Microsoft Inspire 2022

Hello Cloud Marathoners,

It is summertime and naturally we all want to enjoy it, right?
Microsoft is scheduled to hold its annual signature event for partners – called Microsoft Inspire in few weeks.

What is Microsoft Inspire?

It is a conference held annually by Microsoft Corporation for its partner organizations and community around the globe. At Microsoft Inspire, partners learn about the Microsoft’s technology announcements for the upcoming year and experience the latest product innovations while learning new skills and techniques.

Microsoft Inspire 2022 registration

Usually, it starts with a keynote from Satya Nadella – a Microsoft CEO and Board Director, followed by other Microsoft executives, featured speakers, business-track specific offerings, and hundreds of sessions.

How to Register?

This year, the Microsoft Inspire will be a virtual event and #free.
Thank you, Microsoft, for opening this event for every organization and people!

Please use the link below to register and don’t forget to pick/book your sessions from Schedule once your registration is completed.

📌 Register for #FREE 👉 https://lnkd.in/e6Ksnd6T
📅 July 19-20, 2022

Hope you will all join and enjoy this event!

OpenHack Serverless is full of fun and challenges

Hello friends,

I had a great opportunity to attend an OpenHack Serverless event and guided my team in their hacking adventure. It was a great training/hacking event where participants team up to solve a close, real-world problem using the technology.

OpenHack: Serverless Coach

What my team did?

My team consisted of five professionals who had various levels of experience with Azure and its Serverless tech stack. As a team they were able to overcome a number of success criteria by solving problems and unlocking next challenges over the day. A number of different serverless technologies have been used in this event, such as:

  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Logic App
  • Azure Cosmos DB
  • API Management
  • Azure Key Vault
  • Azure Event Grid
  • Azure Event Hub
  • App Services

How coaches help their Team?

As their Coach, I have leveraged my understanding of how to build and deploy an Azure Serverless solution and lead my team to learn and follow best practices through a Serverless OpenHack event.

My team will leverage these skills to understand and explain the serverless tech challenges to a diverse team of customers. Each participant of this event also provided product feedback directly to Microsoft employees.

Conculsion

If you get an opportunity to participate in a Microsoft OpenHack event, don’t miss that. You will be really challenged with your skills and learn much more while enjoying the event.

Post Build Table Topics: Your Cloud Certification Journey

Hello friends,

I hope you all enjoyed the Microsoft Build 2022 and had a chance to look into the Learning Zone and join the Cloud Skills Challenge.

If you did miss most of the Build then no worries, as it has recorded sessions that you can watch on your schedule.

Please, join me and Marcos today, if you missed certification and learning announcements during the Build event. We will address a very important topic: Cloud Certification Journey, and share tips & bits on getting yours started.

Post Build Table Topics: Your Cloud Certification Journey
Post Build Table Topics: Your Cloud Certification Journey

📌 Register for #free on meetup 👉 https://www.meetup.com/Microsoft-Reactor-Redmond/events/285992985/

Study Guide AZ-305: Part 11 – Design for business continuity, backup and disaster recovery

Hi Cloud Marathoners!

Welcome to the 11th blog post (Part 11/12) of the Azure Architect series to help you get ready for the AZ-305 exam. This post starts the last section of this exam – Design Business Continuity Solutions.

And please feel free to check the previous sections & blog posts listed below if you landed on this page for the first time 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is Business Continuity Solutions ?

Simply put, a Business Continuity (aka, BC) solution is based on a plan 🙂
A BC plan is a predefined approach and procedure for how a business will continue to run when dealing with an emergency.

In another words, it is a process of creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with any potential threats to your company.  These threats could be a natural disasters, such as hurricanes, fires, floods, power outages or an unintended misconfiguration of a system. It could also be a malicious cyberattack as well.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is where-is-server-it-is-crashed-w-backup.jpg

There are many benefits provided by BC planning and Disaster Recovering (aka, DR) planning to your organization when they are drafted and approved across the board, such as:

  • Improved decision-making
  • Risk Management
  • People and Property Protection
  • Morale boost 🙂

The “Morale boost” element is very important piece, because when employees know plans are in place, they may feel safer. Moreover, it does not just boost morale, but potentially increases the business value perception to customers who recognize the high preparedness and responsibilities of the company.

Top 13 Priorities for a Strong Business Continuity Plan

What are the Backups and Disaster Recovery solutions in Azure?

In the case of service disruption or accidental deletion or corruption of data, recover your business services in a timely and orchestrated manner. The Azure backup and disaster recovery solution is simple to architect, cloud-native, highly available, and resilient.

Backup and Disaster Recovery in azure

Azure Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) services are important services that help you to achieve your company’s reliability goals for all of the system workloads in the cloud or on-premises. It is very important when CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) prioritizes transparency and keep it’s customers informed during and after the service issues.

You could easily target following goals when planning to deliver your Backup and DR services to your most critical customers:

  • Simplified Management across environments
  • Azure built-in security controls
  • Reduced complexity and cost
  • Extent solutions to Azure with our partners
Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery with Microsoft Azure - PEI

Part 11: Design a business continuity solution

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing solutions in Azure. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 😉.

This collection of links is gathered with a focus on the exam objectives of the AZ-305 certification exam.

What is the Azure Backup service?
Overview of operational backup for Azure Blobs
About Azure file share backup
Back up Azure file shares
Full Database Backups (SQL Server)
Differential Backups (SQL Server)

Enable and manage soft delete for containers
Enable soft delete for blobs
Point-in-time restore for block blobs
Lock resources to prevent unexpected changes

Overview of share snapshots for Azure Files
Recover using automated database backups – Azure SQL Database & SQL Managed Instance
Long-term retention – Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance
Auto-failover groups overview & best practices (Azure SQL Database)

An overview of Azure VM backup
About Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery documentation
Azure Backup service documentation

Recovery Services vaults overview
Azure to Azure disaster recovery architecture
Support matrix for Azure VM disaster recovery between Azure regions
[Tutorial] : Set up disaster recovery for Azure VMs

[Tutorial] : Disaster recovery and backup
[Tutorial] : Design your site recovery solution in Azure
[Tutorial] : Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework – Reliability
[Tutorial] : Describe high availability and disaster recovery strategies
[Tutorial] : Protect your virtual machines by using Azure Backup

How to restore Azure VM data in Azure portal
Recover files from Azure virtual machine backup

[Blog] : Understanding Azure Availability Sets and Availability Zones
Availability options for Azure Virtual Machines
Regions and availability zones

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 11: Design a business continuity solution.

The next blog post will be continuation with Part 12: Design a solution for backup and disaster recovery.

Study Guide AZ-305: Part 9 – Design a data storage solution for relational data

Hi Cloud Marathoners!

Welcome to the next blog post (Part 9/12) from the Az-305 series to help you get ready for the AZ-305 exam.

Please, check the previous blog posts listed below, if you landed on this page for the first time 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is a relational data?

A relational data is a set of data that have a certain pre-defined structure. Once this data structure (aka, data schema) is enforced on data then we can start talking about a relational database.

Thus, a relational database (DB) is a collection of data items with some pre-defined relationships. These data items are organized as a set of tables with columns and rows. The tables are used to hold a similar type of information object to be represented in the database.

Explore fundamental relational data concepts - Learn | Microsoft Docs

WHAT is relational data storage in azure?

In Microsoft Azure, relational data could be stored in different forms and shapes. The early approach of storing and running relational databases has been accomplished through Virtual Machine (VM) instances. However, this approach brought a certain operational overhead and required specialized skills within the team to manage those VMs properly.

Nowadays, we could run the relational databases as a managed service (aka, PAAS) in the cloud. In other words, Microsoft Azure helped to offload operational overhead associated with the management of VMs that are assigned to run your database services. All this became possible by the introduction of managed relational Azure Database services like SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB.

In this study guide, you will learn about these managed, relational DB services in depth.

Microsoft's Azure SQL Database named among the top 3 databases of 2020 -  MSPoweruser

Part 9: Design a data storage solution for relational data

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing Data Storage solutions for Relational data in Azure. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 😉.

This collection of links is gathered with a focus on the exam objectives of the AZ-305 certification exam.

Elastic pools help you manage and scale multiple databases in Azure SQL Database
DTU-based purchasing model overview
Scale elastic pool resources in Azure SQL Database
Always On availability group on SQL Server on Azure VMs
Transparent data encryption (TDE)
Dynamic Data Masking
Auditing for Azure SQL Database and Azure Synapse Analytics
SQL vulnerability assessment helps you identify database vulnerabilities

[Tutorial] Explore relational data in Azure
[Tutorial] Provision Azure relational database services
[Tutorial] Query relational data in Azure
[Tutorial] Design a data storage solution for relational data
[Tutorial] Provision an Azure SQL database to store application data
[Tutorial]: Manually configure an availability group (SQL Server on Azure VMs)

[Tutorial] Work with relational data in Azure
[Tutorial] Introduction to Azure Database for MySQL
[Tutorial] Introduction to Azure Database for MariaDB
[Tutorial] Create and connect to an Azure Database for PostgreSQL
[Tutorial] Migrate your relational data stored in SQL Server to Azure SQL Database

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 9: Design a data storage solution for relational data.

The next blog post will be continuation with Part 10: Design a data integration solution.

Study Guide AZ-305: Part 8 – Design a non-relational storage solution

Hi Cloud Marathoners!

Welcome to the next blog post (Part 8/12) from the Az-305 series to help you get ready for the AZ-305 exam. This post is the first one that is covering the section – “Design Data Storage Solutions” for this exam.

Please, check the previous blog posts listed below, if you landed on this page for the first time 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is an non-relational data?

A non-relational data is a set of gathered or existing data that does not have a strict schema (structure) which is a required condition for a relational data. Of course, when we speak about data in business, the first thing that comes to mind is the database 🙂

In contrast to a relational database, a NoSQL database is one that is less structured/confined in format. Thus, we gain more flexibility and adaptability with non-relational data.

non-relational database is a database that does not use the tabular schema of rows and columns found in most traditional database systems. Instead, non-relational databases use a storage model that is optimized for the specific requirements of the type of data being stored. For example, data may be stored as simple key/value pairs, as JSON documents, or as a graph consisting of edges and vertices.

Non-relational data and NoSQL
AWS Non Relational Databases - Javatpoint

WHAT is non-relational data storage in azure?

In practice, “NoSQL” means “non-relational database,” even though many of these databases do support SQL-compatible queries. However, the underlying query execution strategy is usually very different from the way a traditional RDBMS would execute the same SQL query.

Non-relational data and NoSQL

Check out the following major categories for non-relational (NoSQL) databases below:

  • Document data stores
  • Columnar data stores
  • Key/value data stores
  • Graph data stores
  • Time series data stores
  • Object data stores
  • External index data stores

Microsoft Azure offers a number of services that help you to build these NoSQL databases, and in this post we will cover all of them.

Relational And Non-Relational Datastores In Azure

Part 8: Design a non-relational data storage solution

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing the non-Relational Data Storage solutions in Azure. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 😉.

This collection of links are gathered with a focus toward the exam objectives of AZ-305 certification exam.

Storage account overview
Hot, Cool, and Archive access tiers for blob data
Blob rehydration from the Archive tier
Time-based retention policies for immutable blob data
Legal holds for immutable blob data
Azure Storage redundancy
Announcing Ultra SSD – the next generation of Azure Disks technology (preview)
Managed Disks pricing
Azure managed disk types
What is Azure Files?
Create an Azure file share
Azure Files scalability and performance targets
What is Azure File Sync?

Security recommendations for Blob storage
Overview of Azure page blobs
Compare access to Azure Files, Blob Storage, and Azure NetApp Files with NFS Storage Accounts and security

[Tutorial] Explore Azure Storage for non-relational data
[Tutorial] Explore fundamentals of Azure Cosmos DB
[Tutorial] Introduction to Azure Cache for Redis
[Tutorial] Implement Pub/Sub and Streams in Azure Cache for Redis

Multi-region web application with Cosmos DB replication
Introduction to Azure managed disks
Azure Storage redundancy
What is Azure Blob storage?
Azure premium storage: design for high performance
Azure Disk Encryption for Linux VMs
Azure NetApp Files
Server-side encryption of Azure Disk Storage
Configure Azure Storage firewalls and virtual networks
Use private endpoints for Azure Storage

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 8: Design a non-relational data storage solution.

The next blog post will be continuation with Part 9: Design a data storage solution for relational data.

Study Guide for AZ-305: Part 7 – Design a migration solution

Hi friends!

Welcome to the next blog post (Part 7/12) from the Az-305 series to help you get ready for the AZ-305 exam. This post is special and will finalize one of the biggest sections – “Design Infrastructure Solutions ” for this exam.

Please, check the previous blog posts listed below, if you landed on this page for the first time 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is an IT Migration?

An IT Migration is basically a movement of data or software from one system to another. Also, depending on the complexity of the project, an IT migration involves data migration, application migration, operating system (OS) migration, and others.

A typical migration project usually involves the movement of data too, which is called – Data Migration. Here is the definition of data migration from Wikipedia.

Data migration is the process of selecting, preparing, extracting, and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another. Additionally, the validation of migrated data for completeness and the decommissioning of legacy data storage are considered part of the entire data migration process.[1][2] Data migration is a key consideration for any system implementation, upgrade, or consolidation, and it is typically performed in such a way as to be as automated as possible, freeing up human resources from tedious tasks. Data migration occurs for a variety of reasons, including server or storage equipment replacements, maintenance or upgrades, application migration, website consolidation, disaster recovery, and data center relocation

Data Migration, Wikipedia

In last few years we also have new type of migration – called cloud migration.

WHAT is the migration solution in azure?

There are many different ways you could run your migration projects.
Microsoft Azure provides specialized tools to help you migrate your IT solutions from on-premises and other cloud platforms into Azure. Thus, you could take advantage of  Azure Migrate offers to you..

Azure Migrate provides a centralized hub to assess and migrate on-premises servers, infrastructure, applications, and data to Azure. It provides a range of tools to help you in the migration process. Please, check an official Microsoft documentation on Azure Migrate services here.

Shifting customers to the cloud with Microsoft Azure Migration - MachSol  Blog

Part 7: Design a migration solution

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing Migration solutions in Azure. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 😉.

This collection of links are gathered with a focus toward the exam objectives of AZ-305 certification exam.

Azure migration guide overview
Azure cloud migration best practices checklist
What is Azure Import/Export service?
Overview of Data Migration Assistant
About Azure Migrate
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator
Azure Pricing calculator
Use Storage Migration Service to migrate a server
What is the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure?

[Tutorial] Implement a hybrid file server infrastructure
[Tutorial] Accelerate your migration and modernization journey to Azure
[Tutorial] Prepare on-premises workloads for migration to Azure
[Tutorial] Migrate your relational data stored in SQL Server to Azure SQL Database
[Tutorial] Set up Azure Migrate for server migration
[Tutorial] Applications and infrastructure migration and modernization
[Tutorial] Design your migration to Azure


What is Azure Database Migration Service?
Using Service Map solution in Azure
Azure Data Box documentation – Offline transfer
Cloud Adoption Framework migration model

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 7: Design a Migration solution.

The next blog post will start the “Designing Data Storage Solutions” section with the Part 8: Design a non-relational data storage solution.

Study Guide for AZ-305: Part 6 –Design a network infrastructure solution

Hi Cloud Marathoners!

Welcome to the new blog post (Part 6/12) from the Az-305 series to help you get ready for the AZ-305 exam.

You could also check the previous posts listed below, if you landed on this page for the first time 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is a Network Infrastructure?

A Network Infrastructure is the physical equipment (also known as, hardware) as well as the software applications that support your company’s services to run. Types of network infrastructure include foundational hardware, software, services and facilities.

The physical network infrastructure requires cabling, routers, switches, and other pieces of equipment which help support them and make sure they are connected internally and externally. However, most Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) virtualize this physical infrastructure and provide software defined, virtual networks.

Architecture: Global transit network architecture - Azure Virtual WAN |  Microsoft Docs
Click and check the Azure Virtual WAN

WHAT are the network infrastructure solution in azure?

Azure network infrastructure connects and delivers your hybrid and cloud-native applications with low-latency, with Zero Trust based networking services.

The networking services in Azure provide a variety of networking capabilities that can be used together or separately. Those key capabilities are grouped into four services and described on Azure networking services overview :

Front Door Service overview
Click to check the Azure Front Door Service

Part 6: Design a network infrastructure solution

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing Network Infrastructure solutions in Azure. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 😉.

This collection of links are gathered with a focus toward the exam objectives of AZ-305 certification exam.

Azure Virtual Network frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Azure subscription and service limits, quotas, and constraints
Virtual network peering
Create, change, or delete a virtual network peering
Load-balancing with Azure’s application delivery suite
What is Traffic Manager?
Traffic Manager Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How Traffic Manager Works

Traffic Manager routing methods
Network security groups
Create a Network Security Group
Microsoft.Network networkSecurityGroups
Azure network security overview
What is Azure Bastion?
[Tutorial]: Introduction to Azure Bastion
[Tutorial]: Configure Bastion and connect to a Windows VM
Azure Bastion FAQ
Using S2S VPN as a backup for ExpressRoute private peering

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 6 – Design a network infrastructure solution.

The next blog post will cover the Part 7: Design a migration solution.

Study Guide for AZ-305: Part 5 – Design an application architecture solution

Hello friends!

Welcome to the new blog post (Part 5/12) from the Az-305 series to help you get ready for the AZ-305 exam.

Please, check the previous post(s) listed below, if you landed on this page for the first time 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is an Application Architecture ?

An application architecture is a structural map of how an organization’s software applications are assembled and how those applications interact with each other to meet business or user requirements. An application architecture helps ensure that applications are scalable and reliable, and assists enterprises identify gaps in functionality.

The Techtarget

Generally speaking, application architecture defines how applications interact with components such as middleware, databases and other applications. There are many different application architectures like; N-Tier, Web-Queue-Worker, Service-Oriented (SOA), Event-Driven, and others.

Cloud Application Architecture Guide

WHAT are the characteristics of APPlication Architecture in azure?

The Azure Application architecture requires a structured approach while designing applications that are capable to operate with the following characteristics; scalable, resilient and highly available.

The cloud is changing how applications are designed and secured. Instead of monoliths, applications are decomposed into smaller, decentralized services. These services communicate through APIs or by using asynchronous messaging or eventing. Applications scale horizontally, adding new instances as demand requires.

Microsoft Docs
Diagram that shows the structure of this guide, with the sections of this article represented in a flow diagram.
Azure application architecture fundamentals

Microsoft has provided a very valuable resource on Azure architecture that you could check on Azure Architecture Center. Check this resource for best practices and patterns for your current or upcoming application that you plan to design and run on Azure.

Part 5: Design an application architecture solution

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing Application solutions in Azure. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 😉.

This collection of links are gathered with a focus toward the exam objectives of AZ-305 certification exam.

Choose between Azure messaging services – Event Grid, Event Hubs, and Service Bus
What is Azure Queue Storage?
Service Bus queues, topics, and subscriptions
Storage queues and Service Bus queues – compared and contrasted
Azure Event Hubs — A big data streaming platform and event ingestion service
Features and terminology in Azure Event Hubs
Use Azure Event Hubs from Apache Kafka applications
Capture events through Azure Event Hubs in Azure Blob Storage or Azure Data Lake Storage

[CASE STUDY] Migrate to a microservices architecture / Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
What is Azure Event Grid?
IoT Concepts and Azure IoT Hub
Connecting IoT Devices to Azure: IoT Hub and Event Hubs
About Azure Cache for Redis
[Tutorial] Introduction to Azure IoT Hub
[Tutorial] Introduction to Azure Cache for Redis

About API Management
Feature-based comparison of the Azure API Management tiers
What are ARM templates?
What is Bicep?
[GitHub] AWESOME Azure Bicep 💪
Comparing JSON and Bicep for templates
Frequently asked questions for Bicep
Use infrastructure automation tools with virtual machines in Azure
What is Azure App Configuration?
[Tutorial] Fundamentals of Bicep

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 5 – Design an application architecture solution.

The next blog post will cover the Part 6: Design a network infrastructure solution.

I am now a Microsoft Azure MVP. Thank you for a nomination & award!

Hello Cloud Marathoners!

March 2022 has been an exciting and special month in my life. I have received an email saying that I had been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional 🚀 (MVP) award. WOW !!!

Who are MVPs?

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the “bleeding edge” and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others – that’s what sets them apart.

Microsoft MVP Program
mvp.png

As you might know, the Microsoft MVP program rewards the “technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community”.  

There are many categories of MVP awards, and I am proud to become a Microsoft Azure MVP this year. You can check the rest of the award categories here:

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Business Applications
  • Cloud & Datacenter Management
  • Developer Technologies
  • Data Platform
  • Enterprise Mobility
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Office Development
  • Office Apps & Services
  • Windows Development
  • Windows & Devices for IT

Wondering what it takes to become an MVP?

Interested in becoming an MVP ❓🤔
What does it take to become an MVP ❓🤔

Then => check an Official Microsoft page to get started on your journey 🗺 .

What is next?

I am still in a pleasant shock, and simply to say that “I am proud and humbled to receive this award” is an understatement.

Now, I am looking forward to taking part in this awesome event – “Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2022” and meeting legend #MVPs 🚀 🚀🚀

Image
Click on an image to learn more about Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2022 🙂


I am really excited about this new journey and invite you – the Cloud Marathoners ⛅🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ to be an important part of this journey !!!