to tackle contemporary challenges and expand your proficiency to administer your Azure-based cloud environment using various tools like Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, and infrastructure as code.

What you will learn

• Discover the workings of Azure Load Balancer, grasp its use cases, and configure load balancer rules
• Gain insights into various solutions for provisioning infrastructure and configuration
• Create and configure workspaces, query data in Log Analytics, and visualize data
• Plan and deploy virtual networks and configure network security groups
• Validate and verify multiple authentication and authorization scenarios

Who this book is for

This book is for cloud administrators, system administrators, and IT professionals who want to expand their skill set to enter the world of cloud computing. For IT professionals and engineers who are already familiar with the basics of Azure services, this book will serve as a step-by-step guide to solving the most common Azure problems. A basic understanding of cloud concepts such as IaaS, PaaS, virtualization, networking, and common Azure services is required.

Table of Contents

1. Azure fundamentals
2. Basics of Infrastructure-as-Code
3. Understanding Azure Virtual Networks
4. Exploring Azure Load Balancer
5. Provisioning Azure Virtual Machines
6. Configuring Virtual Machine Extensions
7. Configuring Backups
8. Configuring and Managing Disks
9. Configuring Blob Storage
10. Azure Files and Azure File Sync
11. Azure Storage Security and Additional Tooling
12. Using Azure Policy
13. Azure Monitor and Alerts
14. Azure Log Analytics
15. Exploring Network Watcher

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credit
Dedication
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Part 1:Introduction to Azure for Azure Administrators
Chapter 1: Azure Fundamentals
Technical requirements
Exploring Azure Resource Manager
Architecture and terminology of ARM
Scopes
Resource groups
Tags
Quotas and limits
Microsoft Entra ID
Terminology
Users and groups
Applications and service principals
Authorization using RBAC and ABAC
RBAC
ABAC
Basic toolset – the Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, and Cloud Shell
Azure CLI
Azure PowerShell
Cloud Shell
Summary
Chapter 2: Basics of Infrastructure as Code
Technical requirements
What is IaC?
Exploring ARM templates
Template schema
Creating a deployment
Deployment modes
Creating and deploying a simple template
Listing deployments
Migrating to Azure Bicep
Bicep language
ARM templates and Bicep compatibility
Performing deployments
Decompiling an ARM template to Bicep
Using ACR as a repository of modules
What is ACR?
Creating an ACR instance
Creating a module
Publishing a Bicep module
Using the published Bicep module
Summary
Part 2: Networking for Azure Administrator
Chapter 3: Understanding Azure Virtual Networks
Technical requirements
Planning and deploying virtual networks
Planning a network in Azure
Deploying a virtual network
Understanding NSGs
How do NSGs work?
Working with NSGs
ASGs
Working with virtual network peerings
How does peering work?
Setting up peerings
Network routing and endpoints
System routes
Custom routes
Service and private endpoints
Summary
Chapter 4: Exploring Azure Load Balancer
Technical requirements
Overview of Azure Load Balancer
Load balancing in Azure
Components of Azure Load Balancer
Algorithm of Azure Load Balancer
The differences between public and internal load balancers
Delving into backend pools
Adding a frontend IP configuration
Adding a backend pool
Understanding load balancer rules
Creating a load balancer rule
High availability ports
Floating IP
Comprehending health probes
Creating a health probe
Linking a health probe to a load-balancing rule
Differences between probe protocols
Additional guidelines for health probes
Summary
Part 3: Administration of Azure Virtual Machines
Chapter 5: Provisioning Azure Virtual Machines
Technical requirements
Exploring the sizes and families of Azure VMs
Families and their pricing
Operating systems
Delving into Azure VM storage
Types of disks
Redundancy of disks
Deploying a VM
Deploying a single VM
Connecting to a VM
Connecting using SSH
Connecting using RDP
Connecting with the DNS name
Connecting using Azure Bastion
The availability of Azure VMs
Availability sets
VMSS
Summary
Chapter 6: Configuring Virtual Machine Extensions
Technical requirements
Using virtual machine extensions
Employing an extension in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine
Using extension in Linux Azure Virtual Machines
Installing extensions
Implementing the Custom Script Extension
Installing software with the Custom Script Extension
Executing a script
What is the Desired State Configuration?
Azure Automation State Configuration
Understanding DSC – general concepts
Summary
Chapter 7: Configuring Backups
Technical requirements
Protecting VM data
Coping with accidental deletion
Utilizing images and snapshots for securing data
Understanding backup and restore for Azure VMs
Setting up backup for Azure VMs
Recovery of Azure VM
Using Azure Backup Server
Installation platforms
Installation of Azure Backup Server
Exploring Azure Site Recovery
Replication
RTO and RPO targets
Network integration
Configuring Azure Site Recovery
Summary
Chapter 8: Configuring and Managing Disks
Technical requirements
Expanding on OS and data disks
Shared disks
Encryption
Exploring ephemeral OS disks
Deploying a virtual machine with an ephemeral OS disk
Adding, detaching, and expanding disks
Adding a disk to a virtual machine
Mounting a disk
Detaching disks
Expanding a disk
Swapping OS disks
Summary
Part 4: Azure Storage for Administrators
Chapter 9: Configuring Blob Storage
Technical requirements
Exploring storage accounts, containers, and blobs
Storage accounts
Containers and blobs
Configuring access tiers in Blob Storage
Hot and cold storage
Configuring the access tier
Configuring the access tier on a blob level
Archive tier
Configuring lifecycle and replication in Blob Storage
Replication of a storage account
Lifecycle of blobs in Blob Storage
Uploading blobs to Blob Storage
Using the Azure CLI to upload a file
Using azcopy to upload a file
Summary
Chapter 10: Azure Files and Azure File Sync
Technical requirements
Managing Azure Files (File Service)
Available access protocols
Creating a File Service instance
Creating a File Service share
Mounting a file share
Working with file share snapshots
Creating a file share snapshot
Configuring soft delete
Working with Azure File Sync
Planning for Azure File Sync
Summary
Chapter 11: Azure Storage Security and Additional Tooling
Technical requirements
Configuring soft delete in Blob Storage
Enabling soft delete for containers
Enabling soft delete for blobs
Use cases for soft delete and versioning in Blob Storage
Using Azure AD for authorization
Azure AD authorization benefits
Data plane and data actions in role-based access control
Examples of roles in Azure for Azure Storage
Using Azure AD in Azure CLI
Using managed identities
Definition of managed identity
Incorporating a managed identity into an application
Considering various options for automation
Automated cleanup of data
SAS token handling
Stored access policies
Rotating access keys
Using the Azure Import/Export service
Azure Import/Export technical details
Azure Import/Export requirements
Preparing disks and configuring the job
Summary
Part 5: Governance and Monitoring
Chapter 12: Using Azure Policy
Technical requirements
The basics of Azure Policy
Azure Resource Manager and Azure Policy
Deploying policies
Deploying a policy using the Azure CLI
Creating custom policies
Understanding the syntax
Building and deploying custom policy
Simplifying the deployment of policies using initiatives
The idea behind initiatives
When to use initiatives
Reviewing example policies
Policy – secrets should not be active for longer than the specified number of days
Policy – allowed virtual machine size SKUs
Policy – assign a built-in user-assigned managed identity to Virtual Machine Scale Sets
Summary
Chapter 13: Azure Monitor and Alerts
Technical requirements
Chapter materials
Getting started – an overview of Azure Monitor
Monitoring scenarios
Understanding logs in Azure Monitor
Platform logs
Understanding data types and events in Azure Monitor
Using custom logs
Querying activity logs
Using the Azure CLI to query activity logs
Using the Azure CLI to find correlated events
Implementing custom alerts for Azure infrastructure
Defining an alert
Implementing an alert
Summary
Chapter 14: Azure Log Analytics
Technical requirements
Getting started – an overview of Azure Log Analytics
Use cases for Azure Log Analytics
Structure of Azure Log Analytics
Using workspaces
Using Azure Log Analytics Workspace
Querying data
The basic syntax of Kusto
Common operators in Kusto
Aggregate functions
Visualizing results
render function
Summary
Chapter 15: Exploring Network Watcher
Technical requirements
Getting started – an overview of Network Watcher
Network Watcher toolset
Verifying flows
Diagnosing next hops
Visualizing the network topology
Summary
Index
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