building your cloud infrastructure with microsoft azure · pdf filebuilding your cloud...

Building Your

Cloud Infrastructure

with Microsoft Azure Five High Value IaaS Scenarios for

Your Business Brian Bourne

www.IGCM.com/eBook

July 2015

Building Your Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure

www.IGCM.com/eBook 2


Five High Value IaaS Scenarios for Your Business

An eBook by Brian Bourne, President, New Signature Canada

Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Cloud and Infrastructure as a Service .......................................................... 3

2. Cloud Computing: State of the Union .................................................................................... 5

Defining Cloud ....................................................................................................................... 5

Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud ........................................................................................... 5

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS ............................................................................................................ 6

Benefits of Moving IT Infrastructure to the Cloud .................................................................. 7

Cost Comparison: IaaS and On-Premise .............................................................................. 8

Moving to a cloud-first business world ................................................................................ 11

3. Getting Started with Azure IaaS .......................................................................................... 12

Overview of Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform .................................................................... 12

How Azure fits in a cloud-first business world ..................................................................... 13

Choosing a Workload to Move ............................................................................................ 14

4. Azure Hands-On: Five Scenarios for High Value Deployment ............................................ 16

Scenario One: Extend your Datacenter with Azure Storage ............................................... 16

Scenario Two: Extend your Datacenter with Virtual Network and Site-to-Site VPN ........... 20

Scenario Three: Extend your Datacenter with Azure Backup and Disaster Recovery ....... 22

Scenario Four: Virtual Machines: Using Azure for On-Demand Development and Test .... 24

Scenario Five: Single Sign-On with Azure Active Directory: Scenarios and Benefits ......... 27

5. Azure Resources ................................................................................................................. 30

6. Using Azure with Cloud Management ................................................................................. 31

Infrastructure Guardian Cloud Management ....................................................................... 31

7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 33

8. Appendix .............................................................................................................................. 35

About the Author .................................................................................................................. 35

About New Signature ........................................................................................................... 35

About Infrastructure Guardian ............................................................................................. 36

IGCM for Azure .................................................................................................................... 36

About TAG:IF ....................................................................................................................... 37

References .......................................................................................................................... 38

http://www.igcm.com/eBook



Building Your Cloud Infrastructure with Azure

Five High Value IaaS Scenarios for Your Business

1. Introduction: Cloud and

Infrastructure as a Service

The cloud is here to stay. With the market for cloud solutions growing fast, most

enterprises are now using some kind of cloud business solution somewhere in their

organization - sometimes without the knowledge of the IT department. Market

researchers from IDC predict worldwide spending on cloud IT infrastructure will

“grow by 21% year over year to $32 billion in 2015, accounting for approximately

33% of all IT infrastructure spending, which will be up from about 28% in 2014.”1 IDC

Canada’s David Senf expects cloud adoption in North America alone to accelerate to

$79 billion in 20182. In May 2015 Analysts from Gartner said that global spending on

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) “is expected to reach almost US$16.5 billion in

2015, an increase of 32.8 percent from 2014, with a compound annual growth rate

(CAGR) from 2014 to 2019 forecast at 29.1 percent.”3

There’s no doubt that cloud has arrived in the enterprise. But it's only just beginning

to show real value to organizations beyond early adopters.

This eBook gives you an overview of cloud computing basics and benefits, and walks

you through five high-value, real-life deployment scenarios based on Azure,

Microsoft's cloud platform for business. We have consulted research and other

external information for this book, but a lot of it is based on our own, hands-on

experience helping Canadian organizations get started in the cloud. I am the founder

of a Toronto-based professional services firm with almost two decades of experience

designing, deploying and operating Microsoft infrastructure technologies on premise

and in the cloud. Recently this company became the Canadian operations of New

Signature, the 2014 Microsoft US Partner of the Year. I also used Azure to start

Infrastructure Guardian, a managed service for enterprise-grade systems and cloud

management that is now a New Signature service offering.

In our customer engagements with New Signature we see a steadily increasing

interest in moving key IT scenarios to the cloud. At the same time, there is still a

reluctance to trust cloud solutions for core scenarios and, for example, a lack of

confidence in security and privacy requirements. Thankfully, the advancement of

cloud solutions is progressing at a rapid pace.


http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25576415

http://www.infrastructureguardian.com/Blog/infrastructure-guardian-launches-free-cloud-governance-portal-for-microsoft-azure

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3055225


http://www.newsignature.com/


http://www.infrastructureguardian.com/



Many concerns about the cloud are no longer valid and, with the right kind of

guidance, transitioning to the cloud has become significantly easier.

When we look at the evolution of cloud computing, not only is it in the process of

transforming how IT is managed in the enterprise, it also transforms the vendors

delivering technology solutions to the enterprise. Microsoft is certainly the most

prominent technology company changing from a traditional software vendor to a

leader in what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calls the "cloud-first, mobile-first

business world".

Azure is a cloud platform and a cloud operating system that empowers enterprises

looking to move some or all of their business to the cloud.

The focus of the eBook is to provide a hands-on guide for Microsoft Azure and

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - how IT departments can deliver cloud computing

infrastructure as an on-demand managed service to their business. IaaS is only one

category within the range of cloud solutions, but it is the one that lays the foundation

for everything else. We will leave Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a

Service (SaaS) for future books.

There are also other vendors with large and comprehensive cloud offerings. But in

our day-to-day work helping our customers we are seeing how using Azure comes

with huge integration and transition benefits. We will outline these in this eBook and

provide best practices on how to create a roadmap for smart cloud integration and

getting your IT infrastructure ready for a cloud-first business world.




2. Cloud Computing: State of the

Union

Defining Cloud

Everybody in IT is talking about cloud computing, and it can get a little confusing. It

seems every IT executive, IT professional, vendor, pundit, marketer and journalist

has their own definition of cloud computing. And if you go up to C-level executives,

there is still a broader lack of understanding. Microsoft Canada commissioned a

2014 survey concluding that 90 per cent of Canadian C-suite executives “are not

familiar with what cloud computing means”4.

I believe the definition of cloud computing by the U.S. National Institute for Standards

and Technology is accurate, and a good one to use: "Cloud computing is a model for

enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of

configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and

services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management

effort or service provider interaction."5

Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud

Breaking down the definition of cloud into core elements Public, Private and Hybrid

Cloud can be a little trickier. I sent out a survey in spring of 2014 to Canadians in IT

and associated roles to find out their definitions. What I got back was a mixture of

scary, funny and enlightened responses. If anything, it showed us the importance of

moving beyond the hype around cloud, and making hands-on training and education

for cloud solutions available.

Based on the survey responses, I created my own concise definitions:6

Public Cloud: Shared services or resources provided by a third party and

available to many participants or tenants.

Private Cloud: Cloud computing resources open to just the owner. Can be

hosted on-premise or off.

Hybrid Cloud: Cloud computing resources spread between your own systems

and a third party’s resources.

One of the reasons why Microsoft Azure is such a compelling cloud platform is that it

easily enables all three options and integrates with your existing on-premise IT

infrastructure.


http://www.computerdealernews.com/news/cloud-remains-a-mystery-for-canadian-execs-survey/37307

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf

http://brianbourne.ca/2014/02/09/what-is-public-cloud-vs-private-cloud-vs-hybrid-cloud/

http://brianbourne.ca/2014/03/03/concise-definition-for-public-private-and-hybrid-cloud/



IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

In addition to the three different types of cloud deployment options, there are three

categories of cloud computing services:

Software as a Service (SaaS): Applications

delivered to end users running from the

provider’s infrastructure. SaaS is used by

business users for email, office automation,

customer relationship management,

business intelligence, enterprise resource

planning and other related scenarios.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): Used by

developers and application providers as a

computing platform that typically includes

operating system, programming language execution environment, database and

web services.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS is the foundational cloud platform

layer. It is used by IT administrators for the provisioning of processing, storage,

networks or other fundamental computer resources where users can run

arbitrary software.

IDC predicts PaaS, SaaS and IaaS services combined to reach $118 billion in

spending in 2015, with IaaS adoption projected for the highest growth: 36%.7 Here's

a more detailed overview of these categories:

Source: adapted from Microsoft Technet blog post “SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.. Oh my!” [ 8 ]

SaaS

PaaS

IaaS


http://sdtimes.com/idcs-top-10-technology-predictions-2015/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinremde/archive/2011/04/03/saas-paas-and-iaas-oh-my-quot-cloudy-april-quot-part-3.aspx



Benefits of Moving IT Infrastructure to the Cloud

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) can provide enormous advantages over on-

premise infrastructure because of the ability to provision and scale quickly and

dynamically. Cloud infrastructure is sold as a variable cost, utility pricing model. You

pay only for what you use, while you are using it. The pricing model and total cost is

attractive, but the real value is the agility cloud affords an organization. Simply put,

with IaaS you can do stuff quickly that you couldn't do in your own IT environment.

Think of "unpredictable bursting", an unplanned peak in demand or sudden spike

that impacts performance. Or consider "on and off workloads" or "predictable

bursting", when you have recurring peaks due to periodic increasing demands. With

on-premise equipment, you can't over-provision for these extreme peaks unless you

want to have a massive, complex and expensive IT infrastructure sit idle for long

periods of time. For example, if your organization is in need of high performance

computing power once a quarter, it is much easier to turn on several hundred servers

temporarily through IaaS. Other scenarios could include transient or short term

environments required for development or testing.

If you are part of an organization with rapid growth, IaaS is especially relevant.

Successful services need to grow and scale. If money is no object, you can certainly

over-provision by investing in your own hardware at an early stage and overpay until

you reach capacity. But if you grow faster than expected, you may still be in a

situation where you can't provision hardware fast enough. With IaaS you can scale

your infrastructure on demand in the cloud, and pay more as you use more.

Another relevant cloud scenario example is “tier” upgrades for compute and storage.

For a traditional infrastructure organization to increase a server’s processing power

or memory requires an expensive upgrade or even a new server. This would usually

take days and even weeks to complete. Storage I/O improvement would typically

involve a SAN re-configuration or, in some cases, a new SAN. Local storage I/O

improvements would require the introduction of additional spindles for a RAID setup,

faster disks, or SSDs. All of these scenarios are time-consuming and expensive.

With IaaS, these types of upgrades take seconds to minutes to complete with a

modest increase in cost. You get tremendous business agility, something that is not

possible with traditional on-premise infrastructure.

Even if your IT infrastructure needs are entirely predictable and consistent, IaaS is a

good option because of the ongoing reduction in cloud storage and compute costs.

The usage of a highly-available, enterprise-grade infrastructure to run virtual

machines is very competitive using cloud solutions. And based on predictions by

industry observers, the price is only going down.




Cost Comparison: IaaS and On-Premise

A cost evaluation between two IT scenarios is never a simple apples to apples

comparison. Costs change: for an on-premise scenario we have to look at factors

including capital expenditures, depreciation, licensing, cooling and power. In the

cloud it’s about variable factors such as costs for usage based on a gigabyte or a

compute hour. But it is definitely possible to establish trends and get pretty detailed.

Here is a cost comparison of a typical IT infrastructure scenario with a focus on

provisioning of virtual machines. For an on-premise scenario, we have to consider:

Annual expense for Storage, including disks, host adapters, backup, tape,

offsite storage

Annual expense for Network, including fibre channel, Ethernet, KVM switch,

cabling

Annual expense for Infrastructure, including circuits, floor space, direct-current

power, redundant power

Annual capital costs, including depreciation, cooling, maintenance, and hidden

costs

Source: Infrastructure Guardian customer documentation

35%

52%

2%5%

6%

Annual cost of running on premises

Annual hardware expense

Annual software expense

Annual power expense

Annual administration costs

Annual DC facility expenses




For a comparable Cloud IaaS scenario with Microsoft Azure, we have to consider:

Annual expense for Azure Virtual Machines

Annual expense for Azure Storage

Annual egress expense

Annual administration costs


Using IaaS provides the opportunity to further decrease cost by de-allocating Virtual

Machines and only pay for what is provisioned.

If your finance department is putting pressure on you to limit capital expenditure,

IaaS is a great way of moving some of the IT cost to operating expenditure and

reducing "hidden costs". The difference in pricing can be staggering.

84%

7%

0%9%

0%

Annual cost of running on Azure

Annual Azure VMs expense

Annual storage expense

Annual egress expense

Annual admin expense

Annual other expenses




Here is a sample from a real customer in Toronto.

Cost Comparison

Annual cost of running on-premises $126,948

Annual cost of running on Azure $25,950

Annual Savings 80%

On-premises DC Cost Breakdown

Annual hardware expense $44,128

Annual software expense $65,600

Annual power expense $2,863

Annual administration costs $6,207

Annual DC facility expenses $8,150

Total $126,948

Azure cost breakdown

Annual Azure VMs expense $21,693

Annual storage expense $1,833

Annual egress expense $96

Annual admin expense $2,328

Annual other expenses $0

Total $25,950





Moving to a cloud-first business world

As we've shown, cloud computing and Infrastructure as a Service provide great

benefits which will further accelerate adoption. So where are we going with cloud

computing? Let's look at how Satya Nadella describes a cloud-first world: "We are

moving from a world where computing power was scarce to a place where it now is

almost limitless."

The "holy grail" will be treating cloud as a total utility. Cloud-first means we will be

moving towards cloud as the default option for IT, not just an afterthought or potential

consideration. I don't like much of the marketing hype around cloud computing but I

do believe in the promise and advantages of cloud computing, especially because

we have seen a similar evolution only a few years ago with virtualization. I remember

going on a tour across Canada in 2005, talking about the benefits of virtualization.

At the time a lot of training and education was needed to get businesses to buy into

the promise of virtualization technologies. But then things started to click and

adoption started to accelerate quickly. Today, virtualization is a default IT strategy

with large enterprises virtualizing over 75% of their x86 server infrastructure. I’m

confident cloud computing will take the same path.

Cloud-first is coming too because it's both an IT and a business strategy - one that

provides much better ways to manage IT and control costs at a time where IT is

getting squeezed like never before. Your CFO will love a cloud-first business world

because the direct view to cost allows you to better understand and slice-and-dice IT

spend. Your CEO will love the increased business agility.

You get visibility into which units or departments spend what on their IT needs.

Depending on your perspective, this is an advantage or disadvantage. It forces IT

professionals to think more like business managers and will alter job descriptions,

skill sets and specializations needed. But this change also offers more opportunities

for the IT team to move "up the stack" from a support function to strategic business

driver. In this cloud-first world, there will be IT teams who do the in-depth stuff as a

business - for example offering cloud infrastructure management as a service; but

the in-house IT team will be focused on delivering business value and solving

business problems.


http://news.microsoft.com/ceo/index.html



3. Getting Started with Azure IaaS

Overview of Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform

Azure is Microsoft's open and flexible cloud platform for business that allows you to

quickly build, deploy and manage applications and services. Azure comes with many

associated services, including those for compute, storage, data, networking and

apps. In a slightly simplified view, Azure provides services for applications, data,

compute and network:

Source: adapted from “What is Microsoft Azure?” [ 9 ]

A more detailed breakdown by “Azure Components” can be found on the Microsoft

Azure Documentation webpage, which gives an overview of services by similar

function and important sub-services, including:

Compute Data

Management Networking

Developer & IT

Services

Identity &

Access Mobile Backup

Messaging &

Integration

Compute

Assistance Performance

Big Compute &

Big Data Media Commerce


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure/

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/fundamentals-introduction-to-azure/



According to a handy Microsoft’s info-graphic, Azure can help you "quickly build,

deploy, and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed

datacenters". You can also build and run applications using any language, tool, or

framework within four primary models: 1) Virtual Machines, 2) Cloud Services, 3)

Web Sites, and 4) Mobile Services.

How Azure fits in a cloud-first business world

Microsoft Azure provides a great entry and transition strategy for organizations that

want to extend their data center to the cloud, and the momentum for Azure has been

steadily building over the past years. At the Build 2015 conference, Microsoft

provided some numbers around Azure usage:

More than 90,000 new Azure customer subscriptions per month

1.4 million SQL databases in Azure

More than 50 trillion storage objects in Azure

425 million Azure Active Directory users

3 million developers registered with Visual Studio Online

More than 40% of Azure revenue from start-ups and ISVs

19 Azure Compute Regions open

In April 2015, Microsoft said that its commercial cloud revenue grew 106% (year-

over-year) driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online, and is now on an

annualized revenue run rate of $6.3 billion. Given Azure’s ongoing growth trajectory,

all these numbers may soon be outdated again. At the company's annual Financial

Analyst Meeting (FAM), CEO Satya Nadella said Microsoft's goal is to hit a $20

billion run rate for its commercial cloud by 2018.

Market research firm Gartner has put Microsoft Azure in a leadership position in its

Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service in 2013 and 2014, with

Microsoft making a huge leap both in terms of vision and ability to execute (a free

reprint of the report can be accessed through a Gartner blog post here). Gartner

points out some of Microsoft’s advantages:

“Microsoft has a vision of infrastructure and platform services that are not

only leading stand-alone offerings, but that also seamlessly extend and

interoperate with on-premises Microsoft infrastructure (rooted in Hyper-V,

Windows Server, Active Directory and System Center) and applications, as

well as Microsoft's SaaS offerings.”

“The broader Microsoft Azure service is a full-featured PaaS offering with

significant complementary capabilities; the Virtual Machines are integrated

into the overall offering. The IaaS and PaaS components within Microsoft


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/infographics/azure/

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-outlines-azure-milestones-achieved-over-the-last-year

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY15/Q3/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Events/FAM/2015/default.aspx?eventid=158657

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Events/FAM/2015/default.aspx?eventid=158657

http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2014/05/30/the-2014-cloud-iaas-magic-quadrant/

http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1UKQQA6&ct=140528&st=sb



Azure feel and operate like part of a unified whole, and Microsoft is making

an effort to integrate them with Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server,

Active Directory, System Center and PowerShell. Conversely, Windows

Azure Pack offers an Azure-like user experience for on-premises

infrastructure.”

In May 2015, Microsoft announced a significant upgrade for Azure for private cloud

customers. The new Azure Stack combines Azure Pack with Windows Server 2016

and Azure Service Fabric, a new layer that helps decompose Azure applications into

microservices. Mary Jo Foley of the All About Microsoft blog explains that these

microservices can be updated and maintained independently of the underlying

infrastructure, and that they “communicate with each other via programming

interfaces.”

Amazon and Google are the only two other companies with cloud solutions and the

ability to execute at the same global scale, Microsoft is the only one of the three with

similar enterprise infrastructure and expertise at its core. A huge advantage of Azure

is the ability to integrate your public cloud applications with your existing IT

environment. You don't have to choose between one or the other, it allows you to run

a hybrid environment. Azure also allows you take advantage of existing enterprise

licence agreements you may have, if you already have Microsoft technology in your

IT infrastructure.

Choosing a Workload to Move

Using Azure to integrate Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) into your IT environment

is a great way of getting started, and paves the way for Platform as a Service (PaaS)

as a logical next step.

However, using Azure to enable IaaS in your organization requires the consideration

of many options with many benefits, so it is definitely advisable to include a thorough

assessment and capacity planning process. At the very basic level, you need to

inventory your tech infrastructure, and be sure to be able to answer these questions:

What do I have in my current IT infrastructure?

Where is it?

What are my performance metrics?

Microsoft provides resources to help with this process. For example, the Microsoft

Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit for Azure “gets your cloud migration

planning process going with automated discovery and detailed inventory reporting of

web applications, application portfolios, and database readiness for Azure platform”.


http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-readies-new-azure-stack-bundle-for-private-cloud-customers/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-readies-first-developer-preview-of-its-new-microservices-service-fabric/

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/solutionaccelerators/gg581074.aspx




It helps you catalog all of the applications in your IT environment, and provides a

readiness and capacity assessment.

Azure Readiness Assessment & Capacity Assessment:

Estimate the needed capacity to run your applications on the Azure Platform

Evaluate applications based on migration difficulty

Stack rank applications in terms of migration suitability

Obtain a TCO-ROI analysis for the application

Helps you to plan for the migration of on-premises workloads to Azure

Source: Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit for Azure Platform [ 10 ]

In addition to the technical planning, making the right business case is critical.

Consider which scenarios lend themselves the most to getting started with a journey

to the cloud. Here are two types of scenarios you could look at first:

Scenarios that are needed but not needed all the time: If your

organization has a seasonal need for high-performance computing or

additional virtual machine capacity, think of the possibilities of using Azure to

temporarily switch on a massive amount of virtual machines. Why buy the

hardware if you can just switch it on for as long as you need it? You only pay

for what you use. These types of scenarios are the low-hanging fruit when

choosing a workload to move.

Scenarios when new expensive infrastructure is needed: If your

organization is growing or embarking on new long-term, IT-intensive projects,

or some of your existing IT infrastructure will be reaching the end of its

lifecycle soon, you may be looking at considerable cost for new hardware in

the near future. As outlined in the IaaS cloud vs. on-premise cost comparison

in a previous chapter, a move to the cloud may offer a great way of limiting IT

spending. That said, the benefits will only materialize with proper planning of

all aspects. In addition to using Microsoft’s toolkit, you may want to work with

a Microsoft consulting partner for detailed planning. For example, to move

from testing cloud solutions to making them run in your production

environment, you need to have the tools and systems in place that give you

the confidence that IT health and performance are being monitored, issues

can be addressed quickly, and costs are closely managed.

The following section of the book provides five high-value scenarios for your

consideration.





4. Azure Hands-On: Five Scenarios

for High Value Deployment

Scenario One: Extend your Datacenter with Azure Storage

Overview

Azure Storage is cloud storage that provides customers with anywhere and anytime

access. It is highly durable, highly available and massively scalable. Azure Storage

easily scales from megabytes to exabytes, and you pay only what you use when you

use it. Pricing is based on the number of storage transactions, data stored, data

egress and the type of replication. This makes it attractive for start-ups, small to mid-

sized businesses and enterprise organizations alike.

For example, a start-up company could design an application and launch it without

having to worry about supporting growth on a global scale. Microsoft points out that

“Azure Storage is accessible from anywhere in the world, from any type of

application, whether it’s running in the cloud, on the desktop, on an on-premises

server, or on a mobile or tablet device”.

Thanks to an auto-partitioning system that automatically load-balances the data

based on traffic, users will always have the appropriate resources they need.

Another example is a large enterprise rolling out a corporate mobile application

where “the application stores a subset of data on the device and synchronizes it with

a full set of data stored in the cloud”.

In big data scenarios a department or a smaller company could temporarily store

huge amounts of data for financial analysis or scientific research. If the storage is not

needed anymore, it can be scaled down. Microsoft says that “Azure Storage

currently stores tens of trillions of unique customer objects, and handles millions of

requests per second on average”.


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-introduction/




Technical details

Azure Storage supports four types of storage accounts and concepts:

Source: adapted from “Introduction to Azure Storage” [ 11 ]

1. Blob storage: A blob can be any type of text or binary data, such as a

document, media file (audio, video, photo), or application installer. It works

particularly well for companies that need to store large amounts of

unstructured data in the cloud. Every blob is organized into a container, which

can help assign different security policies to groups of objects. There are

block blobs and page blobs, with the former being optimized for streaming

and storing objects and the latter “representing IaaS disks”. For example, “an

Azure virtual machine network attached IaaS disk is a VHD stored as a page

blob”.

2. Table storage: Table storage stores structured datasets. It is a NoSQL key-

attribute data store, which allows for rapid development and fast access to

large quantities of data. It’s a popular and typically significantly lower-cost

cloud alternative to traditional relational databases.

3. Queue storage: Provides reliable messaging for workflow processing and for

communication between components of cloud services, including running on

a desktop, on-premise server or mobile device. A storage account can

contain any number of queues. A queue can contain any number of

messages, up to the capacity limit of the storage account.

4. File storage: There are a number of strong cloud usage cases for file storage.

Migrating legacy apps to the cloud: Offers shared storage for legacy

applications using the standard SMB 2.1 protocol. With file storage, an

enterprise can choose to migrate some legacy applications to Azure and

continue running others from within their own organization.





Shared Application Settings: Keep configuration files for distributed apps

in a centralized location where they can be accessed from different VMs

anywhere in the world.

Diagnostic Share: Save and share diagnostic files like logs, metrics, and

crash dumps for use with tools for processing and analyzing the data.

Dev/Test/Debug: For example, storage of developer tools on a file share

with connection to them from any virtual machine

Azure Storage also includes three options for replication for durability and high

availability:

1) Locally Redundant Storage (LRS): Stores 3 replicas of the data within a

single zone (facility) in a single region, and provides data durability for disk,

node and rack failures

2) Geo Redundant Storage (GRS): Stores 6 replicas of the data across two

regions (3 in each region); it provides additional durability to protect data

against major regional natural disasters (e.g., tornado, hurricane or fire, etc.

destroying a whole region). Updates across regions are performed

asynchronously

3) Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS): Stores 3 replicas of the data across multiple

zones (facilities) within a single region or across regions. Provides additional

durability to protect data against zone failures (e.g., fire burning down a

facility). ZRS is only available for block blobs.

Scenarios

1. Backup: Customers often leverage Azure storage as a backup tier to their

existing backup solution, or they can use Azure Backup service as their

solution. Either way, this gets backups offsite every night and on to low cost

storage. Most backup products now support Azure as a backup tier.

2. Extended NAS: A number of vendors including Microsoft’s StorSimple

product provide what is essentially an on-premise NAS that caches frequently

accessed data and supports a cloud storage tier. Depending on vendor and

model, devices can vary in size to many terabytes of local storage – but

snapshots of all storage and infrequently accessed data all live in the cloud.

This can be thought of as an on-premise NAS with bottomless storage.




3. Born in Cloud Applications: While traditional virtual machines and file storage

will use blob storage in Azure, as new applications evolve and are built on the

Azure platform, the usage of Table storage and Queue storage can be very

compelling platform tools to enable key application workloads.

Benefits

Azure storage benefits largely come down to agility, resiliency and price. On-premise

storage is a significant cost for enterprises. In the cloud, you only pay for what you

use, when you use it. No longer do you have to buy storage based on the IOPS you

expect to need or the capacity you expect you may grow to need over the next

several years. As cloud vendors fight for business in this highly competitive market,

highly resilient, highly redundant storage is available for as low as $0.025/GB at full

list price. This also means it is very affordable to move those big virtual machines to

Azure and not worry about storage.




Scenario Two: Extend your Datacenter with Virtual Network and Site-

to-Site VPN

Overview

Azure Virtual Network allows you to extend an on-premise network into the cloud

through site-to-site VPN. You can manage it like an on-premise infrastructure, and

control the network topology and configuration of DNS and IP address ranges.

A virtual network consists of one or more virtual machines configured to access local

or external network resources. In Azure, virtual networks are used to provide a layer

of security and isolation to your services. Virtual machines and web services that are

part of the same virtual network can access each other. A site-to-site VPN

connection to Azure is secured with industry standard IPSec technology and the

endpoint at your site will most likely be the firewall you already have.

An alternative to connecting over the public Internet is provided by Azure

ExpressRoute, which enables you to connect your on-premise or collocated

infrastructure with Azure data centers. This is essentially an MPLS connection.

ExpressRoute connections are faster and more reliable, and have lower latencies

and higher security. There are two types of connectivity options: through an

exchange provider and through a network service provider. ExpressRoute is offered

in collaboration with a number of Exchange Providers and Network Service Provider

partners to create the private connections. More details on service and partners are

available on Microsoft’s ExpressRoute webpage and in the Technical Overview.

Source: Microsoft Azure Documentation [ 12 ]


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/expressroute/

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/azure/e224be0a-d7b2-4514-b868-86d61cee0ead#bkmk_Connection




Scenarios and Benefits

Microsoft provides three types of core scenarios in which a virtual network may make

sense for you:

Create a dedicated private cloud-only virtual network: Sometimes you don’t

require a cross-premises configuration for your solution. When you create a

virtual network, your services and VMs within your virtual network can

communicate directly and securely with each other in the cloud. This keeps

traffic securely within the virtual network, but still allows you to configure

endpoint connections for the VMs and services that require Internet

communication as part of your solution.

Securely extend your data center: With Virtual Network, you can build

traditional site-to-site VPNs to securely scale your datacenter capacity. Virtual

Network uses industry-standard IPSEC protocol to provide a secure connection

between your corporate VPN gateway and Azure. Add as many machines as

you want behind the VPN gateway.

Enable hybrid cloud scenarios: Virtual Network gives you the flexibility to

support a range of hybrid cloud scenarios. You can securely connect cloud-

based applications to any type of on-premises system such as mainframes and

Unix systems.

Source: Microsoft Virtual Network FAQ [ 13 ]


https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dn133803.aspx




Scenario Three: Extend your Datacenter with Azure Backup and

Disaster Recovery

Overview

Backup and restore options are a prerequisite for any business organization. Azure

provides scalable and durable cloud storage, backup, and recovery solutions, and

connects with your existing on-premise IT infrastructure, so you can backup and

restore your apps and data regardless of whether they reside in the cloud or on

premise. Azure can provide a cost-effective way to enhance and optimize your

disaster recovery and business continuity strategy.

Azure Backup is a simple and reliable data protection solution which enables

customers to back up their on-premises data to Microsoft Azure. It is built on top of

Azure’s robust global infrastructure and stores backup data in geo-replicated storage

which maintains 6 copies of data across two Azure datacenters.

Azure Site Recovery protects important applications by coordinating the replication

and recovery of physical or virtual machines. You can replicate to your own

datacenter, to a hosting service provider, or even to Azure to avoid the expense and

complexity of building and managing your own secondary location. Azure Site

Recovery continuously monitors service health and helps automate the orderly

recovery of services in the event of a site outage at the primary datacenter. Virtual

machines can be brought up in an orchestrated fashion to help restore service

quickly, even for complex multi-tier workloads. Site Recovery works with existing

technologies such as Hyper-V Replica, System Center, VMWare and SQL Server

AlwaysOn.

Finally, Azure StorSimple provides an integrated storage solution that manages

storage tasks between on-premises devices and Microsoft Azure cloud storage to

help improve disaster recovery capability and efficiency.

Scenarios

Hybrid cloud storage: Access frequently used data locally and tier less-used,

backup, and archive data to the cloud using StorSimple and Azure. Your data

is de-duplicated, compressed, and encrypted before sending. You can rapidly

recover your data to a StorSimple device from virtually any location with an

Internet connection.




Cloud-based data backups: Protect against data loss and corruption. Back up

and recover data across the Windows Server operating system and Microsoft

System Center with Azure Backup. Store and recover files, SQL Server

database snapshots, and Hyper-V virtual machines in Azure using Azure

Backup.

SQL Server continuity strategy: Unlock new hybrid business continuity

strategies like deploying SQL Server AlwaysOn primary databases on-

premises and cloud-based secondary databases in Virtual Machines. In the

event of an on-premises failure, use the cloud-based secondary databases to

quickly restore images, helping reduce downtime and minimize data loss.

Site Recovery: Azure Site Recovery allows you to replicate in near-time

virtual machines running in your environment on either HyperV or VMWare.

These virtual machines are replicated to Azure and you only pay for compute

when you need to run them in either a disaster or DR test scenario.

Benefits

You can gain many benefits by integrating Azure Backup and SiteRecovery into your

IT environment. Azure Backup can “protect your critical applications including

SharePoint, Exchange & SQL; Files and Folders, Windows Servers, Windows

Clients and Azure IaaS VMs”.

It also provides a great way of meeting compliance requirements for data protection

with up to 99 years of retention at much lower cost than traditional tape storage

solutions.

Azure Site Recovery can automate a policy-based replication of your virtual

machines, provide continuous health monitoring of your protected instances with all

communication with Azure encrypted. Using orchestrated recovery, you can

automate and coordinate the recovery of services in case of a site outage at the

primary datacenter, including:

Orchestrating bringing up virtual machines

Executing custom Windows PowerShell scripts

Pausing for manual interventions

Mapping virtual networks between primary and recovery sites

Testing recovery plans without interrupting regular services

For hybrid cloud scenarios in particular, Azure StorSimple is “an efficient, cost-

effective, and manageable solution that eliminates many of the issues and expense

associated with enterprise storage and data protection.”


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/backup/

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e87aa7e4-a2ab-418c-a6eb-b2d75c60c290



Scenario Four: Virtual Machines: Using Azure for On-Demand

Development and Test

Overview

If your organization develops custom applications, you need a development and test

environment for those apps. This includes installing developer tools such as Visual

Studio and creating a test environment that replicates a real-life production scenario.

Over the past decade, creating virtual machines has replaced provisioning physical

servers for each environment. Using a cloud platform instead of your own data

center for virtualization has many advantages.

In Azure, you can deploy Azure Cloud Services and Azure Virtual Machines. The

former offers full Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) capabilities that allow you to create

applications without having to manage the server infrastructure. The latter provides

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) capabilities, which give you way more control but

also require you to manage most of the features of a virtual machine.

If you know how to use virtual environments, getting started with Azure Virtual

Machines will be easy. Running a virtual machine on Azure provides you with the

infrastructure for virtualization. You don’t have to buy or maintain the hardware but

you still need to manage the virtual machine. This includes configuring, patching, and

maintaining the operating system and any other software that runs on the virtual

machine.

When you set up a virtual machine, you can choose to use an image provided by

Azure or a certified partner, or use your own image. To pick an existing image, go to

the gallery on the Microsoft website, where images are available from Microsoft and

many partner solutions including Oracle, SAP, IBM, Cloudera, Hortonworks and

many others. In addition, the open source community offers images at VM Depot.

Source: Microsoft Virtual Machines Marketplace [ 14 ]


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/virtual-machines/

https://vmdepot.msopentech.com/List/Index




You also need to decide the VM size, Operating System, Networking Configuration,

and Cloud Service Configuration.

Scenarios

Key Azure virtual machine scenarios include

Production Environments

Project-based Testing and Development

Short-term Testing Environments

Microsoft provides a helpful info-graphic showing some of the things you can do with

Azure VM, for example:

1) Create VMs for Dev and Test to free up your on-premises infrastructure: You

can quickly create dev and test environments with Azure VMs and test at scale

with Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.

2) Application Hosting: If the infrastructure needs of your apps in the cloud are

growing, Azure VM can meet them easily and scale up or down without

requiring changes. You can also connect to on-premise applications and data

through a VPN in a hybrid scenario.

3) Infrastructure for SQL Server: You can get full SQL Server in the cloud through

Azure VM. You can prototype and test apps or extend existing SQL Server

apps from on-premise to the cloud.

If you have deployed virtual machines in a traditional data center, then deploying

them in Azure will be easy for you. Here are key steps:

Traditional Data Center Microsoft Azure

Deployment Steps

Setup Network Infrastructure

Setup Server Infrastructure

Install and Patch OS

Install and Configure Apps

Multiple Environments?

“Rinse and Repeat”

Deployment Steps

Configure Network Settings

Create Virtual Machines w/OS

Patch OS

Install and Configure Apps

Multiple Environments?

“Rinse and Repeat”


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/infographics/infrastructure-services/



Benefits

Microsoft partner InCycle Software highlights three scenarios that show why you

should care about Azure for Dev/Test:

Source: “What is Azure Dev Test and Why Should You Care?” [ 15 ]

Other benefits include:

Flexibility: you can integrate cloud apps with your existing on-premise IT

environment.

Control: you can secure management over applications hosted on the Azure

cloud platform.

Scalability: you can increase or decrease your resource usage based on

your needs.

Ease of Implementation: you can quickly build, deploy and manage apps

across a global cloud network.

Utilization of Resources: You can share virtual environments to optimize

utilization and reduce associated costs of hardware and software licenses.

1. Increased Focus - Environment management automation provided with Azure will

significantly reduce the costs associated with managing physical or virtualized

environment. The result liberates software engineering teams from IT administrative

efforts. Moreover, development teams can equally maintain their focus on software

development directly related to business needs --- rather than developing tools or

utilities to manage environments. An effective implementation of Dev Test supported

by automated deployment and continuous delivery initiatives could reduce

deployment resources by 50%.

2. Speed and Risk Reduction - From a release perspective, it reduces system downtime

related to moving an application into production. Working with production-like

environments and deploying to them in the same consistent way validates the

deployment process early increasing reliability of application hand-off between

engineering teams and operations. Companies that apply a Dev Test strategy

combined with deployment automation can increase the number of weekly

deployments by 300% as well as the software quality by 20%.

3. Cost - Decrease or eliminate the need for computer asset management associated

with having to acquire the necessary physical hardware to support software

engineering teams. Save the cost of adding/removing hardware in a datacenter and

disposal fees of out dated end of life hardware. By implementing Azure for

development and Test environments, a large US insurance company decreased by

30% its Cost of Ownership (COS = pay for what you use).


http://www.incyclesoftware.com/2014/02/what-azure-dev-test-why-care/#respond

http://www.incyclesoftware.com/2014/02/what-azure-dev-test-why-care/#respond



Scenario Five: Single Sign-On with Azure Active Directory: Scenarios

and Benefits

Overview

Azure Active Directory (AD) provides identity and access management in the cloud.

It offers “a robust set of capabilities to manage users and groups and helps secure

access to on-premises and cloud applications including Microsoft online services like

Office 365”. It is the cloud counterpart to Active Directory, which offers on-premises

identity management through Windows Server.

Using Azure AD allows you to extend single

sign-on capabilities to Office 365 as well as

other Microsoft and third-party solutions. It can

also enable single sign-on capabilities to other

SaaS applications, so that companies can have

their end users access CRM, BI, HR or other

important corporate applications safely and

securely. You can even enable multi-factor

authentications for cloud applications which

wouldn’t otherwise support it. Thousands of pre-

integrated Azure AD applications from Microsoft

and third parties can be found in the Microsoft

Azure Marketplace.

Azure AD can be used as a standalone service in the cloud or integrated with on-

premise Active Directory. Extending existing on-premises directories to Azure AD

provides a number of benefits including a streamlined sign-in experience for users

that combines single sign-on to both on-premise and cloud-based applications. It can

also create an integrated and unified experience for the management of user and

device identities, including simplified user access to Windows, Mac, iOS and Android

devices.

Azure AD comes in three versions: Free, Basic and Premium. Basic and Premium

offer more advanced capabilities including high availability SLA uptime, advanced

security reports, company branding and group-based application access

management and provisioning.

Free - Manage user accounts, synchronize with on-premises directories, and

get single sign on across Azure, Office 365, and thousands of popular SaaS

applications like Salesforce, Workday, Concur, DocuSign, Google Apps, Box,

ServiceNow, Dropbox, and more.

What you can do with Azure AD

• Manage users and access to

cloud resources.

• Extend your on premise Active

Directory to the cloud.

• Provide single-sign-on (SSO)

across your cloud applications.

• Reduce risks by enabling multi-

factor authentication.

• Support development’s need to

build secure directory integrated

applications for the enterprise.


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/active-directory/

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/active-directory/



Basic - Includes all the capabilities that Azure Active Directory Free has to

offer, plus group-based access management, self-service password reset for

cloud applications, Azure Active Directory application proxy (to publish on-

premises web applications using Azure Active Directory), customizable

environment for launching enterprise and consumer cloud applications, and

an enterprise-level SLA of 99.9 percent uptime. An administrator with Azure

Active Directory Basic edition can also activate an Azure Active Directory

Premium trial.

Premium - Get all of the capabilities of Azure Active Directory Free and Basic

editions and add feature-rich enterprise-level identity management

capabilities, for example multi-factor authentication or password reset with

write-back.

A more detailed overview and comparison of the three editions can be found on the

Microsoft website.

Application Scenarios Supported by Azure AD

Microsoft outlines five primary application scenarios supported by Azure AD:

Web Browser to Web Application: A user needs to sign in to a web application

that is secured by Azure AD.

Single Page Application (SPA): A user needs to sign in to a single page

application that is secured by Azure AD.

Native Application to Web API: A native application that runs on a phone,

tablet, or PC needs to authenticate a user to get resources from a web API that

is secured by Azure AD.

Web Application to Web API: A web application needs to get resources from a

web API secured by Azure AD.

Daemon or Server Application to Web API: A daemon application or a server

application with no web user interface needs to get resources from a web API

secured by Azure AD.

Source: Authentication Scenarios for Azure AD - Application Types and Scenarios [ 16 ]


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn532272.aspx

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-authentication-scenarios/#application-types-and-scenarios

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn499820.aspx#BKMK_Browser

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn499820.aspx#BKMK_Spa

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn499820.aspx#BKMK_Native

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn499820.aspx#BKMK_Web

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn499820.aspx#BKMK_Server




Multi-Factor Authentication

Azure AD allows you to set rules and policies that control who has access and under

what conditions. To manage access based on the device or location, you can

implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) which requires any two or more of these

verification methods:

Password

Trusted device

Biometric verification

Azure MFA

By combining these methods, you make it way more difficult to get breached in an

attack scenario. For example, even if the attacker learns a user password, it won’t be

useful without also having the trusted device. Azure MFA requires users to verify

sign-ins using a mobile app, phone call or text message.

Source: What is Azure Multi-Factor Authentication? [ 17 ]

You can use MFA to secure access to Azure, Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online,

and non-Microsoft cloud services that integrate with Azure AD, with no additional

setup. It’s easy to enable MFA for large numbers of global users and applications. In

addition to adding MFA to Azure AD, you can also enable MFA for on-premise

resources using the Azure MFA Server through Windows Server Active Directory

Domain Services and build MFA into custom applications using an SDK.

Azure Active DirectoryOn-premises and Private Cloud

Azure Multi-FactorAuthentication

Azure Multi-FactorAuthentication


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/multi-factor-authentication/



5. Azure Resources

Microsoft is putting enormous efforts into building out Azure, its cloud platform for

business. Both the amount and the pace of updates to Azure are astonishing. It's not

easy to keep up with all the developments, especially if you are just getting started

with Azure. Microsoft provides guidance and information on its cloud platform in a

few places online. Here are just a few of the key ones:

Azure Service Updates: This page is the home of all service updates to

Azure. There are new posting several times each week, and you can also

subscribe by RSS feed.

Cloud Platform Roadmap: The roadmap page provides a snapshot of what

Microsoft is working on in the Cloud Platform business. It includes an

overview of what's become available recently, public previews, projects in

development, and canceled projects.

Microsoft Azure Blog: The official blog combines posts from many different

members of the Azure team; it's a good place to start before digging into

some of the other resources on TechNet and MSDN

Azure on Twitter: If you are using Twitter, the Azure account is a great way

of following the latest and greatest from the Azure team.

Azure on Facebook: For those who prefer Facebook, the Azure team posts

its updates here too.

Azure tag on MSDN Blogs: If you are looking at Azure from the dev/test

side, there are almost daily posts about Azure here

TechNet - In the Cloud Blog: Brad Anderson, Microsoft's corporate vice

president of Enterprise Client & Mobility blogs about Cloud here. While his

focus is more on mobility, he does mention Azure frequently

TechNet - Building Clouds Blog: This TechNet blog focuses on "...building

hybrid clouds that can support any device from anywhere". It features a great

overview of topics by track at the top of the blog, which makes it easy to dive

into anything from Application Management to Disaster Recovery or VM

Migration.

TechNet - Server & Cloud Blog: This blog aggregates posts from

Microsoft's Server & Cloud Platform team.

Microsoft Cloud Platform on Facebook: In addition to the Azure page on

Facebook, the Server & Cloud Platform team has a presence too.

TechNet - Azure Forum: There are several Azure topic threads in the

TechNet Forums. Just click on the dropdown menu in the left sidebar and

select one of the topics.

Microsoft Azure eBooks: Microsoft offers a number of eBooks about Azure

on the Virtual Academy website.

These links are only some of the "official" resources from Microsoft. Of course, there

is also a large community of Azure users out there sharing perspectives on

Redmond's cloud platform efforts, including The Azure Group: Infrastructure Focus.


http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/roadmap/

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/

https://twitter.com/Azure

https://www.facebook.com/microsoftazure

http://blogs.msdn.com/tags/Azure/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/in_the_cloud/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/privatecloud/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/

https://www.facebook.com/MicrosoftCloud

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/ebooks#azure



6. Using Azure with Cloud

Management

Over the past two years, we have seen cloud computing turn from theory to reality in

many business organizations, and the trend towards accelerated adoption will

continue. It is clear that there has been a mind shift that has transformed discussions

with IT executives and professionals from debating the validity and importance of

cloud computing to actually assessing how to best reap the benefits of public, private

and hybrid clouds.

Getting security and privacy right is part of these conversations, as are the pricing

advantages of moving workloads to the cloud, which we discussed in the earlier

chapter of this book. But operational concerns with transitioning to cloud solutions,

and efficiently running them on an ongoing basis plays a big role too, especially in

conjunction with existing on premise infrastructure. When companies extend their

environments to the cloud, there is an extra “glue layer” that ensures that everything

works together and allows proper authentication to the cloud. This glue layer needs

to be built and managed on an ongoing basis.

Cloud solutions provide better business value, operational efficiency and time-to-

market in many IT scenarios. By adding Cloud Management Services to these cloud

plans, you can integrate cloud infrastructure "out of the box" and run it in a way that

makes it easy to operate and scale.

Infrastructure Guardian Cloud Management

With the Infrastructure Guardian Cloud Management (IGCM) service it is possible to

confidently evaluate resource needs such as storage, networking, virtual machines

or disaster recovery, and determine system management requirements including

provisioning, patching and monitoring. IGCM manages all these aspects of the cloud

environment. In addition, a Cloud Governance Portal can give you a dashboard view of

all your Microsoft Azure subscriptions, usage and spending.

Infrastructure Guardian Cloud Management consists of three main pillars that make

your journey to the cloud faster and easier:

Cloud Governance Services: Infrastructure Guardian offers subscription

monitoring and management services for Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to

help IT organizations control budgets and allocate costs by project, business

unit or department. The only way to actually trigger financial benefits through

cloud computing is by staying on top of all your subscriptions and services,

and organize them in a way that consistently saves you money.



https://portal.igcm.com/



Cloud Operations Services: Infrastructure Guardian provides IT health and

performance management to make sure your cloud environment as well as

your data centers and end-points keep working efficiently and without

disruption. Our staff monitors cloud environments and other IT systems 24

hours a day, seven days a week, so issues can be addressed right away.

Cloud Advisory Services: We help organizations move to the cloud in a way

that makes sense for them and their unique needs. This includes Assessment

& Gap Analysis Services as well as Capacity Planning and consulting on

Governance, Risk Management and Compliance Scenarios. We can also

work with you on customized services that help you address a specific issue

or a new Azure scenario in your IT environment. From confidently evaluating

resource needs to determining system management requirements including

provisioning, patching and monitoring, cloud solutions provide better business

value, operational efficiency and time-to-market in many IT scenarios.

IGCM can manage all key aspects of your cloud environment and enable you to

quickly launch and use cloud solutions without having to worry about legal, technical

or pricing complexities. You get peace of mind for health and performance of your

cloud environments while being able to leverage and integrate internal processes

and workflows.

Infrastructure Guardian Cloud Management Benefits

Support for Corporate IT Organizations

Support for Lines of Business:

Provides rapid support to lines of

business without draining

corporate IT resources

Turns “Shadow IT” into a

corporate asset, and reins in rogue

line of business IT projects

Adds expert IT capabilities focused

on cloud infrastructure

management

Complete solution minimizes risk

and non-compliance

Quick to implement, easy to scale

Enables hybrid scenarios

Focus efforts on business goals

and outcomes instead of

technology

Provides the right experts and

resources

Gets the right technology to

support the business function

without any hassles or resource

issues

Takes the complexity out of cloud

computing

Makes it easy to manage billing,

contracts, support and

maintenance

Provides peace of mind through

24/7 monitoring of system health

and performance




7. Conclusion

Microsoft is transitioning into a Cloud-first company. During the Q3 financial update

on April 23, 2015, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted the worldwide growth

momentum of the Azure cloud platform for business:

“Right now, more than 5 million organizations are represented in Azure Active

Directory with more than 425 million identities. Storage is also a strong indicator of

consumption and now we have 50 trillion objects stored in Azure, a three times

growth year-over-year in storage transactions, more than 5 trillion in March alone.

Azure websites are growing with nearly half a million sites hosted.”18

Microsoft is just one of a number of large technology vendors embracing growth

through cloud services. But Microsoft certainly has the most complete enterprise

cloud offering and makes a transition to the cloud or a hybrid cloud IT environment

easier than any other company.

This eBook focused on cloud infrastructure with Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform for

business. Microsoft has many more cloud offerings that all work together, from Office

365 and Yammer to mobile solutions, Dynamics CRM and Data & Insights Tools.

Microsoft also lets you integrate and connect with many other cloud solutions,

including running competitive offerings and open source technologies.

Cloud computing is flexible; it offers many options including public, private and hybrid

cloud environments. It can be tailored and scaled to almost every business need. My

professional services company just completed an engagement with a large, global

insurance company that moved actuarial workloads into the cloud. They now run at

three times the speed while the IT organization can claim 60 percent savings. Cloud

solutions running on Azure also enabled this insurer to launch a new mobile app

within two months instead of a year or more. Meanwhile, Microsoft keeps

accelerating the speed of its release schedules for Azure. We are now talking days,

and no longer months or years before updates happen.

Maybe this new, incredibly fast pace of change in the cloud is the biggest transition

that everyone in IT has to get used to. We no longer have to wait for product release

schedules. Cloud vendors release updates quite literally weekly. The cloud

computing train is leaving the station. If you’re not on it yet, then it’s high time to get

on because it will keep accelerating and it’s important to get experience now.

We’re not trying to be scare mongers here. It’s simply the new reality. My own

businesses are in a process of transformation because of the cloud, and I’ve become

a SaaS entrepreneur almost overnight with our cloud governance portal. But the

cloud is not limited to my needs. You can enable a multitude of diverse IT scenarios

in the cloud, and you can do so at a pace that fits your own organization’s needs.

In this book, we provided an introduction to Azure and outlined a number of high

value scenarios that make a move to the cloud worthwhile by starting with the low-

hanging fruit.


http://www.thestreet.com/story/13125256/2/microsoft-msft-earnings-report-q3-2015-conference-call-transcript.html


http://igcm.com/



Achieving cost efficiencies and IT infrastructure optimizations through cloud solutions

are no longer a high risk proposal, and services for cloud management and

governance help remove a lot of potential complexities.

It’s easy to try things out in the cloud, and no other enterprise platform makes it

easier to get started than Azure.


http://azure.microsoft.com/



8. Appendix

About the Author

Brian Bourne

Brian is the president of New Signature Canada. As the founder of a Microsoft

technology consulting company and Infrastructure Guardian, now a New Signature

offering for Cloud Management, Brian's entrepreneurial spirit and hands-on

leadership style is instilled in the organizations’ culture and has led to continued

business growth. The business success can be attributed to Brian’s personal

experience in the IT industry which is grounded in systems integration work with

large, complex, multi-platform networks.

Being part of the IT community is also important to Brian. He is actively involved as a

Chair for Seneca @ York Program Advisory Committee (PAC), and as the co-

founder of several IT community initiatives: TASK (Toronto Area Security Klatch) with

over 3100 active members, TAG:IF (The Azure Group - Infrastructure Focus), and

SecTor, the largest Security Education Conference in Canada, held annually in

Toronto.

Currently, Brian is focused on continuing to build and grow a strong team of

Microsoft Technology Experts. He maintains his technical edge through consulting

and participation with numerous technology related events and holding astute

certifications such CISSP, MCITP, MCT and MVP status.

When he isn’t being a geek around computers, Brian is either burning gasoline in

some sort of motorized vehicle or pretending to be a triathlete.

Ways to connect with Brian:

Twitter: @BrianBourne

LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/brianbourne

About New Signature

New Signature is a Microsoft National Solution Provider headquartered in

Washington, DC and with employees in 14 states and the District of Columbia. Its

Canadian operations are based in Toronto, Ontario. Our mandate is to deliver

compelling experiences to everyone we work with—customers, colleagues, partners,

vendors and the greater community.




http://www.task.to/

http://www.tagif.ca/

http://www.sector.ca/

https://twitter.com/brianbourne

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/brianbourne



As full stack Microsoft experts, we have helped hundreds of midmarket and

enterprise customers transform their business by adopting Microsoft cloud solutions

such as Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online. We deliver an amazing

experience to our customers by helping them solve business challenges with

Microsoft solutions. Our process-driven approach is specifically designed to

consistently deliver success to customers that need support for complex projects that

require substantial creativity, strategic vision and stellar technology expertise. More

information at www.NewSignature.com.

About Infrastructure Guardian

Infrastructure Guardian (IG) is an award-winning managed service specializing in

enterprise-grade systems management of our clients’ data centers, end points and

cloud environments. The service provides complete health and performance

monitoring of network, server and application layers. It can be used for a wealth of

scenarios, including patching services, antivirus management, OS image

management, system management, and customized services.

Clients value maintaining ownership and control over their information technology but

are also interested in leveraging the business opportunities that best practice system

management provides. Infrastructure Guardian services can be hosted in your own

data center, or the cloud, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The IG team works hand in hand with the internal IT teams to allow clients to fully

leverage and operationalize their System Center and Cloud deployments. By

providing enterprise-grade systems management best practices, IG help businesses

keep their internal resources focused on innovation and project work for the

business.

IGCM for Azure

Infrastructure Guardian Cloud Management (IGCM) for public, private and hybrid

cloud environments. IGCM makes it easy for clients to govern their cloud spend and

manage the health and performance of their IT infrastructure across data centers,

end-points and the cloud. Organizations with a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement can

use the IGCM Portal for free to control and manage their Azure subscriptions and

usage. Find out more at www.igcm.com or sign up right now at portal.igcm.com.



http://www.igcm.com/

http://portal.igcm.com/



About TAG:IF

The Azure Group: Infrastructure Focus (TAG:IF) provides a forum for IT

professionals to discuss and share expertise in understanding the technologies

available through the Microsoft Azure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings. As

organizations look to add cloud technologies to their suite of IT solutions, new

technologies, new infrastructure opportunities and challenges arise. Started in

Toronto and expanding across Canada, the goal of TAG:IF is to share real world

experiences and provide education opportunities as they relate to the Microsoft

Azure cloud offerings.

Members includes IT practitioners, managers, network administrators, students, and

anyone who is interesting in learning more about implementing or leveraging the

Azure services. Membership is free, simply go to www.tagif.ca to sign up for event

emails and show up to our event.


http://www.tagif.ca/



References

1 Press release: Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure Market Growth Expected to Accelerate to

21% in 2015, Driven by Public Cloud Datacenter Expansion, According to IDC at

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25576415 (accessed May 2015) 2 David Senf, quoted in press release: Infrastructure Guardian launches free Cloud

Governance Portal for Microsoft Azure at

http://www.infrastructureguardian.com/Blog/infrastructure-guardian-launches-free-cloud-

governance-portal-for-microsoft-azure (accessed May 2015) 3 Press release: Gartner Says Worldwide Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service Spending to

Grow 32.8 Percent in 2015 at http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3055225 (accessed

May 2015) 4 Nestor Arellano: Cloud remains a mystery for Canadian execs: Survey; Computer Dealer

News at http://www.computerdealernews.com/news/cloud-remains-a-mystery-for-canadian-

execs-survey/37307 (accessed May 2015) 5 Peter Mell and Timothy Grance: The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing at

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf (accessed May 2015) 6 Brian Bourne: Concise Definition for Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud at


(accessed May 2015) 7 Rob Marvin: IDC’s Top 10 technology predictions for 2015; SDTimes at

http://sdtimes.com/idcs-top-10-technology-predictions-2015/ (accessed May 2015) 8 Kevin Remde: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.. Oh my! at

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinremde/archive/2011/04/03/saas-paas-and-iaas-oh-my-quot-

cloudy-april-quot-part-3.aspx (accessed May 2015) 9 What is Microsoft Azure at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure/

(accessed May 2015) 10 Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit for Azure Platform at

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/solutionaccelerators/gg581074.aspx (accessed May

2015) 11 Introduction to Microsoft Azure Storage at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-

us/documentation/articles/storage-introduction/ (accessed May 2015) 12 Microsoft Azure Documentation at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-

us/documentation/articles/fundamentals-introduction-to-azure/ (accessed May 2015) 13 Microsoft Virtual Network FAQ at https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dn133803.aspx

(accessed May 2015) 14 Microsoft Virtual Machines Marketplace at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-

us/marketplace/virtual-machines/ (accessed May 2015) 15 Barry Paquet: What is Azure Dev Test and Why Should You Care? at

http://www.incyclesoftware.com/2014/02/what-azure-dev-test-why-care (accessed May

2015) 16 Authentication Scenarios for Azure AD - Application Types and Scenarios at

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-authentication-

scenarios/#application-types-and-scenarios (accessed May 2015) 17 What is Azure Multi-Factor Authentication? at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-

us/documentation/articles/multi-factor-authentication/ (accessed May 2015) 18 Microsoft (MSFT) Earnings Report: Q3 2015 Conference Call Transcript at

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13125256/2/microsoft-msft-earnings-report-q3-2015-

conference-call-transcript.html (accessed May 2015)


http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25576415






http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf


http://sdtimes.com/idcs-top-10-technology-predictions-2015/



http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure/









http://www.incyclesoftware.com/2014/02/what-azure-dev-test-why-care







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