Azure | the broadcast

2021-05-162021-05-16

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Certification Path

According to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/azure-solutions-architect/ two exams

AZ-303 Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies
AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design

are required.

Online Training

Online Training, free of charge – sponsored by Microsoft – is available: Surprisingly the same 9 modules for both exams, i’ve been putting them in a slightly different order:

Infrastructure
- 4 Modules
Operations
Applications
- 3 Modules
Migration
- sharing a common module with
Business Continuity / Recovery

Azure Solutions Architect Expert – Training modules

AZ303 Instructor-Led Training

The official Microsoft Instructor-Led Training for AZ303 is made up of 15 Modules:

Azure Active Directory
Hybrid Identities
Networking
VMs
Load Balancing and Network Security
Storage Accounts
NoSQL Databases
Azure SQL Databases
Automate Deployment and Configuration of Resources
Azure Governance Solutions
Security for Applications
Manage Workloads in Azure
Container-Based Applications
Implement an Application Infrastructure
Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring

Exam 303 – What might be the required skills?

The free training – 9 Modules for both AZ303 and AZ304 – the paid training for AZ303: 15 Modules:

how to map the 15 AZ303-Modules into the 9 AZ303/AZ304-Modules?

2021-03-232021-03-19

Azure-CLI: Download File from Fileshare

ronald@Azure:~$ az storage file list -s FILESHARE -o table
Name               Content Length    Type    Last Modified
-----------------  ----------------  ------  ---------------
DEMO.TXT           9                 file

ronald@Azure:~$ az storage file download -s FILESHARE -p DEMO.TXT
Finished[#############################################################]  100.0000%
{
  "content": null,
  "metadata": {},
  "name": "DEMO.TXT",
  "properties": {
    "contentLength": 9,
    "contentRange": "bytes 0-8/9",
    "contentSettings": {
      "cacheControl": null,
      "contentDisposition": null,
      "contentEncoding": null,
      "contentLanguage": null,
      "contentType": "application/octet-stream"
    },
    "copy": {
      "completionTime": null,
      "id": null,
      "progress": null,
      "source": null,
      "status": null,
      "statusDescription": null
    },
    "etag": "\"0x8D8EB06203D00A5\"",
    "lastModified": "2021-03-19T18:38:01+00:00",
    "serverEncrypted": true
  }
}

ronald@Azure:~$ cat DEMO.TXT
RONRONRON

2021-03-222021-03-20

Azure: Storage-Account

Create a Storage-Account

az storage account create \
  --resource-group RGTEST \
  --name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME \
  --sku Standard_LRS \
  --location westeurope

retrieve connection string

AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING=$(az storage account show-connection-string \
  --resource-group RGTEST \
  --name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME \
  --output tsv)

ronald@Azure:~$ echo $AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING
DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net;AccountName=mystorageaccount4108;AccountKey=HlLklNRxLsKRzLw28Tc8W+0MDPv2RON/Stic8Lu1ryu0XiLDizlZRVnpAVwoSkzA==

Retrieve the Storage_key

ronald@Azure:~$ STORAGE_KEY=$(az storage account keys list \
>   --resource-group RGTEST \
>   --account-name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME \
>   --query "[0].value" \
>   --output tsv)
ronald@Azure:~$ echo $STORAGE_KEY
HlLklNRxLsKRzLw28Tc8W+0MDPv2RONAVwoSkzA==

create a file-share:

az storage share create --name TESTSHARE

2021-03-222021-03-19

Azure: Retrieve Public-IP of a Container Instance (ACI)

ronald@Azure:~$ az container show \
  --resource-group RGTEST \
  --name aci-test \
  --query ipAddress.ip \
  --output tsv
52.324.91.23

2021-03-212021-03-20

Azure CLI: Default-Values for config-Session

In most cases, at least some parameters for a set of CLI-Commands remain the same. Setting those as „default“ saves time and reduces human error.

For example, specify your location and ressource-group exactly one time and never repeat it:

ronald@Azure:~$ az configure --defaults group=RG-TEST location=westeurope

Disclaimer

Since i’m trying to get rid of Evernote, too anoying too often, i’ll start to document non-private-stuff here.

RG_NAME=RG_TEST
LOCATION_NAME=westeurope
az group create --resource-group $RG_NAME --location $LOCATION_NAME

az configure --defaults group=$RG_NAME location=$LOCATION_NAME

2021-03-202021-03-20

Create Cosmos-DB and retrieve Connection-String

Retrieve the Conection-String of the Endpoint:

ronald@Azure:~$ COSMOS_DB_ENDPOINT=$(az cosmosdb create \
>   --resource-group RGTEST \
>   --name $COSMOS_DB_NAME \
>   --query documentEndpoint \
>   --output tsv)

ronald@Azure:~$ echo $COSMOS_DB_ENDPOINT
https://aci-cosmos-db-4711.documents.azure.com:443/

Disclaimer

Since i’m trying to get rid of Evernote, too anoying too often, i’ll start to document non-private-stuff here.

ronald@Azure:~$ COSMOS_DB_MASTERKEY=$(az cosmosdb keys list \
>   --resource-group RGTEST \
>   --name $COSMOS_DB_NAME \
>   --query primaryMasterKey \
>   --output tsv)
ronald@Azure:~$ echo $COSMOS_DB_MASTERKEY
nVcsc0lq5troD9XgUl5RRONXUpaxX0pkK06qmDItkvXAUrRONyJHaasial3G8dajcc6tn6Y12i2D29tKP99CUw==

Disclaimer

Since i’m trying to get rid of Evernote, too anoying too often, i’ll start to document non-private-stuff here.

2020-11-272020-11-27

Azure – Pricing API

This is a really nice feature – the Azure Pricing REST-API:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/cost-management/retail-prices/azure-retail-prices

It pulls a structured JSON-Dataset for (not only) Virtual Machines out of the Azure-Webshop.

For example – the following filter:
https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices?$filter=serviceName eq ‚Virtual Machines‘ and priceType eq ‚Consumption‘ and endswith(armRegionName, ‚europe‘) and (startswith(skuName, ‚D‘) or startswith(skuName, ‚E‘) or startswith(skuName, ‚F‘) or startswith(skuName, ‚M‘)) and endswith(skuName,‘ Spot‘)
displays the price for only

„VMs“

with specific properties:

no Reservation
in „.*europe“-Locations
with Types „D.*“ or „E.*“ or „F.*“ or „M.*“
Spot-Intances

but – if you don’t want „Spot“ Instances, you’d guess this filter-Statement: https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices?$filter=serviceName eq ‚Virtual Machines‘ and priceType eq ‚Consumption‘ and endswith(armRegionName, ‚europe‘) and (startswith(skuName, ‚D‘) or startswith(skuName, ‚E‘) or startswith(skuName, ‚F‘) or startswith(skuName, ‚M‘)) and not endswith(skuName,‘ Spot‘)

to end with … and not endswith(skuName,‘ Spot‘) according to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search/search-query-odata-logical-operators but this breaks the call – the API returns :

{"Error":{"Code":"BadRequest","Message":"Invalid OData parameters supplied"}}

2020-11-242020-11-27

Microsoft Azure – Hyperthreading and Nested Virtualization

Go to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/acu and look for:

***Hyper-threaded and capable of running nested virtualization

The following „script“ pulls the SKUs out of the table:

wget -O - --no-check-certificate https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/acu | egrep -B2 "\*\*\*" | egrep "data-linktype" | sed -E "s/^.+relative-path..([^\<]+).+$/SKU: \1/g"

C:\RH>echo "Hyper-threaded and capable of running nested virtualization" && wget -q -O - --no-check-certificate https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/acu | egrep -B2 "\*\*\*" | egrep "data-linktype" | sed -E "s/^.+relative-path..([^\<]+).+$/SKU: \1/g"
"Hyper-threaded and capable of running nested virtualization"
SKU: D_v3
SKU: Ds_v3
SKU: Dv4
SKU: Dsv4
SKU: Ddv4
SKU: Ddsv4
SKU: E_v3
SKU: Es_v3
SKU: Ev4
SKU: Esv4
SKU: Edv4
SKU: Edsv4
SKU: F2s_v2 - F72s_v2
SKU: M

Next Step? Finding one with enough memory for an acceptable price.

Certification Path

Online Training

AZ303 Instructor-Led Training

Exam 303 – What might be the required skills?

List available Azure-Locations