Managing Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure - Getting Started

Course Overview
(electronic music) My name is Tim Warner and I'm a full time Pluralsignt trainer and a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management. We designed this course to answer the question how can we help you to be successful in the Microsoft Azure Public Cloud as quickly and as comfortably as possible? By the end of this course, you'll be able to plan IS solutions for tolerance and performance. You'll know how to deploy Windows Server and Linux virtual machines in Azure using the Azure portal, Windows PowerShell and the Azure CLIv2

Foundational Concepts
Hello, and welcome to Pluralsight. Welcome to this course, entitled, Managing Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure, Getting Started. This is the first module in that course. Its title is Foundational Concepts. My name is Tim Warner, and I'm happy to be your instructor. The purpose of this course is to give the IT professional a well-rounded, deep, practical understanding of Microsoft Azure and what you need to know to be successful with the platform. Let's take a look at our learning objectives. I want you to walk away from this module with a clear understanding of the importance of the public Cloud and why you should care about it. You'll also learn how to get started with Azure. Microsoft Azure has a pretty low barrier to entry. I'll demonstrate that with copious demos. I need you to understand what regions are and why they're important, and finally, we'll take a brief look at the solution that we'll build in this course. I want this training to be as practical as possible, such that you can immediately use your new skills. Let's begin! In my courses, I make reference to the exercise files a lot, so I wanted to briefly explain where to find those in the Pluralsight web player. What you'll want to do is navigate to the exercise files tab and click download exercise files. That's going to give you a single zip file that's related to the course at hand. In that zip file, you'll find PDF versions of all my slide decks for all 11 modules, and you'll also find folders that contain a file called, demos dot text. For each module, I have a links list document that contains references to every URL and additional resource I mention in the training. I find that my students enjoy this convenience because otherwise, you'd have to be jotting down web addresses, and that's no fun for anybody.

Virtual Machines
Hello and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner, and this module is entitled "Virtual Machines". We have quite a bit ground to cover here so let's get right to it. The learning objectives I have for you today are, number one, what do you need to think about with Azure Virtual Machines to be successful? A main goal of this training is to help you attain your learning curve quickly and with as few mistakes as possible. By the end of this module you understand how to deploy both Windows and Linux virtual machines in the Azure Public Cloud, we'll use the Azure Portal, and we'll also use programmatic methods, namely PowerShell and the Azure CLI v. 2. We'll be covering connecting to our VMs in greater depth later in the course, but I want to make sure to round today's training out with how to connect to your VMs using Remote Desktop Protocol or RDP, Windows PowerShell remoting and Secure Shell. Let's get started. Any web references you see in this module, and also the PowerShell scripts that I'm going to use in my demos are contained in the exercise files archive, and in the Pluralsight web player you want to navigate to the exercise files tab and click Download Exercise Files.

Scaling and High Availability
Hello there and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner and this module is entitled Scaling and High Availability. We're going to start this module the way we normally do with a bucket load of points to ponder, things that you need to think about to be successful with Azure Infrastructure as a service, IaaS high availability. We'll look at availability sets and figure out how to create them and manage them, especially in keeping with Azure's 99. 95% service level agreement or SLA. You'll also learn, in this module, what scale sets are and what their use case is, as well as how to create them. Then, finally, load balancers, both of the internal and external varieties. Let's get started. I put all of my script files, image files, and hyperlinks in the exercise files, which you can get to most easily by browsing to the exercise files tab in the Pluralsight player and then clicking the download exercise files button. Let's take another look at our solution, our case study network for this course. I want to draw your attention, this time around, to the availability sets that I have surrounding the Windows and Linux virtual machines. I also want you to pay attention to the two types of load balancer that we have, the external or internet-facing load balancer and the internal load balancer found within a virtual network. We'll cover both of those shortly.

Networking
Hello, and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner and this module is entitled Networking. We're going to begin this module as usual with an overview of things to think about to be successful with Azure networking, specifically as far as where the rubber meets the road, proverbially speaking. I want you to be really familiar with Azure VM network interface cards, or NICs, and how public and private IP addresses work with your virtual machines. And I'll also show you a site-to-site VPN using the Azure VPN gateways. Let's get started. For any supplemental information, including hyperlinks that I reference in my demos, and script files, and so forth, you can find lots of goodies in the exercise files. In the Pluralsight Player, go to the Exercise Files tab, and click Download Exercise Files. There'll be on zip for the entire module with a subfolder for each of the 11 modules inside.

Security
Hi there and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner, and this module is entitled Security. Well you know we're going to be covering security and if you've been watching the other modules in this course thus far, you know that I always start with some best practice advice, things you need to keep in mind when you're considering security in the Azure cloud. We're going to learn about RBAC, or roll-based access control. Specifically the contributor and reader roles but I'll give you some insight on how you can use the other pre-built roles and even design your own. We'll look at activity logs which answer the important question who is doing what in Azure and when? And we'll round things out with a really fantastic service called the Azure Security Center that's going to make a security expert out of just about anybody. You're relying upon Microsoft's best practice experience in security and by taking the advice that Security Center has to offer you're going to dramatically improve your Azure system's security posture. Let's begin. I put all of my assets, links list, script files, et cetera, in my exercise files. And in the Pluralsight web player you can go to the Exercise Files tab and click the button Download Exercise Files to receive them.

Monitoring
Hi there, and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner, and this module is entitled Monitoring. We'll begin this module the way that we always do, and cover some things you need to think about to be successful with Azure VM monitoring. I want you to walk away from this module understanding how to generate and configure diagnostic logging, how to set up metrics, how to do searches of those logs, that's half the battle at least right there, and also how to have Azure proactively alert you when your metrics exceed their thresholds. Let's get started. You can find all supplemental resources, things like links lists and script files where appropriate in the Exercise Files. In the Pluralsight Web Player navigate to the Exercise Files tab and click Download Exercise Files.

Troubleshooting and Support
Hi there and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner and this module is entitled Troubleshooting and Support. I have three main skills that I want you to walk away from this module with. First I want you to know some basics on troubleshooting IaaS VMs. The process here is going to look different from managing your on premises VMs for obvious reasons. I want to discuss Azure support with you, specifically how you do things like submit a support ticket and look at service availability in the Azure cloud around the world. And I'll also show you a feature that's in public preview as of this recording called Azure Advisor. Like the Security Center that we looked at a couple modules back, this is a fantastic way to get targeted recommendations on your Azure deployments. Let's begin. As has been standard throughout this course, in order to get to the exercise files in the Pluralsight web player, you'll want to navigate to the exercise files tab and click download exercise files.

Cost Management
Hello and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner, and this module is entitled Cost Management. I have four learning objectives for you in this module. First, how do you buy Azure services? What are your options? What are your best practices? What do you need to know to be successful in other words? How do you view subscription and usage details? Some businesses have reservations about embracing the Azure public cloud, because they imagine runaway costs and difficulty in forecasting resource usage. I'm going to set your mind at ease over the next 20 minutes or so. I'll show you how to set spending limits and alerts in your subscription, and we'll round up by looking at Azure Service Level Agreements, or SLAs. Let's get started. The Exercise Files for this course can be found through the Pluralsight web player. Navigate to the Exercise Files tab, and click Download Exercise Files. You'll get a single ZIP file, which you'll extract and find a separate folder for each module of the course.

Managed Disks
Hello there and welcome to Pluralsight. My name is Tim Warner, and this module is entitled Managed Disks. I've divided our learning goals in the following way, first, we're going to look at some common pain points that Azure administrators have in the storage account model. And we're going to compare that with a new feature called Managed Disks. I've alluded to Managed Disks a little bit over the course of this training, but we're going to finally have a chance to formally be introduced to it here. I want you to understand not only what Managed Disks bring to the table feature-wise, but I want you to understand how they work, and I'll actually conduct a couple of demos to show you the state of this feature as of this recording in early 2017. You can find my exercise files in the Pluralsight webplayer by navigating to the exercise files tab and clicking download exercise files. If you've been watching my modules sequentially, you're probably thinking, Tim, I've heard that for the last time. And you actually have because this is the final module in the course.