Azure for Decision Makers

Azure for Decision Makers

by Jack Lee, Jason Milgram, David Rendón
Released September 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781837639915

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Book description

Develop expertise in Azure to plan, guide, and lead a streamlined modernization process

Key Features

  • Explore core Azure infrastructure technologies and solutions
  • Achieve smooth app migration and modernization goals with cloud design
  • Master Azure architecture and adopt it to scale your business globally
  • Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Azure for Decision Makers provides a comprehensive overview of the latest updates in cloud security, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud solutions, and cloud migration in Azure. This book is a must-have introduction to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, demonstrating the substantial scope of digital transformation and innovation that can be achieved with Azure's capabilities.

The first set of chapters will get you up to speed with Microsoft Azure's evolution before showing you how to integrate it into your existing IT infrastructure. Next, you’ll gain practical insights into application migration and modernization, focusing mainly on migration planning, implementation, and best practices. Throughout the book, you’ll get the information you need to spearhead a smooth migration and modernization process, detailing Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) deployment, infrastructure management, and key application architectures. The concluding chapters will help you to identify and incorporate best practices for cost optimization and management, Azure DevOps, and Azure automation.

By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to lead end-to-end Azure operations for your organization and effectively cost-optimize your processes ─ from the planning and cloud migration stage through to troubleshooting.

What you will learn

  • Find out how to optimize business costs with Azure
  • Strategize the migration of applications to the cloud with Azure
  • Smooth out the deployment and running of Azure infrastructure services
  • Effectively define roles, responsibilities, and governance frameworks in DevOps
  • Maximize the utility of Azure security fundamentals and best practices
  • Adopt best practices to make the most of your Azure deployment

Who this book is for

Azure for Decision Makers is for business and IT decision makers who want to choose the right technology solutions for their businesses and optimize their management processes. It’ll help you develop expertise in operating and administering the Azure cloud. This book will also be useful for CIOs and CTOs looking to understand more about how IT can make their business infrastructure more efficient and easier to use, which will reduce friction within their organization. Knowledge of Azure is helpful, but not necessary to get the most out of this guide.

Table of contents

  1. Azure for Decision Makers
  2. Contributors
  3. About the authors
  4. About the reviewers
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Get in touch
    5. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  6. Chapter 1: Introduction
    1. Evolution of Microsoft Azure
    2. IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
      1. IaaS
      2. PaaS
      3. SaaS
    3. Public, private, hybrid, multicloud, and edge
      1. Public cloud
      2. Private cloud
      3. Hybrid cloud
      4. Multicloud
      5. Edge computing
    4. Importance of the shared responsibility model
    5. Reasons for adopting Azure
      1. High availability and scalability
      2. Reliability and predictability
      3. Hybrid flexibility
      4. Innovation
    6. Thinking about cloud management, migration, security, and governance
      1. Cost management
      2. Migration and deployment
      3. Configuration management
      4. Unified governance, risk management, and compliance
      5. Observability and resiliency
      6. Security and control
      7. Bringing it all together
    7. Start building with Azure
    8. Summary
  7. Chapter 2: Modernizing with Hybrid, Multicloud, and Edge Computing
    1. Reasons for embracing hybrid, multicloud, and edge computing
      1. Motivations and business outcomes
      2. Additional considerations
    2. What makes a hybrid, multicloud, and edge strategy successful?
      1. Identifying and addressing concerns
      2. How Microsoft Azure helps?
      3. Mapping strategic intentions
    3. Unified operations – one set of tools and processes
      1. Key impacts
    4. Thinking about workloads and architecture
      1. Use cases and technical considerations
      2. Looking at efficiency, reliability, security, and compliance
      3. Microsoft Azure reference architectures
    5. Important operational considerations
      1. Design, build, and orchestrate with modern practices
      2. Utilize monitoring and analytics for operational insights
      3. Testing
    6. Summary
  8. Chapter 3: Migration and Modernization
    1. Benefits of modernization and migration to the cloud
      1. Reasons for choosing Azure
      2. The three stages of migration and modernization
      3. Two versatile frameworks for cloud adoption
      4. Maximizing the value of your cloud investment
      5. Additional tools for maximizing your cloud investment
    2. Workload migration scenarios
    3. Achieving cloud scale and maximizing performance
    4. Enterprise-grade backup and disaster recovery on Azure
    5. Azure migration and modernization best practices and support
      1. Summary
  9. Chapter 4: Maximizing Azure Security Benefits for Your Organization
    1. Identity and access management
      1. Security benefits of Azure
      2. Security best practices for identity and access control in Azure
    2. Delivering intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence using Microsoft Sentinel
    3. Searching, analyzing, and visualizing data in Microsoft Sentinel
      1. Global prerequisites
      2. Enabling Microsoft Sentinel using the Azure portal
      3. Setting up data connectors
    4. Securing your workloads using the Microsoft cloud security benchmark
      1. Steps to implement the Microsoft cloud security benchmark for securing Azure workloads
      2. Enabling visibility, detection, and response to threats using Microsoft Defender for Cloud
    5. Enhancing organizational security with Microsoft Defender for Identity
    6. Protecting devices against advanced threats with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    7. Securing sensitive data and meeting regulations with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    8. Secure infrastructure everywhere: Deploying hybrid security solutions from the cloud to the edge
    9. Securing your Kubernetes clusters in Azure: protecting against threats and vulnerabilities
    10. Summary
  10. Chapter 5: Automation and Governance in Azure
    1. Automate provisioning of Azure resources using IaC
      1. Streamline infrastructure management with IaC
      2. Principles of IaC
    2. Microsoft-native IaC frameworks
      1. Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
      2. Bicep
      3. Popular third-party IaC frameworks
    3. Automate ARM templates and Bicep with Azure DevOps and GitHub
    4. Best practices for using Azure DevOps and GitHub for IaC on Azure
    5. Improve governance with Azure
    6. Implement governance on Azure
      1. Implement Azure Policy
      2. Define Azure Blueprints
      3. Use role-based access control (RBAC)
      4. Monitor and audit your Azure environment
      5. Use Azure Advisor
      6. Analyze your cloud inventory with Azure Resource Graph
      7. Manage your cloud spending
    7. Five disciplines of cloud governance
    8. Summary
  11. Chapter 6: Maximizing Efficiency and Cost Savings in Azure
    1. Cost optimization with the Microsoft Azure Well‑Architected Framework
    2. Incorporating Azure Advisor best practice recommendations for cost savings
    3. Implementing cost management best practices
    4. Effective budgeting for Azure services
    5. Summary
  12. Next Steps
  13. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  14. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Download a free PDF copy of this book

Product information

  • Title: Azure for Decision Makers
  • Author(s): Jack Lee, Jason Milgram, David Rendón
  • Release date: September 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781837639915