Azure Virtual Network

 Azure Virtual Network (VNet) is the fundamental building block for your private network in Azure. VNet enables many types of Azure resources, such as Azure Virtual Machines (VM), to securely communicate with each other, the internet, and on-premises networks. VNet is similar to a traditional network that you'd operate in your own data center, but brings with it additional benefits of Azure's infrastructure such as scale, availability, and isolation.

Azure virtual network enables Azure resources to securely communicate with each other, the internet, and on-premises networks. 

Advantages of Using Azure Virtual Network

Some of the major advantages of using Microsoft Azure VNet are as follows:

1. It provides an isolated environment for your applications
2. A subnet in a VNet can access the public internet by default
3. We can easily direct traffic from resources
4. It is a highly secure network
5. It has high network connectivity

How to create a Virtual Network: to create a virtual network follow below steps.

Finally click on Create button. It will deploy Virtual network for you.

Now go to Virtual network page. click on created VN from list. 

You can see all the information about your Virtual network. 

Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com, https://www.simplilearn.com 

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Attach extra disk to VM in Azure Portal

 On cloud, In future if you need extra disk for your VM then you can do it very easily in Azure portal. follow the below steps.

• Open VM in Azure portal.
• Goto Settings > Disks
• Click on 'Create and attach a new disk'
• provide disk information and click on Save button.

new disk will be created and It will update the existing VM.

• Now take RDP of your Virtual machine. 
• Goto Server Manager\File and Storage Services\Volumes\Disks 

here you will see all your disk. select the newly created disk.

• Right click on newly created disk. a context menu will be open. select new volume.

It will open a dialog window. follow the steps and click on OK. Now check in my computer. you will see new drive.

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How to capture image of a VM in Azure Portal

 You can create the image file of an existing VM and restore it any time. This is very helpful to restore the existing server incase of any blunder on VM. 

Follow the below steps to create and restore image.

Open Virtual machine which you recently created.

Click on Capture link (highlighted below). 

It will redirect you to the new page. In the below page provide details for image.

finally click on Review + Create. It will take some time to create image of existing VM. during creation of image your existing VM will be stopped. 

You can find the image file in your resource group or in images resource.

If you want to create new VM with existing image file then click on image name. It will redirect you to the new page.

Click on Create VM link on the top. It will redirect you to Create VM page. there you need to select the existing created image from image dropdown section and all other steps are same. 

In this way you can replicate same server multiple time.

References: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/

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Windows virtual machine

What is Virtual machine?

Azure virtual machines (VMs) can be created through the Azure portal. This method provides a browser-based user interface to create VMs and their associated resources. This quickstart shows you how to use the Azure portal to deploy a virtual machine (VM) in Azure that runs Windows Server 2019.

Create virtual machine

go to all Services > Compute > Virtual machines 
You can directly search Virtual machine from search in header section.

Click on Virtual machine link. It will redirect you to the new page.

Click on Add button. Select 'Virtual machine' link. you will be redirected to below page.

First select Subscription, Resource group(If not created the create new one.). 

Provide VM name. Select preferred region.

Select image as Windows server 2019 Datacenter - Gen1, Select preferred Size for your VM.

Provide username and password for your VM.

Select inbound ports as RDP (If required you can select http/s).

Now click on Next.

Select the preferred OS Disk type and leave other option as it is. click on Next.

Select the Virtual Network. If not created then it will automatically create one. Leave other options as it is. Click on Next.  

On Management page you can leave all default selected options as it is. click on Next again.

On Advanced page you can leave all default selected options as it is. click on Next again.

In Tags section, You can provide above details. click on Next: Review + Create

On Review page you can see all detail related to this VM. You can check pricing also. Now click on Create button for creating and deploying new VM. This will take few seconds to deploy virtual machine. 

Now again go to virtual machine. you will see the created virtual machine.

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Introduction of Azure Portal

 Create free account in Azure Portal. It will require credit card verification. I have already created free account for this tutorial.

What is the Azure portal?

The Azure portal is a web-based tools. With the Azure portal, you can manage your Azure subscription using a graphical user interface. You can build, manage, and monitor everything from simple web apps to complex cloud deployments. Create custom dashboards for an organized view of resources. Configure accessibility options for an optimal experience.

Get started with services

If you're a new subscriber, you'll have to create a resource before there's anything to manage. Select + Create a resource to view the services available in the Azure Marketplace. You'll find hundreds of applications and services from many providers here, all certified to run on Azure.

We pre-populated your Favorites in the sidebar with links to commonly used services. To view all available services, select All services from the sidebar.

Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-portal/azure-portal-overview

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IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS

SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS are simply three ways to describe how you can use the cloud for your business.

1. IaaS: cloud-based services, pay-as-you-go for services such as storage, networking, and virtualization.
2. PaaS: hardware and software tools available over the internet.
3. SaaS: software that’s available via a third-party over the internet.
4. On-premise: software that’s installed in the same building as your business.

1. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).

IaaS businesses offer services such as pay-as-you-go storage, networking, and virtualization.

IaaS gives users cloud-based alternatives to on-premise infrastructure, so businesses can avoid investing in expensive on-site resources.

Example -  Azure Virtual Machine, Azure VNET

IaaS Advantages:

Maintaining on-premise IT infrastructure is costly and labor-intensive.

It often requires a significant initial investment in physical hardware, and then you will probably need to engage external IT contractors to maintain the hardware and keep everything working and up-to-date.

With IaaS, you can buy what you need, as you need it, and purchase more as your business grows.

IaaS solutions are highly flexible and highly scalable, and you can replace it whenever you need without losing money on your initial investment.

2. PaaS (Platform as a Service).

A PaaS vendor provides hardware and software tools over the internet, and people use these tools to develop applications. PaaS users tend to be developers.

Example -  Azure SQL, Azure Storage

PaaS Advantages:

PaaS is primarily used by developers who are building software or applications.

A PaaS solution provides the platform for developers to create unique, customizable software.

This means developers don’t need to start from scratch when creating applications, saving them a lot of time (and money) on writing extensive code.

PaaS is a popular choice for businesses who want to create unique applications without spending a fortune or taking on all the responsibility.

It’s kind of like the difference between hiring a venue to put on a show vs. building a venue to put on a show.

3. SaaS (Software as a Service).

SaaS platforms make software available to users over the internet, usually for a monthly subscription fee.

Example -  Office 365, Salesforce

SaaS Advantages:

With SaaS, you don’t need to install and run software applications on your computer (or any computer).

Everything is available over the internet when you log in to your account online. You can usually access the software from any device, anytime (as long as there is an internet connection).

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Azure Intro

 What is Azure?

Azure is a complete cloud platform that can host your existing applications and streamline new application development. Azure can even enhance on-premises applications. Azure integrates the cloud services that you need to develop, test, deploy, and manage your applications

By hosting your applications in Azure, you can start small and easily scale your application as your customer demand grows. Azure also offers the reliability that's needed for high-availability applications, even including failover between different regions. 

Application hosting

Azure provides several cloud-based compute offerings to run your application so that you don't have to worry about the infrastructure details. You can easily scale up or scale out your resources as your application usage grows.

Azure offers services that support your application development and hosting needs. Azure provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to give you full control over your application hosting. Azure's Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings provide the fully managed services needed to power your apps. There's even true serverless hosting in Azure where all you need to do is write your code.

Azure App Service

When you want the quickest path to publish your web-based projects, consider Azure App Service. App Service makes it easy to extend your web apps to support your mobile clients and publish easily consumed REST APIs. This platform provides authentication by using social providers, traffic-based autoscaling, testing in production, and continuous and container-based deployments.

You can create web apps, mobile app back ends, and API apps.

Because all three app types share the App Service runtime, you can host a website, support mobile clients, and expose your APIs in Azure, all from the same project or solution. To learn more about App Service, see What is Azure Web Apps.

You can migrate your existing applications to App Service by using the online migration tool.

When to use: Use App Service when you're migrating existing web applications to Azure, and when you need a fully-managed hosting platform for your web apps. You can also use App Service when you need to support mobile clients or expose REST APIs with your app.

Azure Virtual Machines

As an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, Azure lets you deploy to or migrate your application to either Windows or Linux VMs. Together with Azure Virtual Network, Azure Virtual Machines supports the deployment of Windows or Linux VMs to Azure. With VMs, you have total control over the configuration of the machine. When using VMs, you're responsible for all server software installation, configuration, maintenance, and operating system patches.

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