Introduction and Background
Welcome to Cloud Simplified
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Hello and Welcome Internet!
So why another site devoted to cloud computing in Azure? There are many dedicated sites, YouTube channels and blogs devoted to specific capabilities in Azure such as using Premium Storage with your VMs to allow them to have higher throughput and using vnet peering to connect two virtual networks in Azure but we decided to take a different approach — focusing on _how_ to use these features to practically solve business problems! If you’re interested in product/feature specific content be sure to check out some the Microsoft Mechanics and the Microsoft Azure YouTube channels!
In our role at Microsoft as Cloud Solution Architects (CSA) serving customers all across the US, we have a unique perspective on what customers need to accomplish in the cloud and we work to help them complete their journey successfully meeting their performance, budgetary and reliability requirements. We decided to take that tribal knowledge and provide meaningful content to the community on how we addressed specific requirements to bring workloads to the cloud after all, Knowledge is Power!
Our focus is to distill down complex topics into bite sized chunks to make it easy for you to quickly leverage these features to address similar requirements you may have for moving something into Azure.
Episode Guide
- Storage In the Enterprise – Part 1/Part 2 – ShowNotes: We walk through the basics of storage followed by how the cloud solution architect team helped a customer overcome some challenges for moving data around to different engineering sites around the globe
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Part 1: With special guest and data scientist Laura Edell, we walk through machine learning and simplify the theory and math behind it that allows computers to use existing data to forecast future behaviors, outcomes, and trends. Throughout the segment, we highlight capabilities in Azure to facilitate some of these functions and will walk through a real-world scenario in the next edition!
- Isolating Environments in Azure: Link: In this episode we bring in Brian Harrison to discuss some considerations and features of Azure available to secure and protect workloads. Join us to hear how we’ve helped customers address some of these concerns and learn about how Azure can help!
- Averting a Disaster with Azure: Link: In this episode we talk with Richard Timmering to walk through how he was able to use Azure during a crises situation for his customer where their primary datacenter supporting government services such as 911 dispatch was impacted by a wildfire. We also highlight how Azure could be used as a failover site for the customer’s environment in the future!
- Building an Elastic DataWarehouse: Link: In this episode we talk with data-scientist Pankaj Satyaketu to simplify the plethora of options available for consuming and reporting on data and how Azure’s elasticity can provide scalable compute power to make sense out of the largest datasets. (Link to GitHub Repo with Scripts)
- Deploying Applications to Kubernetes: Link: We talk with Shivashanker Bitla on how he helped his customers take advantage of higher density computing by leveraging Kubernetes containers on Azure AKS
- Application Modernization with Service Fabric : Link: Here we talk with Colin Cole about Service Fabric, how it can be used in Azure, how it compares with other container based deployment technologies and most importantly how he’s helped customers improve their efficiencies using it!
- Protecting Web Applications in the Cloud: Link: This time we connect with Adam Turner to review how he’s helped customers protect web applications running in Azure with security solutions available in Azure to that actively protect and monitor these workloads!
- Azure SQL and Elastic Pools at Scale: Link – This time we are joined by a peer of ours, Michael McKechney, providing us an insight into how his customer migrated to SQL Azure to find themselves with 100’s of instances to manage for their SaaS application and what he did to help them simplify this architecture using SQL Elastic pools to save them money and introduce efficiencies to their infrastructure!
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Part 2: We invite back Data Scientist Laura Edell to have fun and walk through her Machine Learning model to beat odds in Fantasy Football! This is an excellent way to see first hand how Azure Machine Learning can go to work for your business to statistically identify patterns in data!
- Azure SQL and Elastic Pools at Scale: Link – This time we are joined by a peer of ours, Michael McKechney, providing us an insight into how his customer migrated to SQL Azure to find themselves with 100’s of instances to manage for their SaaS application and what he did to help them simplify this architecture using SQL Elastic pools to save them money and introduce efficiencies to their infrastructure!
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Part 2: We invite back Data Scientist Laura Edell to have fun and walk through her Machine Learning model to beat odds in Fantasy Football! This is an excellent way to see first hand how Azure Machine Learning can go to work for your business to statistically identify patterns in data!
- Azure Dev-Ops: Any Language, Any Platform: Link Here we chat with Shimail Gillani to the show as he discusses a scenario where he used a combination of Azure and DevOps in the Education sector to migrate applications into the cloud
- Big Data Processing & Analysis with Azure Databricks & Machine Learning: Link Azure Databricks is an Apache Spark-based analytics platform optimized for the Microsoft Azure cloud services platform. Databricks is integrated with Azure to provide one-click setup, streamlined workflows, and an interactive workspace that enables collaboration between data scientists, data engineers, and business analysts. Join us where we talk with Anthony Martin and Rich Johnson as they discuss the ins-and-outs of Big Data processing in Azure.
- Azure Security Center: Link Join us as we chat with fellow CSA Julian Soh where we discuss Azure network security best practices as well as give us a demo of the latest features and how to get started with the Azure Security Center.
- We’re Hiring CSAs! : Link Special Edition where we chat with Emily Gaudy from the Microsoft Talent Acquisition Team about landing a job at Microsoft and details about some of the openings we have
- Supporting a network in transition: How Microsoft made its move to the Cloud: Link 3 Part series where we discuss how Microsoft made the transition to the cloud via conversatoins with core engineering teams. From the planning and process behind migration considerations, internal customer demands and challenges, this is a must-watch episode if you are considering a move from on-premise infrastructure to an IaaS, SaaS or PaaS solution.
- Creating and Establishing Security Perimeters in the Cloud: Link 3 Part series where we discuss how Microsoft made the transition to the cloud via conversations with core engineering teams. Here we discuss how Microsoft addressed network security and evolved to allow for more productive use of Azure over time.
- DevOps and Agile at Microsoft: Link 3 Part series where we discuss how Microsoft made the transition to the cloud via conversations with core engineering teams. To close off the 3-part series, we review how Microsoft has embraced devops and agile practices to deploy critical line of business solutions into Azure.
Other Shows Highlighting Azure
To provide some additional content, I’m pointing to a number of shows I’ve done previously on Channel 9 to highlight specific ways to do things in Azure!
- Taste of Premier – Using Azure in the Enterprise
- Highlighted the basics of using Compute/VMs to move workloads into Azure
- Taste of Premier – Introduction to Containers in Azure
- What the heck is a container? This episode will walk through some basics
- Taste of Premier – Virtual Networking in Azure – Part 1 of 4
- In’s and Out’s of networking in Azure explained
- Taste of Premier – Virtual Networking in Azure – Part 2 of 4
- Explore how to setup VPN tunnels to Azure in Episode 2
- Taste of Premier – Running Workloads in the Cloud – Part 3 of 4
- Walk through on the basics of running VMs in Azure using some of the modern and newer features
- Taste of Premier – Running Workloads in the Cloud – ExpressRoute – Part 4 of 4
- Beyond VPN! Want to connect to Azure with a 10GB pipe! You can — with Azure ExpressRoute
