Please note that some screenshots have been taken from Pluralsight’s AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals course.

The Language of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources split into compute, networking and storage distributed via data centres around the world. Benefits include low cost, ease of adoption and almost unlimited resources.

High Availability

Core to the cloud. It allows you to be able to provision more servers in very little time. You don’t own the hardware. If the hardware fails, you can replace it instantly. Use clusters to ensure high availability.

Reliability (a.k.a. Fault Tolerance/Disaster Recovery)

Resilience

Being able to recover from failures of a system and continue to function.

Deploy in multiple locations

• Global-scale computing
• Protects against regional failure /disaster

No single point of failure

• Resources in multiple locations
• If one goes down, others pick up the load

Scalability

The process of scaling out, up or down automatically to adjust resources to meet demands.

Scale-out adding more resources of the same size to the pool (Horizontal scaling)

Scale up adding more power to the existing machines in the pool (Vertical scaling)

Predictably

Predicable performance

• Consistent experience for customers regardless of traffic
• Autoscaling, load balancing and high availability provide a consistent experience

Predictable cost

• No unexpected surprises
• Track and forecast resource usage in real time

Management

Security

Full control of the security of the your clod e.g. patches, maintenance, network control etc

Governance

Ability or capability to establish standards e.g.. standard environments, regulatory requirements, audit for compliance.

Manageability

Management of the cloud How you manage your different cloud resources e.g. auto-scaling, monitoring, template-based deployments

Management in the cloud Portal, CLI, APIs

The Economy of Cloud Computing

Capital and Operational Expenditure

Capital Expenditure (CapEx) the money spent by a business or organisation on acquiring or maintaining fixed assets e.g. land, buildings etc. Large upfront investments.

Operational Expenditure (OpEx) an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system on a day-to-day basis. This includes annual costs. Pay as you go model.

Cloud Pricing Models

Hourly pricing e.g. VMs, App Services vs Consumption pricing i.e. pay for resources used,

Cloud Service Models

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)

• Provides servers, storage and networking as a service.
• Actual servers that you don’t have to go out and buy.
• Scaling is fast
• No ownership of hardware
• e.g. VMs & Servers, Networks, Physical Buildings

Platform-as-a-service (PaaS)

• Superset of IaaS also includes middleware, such as database management tools
• PaaS supports web application lifecycle
• Avoids software licence hell!

Software-as-a-service (SaaS)

• Providing a managed service built on top of PaaS
• Pay an access fee to use
• No maintenance and latest features

Serverless (Extreme PaaS)

• There are real servers but you don’t have to manage them. You just someone else’s to run on
• Azure Functions are the best know serverless service. They can hosted, deployed, run and managed on its own.
• Extreme PaaS

Shared Responsibility

Azure Marketplace

• Solutions and services from MS and their partners e.g. apps, VMs, templates, services etc
• Azure App Store
• Easy to Integrate via the Portal, CLI, or PowerShell. Some are free, some are paid.
• Publish Your Own

Benefits

• Certified and less maintenance
• Effienct
• New Markets
• Support

Cloud Architecture Models

Public Cloud

e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP. No upfront costs.

Private Cloud

Hosted on your own hardware in a location of your choice

Hybrid Cloud