About this book

This book is designed to give you a solid foundation to be successful as a developer or IT engineer in Azure. You learn about both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions, along with when to use each approach. As you work through the chapters, you learn how to plan appropriately for availability and scale, keep security in mind, and consider cost and performance. By the end of the book, you should be able to integrate upcoming technologies such as containers and Kubernetes, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI + ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT).

When it comes to how you build and run your applications and services, Azure lets you choose the operating system, application tools, and platform you’re most comfortable with. This book mostly discusses non-Microsoft technologies such as Linux, Python, and Node.js. Command examples use the Azure CLI, not Azure PowerShell. These were conscious decisions to show you that using Azure doesn’t mean you have to use Windows Server, IIS, or ASP.NET.

As you work in the cloud, that often means working across platforms and learning new topics—which is another reason for showing non-Microsoft technologies and platforms. I wanted to introduce you to some of these new areas as you progress through this book, before you encounter them in the real world! Throughout the book, I’ve tried to teach you the concepts and steps needed to integrate Azure services, so you can switch platforms or languages as you wish and have the same knowledge apply.

Roadmap

The book is organized into 4 parts and 21 chapters:

• Part 1 covers some of the core Azure infrastructure and platform services: virtual machines, web apps, storage, and networking.
• Part 2 dives into how to provide high availability and redundancy: templates, availability sets and zones, load balancers, autoscaling, distributed databases, and traffic routing. By the end of chapter 12, you should have a solid knowledge of how to build high-performance, distributed applications in Azure.
• Part 3 covers security aspects such as backup and recovery, encryption, digital key management, and updates. By the time you’ve completed chapter 16, you’ll be well on the way to secure, stable applications in Azure.
• To finish up the book, in part 4 we have a little fun and explore some new areas of computing such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI + ML), containers, Kubernetes, the Internet of Things (IoT), and serverless computing. These chapters introduce areas of Azure that give you a glimpse of what the future of production applications could look like.

Other than part 4, which is aptly named “The Cool Stuff,” you should try to work through the book’s chapters in order. You don’t work on the same project over successive chapters, but each chapter builds on earlier theory and hands-on lab examples.

Chapter 1 guides you through creating a free trial account in Azure, which is enough to complete the hands-on lab exercises in each chapter. I also provide a little more background on Azure and how to find additional help along the way. I mention it a few times in the book (maybe I’m a little biased!), but http://docs.microsoft.com/azure is the best place to go for additional documentation and support in any areas of Azure that interest you.

About the examples and source code

This book contains many examples of source code, both in numbered listings and inline with normal text. In both cases, source code is formatted in a fixed-width font like this to separate it from ordinary text.

In many cases, the original source code has been reformatted; we’ve added line breaks and reworked indentation to accommodate the available page space in the book. Additionally, comments in the source code have often been removed from the listings when the code is described in the text. Code annotations accompany many of the listings, highlighting important concepts.

This book’s source code, along with accompanying scripts, templates, and supporting resources, can be found at www.manning.com/books/learn-azure-in-a-month-of-lunches and on the book’s GitHub repo at https://github.com/fouldsy/azure-mol-samples.

All the hands-on exercises can be completed in the Azure portal and with the Azure Cloud Shell, a browser-based interactive shell for both the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell. There are no tools to install on your machine, and you can use any computer and OS you wish, provided it supports a modern web browser.

The Azure portal often implements minor changes. I’ve tried to minimize the number of portal screenshots, but don’t worry if what you see is a little different than what’s shown in the book. The required parameters are usually the same—the layout may just be different. If there are new options in the portal that I don’t specifically call out in an exercise or lab, it’s usually safe to accept the defaults that are provided.

If you work outside of the Azure Cloud Shell, take care with the command examples. Windows-based shells such as PowerShell and CMD treat line breaks and continuations differently than *nix-based shells such as the Azure Cloud Shell. Many of the command examples run across multiple lines. Commands are shown with a backslash () character to indicate the command continues on the next line, as in the following example:

az resource group create 
    --name azuremol 
    --location eastus

You don’t have to type in those backslash characters, but doing so may make long commands more readable on your screen. If you choose to work locally on your computer with a Windows shell, you can use a backtick (`) instead of a backslash. For example, in a PowerShell or CMD shell with Python for Windows installed, change the previous command as follows:

az resource group create `
    --name azuremol `
    --location eastus

This may seem confusing at first, but I follow this convention in the book because the official documentation at http://docs.microsoft.com/azure uses this format. Azure CLI commands, which are what we mostly use in this book, assume a *nix-based shell and so use a backslash character. Azure PowerShell commands assume a Windows-based shell and so use a backtick. This will quickly make sense, and you’ll find it’s easy to transition between the two. If you’re new to working across platforms, it can be a fun little gotcha!

Book forum

Purchase of Learn Azure in a Month of Lunches includes free access to a private web forum run by Manning Publications where you can make comments about the book, ask technical questions, and receive help from the author and from other users. To access the forum, go to https://forums.manning.com/forums/learn-azure-in-a-month-of-lunches. You can also learn more about Manning’s forums and the rules of conduct at https://forums.manning.com/forums/about.

Manning’s commitment to our readers is to provide a venue where a meaningful dialogue between individual readers and between readers and the author can take place. It is not a commitment to any specific amount of participation on the part of the author, whose contribution to the forum remains voluntary (and unpaid). We suggest you try asking the author some challenging questions, lest his interest stray! The forum and the archives of previous discussions will be accessible from the publisher’s website as long as the book is in print.