What is Cloud Computing?

To be precise, cloud computing is the technology that provides computing, storage, database, analytics software, and various other toolsets for low, medium, and High-performance computing through the distributed environment via the internet or what we call the cloud. These are the services and tools that a user can use via the internet. However, one use case also depicts the application of it within the intranet, and what we know as the virtual private cloud, it can be on-premise as well as off-premise, with the majority use being off-premise. Sometimes company fears data security confidentiality, and then that organization opts for the virtual private cloud, it connects to the outer world via relevant gateways.

How it all began?

The concept of cloud computing takes us back to the 1960s. However, it was being recited the first time by Eric Schmidt in 2006. Though, the first cloud-based service came from Salesforce CEO Benioff. He left the Vice presidency of Oracle to come up with this. AWS also started in 2002 itself, though its official launch was in the year 2006 under Andy Jassy.  It was followed by GCP from Google, Azure from Microsoft, Oracle cloud from Oracle, and many more joined the race in no time experiencing the importance of this new technology. And it also has the power to reduce software and hardware costs considerably. AWS is now a $35 billion company, a subsidiary of Amazon, and capturing 34% of the market share. Azure has 18% of the market share.

- SaaS

SaaS means "Software as a service." Like we have various databases in AWS and various other providers such as AWS Redshift, AWS RDS, or Cosmos DB on Azure. These are database software. Also, the CRM software provided by Salesforce is an example of SaaS. Surprisingly Salesforce happens to be the number one SaaS provider with AWS at number 2. We will recommend all to read about Benioff as he came up with the first cloud-based pay-as-you-use and-go CRM software. Serverless SaaS is also available, and we need not worry about the server or resource allocations in that case like in AWS Lambda. Cloud providers like AWS, and Azure manage the server and resource allocation then. 

- PaaS

Paas means a platform as a service. We have AWS CloudFormation via which we can run Java, Nodejs, .net, Python, PHP, blockchain, or Machine learning code. CloudFormation hosts on the cloud via computing, storage, and various other tools. AWS is the number one PaaS provider, and Azure is at number two. 

- IaaS

IaaS stands for "Infrastructure as a Service." We sometimes have high-performance computing requirements like in Blockchain and Machine learning. However, sometimes we need computing, storage, and resources for various purposes. And these are the infrastructures, which the cloud providers provide as a service via the internet. Note that 5G has arrived, and AWS through AWS wavelength is making now low latency and high throughput applications. And all of the AWS hardware or the Infrastructure are quite capable of handling 5G now. 

- Public Cloud

There are several kinds of clouds. The one we are talking about now is the set of Infrastructure, Software, and platform. These are shared by the organizations through a public network. It's the internet space, the data center together with services, and various other tools shared via the public network. If you remind HostGator and GoDaddy, it's something like shared hosting. However, there even in dedicated hosting, data sharing is done through the public internet. There are various advantages and disadvantages of the public cloud, and they are listed below:

Pros:

Low cost

Cons:

Not as secure as the Private cloud, though cloud providers like AWS and Azure provide nine 9s levels of security even for the public cloud. 

- Private Cloud

In this case, the organizations opt for a private setup that cannot be visited by any outsider. The organization, in this case, has its virtual private network.  This network connects with the public cloud via a secure gateway. And this happens in case someone from within the organization wants to deal with some outsiders. This setup has its advantages and disadvantages.

Pros:

 More secure

Cons:

 High cost

- Hybrid Cloud

Sometimes a blend of public and private clouds is used. Those things that are not that important form part of the public cloud, and the confidential data and services become part of the private cloud. The use of this kind of setup is for lowering the cost and at the same time also ensuring the best level of security. Big organizations generally opt for this kind of setup.

Pros:

Low cost as compared to private cloud

Cons:

Slightly less secure than private cloud

- AWS

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services. The roots of it take us back to 2002, though its official launch was in the year 2006. It started with merely three services EC2, S3, and SQS. However, now it has around 175 services and a long list of tools. Its data centers are distributed across 26 availability zones located worldwide and are even capable of withstanding the worst of natural disasters. It ensures nine 9s availability and security via its service. And, it serves almost all the buzzwords related to the software and hardware industry to the best level by them, may it be scalability, cohesion, decoupling, or any. AWS is the number one cloud service provider and has 34% of the market share. It's number 2 only in the case of the SaaS, in which case salesforce is still number one. 

- Azure

We know this better as Microsoft Azure, and it's the Microsoft Cloud, service provider. Azure came into in 2010. And it matches AWS for each service and tool. It's a certainty that the tools and services provided by AWS are also part of Azure. It ranks second in the cloud industry with an 18% market share after AWS. There is always a neck-to-neck tussle between AWS and Azure, though AWS is far ahead at present.

Remember, according to Gartner soon Cloud computing will be compulsory for all computer professionals like the internet. Naresh I Technologies provides both AWS training and Azure training through highly experienced faculty, and sophisticated computer labs for practical training. Proper classroom training is provided, and you can learn at our premises or attend the classes virtually from the comfort of your home through the latest virtual classroom facilities. Contact us anytime for your AWS training from one of the top 5 computer training institutes in India.

We have the cloud storage service managed by Microsoft, the Azure storage. It ensures high availability, durability, scalability, and redundancy in "storage" at quite a low cost. This blog explains Azure storage. You will learn various storage offerings like blobs, tables, file storage, and queues. In the end, we explain each of these services in Azure. In a nutshell, we will cover why we need "storage," compare "storage" with the database, explain azure "storage," replication, and end up with a demo. We provide complete Azure training for all Azure certifications. Naresh I Technologies also is the number one computer training institute in Hyderabad and among the top five computer training institutes in India.

So why we need "Storage?"

We can understand this through an example. Have a look at this "scenario." You have a video library website. The load distributes between the website server and the backend servers. There can be one website server or multiple website servers based on the requirement of scaling. However, we need to have multiple backend servers for sure. Hence, we cannot survive without the numerous backend server. We can store the videos in a database. However, we need to query each time, and that will consume time. The Backend servers and each of them should have access to the jobs list posted by the webserver. If we store it in one of the "backend servers," then the other servers do not access the "job list." 

Hence, we need to store the job list in a separate storage medium. And for such a case, we make use of the queue. However, the other requirement is to store the videos. We cannot store them in the database as well already discussed. And hence we "store" them in a file system. And the file system makes our task much easy. Thus, we used the above two storage medium, and they are the queue and the file systems, and they are not the database. And that proves that we desperately require the "storage."  We cannot store everything in the database, and the above case explains it all over. 

Storage Vs. Database

In the database, we store the data or the records related to each other, which might change with time and we require updating them. In the Storage, we "store" the random objects and remain the same most of the time, like videos, images, and more.  

The file systems ask for less processing, and we can easily access them. However, if we store the video in the database, we need to query the request to the database each time we need the video. Now think you do the same through the file system. You will not require that much processing as the file access is quite simple and lightweight. Moreover, the database storage is costlier than the file storage system.

Azure Storage:

It's a cloud storage solution provided by Microsoft for modern apps. They require "availability, durability, and scalability" to fulfilling the customers' requirements.

However, at first, you need a storage account.

Storage Accounts

You have to create an Azure account. Once you create an account, you can then add the data to the storage account. Make a storage account for storing around 500 TB of data over the cloud. Make use of the Blob storage account and cool and hot access tiers for cost optimization. You need some data frequently and not some data. Hence, you can store them in the hot or cool "tier" based on how "frequently" you need the data. The storage for low frequency costs less. 

There are two types of storage accounts: 

• Blob storage

• General-purpose

Let's have a detailed discussion on these. Let's begin with the General-purpose storage account. 

General-purpose Account

It provides space through blobs, queues, tables, and files, and all of such services are in one account. You can use the general-purpose account for storing the object data and NoSQL datastore. And you can use it to define and use queues for processing messages and set up in the cloud the files shares.

We have four storage types in Azure:

• Table

• Blob

• File storage

• Queues

Tables

It's a storage service for storing heavily structured data. It's a NoSQL data store that supports the authenticated calls from within or outside the Azure cloud. The Azure tables are the best for structural and non-relational data storage.

Blobs

It is to store the unstructured data over the cloud in the form of objects/blobs. It can store text, binary data, like media files, documents, or the app installer. We also name it to object storage.

Queues

It can store the bulk of messages accessible from anywhere worldwide through authenticated calls through HTTP or HTTPS. One queue message is around 64 KB in size, and one queue can have millions of such, and it's fine till the capacity limit of the storage account.

File Storage

The file storage is an SMB file share. All the files and directories need creating in the parent share. One account can have any number of shares, and one share can have unlimited files and up to 5TB, which is the capacity limit of the file share.

Blob Storage

These are for storing the blob data. You can make use of it to select an access tier. It leverages you to decide how frequently you need the data. You can "select" the access tier that best suits your storage and that suits your budget.

We have two types of access tier. 

Hot: 

This comes with the lowest latency, which is possible. And hence you use it for the data that is frequently accessed. And that's why it is costly.

Cold: 

 It's the access tier that is low in performance than the above. It offers higher latency as the data is not that frequently accessed. And that is why you will find that it is cheaper than the hot access tier.

And both of the above are designed to ensure the highest level of availability. With that confirmed, you get assured that your file will be available 24 x 7. Though, high availability is possible only if we ensure the replication.

Replication

We have four types of replication:

Local redundant storage:

Through this, the file replicates three times inside the storage scale unit within the datacenter. And the data center is in the region where you made your account. The write ensures success only when you write all of these three replicas. And each of these replicas is in a separate fault domain and upgrade domains inside a storage scale unit.

The Zone Redundant Storage

It replicates the data asynchronously over the data centers among one or two regions other than the three replicas like the LRS. And, hence caters to us higher durability compared to LRS. The ZRS remains a durable one when the primary datacenter remains not available or cannot recover.

Geo-Redundant Storage

The Geo-redundant storage copies the data to another region miles away from the primary one. If you enable the GRS, then the data remains durable even when the whole "Region" faces an outage or disaster like flood and becomes unrecoverable.

Read Access GRS

The RA-GRS increases the availability of the storage account. It does that through read-only access in the secondary location to the data. And additionally, from the replication in two regions through the GRS.

Now you have detailed information about Azure storage. And let’s move forward and craft a demo for practical knowledge.

Demo

We will cover our demo in two parts:

Part 1: We will set up a website that loads the files to the blob storage. Once we upload the file, the file's summary gets stored in the Azure queue. It is for changing the background of the webpage once we refresh.

Step1: As already stated, our first step is to make a storage account. Follow the below instruction for doing that:

• Click on the storage account.

• Now tap on Add

• Then fill in all relevant fields and then tap on create.

Step 2: And now you have created the storage account successfully. And we know that we have four types of storage services. We are leaving it on you to recall them. And you need to select one out of these four. In this, we make use of the blob and queue service in this demo. Let's first hence configure the blob service. Move to the storage account, and tap on the Blogs.

Step 3: Tap on the container for the creation of one new "container." Enter the container name. It should be unique, and you will receive an alert if it is not. Next, you need to assign the public access level. Blobs are the files. In this case, you will be able to download all that is in this container. However, if you use blob access level, any of the users with the link to this container gets access to files "within." Through, container access level, any users with the link get access to the folders and the files within the container. We are selecting the Blob access level here in our demo. Now tap on OK.

Step 4: Mention the connection string of the storage account in your code. It authenticates your code to do the required interactions with the mentioned storage account and all the services it supports. For completing this, pick the storage account. And then, pick access keys and then copy one of the connection strings. Now paste the connection string in the code, and you are ready.

Step 5: Now begin with the queue. On the storage accounts, the page picks the "queues."

Step 6: Now, we create the queue. For that, tap on the Add the Queue, provide all the details, and tap on OK. Then, replace in the code the relevant information.

Step 7: Thus, we have made the website. And now, select the file which we need to upload, and now tap on the upload.

You can now access the website and upload the files from there. 

Thus, we have successfully added the files in the container as well as the queue. You can check inside them if they have been added or not.

You need to check the blob.

Step 8: Now move to the process page inside the website to check if the queue entries, and the blob, are readable. You will find they are! Check if the video name is the same. 

Thus, we have completed part 1 of the demo. Now we need to move to part 2:

Part 2: In this section, we find the details of the file service in Azure. It's the SMB 3.0 protocol for file transfers. This service comes attached to the windows OS, and it's an external drive. Let's have a try at this on the Azure portal.

Step 1: Move to the storage account, and pick the file service.

Step 2: On the upcoming page, you need to enter the file instance and the size of the "instance" you want. Now tap on the OK.

Step 3: Now pick the file service that is yours, and tap on connect.

In the properties pane, you need to copy the link.

Now paste it in a text file such that you can distinguish the elements. 

The first point in this is the address column, then comes the user name, and then comes the password.

Now save all these details on the next page. It is the next step.

Step 4: Right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop, and tap on the Map Network Drive.

Step 5: Now mention the first point which you copied from the text file in the folder text box and tap on the finish.

Step 6: Now, on the next step, you need to enter the username and then the password from the text file, and then tap on the OK.

Step 7: Congratulations, now your azure storage drive is all set. Use it now, and like any of the "drives" on the computer.

That completes our demo. If you want to learn the complete Azure, you can contact us anytime. 

You can contact Naresh I Technologies for your Azure online training. We provide Azure training in Hyderabad and USA, and in fact, you can contact us from any part of the world through our phone or online form on our site. Just fill it and submit it, and one of our customer care executives will be contacting you. And what else you get:

• You have the freedom to choose from Azure online training and classroom training.

• Chance to study from one of the best faculties and one of the best Azure training institutes in India

• Nominal fee affordable for all

• Complete training 

• You get training for tackling all the nitty-gritty of Azure.

• Both theoretical and practical training.

• And a lot more is waiting for you.

You can contact us anytime for your Azure training and from any part of the world. Naresh I Technologies caters to one of the best Azure training in India.

In this blog, you learn about the Virtual Network in Azure. You will learn how you secure the application through the AVM. And let's first realize what do we mean by virtual networks. We provide complete Azure training for all Azure certifications. Naresh I Technologies also is the number one computer training institute in Hyderabad and among the top five computer training institutes in India.

So why we Need Virtual Networks?

They are like a communication channel in between the resources that we host in the cloud. We have no actual switches or routers over the cloud. Like, we host a website server and the database server. They need interaction and do it through the virtual network. It's the medium of "interaction." And we know this medium as the Virtual network.

What do we do through the virtual network?

Through it, the two resources on the cloud can interact with each other. 

What is a Virtual Network?

The event is the Azure Virtual Network, and it represents the network on the cloud. It logically isolates the Azure cloud that you subscribe for while signing up.

Let us forget the definition for some time and have a look at the simple meaning. Suppose two computer wants to interact. It cannot without permission. You can grant or cancel the "permissions" in the VNet settings. And once you add the permissions, you add the computers to the network and ready to move forward. It's what we are doing in today's world. 

If you want to get an Azure certification, you need to learn VNet, and you can contact us for your Azure training. Both AWS and Azure are trending. And hence, it can be an option for you for your bright future ahead.

The Virtual Network divide into components.

The virtual network components are as follows:

• Network Security Groups

• Subnets

What do we mean by the Subnets?

We can divide each of the virtual networks into subparts, and we know them as the subnets.

We can further divide the subnets into the below sections:

• Private Subnets- There is no internet in this network.

• Public Subnet- This network has internet access.

Let's look at one of the examples and find how we can make use of the VNet.

Suppose a single virtual network comprises of subnets, and each of them has a server. 

Subnet A: It's a "web-server," and public subnet as the website is accessible through the internet

Subnet B: It's a database server, and it should connect to a web server. However, it does not require internet, and thus it's a private subnet.

You end up wondering where you can set all these, what we allow, and whatnot. We have the second component in the picture, and that is the Network Security Groups.

Network Security Groups

All the connections get set here. Like which ports we open and which we close by default. The below blog will explain the complete steps of how we can "set" all these, and you will find it quite simple to configure these all by the end of this blog.

However, first, let's have a look at the architecture of the VNet.

• We have a virtual network that works as the containers for the subnets.

• We have the cloud instance, which we add to the subnet.

• We also have the configuration properties which we need to configure. 

Below are the complete procedure explaining how the VNet works.

• At first, we make the virtual network.

• Then we create the subnets.

• Then we associate each of the subnets to the virtual machine, which we also known as the cloud instances.

• Now we attach the subnet to the relevant NSG.

• Now we configure the NSG properties, and we are ready.

Let's have a look at a Demo now:

Demo:

We deploy two servers within the Virtual Network. The first is the database server, and the second is the website server, and these two require interacting with each other. Let's see how we can architect this.

Step 1: At first, we make an NSG. Now move to the Azure Dashboard. And we tap on the plus sign and then search for the Network Security Group.

Step 2: Now we see the create NSG screen. We need to fill in some details. We need to enter the name and select the subscription. Then we need to name the resource. Since we are creating the new, we pick the "credit new" radio button. Create the Resource group in this step. Keep all the resources in the same group, as that will be easier for you. 

Step 3: We now create the Virtual Network. Now follow these instructions. Tap on the three horizontal lines. Now select the virtual network from the drop-down. Now click on the Add. Add the name for the virtual network. And, pick the use existing for the resource group, and mention the name. And click on the create.

Step 4: Now, we create the two subnets. And we already know what they mean. Follow these steps. Name the subnets and then select the subnet from the list on the right side.

Step 5: Now, create two subnets on the next screen. You need to follow the same steps for the "web-server" as well as the database. Now you attach the relevant NSGs.

Step 6: Now you have set up the network. The next step is to configure the Network Security Groups and server creation within this VNet. Let's first make the "webserver."

Select the virtual machine from the list and click on Add. 

Step 7: On the next screen, you select the OS. We are selecting Ubuntu OS. And now click on create. At first, you need to enter all the "basic" configuration settings. You require entering name, Disk type (SSD), the username (nareshIT), select the Authentication type, password, subscription, and finally click the "OK" button.

Step 8: You need to select the size and select the smallest size. Now click "ok." The second step is complete. 

Step 9: In the next step, you select the virtual network to deploy the virtual machine.  And next, you "select" the subnet.

Step 10: Now select the NSGs. You need to "select" the none in this case. It is because we have already done and attached the NSG. You need to do the same process for the DB server as well. 

Step 11: Next, you need to set the inbound security rules. Click on the inbound security rule, and click on Add. 

Now you need to add the connection property. Add name and service as custom. Now click "ok."

For website access, you need the HTTP and the HTTPS. You require the SSH for server configuration. Now you will see the Ubuntu default page if you want to connect to the "webserver."

Go to the SSH window.

And you can now see the DB NSG as well. It shows SSH and MySQL.

It completes our tutorial. 

You can contact Naresh I Technologies for your Azure online training. We provide Azure training in Hyderabad and USA, and in fact, you can contact us from any part of the world through our phone or online form on our site. Just fill it and submit it, and one of our customer care executives will be contacting you. And what else you get:

• You have the freedom to choose from Azure online training and classroom training.

• Chance to study from one of the best faculties and one of the best Azure training institutes in India

• Nominal fee affordable for all

• Complete training 

• You get training for tackling all the nitty-gritty of Azure.

• Both theoretical and practical training.

• And a lot more is waiting for you.

You can contact us anytime for your Azure training and from any part of the world. Naresh I Technologies caters to one of the best Azure training in India.