Introduction

An Overview of this Book

Chapter 1: Azure Architecture Overview

This chapter introduces the Microsoft Azure architecture and the services covered in the upcoming chapters. This chapter is not meant to teach Microsoft Azure for beginners, but to set the base for readers and refresh their memories before they start.

Chapter 2: Getting Started with Azure PowerShell

Microsoft Azure has its own PowerShell module known as Azure PowerShell. This chapter teaches you how to download and install the Azure PowerShell module, and how to configure it and make it ready to connect to your Microsoft Azure subscription.

Chapter 3: Managing and Maintaining Azure Storage

Storage is a constant in any computing or IT formula. Desktops, servers, routers, switches, and smartphones will never work without storage—and this applies to cloud computing as well. Storage is a component that all of these services rely on before digging into the different Azure services and workloads. In this chapter, you get ready for and become aware of Azure storage. You learn about the Azure storage account and the different types and services. Also, you learn how to configure it using PowerShell.

Chapter 4: Virtual Machines Deployment and Management

Let’s learn about the deployment and management of the virtual machines portion of Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This chapter covers the different operations that can be performed on virtual machines and its different components, including disks, operating systems, security, endpoints, high availability, imaging, and so forth.

Chapter 5: Virtual Networking Configuration

This chapter continues the discussion of Azure IaaS components with Azure Virtual Networks (VN). It covers basic VN operations, such as network deployment and creation, as well as advanced operations like configuring external gateways, site-to-site VPNs, Traffic Manager, Azure DNS, and access control lists (ACLs).

Chapter 6: Deploying Azure Web Apps

As part of Azure’s PaaS offerings, Azure Web Apps provides a platform for hosting web sites and web apps, whether they are written using Microsoft technologies such as .NET, or other technologies, such as PHP and Python. Managing a single web app sounds fine, but managing multiple web apps—especially if you are a service provider—could be a nightmare. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to teach you how to use PowerShell to create, configure, manage, and monitor Azure-hosted web apps.

Chapter 7: Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is another Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering; it is simply the cloud-hosted version of Microsoft SQL Server. This chapter demonstrates how to use PowerShell to manage Azure SQL databases and servers to create, configure, access, and query Azure SQL databases. It also covers backup and recovery, along with the georeplication of the databases.

Chapter 8: Azure Automation

One of the cool things about Azure is having a PowerShell module; but the coolest thing is to have one of the services, Azure Automation, which is built on and relies on the Windows PowerShell and Windows PowerShell Workflows engine. This chapter helps you utilize your PowerShell skills to unleash the maximum out of Azure Automation in order to build a complex yet advanced automation platform for your Azure services and workloads.

Chapter 9: Azure RemoteApp

In this chapter, you learn about Azure RemoteApp services and its PowerShell cmdlets via a full end-to-end RemoteApp scenario. The examples show how to build an Azure RemoteApp custom template with applications and how to use the RemoteApp template image to create a RemoteApp collection and publish it. Moreover, it shows how to monitor RemoteApp usage, manage the connected user sessions, and take actions, such as disconnecting a session, logging off a session, and sending a message to the active sessions.

Chapter 10: Azure Identity and Access

"With great power comes great responsibility" is a well-known saying. And with the cloud’s power comes a great security risk, if you don’t do things right. Azure Active Directory (AAD) is one of the components that helps you set the right permissions to the right people on the cloud, just like Windows Server Active Directory for the on-premises infrastructure. In this chapter, you learn about the PowerShell module for Azure Active Directory, including where to download it and how to install and configure it.

Chapter 11: Azure Rights Management Services

Azure Rights Management Services is an information and content protection service that helps you ensure that data is always protected and only accessed by the right people. Usually, you have different departments, groups, and levels of employees within the same organization. This means that you have to create different RMS policies to fit the business requirements of each of these groups. This chapter demonstrates how to use the Azure RMS PowerShell module to easily manage the Azure RMS settings, as well as Azure RMS policies and protected content.

Chapter 12: Building and Managing Azure HDInsight Clusters

There is no doubt that cloud computing is a trend, and Big Data is today’s technology fashion. So, imagine how powerful it would be to have the capabilities of Big Data powered by cloud computing and managed by PowerShell. This is what you read about in this chapter, and in which you learn about using PowerShell to build and manage Azure HDInsight clusters, how to manipulate and use an HDInsight cluster, as well as running Pig or Hive scripts, and automating processes for efficient resource usage.

Who Should Read this Book?

Pro PowerShell for Microsoft Azure is written for Windows professionals who are familiar with PowerShell and want to learn to build, operate, and administer their Windows workloads in the Microsoft Azure cloud. The book is packed with practical examples and scripts, with easy-to-follow explanations for a wide range of day-to-day needs and essential administration tasks.

This book assumes you have experience with Microsoft PowerShell. It will not teach you how to write PowerShell scripts. There are numerous excellent books on the market already. As an example, Apress offers a book titled Pro Windows PowerShell by Hristo Deshev.

On the other hand, it would be great to have a hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure; this would help you progress faster. However, in some cases, we start with the basics and build on that foundation. In other cases, especially advanced topics such as virtual networking and HDInsight, the chapter entirely counts on your experience with these subjects.

If this is your first time dealing with Azure PowerShell, then I highly recommend that you follow the chapter’s sequence and structure. It is very important to do this because the chapters rely on each other. However, if you have experience with Azure PowerShell and you want to jump to a specific chapter or topic in the book, then I recommend that you at least read Chapter 2 to refresh your memory and prepare your environment for other chapters.

What Do You Need for this Book?

To get the maximum benefit out of this book and to reproduce the examples, you should have the following:

• Internet connectivity.
• A Microsoft Azure subscription. You can register for a free trial or get it as a benefit of an MSDN subscription (if you have any).
• Azure PowerShell version 9.8.1.