Preface
Azure is an ever-evolving platform. It offers an environment on the cutting edge of technology that suits different industry requirements. New capabilities and features are coming out fast, which makes it difficult to stay up to date. This book will give you a complete overview of all the current features and capabilities that Azure has to offer, and is a complete guide to preparing for the 70-535 exam.
This book will cover all the exam objectives. It will start with designing compute infrastructures, where you will learn about designing solutions with virtual machines, web applications, serverless and microservices, high-performance computing (HPC), and other compute-intensive applications. You will learn how to design effective networking implementations using Azure Virtual Networks and how to design connectivity for hybrid applications. You will learn about designing data implementations using different data services, relational database storage, and NoSQL storage. You will also learn how to keep your solutions and applications secure and how and when to use the different platform services in Azure, such as platforms and services for IoT and artificial intelligence. Finally, you will learn about all the monitoring capabilities and solutions that Azure has to offer.
Each chapter will conclude with a Further reading section, which is a very important part of the book as well, because it will give you extra and sometimes crucial information for passing the 70-535 exam. As the questions of the exam will change slightly over time and this book will become outdated soon, the further reading section will be the place that will provide you with all the updates.
Who this book is for
This book targets experienced developers and architects who want to pass the Exam 70-535: Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions and broaden their knowledge of Azure from an architecture perspective
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Working with Azure Virtual Machines, will cover how to design solutions using Azure virtual machines. This includes designing VM deployments using availability sets, fault and update domains, and backup and recovery.
Chapter 2, Configuring Compute-Intensive Applications, covers how to design HPC and other compute-intensive applications using Azure Services, such as Azure Batch.
Chapter 3, Designing Web Applications, will cover how to design web applications and custom web APIs, how design for business continuity, scalability and performance, and more.
Chapter 4, Implementing Serverless and Microservices, will teach you how to design serverless and microservice-based solutions. This chapter will cover Azure Service Fabric, Azure Functions, Logic Apps, and more.
Chapter 5, Robust Networking Implementations, will cover all the networking features and capabilities that Azure has to offer and how to design effective networking solutions.
Chapter 6, Connecting Hybrid Applications, will teach you how to design connectivity to on-premises data from Azure applications using Azure Data Management Gateway for Data Factory, Azure On-Premises Data Gateway, and more.
Chapter 7, Using Storage Solutions, will cover how to design storage solutions using Azure Blob Storage, blob tiers, Azure Files, disks, and StorSimple. It will cover NoSQL and CosmosDB.
Chapter 8, Scalable Data Implementations, will cover how to design solutions using Azure Data Services. This includes determining when to use Data Catalog, Azure Data Factory, SQL Data Warehouse, Azure Data Lake Analytics, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure HDInsight.
Chapter 9, Securing Your Resources, covers how to secure your Azure resources and applications using Azure Active Directory, multi-factor authentication, and more.
Chapter 10, Securing Your Data, will cover data security solutions and capabilities, such as Azure Key Vault, Azure Storage Encryption, and Azure Disk Encryption.
Chapter 11, Governance and Policies, will cover designing a mechanism of governance and policies for administering Azure resources, such as determining when to use Azure RBAC standard roles and custom roles, when to use Azure resource policies, and more.
Chapter 12, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, and Media Services, will discuss the different features and capabilities that Azure has to offer for designing artificial intelligence and IoT solutions. It will also cover how to design solutions using Azure Media Services.
Chapter 13, Implementing Messaging Solutions, will cover how to design an effective messaging architecture using Azure Storage Queues, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Hubs, Event Grid, and more.
Chapter 14, Application Monitoring and Alerting Strategies, will cover how to design an application monitoring and alerting strategy and how to design a platform-monitoring and alerting strategy using the different Microsoft products and services for monitoring Azure platform solutions.
Chapter 15, Exploring Operations Automation Strategies, will cover different solutions and methods for designing an operations automation strategy and designing an autoscaling strategy.
Appendix A, Assessments, will contain the answers for all the questions given at the end of each chapter.
Appendix B, Mock Test Questions, will consist of mock questions for you to test your knowledge. It tries to cover all the topics from the scope of the exam and challenges your understanding of the topics.
Appendix C, Mock Test Answers, will have the answers to the questions present in Appendix B, Mock Test Questions.
To get the most out of this book
This book assumes that readers are already familiar with the basics of networking, security, databases, integration, developing and administering applications, and solutions on the Azure platform.
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