Tag: Azure

How to unleash the full power of Azure DevOps

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Microsoft Azure is the second most significant cloud provider behind Amazon’s AWS. Azure has over 20% of the cloud market share and is gradually catching up with AWS. Azure DevOps is a significant factor that contributed to Microsoft’s success in the cloud space.

Microsoft Azure DevOps offers the capability to deploy the hosted version of the cloud or effortlessly deploy your own data center. Its offerings include a one-stop suite of services to create continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, version control, test case management, and requirements planning and management.

This article details how DevOps engineers can effortlessly cover much of the application lifecycle with the Azure out-of-the-box components.

1. Getting started 

When we pointed out that Azure DevOps technology tools easily integrate, we did not imply that simple out-of-the-box deployment is enough to get the best out of them.

When implementing a new setup on Microsoft Azure DevOps, you need to plan how you will put the elements together. Building a sophisticated pipeline can be much more challenging unless you understand CI/CD principles well. For instance, you must never stack together too many tasks in one stage when deploying an application with Azure DevOps. It leads to troubles when debugging, as all other tasks must be disabled to test a single job. This entire process is not only time-consuming but also frustrating, which defeats the purpose of DevOps.

2. Create proficiency with training 

Azure DevOps is designed to be an off-the-shelf solution. However, when working with sophisticated workflow pipelines, engineers must assemble them in a way that offers a bespoke solution per the organization’s needs.

An easy way to introduce proficiency in your team to handle Azure DevOps better is to provide them with a few weeks of training. In-house software developers and architects might not be fully aware of the capabilities of the DevOps technology that can be deployed with Azure. 

Also, your engineers must be preoccupied with projects which leave them little time or space to explore the full capabilities of Azure DevOps. An in-depth Azure DevOps training with people who have spent time in the trenches and have years of real-world experience can bring your development teams up to speed in no time.

3. Practice “un-deploy”

It would help if you could efficiently get the most out of Microsoft Azure. For this, you have to plan the application deployment in a phased-out manner to highlight the components that do not need to be moved to the cloud. One difference between in-premises hosting vs. cloud migration is that you are charged for everything you use. To cut costs and maximize the use of available Azure resources, you must un-deploy the processes that are not necessary. Also, DevOps engineers should create functional pipelines so that any component can be undeployed if required.

4. Put only the core team into Azure DevOps

Nothing is worse than building a failed deployment, often due to team mismanagement. With Azure DevOps, you can better manage teams reducing such failures. When too many members are working on Azure DevOps, somebody might tweak something without informing the DevOps team. 

However, Azure DevOps has several security features that solve this problem. You can easily manage access to Azure DevOps, permitting only the core DevOps team to deploy. Other engineers and developers on the unit can be part of other Azure DevOps security groups and access their deployments.

5. Maximum strategy and protocol

When you have a strategy in mind, you can always handle any aspect of the project without getting lost down the line. Multiple layers of planning must include different strategies for artifact naming, scaling, monitoring/logging, security, change management, and backups/reliability. It would help if you planned the maximum strategy by involving as many stakeholders as possible such as engineers, DevOps, and QA testers.

This also creates a deployment cadence for team members to have a better overview of the entire Azure project, enabling them to deploy anything, anytime, and in any environment. You must establish a protocol for the DevOps team to follow. Let your team practice the processes you set up on Azure DevOps such that they do not face difficulties later on. As the team starts building the protocol, they will encounter challenges that they have to address and resolve.

Conclusion 

Deploying to the cloud gives businesses an advantage to grow at scale. However, you have to constantly change and improve with the cloud as it makes your services better. If you are using Microsoft Azure, this guide will help you to use Azure DevOps at its full potential. Ensure you are flexible and ready to learn new tools and DevOps technology.

Talent500 is the remote team-building platform trusted by Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing startups. Sign up here to join the DevOps engineer pool and discover global job opportunities.

 

Top 4 security products for Azure

Posted on by vallish

Microsoft Azure is a signature cloud service offered for organizations to host any type of service. Launched in 2010, Azure is one of the fastest-growing private and public cloud computing platforms. It provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS) that also includes virtual computing, networking, storage, and analytics. With over 200 cloud services and products, Azure’s steady growth rate over time indicates how increasingly businesses are using its infrastructure. You must understand and learn its security requirements as a developer if you use Microsoft Azure products and solutions.

This article lists some security tools for Azure cloud that can be used on-premises and in a cloud environment for optimizing security across multiple applications.

1. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

A free cloud security platform that Microsoft deploys by default for applications on Azure, Defender for Cloud also includes security posture management. However, the default configuration has its limitations, and to better secure applications, you must deploy Defender for Endpoint or multi-cloud capabilities.

Simply put, you should customize Microsoft Defender for your application’s security depending on its configuration and architecture. A hybrid security option also offers protection for on-premise resources and applications stored in the cloud. You can check the complete overview of Microsoft Defender for Cloud and its enhanced security features here.

Another reason to include this security tool in your cloud infrastructure is its compliance with industry compliance standards like ISO 27001 for information security, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and CIS benchmarks for cybersecurity.

2. Azure Monitor

For your cloud application, you will need powerful reporting and analytics tools. Azure Monitor is an analytics tool that collects and analyzes telemetry data from various environments. You get data from the cloud and on-premises applications and how they perform. This gives you a clear picture of resource utilization, and you can quickly identify any issues. Azure Monitor features many tools that make your applications more secure and detection and diagnosis tools such as Application Insights and Log Analytics for deeper diagnostics of cloud applications. It also works on servers like Nginx, Litespeed, and Apache.

3. Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel is another great security tool to be used on Azure to enhance the security of the infrastructure. It is a complete security information and event management (SIEM) tool that offers Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions. 

Microsoft Sentinel is true to its name and provides a single pane glass view of your entire estate. It has artificial intelligence to detect, investigate, and mitigate potential attacks before they can cause any harm. It is a security tool that is extremely useful for large enterprises that host vast amounts of data on cloud servers that require continuous monitoring.

You can deploy Microsoft Sentinel for aggregating data from in-house or cloud applications. It is primarily for enhancing visibility for security monitoring and is often used in combination with Microsoft 365 Defender, Azure AD, and Microsoft Defender for Identity. If you require a security tool that allows you to take control of your entire cloud infrastructure and applications and provide serial data-driven insights, then this is the right choice for you.

4. Azure DDoS Protection service

DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service attacks is the most common type of cyber-attacks affecting cloud services. Microsoft Azure has a defense against such attacks and offers it through its Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection Basic tool.

Azure DDoS Protection service protects the most common Layer 7 DNS Query Floods and volumetric attacks. The service has already been known to protect Microsoft’s most enterprise and consumer services from frequent large-scale attacks. You do not need any customization to enable this or pay extra costs. Azure DDoS Protection service can be enabled by default without configuration or application changes.

You can switch to DDoS Protection Standard if you need more enhanced protection. It is a continuous monitoring solution that actively scans your infrastructure for suspicious behavior or attack indicators.

Conclusion 

With Azure, you get many security tools out of the box as a standard service. All you need to do is to activate the required security tools. We hope this article will help you understand how to implement the most common Azure security tools, what features to offer and how much protection to bring. While most of the Microsoft Azure security tools offer free basic service, you might want to consider your organization’s security goals and compliance requirements to determine whether additional paid-for services are needed.

And if you are an Azure engineer looking for a challenging opportunity to grow in your career, Talent500 is your platform. Sign up here to learn how our engineers work with Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing start-ups.

 

Azure developer toolkit: In-demand skills, learning resources, online courses, interview prep, books & more

Posted on by vallish

Development in the cloud requires a distinct set of skills and knowledge. Compared to building applications for on-premise environments, working with the cloud is more challenging, given these platforms’ massive global scale and resiliency. After AWS, Azure has the largest market share at 21%. If you plan to become an Azure developer or want to explore the domain, you must improve your existing skills and acquire new ones. 

We created this Azure developer toolkit to help you quickly find critical learning and preparation resources. 

Let’s start with the skills you must have to grab the competitive advantages of being an Azure developer.

  1. Scripting: Azure cloud is vast, and if you deploy an extensive application on Azure, you have to script your environment such that you can update the complete infrastructure. Scripting is an essential skill for Azure developers and allows them to create environments much faster. Cloud platforms can be expensive, so it is economically viable to tear everything when you use them and build a backup when needed. To do so efficiently, you will have to script the environment. In Azure, developers have Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates that they can use to create code for the infrastructure and deploy it through Azure automation tools like Visual Studio Team Services. As an Azure developer, you will be expected to know such tools.
  2. Learn how to develop resiliency: Cloud platforms are built for resiliency, implying applications in the cloud keep running even if the server dies. Azure developers must be familiar with the cloud’s mechanism to utilize this resiliency. One important concept is self-preservation. You have to learn how to make different aspects of an application and make use of Azure to keep it alive even when the server dies. Learn about Retry Pattern. There are Azure SDKs available that allow developers to automatically implement retry patterns.
  3. Monitoring and diagnostics pipeline: As a cloud engineer, you must work on all application development aspects. It will be challenging to manage or monitor all the microservices that run in a container in the cloud. Due to its loosely connected and highly distributed nature, it is not easy to get a good overview of the health of your system. You must learn to create pipelines to monitor your services and even diagnose them if needed. Fortunately, in Azure, you can set up automatic monitoring of the services using Azure Monitor. Also, learn about logging mechanisms like Application Insights for applications and Log Analytics for infrastructure.

Official resources 

Online courses and tutorials for Azure developers 

This Udemy course is an excellent resource for beginners to learn about the Azure cloud. It not only teaches the fundamentals of Azure but also prepares you for the AZ-900 or the Azure Fundamental exam. The course covers Azure storage services architecture, Virtual machine creation and storage, Azure database services, Big Data solutions on Azure, the internet of things, Azure infrastructure as code (ARM Templates), and Azure DevOps.

Another online course to learn about Microsoft Azure services from scratch is Microsoft Azure Fundamentals. It introduces cloud computing and how to deploy apps on Windows Azure infrastructure. It teaches Windows Azure compute and storage, SQL Azure, cloud computing tradeoffs, and the limitations of the Azure platform.

Designed for both beginners and experienced developers, this Udemy course explains how DevOps concepts and practices can be migrated to Azure. It teaches how to plan, manage, and deploy your first Azure DevOps application through hands-on exercises and use cases. This course discusses all parts of the DevOps landscape, such as app containers, commits, code requests, sprints, unit testing, and code artifacts.

If you are an experienced developer who wants to foray into the Azure cloud, this is the online course we recommend. It covers all the essential DevOps tools and technologies you might have used at work, such as Kubernetes, Docker, AKS, Azure Disks, Virtual Nodes, Active Directory, ACR, DNS Zones, and Terraform. This course is ideal for Azure architects, sysadmins, and developers who want to master Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Books for Azure developers 

Online communities for Azure developers 

Podcasts for Azure developers

  1. Empathy: Writing code and spending time on engineering assignments is not the only work that developers do. They also interact with other stakeholders. The adage “putting yourself in another person’s shoes” is what empathy is about. You must nurture your brain to understand other people, anticipate their opinions, and be open about their ideas. An empathic developer knows how to address the needs of others and adjust their behavior.
  2. Communication: You might work with people from all backgrounds and cultures. Understanding what you say and how you say it can impact other people’s feelings is essential. Strong communication skills can make you a great team player. Not only have speaking skills, but you must also have impeccable communication in emails, chats, and other tools.
  3. Self-awareness: Being confident in what you know is one way to feel confident truly. Self-awareness means keeping in touch with both your strengths as well as weaknesses. When you are aware of your shortcomings, you can seek proper training and mentorship from your colleagues or manager. The learning resources we shared above are a few you can bookmark and follow to learn new skills necessary to become a cloud engineer.
  4. Self-learning: Another great soft skill for developers is self-learning. Put yourself on a path of life-long learning to identify problems and quickly find solutions. It is not a coincidence that thousands of developers enter the IT industry without a formal degree. If you keep learning new technologies and tools, you can be a successful developer.

More resources on soft skill development:

Conclusion 

Azure developers are in demand as companies are adopting cloud infrastructure. We hope this Azure developer toolkit provides you with all the necessary resources to learn and master the skills you require.

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