AZ-900 Exam EP 03: Discuss Why Cloud Services?

Introduction to Azure Fundamentals Exam

The instructor introduces the Azure Fundamentals Exam and explains that this is the first module of the examination series. She also discusses what cloud computing is and how it can help businesses.

What is Cloud Computing?

• Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services such as server storage, database networking, software, etc., through the internet.

• You typically pay only for the cloud services you use.

• This helps lower your operating cost and run your infrastructure more efficiently.

• Cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are responsible for physical hardware required to execute your work in addition to keeping it up to date.

Azure Portal Overview

• Accessing Azure requires going into portal called portal dot-com and using a username and password.

• The Azure portal allows users to make changes such as changing themes or language displayed on the portal.

• Users can switch between multiple subscriptions, pin favorites, provide feedback or create support tickets by clicking on Help and Support.

• Clicking on Create a Resource opens up a blade for a search box where users can search for resources they need.

• Clicking on All Services displays hundreds of Azure services available within this portal.

Key Concepts and Benefits of Cloud Computing

The instructor discusses key concepts such as high availability and scalability in cloud computing.

High Availability

• High availability refers to keeping services up and running with very little downtime depending on the service in question.

Scalability

• Scalability refers to increasing or decreasing resources for any given workload.

• Scaling out involves adding additional resources to service a workload while scaling up involves adding additional capabilities to manage an increase in demand to an existing resource.

• Scalability doesn't have to be done automatically.

Benefits of Cloud Services

This section discusses the benefits of cloud services.

Quick Provisioning and Fault Tolerance

• Cloud services can allocate and deallocate resources quickly, allowing for vast amounts of cloud resources to be provisioned in minutes.

• There is no manual intervention in provisioning or deep provisioning services.

• Fault tolerance gives you the ability to remain up and running even in an event of a component or service no longer functioning.

• Typically, redundancy is built into cloud services architecture so if one component fails, a backup component takes its place.

Disaster Recovery, Global Reach, and Customer Latency Capabilities

• Cloud service disaster recovery can happen very quickly with automation and service has been readily available to use.

• Cloud services have the ability to deploy resources in data centers around the globe thus addressing customer latency issues.

• An ability to reach audiences around the globe even though you may not have any infrastructure in that region.

Predictive Cost Consideration and Security

• If customers are experiencing slowness, cloud services have the ability to deploy resources in data centers around the globe thus addressing customer latency issues.

• A predictive cost consideration includes the ability for users to predict what cost they will incur for a particular cloud service.

• Security: Cloud providers offer a broad set of policies technologies controls and export technology skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve.

Economics of Scale & IT Funding Models

This section discusses economics of scale & IT funding models.

Economics of Scale

• Economics of scale is the ability to reduce cost and gain efficiency when operating at a large scale in comparison to operating at a smaller scale.

• Cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are able to leverage the benefits of economics of scale and then pass those benefits on to their customers.

Capex vs Opex

• There are mainly two types of IT funding models: capex (capital expenditure) or opex (operational expenditure).

• In capital expenditure, this is the spending of money on physical infrastructure upfront and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time.

• In operational expenditure, this is spending money on services or products now and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense from your tax bill in the same year.

Consumption-Based Model

• Cloud service providers operate on a consumption-based model which means that end-users only pay for the resources that they use.

• Whatever they use is what they pay for.

Conclusion

This section concludes Module 1.

• The next module will dive deep into the types of cloud models.

• Thank you for taking time to watch this video.