Table of Contents
Understanding cloud computing 1
Services offered 3
Virtualization and on-premises technology 3
Software as a service (SaaS) 5
Platform as a service (PaaS) 7
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) 8
Hybrid environments 8
Microsoft Azure 9
Exploring the portal 10
Summary 15
Creating a new Windows server virtual machine 17
Pricing for virtual machines 22
Creating a virtual machine using the gallery 25
Connecting and managing your new Windows server virtual machine 29
Starting and stopping the virtual machine 29
Connecting to a virtual machine in the portal 31
Connecting from the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 31
Working with your virtual machine with PowerShell 33
Adding additional data disks to your virtual machine 35
Deploying an existing server to Microsoft Azure 41
Summary 43
What is Linux? 45
Ubuntu 46
CoreOS 46
CentOS-based 46
SUSE 47
Oracle 47
Creating a Linux-based virtual machine 47
Working with your Linux virtual machine 52
Connect using Secure Shell (SSH) 52
Connect using Remote Desktop Protocol 56
Useful Linux commands 58
Summary 60
What is an Azure Virtual Network? 61
The benefits of virtual networks 62
The virtual network topology 63
A cloud-only virtual network 63
A cross-premises virtual network 65
Configuring a virtual network 67
Creating a cloud-only virtual network 67
Redeploying virtual machines into a virtual network 71
Configuring a cross-premises virtual network 76
Configuring the virtual network with a dynamic gateway 77
Creating certificates 79
Configuring the VPN client 80
Summary 80
Monitoring cloud services using the Azure portal 81
Configuring monitoring for cloud services 83
Prerequisites 83
Creating a storage account 83
Enabling Azure Diagnostics in a virtual machine 87
Adding metrics 92
Management services 97
Alerts 97
Operational logs 102
Other monitoring tools 105
PowerShell 105
System Center Operation Manager 107
Third-party monitoring tools 107
Summary 108
What is Microsoft Azure Active Directory? 109
Azure AD editions 111
Configuring a standalone Microsoft Azure Active Directory 112
Setting up your own domain 114
Creating a user 116
Creating a group 119
Synchronization of on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD 121
Directory Sync 122
Directory Sync with password 122
Directory Sync with single sign-on 123
Multi-Factor Authentication 123
Summary 124
Microsoft Azure High Availability 125
System availability 127
System scalability 127
Redundancy and fault tolerance 128
Azure virtual machine downtime and availability 129
The multiple-tier architecture 130
Availability Set – Azure Internals 134
Configuring an Availability Set 137
Creating an Availability Set when provisioning a virtual machine 137
Creating a new Availability Set for an existing virtual machine 138
The Microsoft Azure load balancer and Availability Set 140
Microsoft Azure as a Disaster Recovery site 143
Summary 143
Index 145
Preface
Cloud computing has been a buzzword in the IT industry for some time, and there are several cloud providers on the market. Microsoft Azure is Microsoft's cloud offering. Microsoft Azure has evolved very quickly over the last few years and now offers a comprehensive set of services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In this book, we will start by explaining what is meant by some cloud terminology. We will take a look at how we can deploy both Windows/Linux-based virtual machines in Azure. We will take a look at how to set up a virtual network, so that our cloudbased resources can communicate with each other. Much like an on-premises server, our cloud-based servers will need to be monitored for any potential issues, and we will take a look at how we can design cloud systems that are both highly available and fault-tolerant.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introduction to Microsoft Azure Cloud Services, discusses some of the terminology around cloud, from the services offered to some of the specific features available in Microsoft Azure. You should be able to differentiate
between a public and private cloud.
Chapter 2, Creating and Deploying a Windows Virtual Machine, shows you how we can create a new Windows-based virtual machine in Microsoft Azure. We will take a look at how we can connect to and work on the virtual machine and how we can control the VM using PowerShell. Finally, we will see how we can convert an existing server and make it an Azure-based VM.
Chapter 3, Deploying Linux Virtual Machines on Azure, shows you how we can create and configure a Linux-based virtual machine in Microsoft Azure's cloud. We will take a look at the different flavors of Linux available, how we can create the virtual machine, how we can use the command-line interface and Putty, and how we can connect via RDP to work with Linux.
Chapter 4, Virtual Networks, shows you how we can create a virtual network in Azure. We will take a look at how we can approach moving an existing virtual machine to a new virtual network and what is needed to configure point-to-site connectivity for hybrid networks that allow you to combine your on-premises network with your cloud-based resources.
Chapter 5, Managing and Monitoring Virtual Machines, shows you how we can set up and collect the diagnostic information on our cloud-based virtual machine. We will take a look at what we need to do in order to store this information in the cloud and also how we can integrate the monitoring with on-premises tools, such as SCOM.
Chapter 6, Microsoft Azure and Active Directory, discusses the options that are available to you when it comes to making use of Microsoft Azure Directory Services. We will take a look at how we can create a cloud-based directory and discuss the options available for integrating your on-premises Active Directory with the cloud.
Chapter 7, High Availability and Disaster Recovery for Azure Virtual Machines, shows you the High Availability options that you have when configuring virtual machines in Azure. You have a number of options available to you when you configure both your Azure-based VMs to be highly available, including the ability to create availability sets.
You can make use of site recovery to use the Azure cloud as a disaster recovery site for both your cloud-based virtual machines and on-premises Hyper-V virtual machines.
What you need for this book
All you need for this book is a subscription to Microsoft Azure. In this case, it's perfectly acceptable to use the free trial subscription.
Who this book is for
This book is for system administrators and developers who want to get an understanding of how to deploy virtual machines to the cloud.
