About the course

Description:

A "Live Azure Project Experience" refers to hands-on experience working with Microsoft Azure to design, implement, and manage cloud-based applications and infrastructure in a live, production environment. These projects involve leveraging Azure services to build scalable, secure, and cost-efficient systems that meet business needs. Below is a detailed description of what this type of experience entails:

1. Cloud Infrastructure Setup & Management:

• Azure Virtual Machines (VMs): Setting up and managing Azure VMs for running applications or services, including selecting appropriate VM sizes, configuring networking, and ensuring high availability using Azure's availability sets or availability zones.
• Azure Virtual Network (VNet): Designing and configuring VNets for secure communication between resources. This includes managing subnets, network security groups (NSGs), and configuring network routing between on-premises data centers and Azure.
• Azure Load Balancer & Application Gateway: Configuring Azure Load Balancer for distributing traffic to VMs and Application Gateway for advanced traffic routing, including Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities for security.

2. Storage & Data Management:

• Azure Blob Storage: Using Azure Blob Storage for scalable object storage, enabling backup solutions, media storage, or serving static web content. Implementing lifecycle management policies, access controls, and optimizing storage costs.
• Azure SQL Database: Setting up and managing Azure SQL Database to provide fully-managed relational database services, configuring automatic scaling, high availability, and backups.
• Azure Cosmos DB: Implementing Cosmos DB, a globally distributed, multi-model database service, for NoSQL workloads that require low-latency access and horizontal scalability.
• Azure Files & Azure Disk Storage: Managing Azure File Shares for shared file storage and Azure Managed Disks for VM disk storage, ensuring high availability and performance.

3. Compute & Serverless Architecture:

• Azure App Service: Deploying and managing web applications using Azure App Service, which abstracts infrastructure management. This includes setting up web apps, API apps, and mobile backends with built-in scalability and patch management.
• Azure Functions (Serverless): Designing serverless applications using Azure Functions, enabling event-driven, lightweight compute capabilities without managing infrastructure.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): Managing containerized applications using Azure AKS, leveraging Kubernetes for orchestration, scaling, and self-healing. This includes setting up clusters, managing deployments, scaling pods, and integrating with CI/CD pipelines.

4. Automation & Infrastructure as Code (IaC):

• Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates: Writing and managing ARM templates to automate resource provisioning and management, ensuring infrastructure is consistent, repeatable, and version-controlled.
• Azure DevOps & GitHub Actions: Implementing CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps for automated builds, testing, and deployments, or using GitHub Actions for integrating with Azure for serverless and containerized applications.

5. Security & Identity Management:

• Azure Active Directory (AAD): Configuring Azure AD for identity management, providing single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC) for managing user access to Azure resources.
• Azure Key Vault: Storing and managing sensitive information such as connection strings, API keys, and certificates using Azure Key Vault to ensure secure access.
• Network Security & Firewall: Configuring Azure Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Azure Firewall to control network traffic and secure access to virtual machines, databases, and other Azure resources.
• Azure Security Center: Using Azure Security Center to monitor and enforce security policies, detect vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance with industry standards.

6. Networking & Content Delivery:

• Azure CDN: Implementing Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) to deliver content with low latency and high availability across global locations, caching static content and optimizing performance.
• Azure VPN & ExpressRoute: Setting up Azure VPN Gateway or Azure ExpressRoute to create secure, private connections between on-premises networks and Azure resources.
• Azure Traffic Manager: Implementing Azure Traffic Manager for global traffic distribution, ensuring high availability and better user experience by routing users to the closest data center.

7. Monitoring, Logging & Performance Optimization:

• Azure Monitor: Setting up Azure Monitor to collect, analyze, and act on telemetry data from Azure resources. Creating dashboards and setting up alerts to track resource utilization, performance, and availability.
• Azure Application Insights: Using Application Insights to monitor the performance and usage of web applications, track user interactions, and diagnose errors in real time.
• Log Analytics: Configuring Azure Log Analytics to collect logs from various Azure services for detailed analysis and troubleshooting.

8. Deployment & Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD):

• Azure DevOps Pipelines: Automating CI/CD workflows using Azure DevOps Pipelines for application builds, automated tests, and deployments to various Azure services (VMs, App Service, Kubernetes, etc.).
• Azure Container Registry (ACR): Setting up Azure Container Registry to store and manage Docker container images, enabling integration with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for containerized deployments.

9. Cost Management & Optimization:

• Azure Cost Management: Monitoring and optimizing cloud expenditures using Azure Cost Management tools, ensuring that resource usage aligns with budget constraints, and using cost analysis and recommendations for cost optimization.
• Azure Reserved Instances: Implementing Azure Reserved Instances for virtual machines and databases to reduce long-term costs by committing to a specific usage term.

10. Disaster Recovery & High Availability:

• Azure Site Recovery: Setting up Azure Site Recovery for disaster recovery, replicating on-premises applications or virtual machines to Azure, and ensuring high availability and business continuity.
• Azure Backup: Implementing Azure Backup for data protection, ensuring that backups are automatically taken and stored in a secure and compliant manner.

Example of a Live Azure Project:

"In a recent project, I was responsible for migrating an on-premises application to Azure. We deployed the application using Azure App Service for web hosting, ensuring easy scalability. The backend database was migrated to Azure SQL Database, where we enabled automatic backups and geo-replication for high availability. We utilized Azure Functions to implement serverless microservices that processed events from an Azure Event Hub. The infrastructure was provisioned using ARM templates for consistency, and we set up a CI/CD pipeline with Azure DevOps to automate the build, test, and deployment process. For security, we used Azure Key Vault to manage sensitive credentials and Azure AD for role-based access control (RBAC). Monitoring was configured with Azure Monitor, and we used Log Analytics to track performance and resolve issues proactively. The project resulted in improved scalability, security, and cost efficiency."

Key Skills & Tools:

• Compute: Azure VMs, Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Storage: Azure Blob Storage, Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, Azure Disk Storage.
• Networking: Azure VNet, Azure Load Balancer, Azure CDN, VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute.
• Security: Azure AD, Azure Key Vault, NSGs, Azure Firewall, Azure Security Center.
• Automation & IaC: ARM Templates, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions.
• Monitoring & Logging: Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics.
• CI/CD: Azure DevOps Pipelines, Azure Container Registry (ACR).
• Cost Management: Azure Cost Management, Reserved Instances.

This type of Azure project experience demonstrates proficiency in setting up and managing a variety of Azure services to build a complete cloud-native solution, ensuring high performance, scalability, security, and cost-efficiency.