Microsoft Azure Quick Guide PDF

Microsoft Azure - Quick Guide Cloud Computing - Overview The popular trend in today's technology driven world is ‘Cloud Computing’. Cloud computing can be referred to as the storing and accessing of data over the internet rather than your computer's hard drive. This means you...

Microsoft Azure - Quick Guide Cloud Computing - Overview The popular trend in today's technology driven world is ‘Cloud Computing’. Cloud computing can be referred to as the storing and accessing of data over the internet rather than your computer's hard drive. This means you don't access the data from either your computer's hard drive or over a dedicated computer network (home or office network). Cloud computing means data is stored at a remote place and is synchronized with other web information. One prominent example of cloud computing is Office 365 which allows users to store, access, edit their MS Office documents online (in browser) without installing the actual program on their device. Architecture of Cloud Computing The architecture of cloud computing comprises of the following components −  Front-end device Back-end platform Cloud-based delivery Network Front-end Devices − These are basically the devices that are used by clients to access the data or program using the browser or special applications. Back-end Platform − There are various computers, servers, virtual machines, etc. that combine to become a back-end platform. Types of Cloud The storage options on cloud is in 3 forms − Public Private Hybrid Public Cloud − A service provider makes the clouds available to the general public which is termed as a public cloud. These clouds are accessed through internet by users. These are open to public and their infrastructure is owned and operated by service providers as in case of Google and Microsoft. Private Cloud − These clouds are dedicated to a particular organization. That particular organization can use the cloud for storing the company's data, hosting business application, etc. The data stored on private cloud can't be shared with other organizations. The cloud is managed either by the organization itself or by the third party. Hybrid Cloud − When two or more clouds are bound together to offer the advantage of both public and private clouds, they are termed as Hybrid Cloud. Organizations can use private clouds for sensitive application, while public clouds for non-sensitive applications. The hybrid clouds provide flexible, scalable and cost-effective solutions to the organizations. Explore our latest online courses and learn new skills at your own pace. Enroll and become a certified expert to boost your career. Benefits of Cloud There are many benefits of clouds. Some of them are listed below. Cloud service offers scalability. Allocation and de-allocation of resources is dynamically as per demand. It saves on cost by reducing capital infrastructure. It allows the user to access the application independent of their location and hardware configuration. It simplifies the network and lets the client access the application without buying license for individual machine. Storing data on clouds is more reliable as it is not lost easily. SPI Next comes how cloud services are categorized. S stand for Software, P stands for Platform and I for Infrastructure in SPI. SaaS is Software as a service; PaaS is Platform as a service and IaaS is Infrastructure as a Service. Following are the live examples of these models. SAAS Model − E-mail (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) PAAS Model − Microsoft Azure IAAS Model − Amazon S3 Microsoft Azure - Windows There are many cloud computing platforms offered by different organizations. Windows Azure is one of them, which is provided by Microsoft. Azure can be described as the managed data centers that are used to build, deploy, manage the applications and provide services through a global network. The services provided by Microsoft Azure are PaaS and IaaS. Many programming languages and frameworks are supported by it. Azure as PaaS (Platform as a Service) As the name suggests, a platform is provided to clients to develop and deploy software. The clients can focus on the application development rather than having to worry about hardware and infrastructure. It also takes care of most of the operating systems, servers and networking issues. Pros The overall cost is low as the resources are allocated on demand and servers are automatically updated.  It is less vulnerable as servers are automatically updated and being checked for all known security issues. The whole process is not visible to developer and thus does not pose a risk of data breach. Since new versions of development tools are tested by the Azure team, it becomes easy for developers to move on to new tools. This also helps the developers to meet the customer’s demand by quickly adapting to new versions. Cons There are portability issues with using PaaS. There can be a different environment at Azure, thus the application might have to be adapted accordingly. Azure as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) It is a managed compute service that gives complete control of the operating systems and the application platform stack to the application developers. It lets the user to access, manage and monitor the data centers by themselves. Pros This is ideal for the application where complete control is required. The virtual machine can be completely adapted to the requirements of the organization or business. IaaS facilitates very efficient design time portability. This means application can be migrated to Windows Azure without rework. All the application dependencies such as database can also be migrated to Azure. IaaS allows quick transition of services to clouds, which helps the vendors to offer services to their clients easily. This also helps the vendors to expand their business by selling the existing software or services in new markets. Cons Since users are given complete control they are tempted to stick to a particular version for the dependencies of applications. It might become difficult for them to migrate the application to future versions. There are many factors which increases the cost of its operation. For example, higher server maintenance for patching and upgrading software. There are lots of security risks from unpatched servers. Some companies have welldefined processes for testing and updating on-premise servers for security vulnerabilities. These processes need to be extended to the cloud-hosted IaaS VMs to mitigate hacking risks.  The unpatched servers pose a great security risk. Unlike PaaS, there is no provision of automatic server patching in IaaS. An unpatched server with sensitive information can be very vulnerable affecting the entire business of an organization. It is difficult to maintain legacy apps in Iaas. It can be stuck with the older version of the operating systems and application stacks. Thus, resulting in applications that are difficult to maintain and add new functionality over the period of time. It becomes necessary to understand the pros and cons of both services in order to choose the right one according your requirements. In conclusion it can be said that, PaaS has definite economic advantages for operations over IaaS for commodity applications. In PaaS, the cost of operations breaks the business model. Whereas, IaaS gives complete control of the OS and application platform stack. Azure Management Portal Azure Management Portal is an interface to manage the services and infrastructure launched in 2012. All the services and applications are displayed in it and it lets the user manage them. Getting started A free trial account can be created on Azure management portal by visiting the following link - manage.windowsazure.com The screen that pops up is as shown in the following image. The account can be created using our existing Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo account. Once logged in, you will be redirected to the following screen, where there is a list of services and applications on the left panel. When you click on a category, its details are displayed on the screen. You can see the number of applications, virtual machine, mobile services and so on by clicking on the menu item. The next chapter contains a detailed explanation of how to use this portal to manage Azure services. Microsoft Azure - Components Categorizing the services would help you understand Azure better. These categories are termed as ‘Components’ in this tutorial. The Individual components are explained with detailed pictures in subsequent chapters. Compute / Execution Models This is the interface for executing the application, which is one of the basic functions of Azure. As seen in the above image, there are different models such as Web App, Virtual Machine, Mobile Service, Cloud Service, and Batch Service. These models can be used either separately or in combination as per the requirement. Data Management Data management can be done by using SQL server Database component or the simple data storage module offered by Windows Azure. SQL server database can be used for relational database. The storage module can store unrelated tables (without foreign key or any relation) and blobs. Blobs include binary data in the form of images, audio, video, and text files. Networking Azure traffic manager routes the requests of a user intelligently to an available datacenter. The process involves finding the nearest datacenter to the user who makes the request for web application, and if the nearest datacenter is not available due to various reasons, the traffic manager deviates the request to another datacenter. However, rules are set by the owner of the application as to how a traffic manager should behave. The virtual network is another feature that is part of networking in services offered by Windows Azure. The virtual network allows a network between local machines at your premise and virtual machine in Azure Datacenter. IPs to virtual machines can be assigned in a way that makes them appear to be residing in your own premise. The virtual network is set up using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) device. The following image shows how these two features actually look in Azure portal. Big Data and Big Compute The large amount of data can be stored and managed using Windows Azure. Azure offers HDInsight which is Hadoop-based service. Organizations often need to manage large amount of data which is necessarily not relational database management. Hadoop is a prominent technology used these days. Thus, Azure offers Hadoop service on their platform for clients. The term ‘Big Compute’ refers to high performing computations. This is achieved by executing code on many machines at the same time. Messaging Windows Azure offers two options for handling the interactions between two apps. One falls under storage component of the service and is called 'Message Queues'. The other one comes under the app service and is called 'Service Bus'. The messages can be sent to initiate communication among different components of an application or among different applications using these two options. Caching Microsoft Azure offers two kinds of caching which are in-memory Caching and Content Delivery Network (CDN) for caching frequently accessed data and improves the application performance. CDN is used to cache the blob data that will be accessed faster by users around the world. Identity and Access This component is about management of users, authentication and authorization. Active directory stores the information of users accessing the application and also the organization’s information. It can synchronize with the related information on local machines residing on premises. Multifactor Access (MFA) service is built to address the security concerns such as only the right user can access the application. Mobile Service Windows Azure offers a very easy platform to develop mobile application. You can simply start using mobile development tools after logging into your account. You don’t have to write big custom codes for the mobile application if you use this service. The push notifications can be sent, data can be stored and users can be authenticated in very less time. Backup The site recovery service replicates the data at secondary location as well as automates the process of recovery of data in case of data outage. Similarly Azure backup can be used to backing up the on premise data in clouds. Data is stored in encrypted mode in both the cases. Windows Azure offers a very effective and reliable backup service to clients and ensures they don’t face inconvenience in case of hardware failures. Media This service addresses multiple concerns related to uploading media and making it available to end users easily. Users can manage tasks related to the media like encoding, ad insertion, streaming, etc. easily. Commerce Windows Azure offers the opportunity to users to buy or sell applications and data through their platform. The applications are put in the marketplace or Azure store from where they can be accessed and bought by other users. Software Development Kit (SDK) Azure applications can be produced by the developers in various programming languages. Microsoft currently provides language-specific SDKs for Java,.NET, PHP, Node.js, Ruby, and Python. There is also a general Windows Azure SDK that supports language, such as C++. Microsoft Azure - Compute Module In the last chapter, we explained how to create an Azure account. In this chapter, you will find step by step explanation of each component − Step 1 − First, login in to your Azure account. Step 2 − Click ‘New’ at the left bottom corner and drag your cursor to ‘Compute‘. Now you will see a list of models under Compute Model as shown in the following image. Create a Web App Step 1 − Click Web App. Step 2 − Click Quick Create and enter the URL and choose a service plan from the dropdown list as shown in the following image. When you go back to the main screen, it will show the website just created. And when you click the website URL, it will take you to the website. The following image shows how your website will look when you click the URL. Similarly, you can choose ‘From Gallery’ when creating a web app instead of ‘Quick Create’. This will let you choose the development framework in which you want to create your app. Windows Azure supports.Net, Java, PHP, Python, Node.js and Ruby. There are several ways of publishing the code to Azure server. It can be published using FTP, FTPs, Microsoft Web Deploy technology. Various source control tools such as GitHub, Dropbox and Codeplex can also be used to publish the code. It provides a very interactive interface to keep track of changes that have been published already and also unpublished changes. Create a Virtual Machine Step 1 − Click on ‘Virtual Machine’ from the list. Step 2 − Then click ‘From Gallery’. Step 3 − Choose the Operating System or Program you want to run. Step 4 − Choose the configuration and fill in the details. The Username and Password you set up here will be needed to access the virtual machine every time. On the next two screens you can leave the default values on for the first time. Step 5 − The virtual machine just created will be displayed when you click on ‘Virtual Machine’ on the left panel as shown in following image. It might take a few minutes to show up. Step 6 − Once the machine is created you can connect to it by clicking on the connect icon displayed at the bottom of the screen. It will save a.rpd file on your machine as shown in the following image. Chose ‘save file’ on the screen and it will save in ‘downloads’ or the in the set location on your machine. Step 7 − Open that.rpd file and you can connect to the VM by filling in the credentials into the following screen. You can also use your own image by capturing the image of an existing virtual machine or virtual hard drive. Virtual machines are beneficial in several ways. A user can try new operating system without actually installing them. A VM can be deleted when you are done with the operating system. New versions of an operating system can be tried and tested before the user installs them on the machine. VM provides a very economical and hassle free way of using a development framework or a tool that runs on specific version of OS. Creating a Mobile Service Mobile services compute hosting model is optimized to provide a cloud backend for applications that run on mobile devices. For creating a mobile service − Step 1 − Select Mobile services under Compute and click on create. A new window will be open as shown in the following image. Step 2 − Fill in the URL. Select the database, region and backend. Step 3 − Tick the check box if you want to configure the advance push settings. This option allows us to configure our Mobile Service to use an existing notification hub or specify the name of a new one. If you leave this checkbox unmarked, a new hub will be created in a new namespace with a default name. Creating Batch Service Batch service is needed when a large scale application is run and a parallel high performing computing is required. The developers can create batches to run a task parallel that eases the workload at no extra cost. Azure charges for only the virtual machines which are being used. They can schedule a task, put them in queues and manage the workload in cloud. Batch creation does not involve setting up a separate VM, cluster or job scheduling. To creating a batch service follow the similar steps for creating other services under Compute model. The following image shows how a batch service can be created quickly. Once you have created a batch service, you can see the details by selecting it from the left panel. The following image pops up on the screen. Microsoft Azure - Fabric Controller Fabric Controller is a significant part of Windows Azure architecture. When thinking of the components or services provided by Windows Azure, we wonder how all this works and what is happening in clouds. It seems very complex from our end. Let us look into the physical architecture of these services to have a better understanding of Fabric Controller. Inside the datacenter, there are many machines or servers aggregated by a switch. We can say that fabric controller is a brain of the azure service that analyses the processes and makes decisions. Fabrics are group of machines in Microsoft’s datacenter which are aggregated by a switch. The group of these machines is called cluster. Each cluster is managed and owned by a fabric controller. They are replicated along with these machines. It manages everything inside those machines, for e.g., load balancers, switches, etc. Each machine has a fabric agent running inside it and fabric controller can communicate with each fabric agent. When selecting a virtual machine offered by Windows Azure services, there are five options to choose from. The configuration is as follows − Memory CPU Instance Storage Extra Small 768 MB Single core 1.0 GHz 20 GB Small 1.75 GB Single core 1.6 GHz 225 GB Medium 3.5 GB Dual core 1.6 GHz 490 GB Large 7 GB Four core 1.6 GHz 1,000 GB Extra Large 14 GB Eight core 1.6 GHz 2,040 GB When a user chooses one of the virtual machine, the operating system, patch updates and software updates are performed by fabric controller. It decides where the new application should run which is one of the most important functions of Fabric Controller. It also selects the physical server to optimize hardware utilization. When a new application is published in Azure, an application configuration file written in XML is also attached. The fabric controller reads those files in Microsoft datacenter and makes the setting accordingly. In addition to managing the allocation of resources to a specific application, it also monitors the health of compute and storage services. It also makes the failure recoveries for a system. Imagine a situation where four instances of web role are running, and one of them dies. The fabric controller will initiate a new instance to replace the dead one immediately. Similarly, in case any virtual machine fails, a new one is assigned by the fabric controller. It also resets the load balancers after assigning the new machine, so that it points to the new machine instantaneously. Thus, all the intelligent tasks are performed by the Fabric Controller in Windows Azure architecture. Microsoft Azure - Storage The Storage component of Windows Azure represents a durable store in the cloud. Windows Azure allows developers to store tables, blobs, and message queues. The storage can be accessed through HTTP. You can also create our own client; although Windows Azure SDK provides a client library for accessing the Storage. In this chapter, we will learn how to create a Windows Azure Storage account and use it for storing data. Creating Azure Storage Account Step 1 − When you login into your Azure account, you can find ‘Storage’ under ‘Data Services’. Step 2 − Click on ‘Quick Create’ and it will ask for ‘Account Name’. You can see there are four options in the ‘Replication’ dropdown. A copy of the data is kept so that it is durable and available at high speed. It is retained even in case of hardware failure. Let’s see what these options mean − Locally redundant storage − Copy of the data is created in the same region where storage account is created. There are 3 copies of each request made against the data that resides on separate domains. Zone-redundant storage (available for blobs only) − Copy of the data is created on separate facilities either in the same region or across two regions. The advantage is that even if there is failure on one facility, the data still can be retained. Three copies of data are created. One more advantage is that data can be read from a secondary location. Geo-redundant storage − `Copy is created in a different region which means data is retained even if there is a failure in the complete region. The numbers of copies of data created are 6 in this case. Read-access geo-redundant storage − This option allows reading of data from a secondary location when data on the primary location is not available. The number of copies created is 6. The main advantage here is that availability of data can be maximized. There are different price plans for each replication option and the ‘Local Redundant’ is the cheapest of them all. So, choosing the replication of data depends on the cost and individual requirements. Storage Account Endpoints Step 1 − Click on the ‘Storage Account’ it will take you to the next screen. Step 2 − Click on ‘Dashboard’ from top horizontal menu. Here you can see four items under services. You can create blobs, tables, queues and files in this storage account. There will a unique URL for each object. For example, here account name is ‘tutorialspoint’ then the default URL for blob is https://tutorialspoint.blob.core.windows.net Similarly, replace blob with table, queue and file in the URL to get the respective URLs. To access an object in the location is appended in the URL. For example, http://tutorialspoint.blob.core.windows.net/container1/blob1 Generating an Access Key Access key is used to authenticate the access to the storage account. Two access keys are provided in order to access the account without interrupting it, in case, one key has to be regenerated. To get the Access Keys, click on ‘Manage Access Keys’ in your storage account. The following screen will come up. Regenerating the key at regular intervals is advised for security reasons. Managing Data to Azure Storage How can you upload or download data to Azure store? There are many ways to do it, but it can’t be done within the Azure portal itself. You will have to either create your own application or use an already built tool. There are many tools available for accessing the data in an explorer that can be accessed by clicking on ‘Storage Explorer’ under ‘Get the Tools’ in your Azure storage account. Alternatively, an application can also be built using Software Development Kit (SDK) available in Windows Azure Portal. Using the PowerShell commands is also an option to upload data. PowerShell is a command line application that facilitates administering and managing the Azure storage. Preset commands are used for different tasks to manage the storage. You can install PowerShell by going to ‘Downloads’ on the following screen in your account. You will find it under Command-Line tools. There are specific commands for each task. You can manage you storage account, create a new account, and create a container. Additionally, blobs, tables, queues messages can also be managed using PowerShell. Microsoft Azure - Blobs Let us first understand what a Blob is. The word ‘Blob’ expands to Binary Large OBject. Blobs include images, text files, videos and audios. There are three types of blobs in the service offered by Windows Azure namely block, append and page blobs. Block blobs are collection of individual blocks with unique block ID. The block blobs allow the users to upload large amount of data. Append blobs are optimized blocks that helps in making the operations efficient. Page blobs are compilation of pages. They allow random read and write operations. While creating a blob, if the type is not specified they are set to block type by default. All the blobs must be inside a container in your storage. Here is how to create a container in Azure storage. Create a Container Step 1 − Go to Azure portal and then in your storage account. Step 2 − Create a container by clicking ‘Create new container’ as shown in following image. There are three options in the Access dropdown which sets the permission of who can access the blobs. ‘Private’ option will let only the account owner to access it. ‘Public Container’ will allow anonymous access to all the contents of that container. ‘Public blob’ option will set open access to blob but won’t allow access to the container. Upload a Blob using PowerShell Step 1 − Go to ‘Windows PowerShell’ in the taskbar and right-click. Choose ‘Run ISE as Administrator’. Step 2 − Following command will let you access your account. You have to change the fields highlighted in all the commands. $context = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName tutorialspoint Stora iUZNeeJD+ChFHt9XHL6D5rkKFWjzyW4FhV0iLyvweDi+Xtzfy76juPzJ+mWtDmbqCWjsu/nr+1p Step 3 − Run the following command. This will get you the details of you Azure account. This will make sure that your subscription is all set. Get-AzureSubscription Step 4 − Run the following command to upload your file. Set-AzureStorageBlobContent -Blob Montiorlog.png -Container images -File "E:\MyPictures\MonitorLog.png" -Context $context -Force Step 5 − To check if the file is uploaded, run the following command. Get-AzureStorageBlob -Container $ContainerName -Context $ctx | Select Name Download a Blob Step 1 − Set the directory where you want to download the file. $localTargetDirectory = "C:\Users\Sahil\Downloads" Step 2 − Download it. $BlobName = "Montiorlog.png" Get-AzureStorageBlobContent -Blob $BlobName Container $ContainerName -Destination $localTargetDirectory -Context $ctx Remember the following − All command names and file names are case sensitive. Commands should be in one line or should be continued in the next line by appending ` in the preceding line (`is continuation character in PowerShell) Manage Blobs using Azure Storage Explorer Managing blobs is pretty simple using ‘Azure Storage Explorer’ interface as it is just like Windows files and folder explorer. You can create a new container, upload blobs, see them in a listed format, and download them. Moreover, you can copy them to a secondary location in a very simple manner with this interface. The following image makes the process clear. As can be seen, once an account is added, we can select it from the dropdown and get going. It makes operating Azure storage very easy. Microsoft Azure - Queues In the common language used by developers, a queue is a data structure used to store data which follows First in-First out rule. A data item can be inserted from back of the queue while it is retrieved from front. Azure queues are a very similar concept that is used to store the messages in a queue. A sender sends the message and a client receives and processes them. A message has few attributes attached to it, for example expiry time. A client usually processes and deletes the message. Windows Azure service lets the message to be stored for 7 days and later it gets deleted automatically, if it is not deleted by the client. There can be one sender and one client or one sender and many clients or many sender and many clients. There are two services offered by Windows Azure for message queues. This chapter covers Windows Azure queue. The other service is called ‘Service Bus queue’. Decoupling the components is one of the advantages of message queue services. It runs in an asynchronous environment where messages can be sent among the different components of an application. Thus, it provides an efficient solution for managing workflows and tasks. For example, a message to complete a task is sent from the frontend of the application and is received by a backend worker, who then completes the task and deletes the message. Considerations The messages in the storage queue are not replicated anywhere, that means there is only one copy of your message. The maximum number of messages that can be processed are 20,000. The maximum size of a message can be 64 kb. Managing Queues using PowerShell Create a Queue Step 1 − Right-click on Windows PowerShell in the taskbar. Choose ‘Run ISE as administrator’. Step 2 − Run the following command to access your account. Please replace the highlighted part for your account. $context = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName tutorialspoint Stora iUZNeeJD+ChFHt9XHL6D5rkKFWjzyW4FhV0iLyvweDi+Xtzfy76juPzJ+mWtDmbqCWjsu/nr+1p Step 3 − Specify the storage account in which you want to create a queue. Set-AzureSubscription –SubscriptionName "BizSpark" -CurrentStorageAccount tutorialspoint Step 4 − Create a Queue. $QueueName = "thisisaqueue" $Queue = New-AzureStorageQueue –Name $QueueName -Context $Ctx Retrieve a Queue $QueueName = "thisisaqueue" $Queue = Get-AzureStorageQueue –Name $QueueName –Context $Ctx Delete a Queue $QueueName = "thisisaqueue" Remove-AzureStorageQueue –Name $QueueName –Context $Ctx Insert a Message into a Queue Step 1 − Login to your account. $context = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName tutorialspoint Stora iUZNeeJD+ChFHt9XHL6D5rkKFWjzyW4FhV0iLyvweDi+Xtzfy76juPzJ+mWtDmbqCWjsu/nr+1p Step 2 − Specify the storage account you want to use. Set-AzureSubscription –SubscriptionName "BizSpark" -CurrentStorageAccount tutorialspoint Step 3 − Retrieve the queue and then insert the message. $QueueName = "myqueue" $Queue = Get-AzureStorageQueue -Name $QueueName -Context $ctx if ($Queue -ne $null) { $QueueMessage = New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Queu -ArgumentList "my message is this" $Queue.CloudQueue.AddMessage($QueueMessage) } The ‘if’ condition in the script above checks if the queue specified exists or not. Dequeue Next Message from Queue Step 1 − First connect to your account and specify the storage account, by running the commands as shown in the above steps. Step 2 − Retrieve the queue. $QueueName = "myqueue" $Queue = Get-AzureStorageQueue -Name $QueueName -Context $ctx $InvisibleTimeout = [System.TimeSpan]::FromSeconds(10) Step 3 − Dequeue the next message. $QueueMessage = $Queue.CloudQueue.GetMessage($InvisibleTimeout) Step 4 − Delete the dequeued message. $Queue.CloudQueue.DeleteMessage($QueueMessage) Managing Queues using Azure Storage Explorer Step 1 − Select the storage account from the dropdown at the top right. Accounts will be displayed if you have added them during your previous use. If not, you can add account and it will ask for your credentials. After signing in, you will be logged into your account in Azure Storage Explorer. Step 2 − You can add a new queue by selecting ‘Queues’ from the left panel and clicking ‘New’ as shown in the following image. Step 3 − Enter the name of Queue and it is created in your storage account. Step 4 − Add and delete the messages by selecting the queue in the left panel. Microsoft Azure - Tables Storing a table does not mean relational database here. Azure Storage can store just a table without any foreign keys or any other kind of relation. These tables are highly scalable and ideal for handling large amount of data. Tables can be stored and queried for large amount of data. The relational database can be stored using SQL Data Services, which is a separate service. The three main parts of service are − Tables Entities Properties For example, if ‘Book’ is an entity, its properties will be Id, Title, Publisher, Author etc. Table will be created for a collection of entities. There can be 252 custom properties and 3 system properties. An entity will always have system properties which are PartitionKey, RowKey and Timestamp. Timestamp is system generated but you will have to specify the PartitionKey and RowKey while inserting data into the table. The example below will make it clearer. Table name and Property name is case sensitive which should always be considered while creating a table. How to Manage Tables Using PowerShell Step 1 − Download and install Windows PowerShell as discussed previously in the tutorial. Step 2 − Right-click on ‘Windows PowerShell’, choose ‘Pin to Taskbar’ to pin it on the taskbar of your computer. Step 3 − Choose ‘Run ISE as Administrator’. Creating a Table Step 1 − Copy the following commands and paste into the screen. Replace the highlighted text with your account. Step 2 − Login into your account. $StorageAccountName = "mystorageaccount" $StorageAccountKey = "mystoragekey" $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext $StorageAccountName - StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey Step 3 − Create a new table. $tabName = "Mytablename" New-AzureStorageTable –Name $tabName –Context $Ctx The following image shows a table being created by the name of ‘book’. You can see that it has given the following end point as a result. https://tutorialspoint.table.core.windows.net/Book Similarly, you can retrieve, delete and insert data into the table using preset commands in PowerShell. Retrieve Table $tabName = "Book" Get-AzureStorageTable –Name $tabName –Context $Ctx Delete Table $tabName = "Book" Remove-AzureStorageTable –Name $tabName –Context $Ctx Insert rows into Table function Add-Entity() { [CmdletBinding()] param(  $table, [String]$partitionKey, [String]$rowKey, [String]$title, [Int]$id, [String]$publisher, [String]$author ) $entity = New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.Dyna -ArgumentList $partitionKey, $rowKey $entity.Properties.Add("Title", $title) $entity.Properties.Add("ID", $id) $entity.Properties.Add("Publisher", $publisher) $entity.Properties.Add("Author", $author) $result = $table.CloudTable.Execute( [Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableOperation] ::Insert($entity)) } $StorageAccountName = "tutorialspoint" $StorageAccountKey = Get-AzureStorageKey -StorageAccountName $StorageAccoun $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext $StorageAccountName - StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey.Primary $TableName = "Book" $table = Get-AzureStorageTable –Name $TableName -Context $Ctx -ErrorAction #Add multiple entities to a table. Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition1 -RowKey Row1 -Title.Net -Publisher abc -Author abc Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition2 -RowKey Row2 -Title JAVA -Publisher abc -Author abc Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition3 -RowKey Row3 -Title PHP - -Publisher xyz -Author xyz Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition4 -RowKey Row4 -Title SQL - -Publisher xyz -Author xyz Retrieve Table Data  $StorageAccountName = "tutorialspoint" $StorageAccountKey = Get-AzureStorageKey - StorageAccountName $StorageAccou $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext – StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName - StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey.Primary; $TableName = "Book" #Get a reference to a table. $table = Get-AzureStorageTable –Name $TableName -Context $Ctx #Create a table query. $query = New-Object Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableQuery #Define columns to select. $list = New-Object System.Collections.Generic.List[string] $list.Add("RowKey") $list.Add("ID") $list.Add("Title") $list.Add("Publisher") $list.Add("Author") #Set query details. $query.FilterString = "ID gt 0" $query.SelectColumns = $list $query.TakeCount = 20 #Execute the query. $entities = $table.CloudTable.ExecuteQuery($query) #Display entity properties with the table format. $entities | Format-Table PartitionKey, RowKey, @{ Label = "Title"; Expression={$_.Properties["Title"].StringValue}}, @{ Label = "ID"; Expression={$_.Properties[“ID”].Int32Value}}, @{ Label = "Publisher"; Expression={$_.Properties[“Publisher”].StringValue}}, @{ Label = "Author"; Expression={$_.Properties[“Author”].StringValue}} -AutoSize The output will be as shown in the following image. Delete Rows from Table $StorageAccountName = "tutorialspoint" $StorageAccountKey = Get-AzureStorageKey - StorageAccountName $StorageAccou $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext – StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName - StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey.Primary #Retrieve the table. $TableName = "Book" $table = Get-AzureStorageTable -Name $TableName -Context $Ctx -ErrorAction Ignore #If the table exists, start deleting its entities. if ($table -ne $null) { #Together the PartitionKey and RowKey uniquely identify every #entity within a table. $tableResult = $table.CloudTable.Execute( [Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableOperation] ::Retrieve(“Partition1”, "Row1")) $entity = $tableResult.Result; if ($entity -ne $null) { $table.CloudTable.Execute(  [Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableOperation] ::Delete($entity)) } } The above script will delete the first row from the table, as you can see that we have specified Partition1 and Row1 in the script. After you are done with deleting the row, you can check the result by running the script for retrieving rows. There you will see that the first row is deleted. While running these commands please ensure that you have replaced the accountname with your account name, accountkey with your account key. How to Manage Table using Azure Storage Explorer Step 1 − Login in to your Azure account and go to your storage account. Step 2 − Click on the link ‘Storage explorer’ as shown in purple circle in the following image. Step 3 − Choose ‘Azure Storage Explorer for Windows’ from the list. It is a free tool that you can download and install on your computer. Step 4 − Run this program on your computer and click ‘Add Account’ button at the top. Step 5 − Enter ‘Storage Account Name’ and ‘Storage account Key’ and click ‘Test Access. The buttons are encircled in following image. Step 6 − If you already have any tables in storage you will see in the left panel under ‘Tables’. You can see the rows by clicking on them. Create a Table Step 1 − Click on ‘New’ and enter the table name as shown in the following image. Insert Row into Table Step 1 − Click on ‘New’. Step 2 − Enter Field Name. Step 3 − Select data type from dropdown and enter field value. Step 4 − To see the rows created click on the table name in the left panel. Azure Storage Explorer is very basic and easy interface to manage tables. You can easily create, delete, upload, and download tables using this interface. This makes the tasks very easy for developers as compared to writing lengthy scripts in Windows PowerShell. Microsoft Azure - CDN Caching is one of the ways for performance improvement. Windows Azure uses caching to increase the speed of cloud services. Content Delivery Network (CDN) puts stuff like blobs and other static content in a cache. The process involves placing the data at strategically chosen locations and caching it. As a result, it provides maximum bandwidth for its delivery to users. Let’s assume an application’s source is far away from the end user and many tours are taken over the internet to fetch data; the CDN offers a very competent solution to improve performance in this case. Additionally, it scales the instant high load in a very efficient manner. Create a CDN Step 1 − Login in to your Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Click on 'New' at bottom left corner. Step 3 − Select ‘APP Services’ then ‘CDN’. Step 4 − Click on ‘Quick Create’. The following screen will come up. You will see three fields in the pop up − Subscription − There will be a list of subscriptions you have subscribed to and you can choose from one of them. In this demo, only one option was there in the subscription dropdown, which was ‘BizSpark’, the current subscription. Origin Type − This dropdown will ask to select an origin type. The integrated service will have an option of Web Apps, Cloud Services, Storage and Media Services. Origin URL − This will show the URLs based on the chosen origin type in the dropdown. Step 5 − Choose one of the options from each dropdown as needed and click ‘Create’. CDN endpoint is created as show in the following image. Create CDN for Custom Origin Links In June 2015, CDN was updated with one more feature where users can specify a custom origin. Earlier only Azure services could be linked to CDN, but now any website can be linked to it using this service. When we are create a CDN service, in the ‘Origin Type’ dropdown, there is an option ‘Custom Origin’ as shown in the following image, and then you can specify the link in the URL field. Manage CDN Step 1 − Click on the Name of the CDN you want to manage in the list displayed in CDN services. Step 2 − Click on ‘manage cdn’. Country filtering − You can allow/bock your website in specified countries. This is going to protect your data for better. Step 3 − When you click on ‘manage cdn’ you will be taken to the following page in a new tab of your browser. Step 4 − Click on ‘Country Filtering’ from menu items at the top of screen. Click on ‘Add Country Filter’ button as shown in the following image. Step 5 − Specify the directory and select Allow/block. Step 6 − Select the country in the next screen and you are done. Compression − It allows files to be compressed. You can enable/disable compression. Also you can specify the file type. Step 7 − Click on ‘Cache Setting’ and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Step 8 − Select ‘Compression Enabled’ and click ‘Update’ button. By default, compression is disabled. Analytics − You can see very useful figures in this section. For example, number of overall hits or in a specific geographic region. The report will also show how many times requests are served from CDN endpoints and how many of them are going back to the original server. Step 9 − Click on ‘Analytics’ in menu items at the top of the page. You will see a list of all the reports in the left panel as shown in the following image. Step 10 − Additionally, you can download the report as an excel file by clicking on the excel icon at the top right corner. Map a Custom Domain Name You might want to use a custom domain name instead of CDN endpoint that is autogenerated by Azure service. Windows Azure has provided a new feature that allows you to map a custom domain name to his application’s CDN endpoint. Let’s see how it is done in Azure Portal. Step 1 − Click on ‘Manage Domain’ Button on the bottom horizontal menu. Step 2 − Enter the custom URL in the text box and its done.  Microsoft Azure - Applications Windows Azure is usually misinterpreted as just a hosting solution, but there is a lot more that can be done using Windows Azure. It provides a platform to develop applications using a range of available technologies and programming languages. It offers to create and deploy applications using.net platform, which is Microsoft’s own application development technology. In addition to.net, there are many more technologies and languages supported. For example, Java, PHP, Ruby, Oracle, Linux, MySQL, Python. Windows Azure applications are scaled by creating multiple instances of the application. The number of instances needed by the application is specified by the developer while hosting the applications. If traffic is increased or decreased on the website or web application it can be managed easily by logging in to Windows Azure management portal and specifying the instances. Load balancing can also be automated which would allow Azure to make the decision itself as when to assign more resources to application. Web applications support.net, java, python, php and node.js. Tasks such as scaling and backups can be easily automated. A new feature called ‘webjobs’ is available, which is a kind of batch processing service. Webjobs can also be scaled and scheduled. The mobile application platforms supported are Xamarin iOS, Xamarin Android and IOS. Azure platform is developed in such a way that developers need to concentrate on only the development part and need not worry about other technical stuff outside their domain. Thus most of the administrative work is done by Azure itself. A marketplace is also set by Azure where its customers can buy applications and services. It is a platform where customers can search applications and deploy them in an easier way. Azure marketplace is available in 88 countries at present. An application purchased from the marketplace can be easily connected to the local development environment by the application developers. The pricing is done using 5 different models, which includes usage-based and monthly fee. Some of the applications are even free of charge.  Microsoft Azure - Security Security is about managing the access of users to the organization’s applications, platforms and portals. Active directory is used to manage the database of users in a protected manner. The same kind of service is provided by Windows Azure to keep the users and their password safe. Active directory is a feature that lets you create users, manage their roles, grant access and delete them. Creating an Active Directory Step 1 − Sign in to Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Click ‘New’ and then click ‘App Services’. Step 3 − Click ‘Active Directory’ and then ‘Directory’. Step 4 − Click ‘Custom Create’. Step 5 − Enter the details and you are done. In the following image, ‘tutpoint’ is the domain name. Enter a domain name which is a temporary DNS. Once its directory is created, you can map it to your own domain. Mapping a Custom Domain Since you have provided a temporary domain name, when creating a directory in Windows Azure, you can map it to your own domain using this functionality. Step 1 − Click on the directory name in the list of your directory. Step 2 − Click on ‘Domains’ from the top menu items. Step 3 − Click ‘Add a Custom Domain’. Step 4 − In the screen that pops up, enter the details. You can choose for ‘single sign in option’ if needed. Creating Users Step 1 − Click on ‘Add User’ button at the bottom of the screen. Step 2 − The following screen pops up. You can create a new user or link an existing Microsoft account. You can even import a user from other directory in Azure. Let’s choose ‘Create a new user’ here. Step 3 − Enter the user name in the following screen. Step 4 − Enter other details and choose the role for the user. Step 5 − Click next arrow and it will create a user for your application and give you a temporary password which can be changed by the user. Integrating with Azure Active Directory Step 1 − Locate and click ‘Application’ at top of screen. Step 2 − Click on ‘Add’ displayed at the bottom of the screen. A pop up shown in the following image will be seen on the screen. Step 3 − If you click the first option, it will take you to the following screen. You can enter the name of the application and follow the wizard. Step 4 − Similarly, if you choose the second option in ‘What do you want to do’ pop up, it will let you choose an application from the gallery as shown in the following screen. Integrating On-Premise Active Directory Azure active directory lets you run an active directory in cloud and also lets you connect it to your on- premise active directory. Basically, it will replicate your user database residing on your on-premise machine in cloud. It will also automatically synchronize whenever changes are made on-premise. Click on the ‘Directory Integration’ from the top menu. An on-premise directory can be connected using the three steps as shown in the following image. Reports This is a very useful feature of Active Directory as it shows different reports such as number of times a user is signing in, or signing in from an unknown device can be seen here. Microsoft Azure - Datacenters When we think of cloud, we imagine a place with large number of machines in big rooms. There must be a place where all the data is stored. Microsoft has datacenters all over the world from where Windows Azure services are managed. Datacenters are divided in regions. The exact location of these datacenters is not revealed by Microsoft for obvious security reasons. Following are the 20 listed regions as can also be seen in the image. Central US East US East US 2 US Gov Iowa US Gov Virginia North Central US South Central US West US North Europe West Europe East Asia Southeast Asia  Japan East Japan West Brazil South Australia East Australia Southeast Central India South India How to Choose the Right Data Center for Your Application When creating Windows Azure application, whether it is mobile application, web application or database storage it asks to specify the region. Region here specifies a regional datacenter. Performance − You should select the nearest datacenter to the users of your application. The performance can be affected by the relative location of the users who want to access the application. If a user is closer to the datacenter, the performance will be better. Cost − The price of hosting the application may also increase or decrease depending upon the datacenter you choose. Price actually can vary according to the database hosting location or any other service being used by the application. You should choose the same location for all the services that are being used by your application. For example, database or any media service. If they are kept in separate datacenter there will be charges per transaction, but anything extra won’t be charged if they are kept at the same datacenter. Legal Aspect − Laws vary from country to country and restrictions could be enforced in some regions on what information can be shared and what cannot. Microsoft Azure - Scenarios Understanding the basic scenarios of Windows Azure will help us understand its use. Additionally, it will help us understand the services offered. Three basic scenarios are discussed here. In addition to the following scenarios, there can be many more ways of using Azure services based on the needs of clients, but all the basic uses are covered in this chapter. Software Development Software development is the most popular scenario of Windows Azure. The software is developed and tested on local development fabric and then deployed in cloud of Windows Azure. Azure hosts the web application and also the supporting processes, communicating with other web services. Testing of application in software development phase usually becomes too long for developers, if they need to change the configurations of environment being used to host the application. In Windows Azure, this is the not a problem as resources are absolutely in their control and can be modified as needed by the application. Once a web application is hosted in cloud of Windows Azure, it is ready to be used by the end users and organizations. Moreover, deploying the application is very easy in Windows Azure using the tools provided by them. These tools are MS deploy, PowerShell, integration with Team Foundation Server (TFS). The Visual Studio cloud project is also an easy option to deploy the application. An application is tested in the staging environment and then it is deployed in the production environment for end users to use it. Enterprise Process Offloading There are situations for an organization where they need to reduce loads from their onpremise systems for a certain period of time or on a regular basis. This could be easily achieved by using Windows Azure services at a very low cost. Clients have to pay for only those transactions made on their application instead of paying for entire hardware and software. This is an extremely cost-efficient way of using new resources for the organization. Azure in this context offers quite quick growth to businesses by extending resources on cloud when needed. Enterprise Application Integration This is commonly called as EAI scenario. Let us think of a scenario, when there is need for two different organizations to send and receive data between applications which is further processed by those applications. The cross-enterprise application integration can be done using Windows Azure. The service is called BizTalk service, which facilitates B2B messaging between on-premise or on-cloud applications of different organizations. This service enables a connection between applications even if they are following different transport protocols. The process also includes validating and extracting the properties as required by the application at the receiving end. In a normal scenario, where communication is needed between applications of two organizations, the interaction will have to bypass the firewall by completing the due process. However, in the service offered by Windows Azure, the communication between applications does not need to bypass the organization’s firewall. Microsoft Azure - Management Portal As the name suggests this is a portal to manage Azure services, which was released in 2012. This is a platform provided by Microsoft for its Azure clients where they can see, manage and buy the services offered by Azure. A different portal called ‘Azure Preview Portal’ was released by Azure team in 2014, which makes it easier to access the platform on mobiles and tablets. However, features are more or less same in both the portals. To access the management portal − Step 1 − Go to https://manage.windowsazure.com Step 2 − Sign in with your Hotmail or live ID. If you don’t have Azure accounts, sign up for one. You will get a free trial and you can explore, learn and create your own applications using Windows Azure. The following screen will appear. Since here we have an application already running, you can see a list of them. Your account will be empty for the first time. Left panel categorizes the application and the middle part lists all the application in the account. Create a New Application Step 1 − Click on the ‘New’ left bottom corner. Step 2 − Following screen will come up and you can choose what you want to create. Check Credit and Subscriptions Step 1 − Click on ‘Credit’ in the green block at the top of the screen. Step 2 − Click on ‘View more details’. It will take you to the following screen. This screen will show you all the details of your subscription, spending, and data usage. As the spending limit is set here, it says ‘Remove Spending Limit’. If the limit would not have been set, it would have said ‘Set Spending Limit’. This way you can set a spending limit for you. Your services will be stopped once you reach the spending limit. If you scroll down on the page in the above image, you can see all that is available with your subscription and see the details on the right side. You are absolutely in control of your spending. The green block in which ‘Credit’ button is displayed will change color if you are about to fall short of your credit. This is calculated by your average per day spending and it would tell you in how many days your credit is going to get over. Add a New Subscription Step 1 − Click on your account e-mail id or on the picture at the top right corner. Step 2 − Click on ‘View my bill’ in the list. Step 3 − It will take you the following screen. Click on ‘add subscription’. Step 4 − Choose the subscription from the list in the following screen. Azure Preview Portal Step 1 − Click on your account e-mail at the top right corner. Step 2 − Select ‘Switch to Azure Preview Portal’. Step 3 − The following screen will appear. All the functionalities are same. ‘Azure Preview Portal’ is built for mobile and tablet screen with a responsive design.  Microsoft Azure - Create Virtual Network You can create virtual network on cloud or you can also connect to the on-premise local network to the cloud network in Windows Azure. This tutorial will first explain how to create a cloud only network. Creating a Virtual Network in Clouds Only Step 1 − Login in to Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Click on ‘New’ at the bottom left corner. Step 3 − Click on ‘Network Services’ and then ‘Virtual Network’. Step 4 − Click on ‘Quick Create’. Step 5 − Enter the name and leave all other fields as they are except location. You don’t need to specify anything in this case since everything will be decided by Azure itself. Step 6 − Click on ‘Create a Virtual Network’ and it is done. Creating a Virtual Network in Cloud Only (Advanced Settings) Step 1 − Click on ‘custom create’ instead of ‘quick create’ when creating a new virtual network and the following screen will appear. Step 2 − Enter the name of the ‘Network’ and choose a location. You will see that it will draw an image at the bottom. DNS Server Name is optional to enter as we are creating a cloud only network. Also, leave the options ‘Point to Site connectivity’ and ‘Site to Site connectivity’ as they are. The subsequent chapters will have a demo on configuration of these two options. Step 3 − Click next and leave the default values on the following screen. Step 4 − Click the next arrow and a virtual network is created. You can add DNS servers and local network even after creating a virtual network. Microsoft Azure - Deploying Virtual Machines A quick process of creating a virtual machine was included in the chapter ‘Compute Module’. This chapter contains the detailed process including how to configure virtual machines. Quick Create Step 1 − Login to Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Locate and click on ‘Virtual Machines’ in the left panel and then click on ‘Create a Virtual Machine’. Step 3 − Alternatively, click ‘New’ at the bottom left corner and then click ‘Compute’ → ‘Virtual Machine’ →‘Quick Create’. Step 4 − Enter DNS name. This has to be unique. The DNS name is used to connect to the virtual machine. Step 5 − Select the image and size from the dropdown list. The size affects the cost of running virtual machine. Step 6 − Enter username and password. You must remember to log in to the virtual machine later. Step 7 − Select the relevant region. Step 8 − Click on ‘Create a virtual machine’ and you are ready to use your new machine. It will take a few seconds for the machine to be created. Create Virtual Machine with Advanced Settings Step 1 − Choose ‘Custom Create’ instead of ‘Quick Create’ in the options and you will be taken to the following screen. Step 2 − Choose an image from the list. In this screen, you find that choosing an image is easier based on their category shown on the left side. Let us create a virtual machine for SQL Server for which we have chosen SQL Server on the left side and all the software in this category are shown in the middle. Step 3 − Click on the Next arrow. Step 4 − Choose Version Release Date and enter the VM’s name. Step 5 − Select the Tier. The size dropdown would change items according to tier. In the basic version, you will get only first 5 options, while in the standard version you will get more options. It should be according to you and you image’s requirements. For example, in this case let’s choose SQL server. It requires minimum A4 machine with 8 cores and 14GB memory. Step 6 − Enter the username and password and click Next arrow. Step 7 − Enter DNS name which should be unique as mentioned earlier and select the region. Under the storage account, it will display the storage accounts that you have already created. As seen in the following screen, an account name is shown in the dropdown which is a storage account created earlier. You can choose an already created account or even use an automatically generated account. Step 8 − Next is Availability set. This option lets you create a set of virtual machines that will ensure that if a single point fails, it doesn’t affect your machine and keeps the work going on. Let’s choose the option ‘none’ here. The last option is End Points. End points are used to communicate with virtual machines by other resources you can leave. In a subsequent chapter, we will provide a detailed illustration to configure endpoints. Step 9 − Click on Next and the virtual machine will be created in a few seconds for you. Connecting with a Virtual Network Step 1 − Create a virtual machine using the steps described earlier. If you already have a virtual network created in Azure, it will be diplayed in the highlighted dropdown list as shown in the following screen. You can choose the network as shown in following picture. Step 2 − When you go to your Virtual Network and management portal created earlier, click on ‘Dashboard’. The virtual machine will be displyed in the resources of that network as shown in the following picture. Accessing the Virtual Machine There is a step by step guide on connecting to VM in ‘Compute Module’ chapter earlier in this tutorial. Please refer to it. Considerations While creating a virtual machine following considerations should be made − Choose the location according to the user’s location to avoid any latency issues. It is best to choose the region nearest to the physical location of end users. You must go through the costs that will be incurred based on the size you choose for the virtual machine beforehand, to make sure it is in control. If you use the already created storage account you will be able to manage things better. Microsoft Azure - Endpoint Configuration When creating a virtual machine, we come across a part where endpoints can be configured. The two default endpoints enabled while creating a virtual machine are Remote Desktop and PowerShell. What actually is an endpoint? Virtual machine on same cloud can communicate to each other automatically. But in case we need them to communicate with our own computer, we will need an endpoint configured to make it happen. It is basically accessing the virtual machine through a port. An endpoint provides remote access to the services running on virtual machine. It has a public and private port that needs to be specified while creating an endpoint. Additionally, an endpoint can be accessed securely by activating Access Control Lists (ACL). In the following section, it is demonstrated how a new endpoint can be configured for virtual machine that’s already been created. However, it can also be done in the same way as creating a new one on configuration part of wizard. Step 1 − Click on Virtual Machine in your Azure Management portal. Step 2 − Click on ‘Endpoint’ and then Click on ‘Add’. Step 3 − Select ‘Add a Stand-Alone Endpoint’ as shown in the following image. Step 4 − Select the name from dropdown. Alternatively, you can enter a custom name. Here let’s select Http from options. It will assign unused ports automatically. Or you can enter it manually. Step 5 − If you tick ‘Create a Load Balanced Set’, it will allow distributing the load across virtual machines. Let’s leave it unchecked here because it can be configured later, if needed. Step 6 − The ‘Enable Direct Server Return’ is checked when SQL server’s ‘Always On’ feature is required, so let’s leave it unchecked. Step 7 − Click on Next arrow. Access Control of Endpoint We can grant or deny the access of services to an individual host or network. If nothing is specified, the endpoint can be accessed from any host and network. Step 1 − Select ‘Manage ACL’ as shown in the following image. Step 2 − Enter access description. Step 3 − Enter Subnet Mask. Step 4 − Click on Next and it’s done.  Microsoft Azure - Point-to-Site Connectivity In the last chapter, we saw how an endpoint can be created to access a virtual machine; this is quite a tedious task. If a virtual machine in virtual network needs to be connected with on-premise machine, the point-to-site connectivity is needed. Point-to-site connectivity makes it very productive to work with remote virtual machines. Basically, a machine on-premise is connected to virtual network using point-to-site connectivity. However, we can connect up to 128 on-premise machines to virtual network in Azure. The access to the virtual network in cloud is granted through a certificate. The certificate has to be installed on each local machine that needs to be connected to the virtual network. Enabling Point-to-Site Connectivity on Existing Virtual Network If you have already created a virtual network in Azure, you can access it in management portal. Step 1 − Log in to Azure management portal. Step 2 − Click on ‘Networks’ in the left panel and select the network you want to work with. Step 3 − Click on ‘Configure’ as shown in the following image. Step 4 − Check the ‘Configure Point-to-site connectivity’ checkbox. It will allow you to enter the starting IP and CIDR. Step 5 − Scroll down and click ‘add gateway subnet’. Step 6 − Enter the Gateway subnet and click ‘Save’. Message shown in the following screen will pop up. Step 7 − Click Yes and a point-to-site connectivity is done. You will need a certificate to access your virtual network. Create a New Virtual Network with Point-to-site Connectivity Step 1 − Click New → Network Services → Virtual Network → Custom Create. Step 2 − Enter Network’s name, select location and click on Next. Step 3 − On the next screen, Select ‘Configure a point-to-site VPN’ and click next. Step 4 − You can select or enter starting IP and select CIDR. Step 5 − Enter Subnet and click ‘Add Gateway Subnet’ as done earlier and enter the required information. Step 6 − Point-to-Site connectivity is done. Step 7 − Click on the name of the network, as it is ‘MyNet’ in the above image. Step 8 − Click on ‘Dashboard’ as shown in the following screen. You will see that the gateway is not created yet. For it to happen, you will have to generate a certificate first. Generate Certificates The point-to-site VPN supports only self-signed certificate. Create a Certificate Step 1 − Go to the link msdn.microsoft.com or google ‘windows SDK for 8.1’. Then go to msdn link or the version of Windows for which you want the tool. Step 2 − Download the encircled file as shown in the following image. It will be saved as.exe file named sdksetup on your machine. Step 3 − Run the file. While running the installation wizard, when you reach the following screen uncheck the encircled part. By default they are checked. Step 4 − After installation is complete, run Command Prompt as Administrator on your computer. Step 5 − Enter the following commands one by one for creating root certificate cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\bin\x64 makecert -sky exchange -r -n "CN=MyNet" -pe -a sha1 -len 2048 -ss My First command will change the directory in command prompt. In the above command change the highlighted part to the name of your network. Step 6 − Next enter the following command for creating client certificate. makecert -n "CN=MyNetClient" -pe -sky exchange -m 96 -ss My -in "MyNet" -is my -a sha1 Step 7 − Look for ‘mmc’ on your computer and run it. Step 8 − Click ‘File’ and ‘Add/Remove Snap-in’. Step 9 − In the screen that pops up, click ‘Certificate’ and then on ‘add’. Step 10 − Select ‘My User Account’ and click on ‘Finish’. Step 11 − Expand ‘Current User’ in the left panel, then ‘Personal’ and then ‘Certificates’. You can see the certificates here. Step 12 − Right click on certificate and click ‘All Tasks’ and then ‘Export’. Step 13 − Follow the wizard. You will have to name the certificate and select a location to save it. Upload the Certificate Step 1 − Login to Azure management portal. Step 2 − Go to the network and click ‘Certificate’ and then click ‘Upload Root Certificate’. Step 3 − Click browse and select the location of the certificate you just created. Download the Client VPN Package Client VPN Package will connect you to the network. Step 1 − Go to network’s dashboard in azure management portal. Step 2 − Scroll down and locate the following options at the right side of the screen. Step 3 − Select the suitable option and download it. You will see a similar file on your computer. Run and install it. Step 4 − When you’ll install it, Windows might try to prevent it. Choose ‘Run Anyway’ if this happens. Step 5 − Go to ‘Networks’ on your machine and you will see a VPN connection available as shown in the following image. Step 6 − Click on that network as in this example ‘MyNet’ and connect. You will be connected to the network. Microsoft Azure - Site-to-Site Connectivity Most organizations already have a network on their premises and would want to connect it to Windows Azure rather than putting everything on cloud. It is also called hybrid network connectivity. It is connecting virtual net in Azure to on-premises network. Setting up a site-to-site connectivity network is quite easy for someone who knows the basics of networking like IPs, subnetting and default gateways. The things that are required before configuring the network in this case are −  A VPN device that can be configured. Externally facing IP address for that VPN device. Creating a Site-to-Site Connectivity Network Step 1 − Select New → Network Services → Virtual Network → Custom Create Step 2 − Enter the name of the network and select the region. Step 3 − Enter the DNS name for name resolution if you want, otherwise you can leave it empty if you want it to be automatically done by Azure. Step 4 − Check the ‘Configure site-to-site VPN’ option. Step 5 − Enter the details of your VPN device in the address space as shown in the following image. Step 6 − Enter the details of your virtual network in the address space. Step 7 − After entering the subnets, enter the gateway subnet for your virtual network. Step 8 − Click next and the network is created. Step 9 − Select the network and go to its ‘Dashboard’. You will have to create a gateway for it. Step 10 − Click ‘Create Gateway’ at the bottom of the screen. Once gateway is created ‘Gateway IP address’ is displayed on the following screen. You can configure the VPN device now using the information. Site-to-site connectivity is faster than the point-to-site connectivity. It makes transferring of data easier. You just need a shared key to access the network. Unlike point-to-site connectivity, you don’t have to install certificates on each machine you want to connect with the virtual machine. In fact, the same shared key works for each machine. Microsoft Azure - Traffic Manager Let us first understand what is the service provided by Azure traffic manager. Basically, this service balances the traffic load of services hosted in Azure. The routing policy is defined by the client and traffic to the services hosted in Azure is redirected according to set policies. Traffic manager is a DNS-based service. Thus, it will improve the availability and performance applications. Let’s see how to create and configure traffic manager in Azure. Create Traffic Manager Step 1 − Login to Azure management portal and click ‘New’ at the bottom left corner. Step 2 − Select Network Services → Traffic Manager → Quick Create. Step 3 − Enter the DNS prefix and select the Load Balancing Method. There are three options in this dropdown. Performance − This option is ideal when you have endpoints in two different locations. When a DNS is requested, it is redirected to the region closest to the user. Round Robin − This option is ideal when you want to distribute the traffic among multiple endpoints. Traffic is distributed in round robin fashion by selecting a healthy endpoint.  Failover − In this option, a primary access point is set up, but in case of failure alternate endpoints are made available as backup. Step 4 − Based on your needs you can choose a load balancing method. Let’s choose performance here. Step 5 − Click create. You will see the traffic manager created and displayed in your management portal. Its status will be inactive until it is configured. Create Endpoints to be Monitored via Traffic Manager Step 1 − Select the ‘Traffic Manager’ from the left panel in the management portal that you want to work on. Step 2 − Select ‘Endpoints’ from the top horizontal menu as shown in the following image. Then select ‘Add Endpoints’. Step 3 − The screen shown in the following image will appear. Choose the service type and items under that service will be listed. Step 4 − Select the service endpoints and proceed. Step 5 − The service endpoints will be provisioned. You can see that in this case, the service ‘tutorialsPointVM’ created in Azure will now be monitored by the traffic manager and its traffic will be redirected according to the specified policy. Configure the Policy Step 1 − Click on ‘Configure’ in the top menu bar as shown in the following image. Step 2 − Enter the DNS Time to Live (TIL). It is the amount of time for which a client/user will continue to use a particular endpoint. For example, if you enter 40 seconds the traffic manager will be queried after every 40 seconds for the changes in the traffic management system. Step 3 − You can change the load balancing method here by choosing a desired method from the dropdown. Here, let’s choose ‘Performance’ as chosen earlier. Step 4 − If you scroll down, you will see heading ‘Monitoring Setting’. You can choose the protocol; enter port number and relative path for a service to be monitored. Microsoft Azure - PowerShell PowerShell is a framework or you can say an interface built by Azure team that lets the user to automate and manage Windows Azure services. It is a command line tool that uses the scripts or cmdlets to perform tasks such as creating and managing storage accounts or Virtual Machines that can easily be done using the preset commands. Installing Azure PowerShell Step 1 − Login into Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Click ‘Downloads’. Step 3 − In the following screen, locate ‘command-line tools’ and then ‘Windows Azure PowerShell’. Click ‘Install’ listed under it to download the setup and install it. Alternatively, you can visit the link http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/downloads/ Connecting to Your Subscription Once you have installed Azure PowerShell, you will have to connect it to your Azure subscription. Step 1 − Locate Microsoft ‘Azure PowerShell’ in your programs. Step 2 − Pin it to the taskbar. You can run it as ISE by pinning it to the taskbar in Windows 8. Somehow, if it doesn’t show the option of ‘Run ISE as Administrator’ it is in programs. ISE lets copy paste commands easily. Step 3 − Right-click on ‘Microsoft Azure PowerShell’ and select ‘Run ISE as Administrator’. Connect to Your Azure Account Using Active Directory To get started with Azure tasks, you will have to first add your Azure account to PowerShell. You just have to perform this step once on your computer and every time you run Azure PowerShell, it will connect to the account automatically. Step 1 − Enter the following cmdlet in PowerShell. Add-AzureAccount Step 2 − The screen shown in the following image will pop up and ask for credentials of your account. Enter the credentials and sign in. Step 3 − Now you are ready to perform tasks in Azure using Azure PowerShell. Using Certificate In this method, you can download a certificate on your machine and login to our account using that certificate. Step 1 − Enter the following cmdlet in PowerShell. You will be prompted to save a file and the file will be downloaded on your computer with the extension. publishsettings. Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile You will see a similar file on your computer. Step 2 − Enter the following cmdlet. Highlighted part is the path of the file downloaded in previous step. Also replace the name of the file with yours Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile C:\Users\Sahil\Downloads\BizSpark-11-5-2015credentials.publishsett Step 3 − Just to make sure that everything has gone right. Run the following cmdlet. It will display the details of your account and subscription. Get-AzureAccount Get-AzureSubscription You can add many accounts to Azure PowerShell. Remove Azure Account Run the following cmdlets. Replace the highlighted part with your account ID. It will ask for your confirmation and it is done. Remove-AzureAccount -Name [email protected] Get Help The following cmdlet will list all the commands available for Azure tasks. Get-Help Azure There are lots of tasks that can be managed using PowerShell such as creating and managing web applications, storage accounts, virtual machines, etc. In fact, many users find it quicker and better as compared to Azure Management Portal. To manage the Azure Storage using PowerShell refer to Table, Blobs and Queues chapter in this tutorial. Microsoft Azure - Monitoring Virtual Machines Monitoring virtual machines is important to keep a track of its performance and health. Windows Azure provides an interactive interface to monitor the statistics related to the performance of virtual machine. The five key statistics are − CPU percentage Disk Read Bytes/sec Disk Write Bytes/sec Network in Network out Monitor VM in Azure Management Portal. Step 1 − Login to Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Go to Virtual Machine. Step 3 − Select the virtual machine you want to monitor. Step 4 − Select Monitor from the top menu as shown in following image. You can see 5 key terms on the above screen. It seems pretty complicated at first glance but when you look carefully, you can see that each line on the graph is in a different color which matches the color of the term. For example, CPU Percentage is in purple color and the purple line on the graph represents it. The machine shown in the above image is quite new. The following sections will explain how figures are read. CPU Percentage CPU percentage is the most common statistics to check whenever there is a performance issue in an application. It tells the processor’s utilization in percentage. In the following image, you can see that in the last dropdown at the right top corner 1 hour is selected and, highest utilization is at 3:15 which is 0.13%. Disk Read Bytes/Sec Another factor affecting performance is disk input/output operations. Disk read byte/second measures the amount of data read every second on the disk. If the read operations are done more frequently on the disk, performance issues can be resolved using a faster disk. Disk Write Bytes/sec Similarly, disk write byte/sec measures the amount of data written every second. If the application needs writing large amount of data on the disk, a bigger disk can be chosen. In the image above, you can see the highest point in disk read is 218.35 byte/sec at 3:25. You can see the last hour’s data because ‘1 Hour’ is selected in the dropdown. You can also see data for last 24 hours and 7 days. Network In Monitoring the network traffic can be done by looking at the ‘network in’ figures in the ‘Monitor’ section. The network-in statistics can be in bytes or TCP segments received. Network Out Network-out statics tells about TCP segments sent per second. You can also see relative or absolute statistics by selecting an option from dropdown encircled in the following image. Similarly, you can choose the duration from the dropdown highlighted in the following image. You can also choose particular metrics, by clicking on ‘Add Metrics’ at the bottom of the screen. The following screen will appear, in which you can check the desired metrics. Enable Diagnostics Enabling diagnostics allows you to collect logs. Azure will collect logs and store in a storage account you specified. We can enable diagnostics by switching to the ‘Preview Portal’. Diagnostic figures help in troubleshooting as the logs for errors can be tracked in the storage account. Step 1 − Switch to the ‘preview portal’. Step 2 − Locate the ‘Virtual Machine (classic)’ in the left panel. Step 3 − Select the Machine and ‘All Settings’. Step 4 − Scroll down and locate ‘Diagnostics’. Select ‘Diagnostic’ as shown in the following image. Step 5 − Select ‘On’ in the next panel displayed on the right side. By default it will be set off. Step 6 − Since it uses a storage account to store the logs you will have to configure the setting for the storage account by clicking on the encircled part in the following image. Step 7 − You can also select or deselect the type of logs you want to keep. You will also see a panel at the bottom with the heading ‘Monitoring’. This section displays the same metrics that we discussed in the section above. These figures help users to identify the causes of performance slide of an application. They can also generate alerts for these features; they go above the set limits. Microsoft Azure - Setting Up Alert Rules While monitoring a virtual machine we can see different metrics related to a virtual machine in Azure. Azure has also provisioned a way to alert the administrator of virtual machine when these metrics go above or below a specified limit through e-mail. Setting up an alert can be very useful in notifying the administrator about issues that require attention. Step 1 − Go to the ‘Monitoring’ section of your virtual machine. Step 2 − Select the metrics you want to set alert for. Step 3 − Select ‘Add Rule’ from the bottom. Step 4 − Enter the name for alert and enter other information. Step 5 − In the following screen that pops up, select condition. It can be greater than, less than or equal to. Step 6 − Enter the threshold value which will be in percentage. In this example, let’s enter 85 which means you will get an e-mail when utilization for processor of your virtual machine reaches the 85% average over the last 10 minutes. In addition to sending the alert e-mail to service administrator and co-administrators, you can receive alert in one more e-mail. You can set maximum 10 alerts for each subscription. Alerts can be sent to the administrator’s e-mail plus one more e-mail provided at the time of setting up an alert. Similarly, you can set alerts for other Azure services like web applications and mobile applications. Microsoft Azure - Application Deployment In this chapter, we will discuss different ways of deploying an application on Windows Azure. When we say application, it can be a web application or a mobile application. Earlier web apps were called websites, but now everywhere they are referred as web applications. We will be discussing how to deploy applications from Visual Studio and management portal in the chapter ‘Websites’. Deploying a Web App from PowerShell To get started with the PowerShell, refer to ‘PowerShell’ chapter in the tutorial. In order to deploy a website from PowerShell you will need the deployment package. You can get this from your website developers or you if you are into web deployment you would know about creating a deployment package. In the following sections, first you will learn how to create a deployment package in Visual Studio and then using PowerShell cmdlets, you will deploy the package on Azure. Create a Deployment Package Step 1 − Go to your website in Visual Studio. Step 2 − Right-click on the name of the application in the solution explorer. Select ‘Publish’. Step 3 − Create a new profile by selecting ‘New Profile’ from the dropdown. Enter the name of the profile. There might be different options in dropdown depending on if the websites are published before from the same computer. Step 4 − On the next screen, choose ‘Web Deploy Package’ in Publish Method. Step 5 − Choose a path to store the deployment package. Enter the name of site and click Next. Step 6 − On the next screen, leave the defaults on and select ‘publish’. After it’s done, inside the folder in your chosen location, you will find a zip file which is what you need during deployment. Create a Website in Azure using PowerShell Step 1 − Enter the following cmdlets to create a website. Replace the highlighted part. This command is going to create a website in free subscription. You can change the subscription after the website is created. New-AzureWebsite -name "mydeploymentdemo" -location "East US" If cmdlet is successful, you will see all the information as shown in the above image. You can see the URL of your website as in this example it is mydeploymentdemo.azurewebsites.net. Step 2 − You can visit the URL to make sure everything has gone right. Deploy Website using Deployment Package Once the website is created in Azure, you just need to copy your website’s code. Create the zip folder (deployment package) in your local computer. Step 1 − Enter the following cmdlets to deploy your website. Publish-AzureWebsiteProject -name "mydeploymentdemo" -package "C:\Users\Sahil\Desktop\deploymentDemo\MyWebsiteOnAzure.zip" Here in above commandlet, the name of the website just created is given and the path of the zip file on the computer. Step 2 − Go to your website’s URL. You can see the website as shown in the following image. Microsoft Azure - Backup & Recovery Azure backup can be used to backing up on-premise data in cloud. Data is stored in an encrypted mode. The following sections provide a detailed illustration of how to do it using Azure. In this process, we will first create a backup vault where our data will be stored and then see how data can be backed up from our on-premise computer. The backup agent which is installed on the computer, first encrypts the data and then sends it over the network to the storage place in Azure. Your data is completely safe and secure. Create Backup Vault Step 1 − Login into your management portal. Step 2 − At the bottom right corner, select New → Data Services → Recovery Services → Backup Vault → Quick Create. Step 3 − Enter the name of vault and select the region. It will be created and displayed in your management portal. Step 4 − Select the vault and click ‘Download Vault Credentials’ as shown in the following image. Step 5 − It will save a credential file on your computer. Step 6 − Now scroll down the same page in Azure and you will see three options under ‘Download Agent’. Select a suitable option. Let’s choose the third option in the list in this example. Step 7 − Agent’s setup will be saved on your computer. You will have to install it by following the wizard. There is nothing very specific in the installation process. Step 8 − At the end of the installation, you will see a button at the bottom of pop-up window ‘Proceed to Registration’. Click that button and the following screen will appear. Step 9 − First step is vault identification. Browse the credentials file on your computer which was saved in the last step. Step 10 − Next step in the registration wizard is choosing the encryption setting. You can enter your own passphrase or let the wizard generate it by itself. Here let’s choose ‘Generate Passphrase’. Step 11 − Browse for the location where you want to save the passphrase. Keeping this passphrase file safe is very important as you won’t be able to restore backups without it. Step 12 − Click on Next and the file will be saved on your selected location. Schedule a Backup After the wizard in the above section is finished, you will see the following program that was installed in the previous step, running on your computer. You will come across selecting the data folder from your computer you want to back up on Azure and the frequency of backup in this wizard. Step 1 − Click ‘Schedule Backup’ from the right panel. In this example, let’s select the data folder named ‘QServicesManagementSystem’. Follow the steps as pop up on the screen and are quite understandable. You are allowed to back up 3 times maximum and you can choose from daily and weekly frequency. Step 2 − In the following step, select how long you want to keep the backup in your online storage. Set it according to your need. Step 3 − You can choose the ‘Backup Now’ in the left panel of backup agent. It will save a copy of your data that very moment. Then you can see it in your management portal by selecting the backup vault and going to its dashboard. You can see in the following image that there is one item listed under ‘Jobs’ section as data has been backed up by selecting ‘backup now’. This section will display all the activities in backup task. Details of the backup schedule is displayed under ‘Status’ section. Step 4 − You can recover the data by selecting ‘Recover Data’ in backup agent and following the wizard.  Microsoft Azure - Self-Service Capabilities The self-service capabilities here refer to the ability to manage group, users profile and passwords. These capabilities are helpful in reducing the cost and labor of the IT departments. It enhances the user experience and removes the unnecessary hassle of asking for permissions of the administrator. Self- service capabilities enable the users to manage the mentioned services without compromising the security of the systems. Everything happens within the policies set by the organization. Group Management Let us say few people in an organization want to create one group where they can connect with each other for certain period of time. Usually, they will have to ask for the administrator to create a group for them. But in Azure active directory, one person can create a group and others can join the group without having to ask the administrator. Also, the group owner can handover the ownership of the group to someone else by himself. Password Management Azure Active directory offers the services that lets the users (client’s employees or application users) to manage their password on their own. The end users can make a self- registration for password reset. Additionally, this service includes the resetting and changing the password by the end users. Self-service capability policies are completely controlled by the administrators of Azure Active directory. They can configure the policies in accordance with their organizations policy. They can view the reports on end user password resets, change, etc. This way administrators can monitor the user’s activities for their account management, even after making them capable of self-service. In order to use this service, organizations must subscribe to basic or premium version of Azure active directory. There is a detailed demonstration of self-service password reset and group management using Azure Active Directory in a separate chapter of this tutorial.  Microsoft Azure - Multi-Factor Authentication All of us at some point have encountered multi-factor authentication. For example, customers of some banks receive a call or one-time password as text message on their mobile phones while signing in to their bank account online. The multi-factor authentication refers to the system in which more than one system authenticates the user to access an application. The multi-factor authentication offers better security for Azure clients. It lets the client choose if they want to use more than one system of credentials to allow the users to access the applications. Multi-factor authentication can be used to protect both on-premise and on-cloud directories. In this process, the user first signs in with the username and password in a normal way. The credentials are verified and then if the automated call authentication is activated, the user receives a call and is asked to confirm the sign-in attempt. Mobile App − Mobile apps for all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows) are available. This app pushes a notification when a sign-in attempt is made and then the user can choose to authenticate, if it is genuine attempt. Text Message − This method sends a one-time password to the registered mobile phone of the user. They either reply from their phone or enter the one-time password into their sign-in page. Automated Call − The automated call asks for the user to validate the sign-in attempt by pressing a key on their phone’s dial pad. Create a Multi-Factor Authentication Provider Step 1 − Click ‘New’ at the left bottom corner → App Services → Active Directory → Multi Factor Auth Provider → Quick Create. Step 2 − Enter the name for the provider. Step 3 − Select Usage model. Let’s choose ‘Per Authentication’ for this example. Please note that you won’t be able to change the usage model once multi-authentication provider is created. So please take your needs in consideration before choosing it. Step 4 − Next, there is an option, if you wish to link the existing directory or not. Here, let’s link an existing directory name ‘tutorialspoint’ that was previously created to this multi-factor provider. Step 5 − After you click ‘Create’, it will be listed in your services list. Select the multi-factor provider you just created and you will the following screen. Step 6 − Select ‘Manage’ at the bottom of the screen and you will be taken to a new page as shown in the following image. Step 7 − Select ‘Configure’ to choose the authentication. Step 8 − You can set the number of attempts, change the phone number from where the call is made (default number is already there), two-way message timeout (default is 60 seconds), one-time password’s timeout (default is 300 seconds) under general settings. You can also provide an e-mail address where you can be notified if one-time password is bypassed. Step 9 − Scroll down the page and you will see fraud settings. Under Fraud Setting, you can choose to allow the users to send fraud alerts, block the user if an alert is reported and also set an e-mail address where alerts are sent. After the multi-factor authentication is activated for the users, they will be asked to choose one of the three methods (automated message, text message or mobile app) when they sign in to their account next time. The chosen method will be used to authenticate them each time they sign in to their account. Enable the Multi-Factor Authentication for Existing Directory One way is to link the directory to multi-factor authentication provider while creating it, as we seen in the previous section. However, you can also do it in the following way for a particular user. Step 1 − Go to your directory by choosing it from the left panel and click ‘Manage MultiFactor Auth’ at the bottom of the screen. Step 2 − It will take you to the following screen. Here you can select the user and enable or disable the multi-factor authentication for the user. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication for On-premises Applications When you create a new multi-authentication provider using the management portal and select to manage it, you are taken to the page as was shown in the first section of this chapter. If you want to enable the multi-factor authentication for your on-premise application, you have to install the authentication server by clicking the highlighted link. Then you can configure the setting as desired. Step 1 − Click the link encircled in the following image. Step 2 − You will be taken to the following screen, download the setup and generate activation credentials in order to login to the server. Microsoft Azure - Forefront Identity Manager Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) is an identity management software that manages the user’s profiles on premises of the organization. It is also known as Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) or Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (MFIM). We discussed about