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.

Azure Certifications It's essential for you to understand the Azure? You have gone through AWS, and hence you now know that Azure is a cloud service provider. However, this tutorial will give you a complete insight into what Azure is. 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.

In this blog, we are going to learn in deep about Microsoft Azure as following. We will first "learn" why we need Cloud computing, and then we will "learn" what is "cloud computing?" Then we will see the Azure trending jobs, and following it will discuss the Microsoft Azure. Then we will study some popular Azure services and checks their pricing. That will follow with Azure certification, and we will end up with a demo on Azure VM instances.

Let's begin our quest.

Why we need cloud computing?

"10" years back from now, the companies used to store everything on-premises, though now the internet speed has improved, and there is a new way of "storing" the digital assets. And that is the cloud. For knowing what a cloud is, we need to understand why it came into the picture.

Before the cloud, the companies used to store all the things offline, and that is they hosted the websites on Premises server, and they used to add more servers as required. However, this kind of approach leads to one problem. Let's discuss that below.

Suppose your company is running a website, and you host 100 services over that site. Now, as the traffic increases, the load on the websites increases, and ultimately websites crashed.

And that is going to hurt your business. You might not have seen that previously and even if you have done that, you cannot come up with such a level of servers so quickly. And, now suppose you can manage the servers. However, "suppose" the demand goes down, the traffic is going to reduce. And then what you will do with the servers? You are not going to require the servers. However, you have established them, and hence you cannot throw them out. You might say that you can switch some of them off. However, you need to switch them on again when you need them sometime. And it's going to cost you as you invest the time and the labor for this. And also, the servers are not that cheap. You need to invest money in this. They are expensive. Hence, you are at a loss if you store the very successful websites on the premises. And the static orchestration of the hardware is never a "profitable" thing for adhering. 

However, if you host them on the cloud, the cloud manages the servers on their own. It adds the extra server when the load goes up, and it scales down when the traffic goes down. Also, you have the facility like pay as you go, and hence you pay not even a penny more. 

And that is why we need the cloud. 

Cloud is essential, as it assists manage scalability, payments, orchestration, provisioning, infrastructure as code, automation, storage, compute, and various others. Cloud has everything that you require. When we talk of the cloud service provider, we talk about the implementation that is the implementation of the whole Computer Science.

Let's now move through the Azure Tutorial, and understand what cloud computing is in detail.

Tutorial on what Cloud Computing is?

It is the group of remote servers on the internet. We use it for "storing, managing, and processing" the data. It is an alternative to the personal computer. And the personal computer has numerous disadvantages. 

Through these remote servers, we cover the "storage, management, and processing." It is for storing large or tiny files over the cloud that you can access via the cloud.

Also, you can manage the data through optimized databases over the cloud.

The cloud provides computing power over the cloud, and you can process any amount of the data in few seconds.

Hence, in general, these tasks can be categorized as storage, management, and processing, and we do that on the remote servers and not on the personal computer.  The "remote server" hence is not a private server. It's a public cloud, and that's what cloud computing is.

And we have "3" categories under cloud computing:

SaaS (Software as a Service)

The SaaS or the software as a service provides the software, and you can make use of the software without worrying about licenses. You also do not need to worry about the "deployment or anything." And that's why it saves time.

PaaS (Platform as a service)

It caters to the developers required by them while they build the application or require collaboration on the projects, and they do not need to purchase or do the infrastructure maintenance.

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

It caters to the companies in renting the servers, storage space from the cloud provider. You will find a difference between the "packaged software," "infrastructure as a service," "platform as a service," and "software as a service." In the packaged software, you require applications, data, runtime, middleware, O/S, Virtualization, servers, storage, and networking for management. In "infrastructure as a service," you manage the applications, runtime, middleware, and the O/S." In the "platform as a service," do the management of application and data. And in the case of the software as a service, we need to manage nothing.

There are benefits of cloud computing, and it is merely a matter of time when the company comes to know the market potential. And, we have many cloud providers.

Now in this blog, we are going to discuss the Microsoft Azure that is IaaS. And let's see why we should learn Microsoft Azure.

Job trends of Azure

As per Azure, the "Azure Solutions Architect" is trending, and it does make sense for you to upgrade to the master of the cloud.

Let's move forward and find out what Microsoft Azure is?

What is Microsoft Azure?

We have discussed the cloud services. The company that caters to us the "cloud services" is known as the cloud provider. You will find numerous cloud providers, and one such is Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft Azure is the cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft and the IT professionals required to do the building, deployment, and management of the applications via the data center's global network.

Azure Services

Microsoft Azure caters to us the various services which help us in computing in ways, and these services are hosted together into the domain.

Compute: This processes the "data over the cloud" through the powerful processors that cater to us multiple instances side by side.

Storage: As the name suggests, it stores the data over the cloud, and you can scale it as per requirement. And you "store" the data anywhere.

Database: The database domain provides us the reliable relational and non-relational database instances for management through Azure.

Networking: It helps you connect to the cloud and the infrastructure on-premises and services for getting a great user experience.

You will find a plethora of services that you can go through, and as an Azure Solution Architect, you need to learn all the "services."

Azure Pricing

The pricing is one of the prime reasons for learning Microsoft Azure, and you want to use it. For the new people who want to "learn" the technology, the Azure caters to us the "free credits" for accessing the Azure services without paying anything for a short duration. And this is enough for you to learn and kick start Azure learning.

You will find the Azure quite flexible, and it caters to you the pay as you go approach that can help you in serving your business requirements. The flexible pricing on 

large scale supports the scaling up and scaling down of the architecture as per the requirement.

And that's about the Azure pricing. Now let's move forward and have a look at the "Certification" that Azure offers?

Azure Certifications:

The Microsoft Azure aim is to fill the skill gap between the industry prerequisites and the resources available, and they are up with the below measures.

• It introduces the roles-based certifications.

• It caters to you the aligned experience.

• It ensures the certifications are easy and accessible by all.

• The whole industry recognizes it.

And we have three major categories for the Azure Certifications. They are:

• Azure Administration

• Azure Solution Architect

• Azure Developer

And these certifications come in levels where you are required to get the associate level certification, and then you can move forward to get the Advanced level certification.

Azure Portal

The Azure Portal happens to be a single portal or a single junction, which helps you have access and manage the various application in one place. It helps you in "building, managing, and monitoring" all from one simple web application to the most complex cloud applications in one unified console.

Azure Portal features:

Below are various features or functionalities which are catered to us by the Azure Portal.

• Single Point Management

• Tailored Experience

• Have access to control and safekeeping.

• Incorporation of the services for the authoritative experience

• Enhanced visibility

Demo: Making of the Azure Instances

Step1:

You need to begin through the creation of the Azure free tier account. In case you have a paid account, that is fine as well. However, if you don't need to visit this site (http://www.portal.azure.com).  You need to enter the details. And, that help you avail free services as well as the credits which you can make use of for one month. However, you will have to enter your credit or debit card details. And you will not be charged without any accord.

Step2:

Once you are up with an account, you need to move forward and login, and then you will find yourself under the portal.

You will find the three sections of the Azure portal, which are:

• One-click Access bar

• Search bar

• Dashboard

If you want to know about the Azure Portal, please do not worry, as we will soon be up with loads of articles on Microsoft Azure. 

Step 3:

For making the VM inside the Azure, you need to click on create the resource. And then a small panel unfolds. Move ahead and then pick the Windows Server 2016 VM, which is on the top "left of the panel," opens.

Step 4:

You need to fill in the details such as the subscription you use, an existing resource group you are up with one, then scroll down.

Step 5:

As you scroll down, you need to enter the instance details like "instance name, region, VM instance size or image or availability."

Step 6:

Next, you need to make a valid password and the username and then tap on the "review + create," which you will find at the bottom left of the screen.

Step 7:

In the next window, you will get the information related to the configuration you need to review. Once you are up, you need to click on create, and with that, the deployment process begins.

Step 8:

Once the deployment complete, the below window appears, and then tap on the resources for viewing the resources.

Step 9: 

And as you move up, you will find your instance up and running, now you can connect to it with the help of the SSH, and the file gets downloaded. Open it, and a window appears. Now tap on the connection, and you are ready. Now make sure you are up with the networking, and it allows the inbound traffic to the instance if it does not open.

And that brings us to the end of this Azure tutorial. I hope you like that.

We will soon be covering all the nitty-gritty for cracking the Azure Examination!

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.