Azure Resource Deployment; Management Tools and Features:
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Series 1.
Welcome to today's learning on the Tech Merchant Blog. Today, we are going to start a series of learning that bothers resource management and deployment on Microsoft Azure. Azure is a very rich, complex offering. As the number of services and resources rises, so does the complexity of deploying and managing resources. Fortunately, Azure offers multiple methods for managing the resources in your Azure environment. In most cases, you can use one of several management tools for the same task, enabling you to choose a tool that offers the appropriate balance between ease and functionality. This series explores the management tools available in Azure and helps you put them to use to gain some experience in creating and managing your own Azure resources.
In today's series, we would look at 2 (two) of the Azure resources and management tools that are commonly used in the Azure environment while the others would be examined in subsequent learning. The 2 Azure resources and management tools we would be considering today are :
1: Azure Portal
It is the web-based graphical user interface (GUI) provided by Microsoft for managing various services and resources on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. It serves as a central hub where users can access and configure their Azure resources, monitor their applications, and interact with different services.
When choosing a management tool for Azure, the most important considerations for the Azure portal are ease of use and visualization. The Azure portal is easy to use because it offers a familiar web-based user experience. It also provides a wealth of visualization tools and reports for understanding your Azure environment and managing it. One benefit of the Azure portal is that, as a web-based tool, it is available on most devices with a browser. So, if you need to create a VM from an Android laptop or tablet, doing so is as easy as on a Windows device. Fig 1.1 below shows what a typical Azure portal looks like.
Features of Azure Portal:
Highlighted below are the features of Azure Portal.
●Dashboard: The Azure Portal offers a customizable dashboard where users can pin their frequently used resources, services, and metrics for quick access and monitoring.
●Resource Management: Users can create, configure, and manage various Azure resources such as virtual machines, databases, storage accounts, virtual networks, web apps, and more through the portal.
●Services and Solutions: Azure Portal provides access to a wide range of services and solutions offered by Azure, such as AI and machine learning, data and analytics, networking, security, and identity management, among others.
●Monitoring and Diagnostics: Users can monitor the performance and health of their applications and resources using various monitoring tools, charts, and metrics provided by Azure Monitor.
●Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Azure Portal supports RBAC, allowing administrators to assign specific roles and permissions to users and groups, controlling access to Azure resources and services.
●Notifications and Alerts: Users can configure notifications and alerts to receive important updates about the status of their resources, enabling them to respond promptly to any issues.
●Resource Groups: Resources can be logically organized using resource groups, making it easier to manage and apply consistent settings to related resources.
●Marketplace: Azure Marketplace can be accessed from the portal, where users can find and deploy a wide variety of applications and services provided by Microsoft and third-party vendors.
●Cost Management: Azure Cost Management features are accessible through the portal, helping users monitor and optimize their cloud spending.
2: Azure Power Shell:
Azure PowerShell is a scripting environment that you can use to execute commands (called cmdlets, pronounced command-lets) that perform management tasks in Azure through the Azure REST API (Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface). You can perform essentially any task in Azure using Azure PowerShell. You can also combine cmdlets into scripts to execute multiple commands to orchestrate more complex tasks. These scripts can be quite simple or very complex, potentially deploying hundreds of resources and supporting services in a very short period.
With Azure PowerShell, users can perform a wide range of tasks, such as creating and managing virtual machines, storage accounts, networking resources, web apps, databases, and more. It provides a powerful and flexible way to manage Azure resources programmatically.
Azure PowerShell is available on Windows, Linux, Mac, and ARM. You can also access Azure PowerShell through the Azure Cloud Shell, which we will be considering in subsequent series. in this chapter in the section “Azure Cloud Shell.”
Features of Azure PowerShell
●Azure Resource Management: Azure PowerShell allows users to interact with Azure Resource Manager (ARM) and use it to create, update, and delete resources within Azure. ARM is the deployment and management service for Azure resources and provides a consistent management layer for all Azure services.
●Automation and Scripting: PowerShell scripts can be written to automate various Azure tasks, enabling users to streamline repetitive operations and deploy complex configurations consistently.
●Integration with Azure Cloud Shell: Azure PowerShell is also available in the Azure Cloud Shell, a browser-based shell environment that provides access to Azure CLI, PowerShell, and various other tools.
●Azure Module: Azure PowerShell comes with a dedicated Azure module that provides cmdlets (PowerShell commands) specifically designed for working with Azure resources. These cmdlets abstract the underlying REST APIs and provide a more user-friendly interface.
●Authentication and Security: Azure PowerShell supports various methods of authentication, including using service principals, managed identities, or user credentials, to securely interact with Azure resources.
●Integration with Azure DevOps: Azure PowerShell can be integrated with Azure DevOps pipelines to automate continuous deployment and configuration management processes.
This will be the end of our learning in this new series of Azure Resource Deployment and Management tools on the Tech Merchant Blog. Watch out for more learning on this interesting topic in our subsequent series
