Azure Migration Planning Step by Step

Azure Migration Planning Step by Step

The best way to do the azure migration is to use the most popular azure migration framework. Assess your current systems with Azure Migrate, and migrate them with Azure Site Recovery and Azure Database Migration Service.

Azure Migration Framework

As a path for migration, each stage focuses on a particular aspect of ensuring the success of a migration.

1. Assess
2. Migrate
3. Optimize and 
4. Monitor

Step 1: Assess

Identify the servers, applications, and services that are in scope for migration. After that involve your IT and business teams that work with those services. By Involving these teams in as early as possible in the migration process, you ensure that they can provide guidance, feedback, and support for the migration. Every application must be fully investigated before any work takes place.

There are multiple migration options:

Rehost:

While using this option you need to recreate your existing infrastructure in Azure. Choosing this approach has the least impact because it requires minimal changes. It typically involves moving virtual machines from your data center to virtual machines on Azure.

Refactor:

While using this option you need to move services running on virtual machines to platform-as-a-service (PaaS) services. This approach can reduce operational requirements, improve release agility, and keep your costs low. Small enhancements to run more efficiently in the cloud can have large impacts on performance.

Rearchitect:

While using this option you need to you might have to rearchitect some systems so that they can be migrated. Other apps could be changed to become cloud-native or to take advantage of new approaches to software, such as containers or microservices.

Rebuild: 

You might need to rebuild software if the cost to rearchitect it is more than that of starting from scratch.

Replace:

You may find that third-party applications could completely replace your custom applications. Evaluate software-as-a-service (SaaS) options that can be used to replace existing applications.

Involve Stakeholders

Applications are used by specific sections of the business. Involving these people in the planning stage increases the chance of a successful migration. 

Estimate Cost Savings

A component of the business's plan to migrate to Azure could be to abbreviate costs. Utilize the Azure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator to estimate the project cost.

Tools to Migrate Data and Database to Azure Databases

Azure Database Migration Service

DMS is a fully managed service designed to enable seamless migrations from multiple database sources to Azure Data platforms with minimal downtime. Recommend for the large databases and size.

Azure Data Box

The best and cheapest way to moves large datasets of either offline or online data to Azure.

Data Migration Assistant

Check SQL databases for compatibility, and then migrates the schema and data to Azure. Its recommended for the small database and data size.

Data Migration Tool

Migrates existing databases to Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Cosmos DB Data Migration tool, which can import data from different sources into Azure Cosmos containers and tables. Data can be imported from JSON files, CSV files, SQL, MongoDB, Azure Table storage, Amazon DynamoDB, and even Azure Cosmos DB SQL API collections. Also, the Data Migration tool can be used to migrating from a single partition collection to a multi-partition collection for the SQL API.

Step 2: Migration

Deploy Targeted Cloud Infrastructure

As your servers, application, databases, and services have been defined and decided now its time to provision the required infrastructure for your destination systems and services on Azure to migrate to.  The two tools you'll use to do the migration, Azure Site Recovery, and the Azure Database Migration Service, will create the required Azure resources for you.

Migrate Workloads

It's recommended to start with a small migration instead of migrating a large, business-critical workload. Using this approach you will become familiar with the tools, processes, and procedures for migration. It can reduce the risk of issues when you migrate to larger workloads. 
Web Applications Migrations, the high-level steps are:

• Get ready the source (on-premises Server) and target (Azure) environments.
• Set up and start the replication between the two.
• Test that the replication has worked.
• Failover from the source servers to Azure.

The database migrations, the high-level steps are:

• Assess your on-premises databases.
• Migrate the schemas.
• Create and run an Azure Database Migration Service project to move the data.
• Monitor the migration.

Decommission of On-premises Infra

After all migrated workloads have been tested and verified as successfully migrated to Azure, you can decommission all your on-premises systems.

Step 3: Optimize

Analyze running costs

Use Azure Cost Management to start analyzing the Azure costs of your workload. 

Credit to MSDN

Step 4: Optimize

Incorporate Health and Performance Monitoring

You can use Azure Monitor to capture health and performance information from Azure VMs if you install a Log Analytics agent. You can install the agent on machines running either Windows or Linux, and you can then set up alerting and reporting. Here your DevOps team would be quite helpful. 

Alerts can be set up on a range of data sources, for your application such as:

• Specific metric values like CPU usage.
• Specific text in log files.
• Health metrics.
• An Autoscale metric.

Azure Security Documentation and Compliance Offerings

Azure Security Documentation and Compliance Offerings

The following list provides details about some of the compliance offerings available.

• Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS). Any US state or local agency that wants to access the FBI's CJIS database is required to adhere to the CJIS Security Policy. Azure is the only major cloud provider that contractually commits to conformance with the CJIS Security Policy, which commits Microsoft to adhere to the same requirements that law enforcement and public safety entities must meet.
• Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) STAR Certification. Azure, Intune, and Microsoft Power BI have obtained STAR Certification, which involves a rigorous independent third-party assessment of a cloud provider's security posture. This STAR certification is based on achieving ISO/IEC 27001 certification and meeting criteria specified in the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM). This certification demonstrates that a cloud service provider:
  • Conforms to the applicable requirements of ISO/IEC 27001.
  • Has addressed issues critical to cloud security as outlined in the CCM.
  • Has been assessed against the STAR Capability Maturity Model for the management of activities in CCM control areas.
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As of May 25, 2018, a European privacy law — GDPR — is in effect. GDPR imposes new rules on companies, government agencies, non-profits, and other organizations that offer goods and services to people in the European Union (EU), or that collect and analyze data tied to EU residents. The GDPR applies no matter where you are located.
• EU Model Clauses. Microsoft offers customers EU Standard Contractual Clauses that provide contractual guarantees around transfers of personal data outside of the EU. Microsoft is the first company to receive joint approval from the EU's Article 29 Working Party that the contractual privacy protections Azure delivers to its enterprise cloud customers meet current EU standards for international transfers of data. This ensures that Azure customers can use Microsoft services to move data freely through Microsoft's cloud from Europe to the rest of the world.
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA is a US federal law that regulates patient Protected Health Information (PHI). Azure offers customers a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA), stipulating adherence to certain security and privacy provisions in HIPAA and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. To assist customers in their individual compliance efforts, Microsoft offers a BAA to Azure customers as a contract addendum.
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 27018. Microsoft is the first cloud provider to have adopted the ISO/IEC 27018 code of practice, covering the processing of personal information by cloud service providers.
• Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Singapore. After rigorous assessments conducted by the MTCS Certification Body, Microsoft cloud services received MTCS 584:2013 certification across all three service classifications:
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS)
  • Software as a Service (SaaS)
  Microsoft was the first global cloud solution provider (CSP) to receive this certification across all three classifications.
• Service Organization Controls (SOC) 1, 2, and 3. Microsoft-covered cloud services are audited at least annually against the SOC report framework by independent third-party auditors. The Microsoft cloud services audit covers controls for data security, availability, processing integrity, and confidentiality as applicable to in-scope trust principles for each service.
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF). NIST CSF is a voluntary framework that consists of standards, guidelines, and best practices to manage cybersecurity-related risks. Microsoft cloud services have undergone independent, third-party Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Moderate and High Baseline audits, and are certified according to the FedRAMP standards. Additionally, through a validated assessment performed by the Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST), a leading security and privacy standards development and accreditation organization, Office 365 is certified to the objectives specified in the NIST CSF.
• UK Government G-CloudThe UK Government G-Cloud is a cloud computing certification for services used by government entities in the United Kingdom. Azure has received official accreditation from the UK Government Pan Government Accreditor.

What is cloud computing?

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a mechanism for renting resources, like storage space, CPU cycles, on another company's computers. You only pay for what you use. The company providing these services is referred to as a cloud provider. For example, providers are Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

 The cloud provider is responsible for the physical hardware required to execute your work, and for keeping it up-to-date.

Compute power - such as Linux servers or web applications
Storage - such as files and databases
Networking - such as secure connections between the cloud provider and your company
Analytics - such as visualizing telemetry and performance data

What are the containers?

 Containers provide a consistent, isolated execution environment for applications. They're similar to Virtual Machines except they don't require a guest operating system. Instead, the application and all its dependencies are packaged into a "container" and then a standard runtime environment is used to execute the app. This allows the container to start up in just a few seconds because there's no OS to boot and initialize. You only need the app to launch.

Cloud computing vs Containers vs Serverless Computing

Below is a diagram comparing the three compute approaches we've covered.

Best Way To Update Storage Account SKU Plan Example

How to Update Existing Storage Account SKU Plan?

​The updates operation allow updating

• The SKU, 
• Encryption, 
• Access tier, 
•  Tags 
•  It can also be used to map the account to a custom domain

Only one custom domain is supported per storage account. The change of the custom domain is not supported. In order to replace an old custom domain, the old value must be cleared/unregistered before a new value can be set. 

PowerShell: Update Storage Account SKU Example

Set-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName "YourResourceGroup" -AccountName "YourSorageAccounNAME" -Type "Standard_LRS"

Visit MSDN For More Powershell Commands

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/azurerm.storage/set-azurermstorageaccount?view=azurermps-6.13.0

Azure API: Update Storage Account SKU Example

PATCH https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/{accountName}?api-version=2019-06-01

Visit MSDN for the latest updates

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/storagerp/storageaccounts/update

​

ASP.NET Core Blazor Advantage and Disadvantage

ASP.NET Core Blazor Advantage and Disadvantage

Advantage of The Blazor WebAssembly Hosting Model

• There's no .NET server-side dependency. 

• The app is fully functioning after downloading it to the client.

• Client resources and capabilities are fully utilized.

• Work is offloaded from the server to the client.

•  Serverless deployment scenarios are possible, ie. you can use  Azure Storage Account and CDN to host your application

A disadvantage of Blazor WebAssembly Hosting:

• The app is restricted to the capabilities of the browser.

• Client hardware and software should be capable to provide the environment to run the application (for example, WebAssembly support is required)

• App size is larger, and apps take longer to load.

Azure Data Load (ETL) Process using Azure Functions Step by Step Example

Data Load (ETL) Process using Azure Functions

Azure Functions 

are serverless and are a great solution for processing data, integrating systems, working with the internet-of-things (IoT), and building simple APIs and microservices. Consider Functions for tasks like image or order processing, file maintenance, or for any tasks that you want to run on a schedule.

Here we are talking about ETL process implementation using Azure Functions, even though Azure Data Factory is out there but if you are a c# developer you will love it. You can leverage all the benefits of the App Service Plan and/or Consumption Plan(Pay As you Go) along with Event-Driven Process and Programming Model

Azure Durable Function

Durable Function is an extension of Azure Function that lets you write stateful functions in a serverless compute environment. It allows you to define stateful workflows by writing orchestrator functions and stateful entities by writing entity/Activity functions using the Azure Functions programming model. All other things like state management, checkpoints, and restarts for you, will be taken care of by azure durable function engine and allowing you to focus on your business logic.

The primary requirement is the reader should be familiar  with Azure function and durable functions

Business Requirement

 We have CSV file dropped into the azure blob storage/container and that file should be process and data saved into the Azure SQL Server.

Design and Architecture

• Azure Function: It's a blob trigger function and starter for the data load process.
• Azure Durable Functions - Orchestrator: It's an orchestrator function that will manage the workflow/data flow activities function and all the executions 
• Azure Durable Functions - Activity: An azure function that will actually process the CSV data and will insert into the azure SQL database
• Azure SQL Server: will be in used to keep processed data
• SendGrid: will be used to send emails and acknowledgment on process completion
• Application Insights: can be used to logging the exception event etc..

Development Environment Setup:

1.  Visit MSDN for the step by step example  here is a link
2.  Required NuGet package Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Extensions.DurableTask

Code and Example : 

Here is a list of code screenshots

Start Function: its a blob trigger azure function that will execute automatically once any CSV file will be dropped into the container "samples-workitems"

Orchestrator Function : 

it will manage the life cycle of data workflow 

Activity Functions

perform actual data manipulation and communication with the database.

Solutions and NuGet pkg:

Bonus Points: 

1. Use Cunsputions Plans only if you are sure that you function execution time will no exceed 10minutes limit
2. Use App Service Plan if need to configure vnet andother securtity and if your function will need more than 10 minutes to complete the task just you need to configure function time out in host.json
3. Visit for more Application Patterns 

Azure Logic Apps Send Email Using Send Grid Step by Step Example

Azure Logic Apps Send Email Using Send Grid Step by Step

   

Step 1- Create Send Grid Account

• Create a SendGrid Account https://sendgrid.com/
• Login and Generate Sendgrid Key and keep it safe that will be used further to send emails
• You can use Free service. it's enough for the demo purpose

Step 2- Logic App Design

• Login to https://portal.azure.com

• Go to Resources and Create Logic App Named "EmailDemo"

• Go To Newly Created Rosoure Named "EmailDemo" and Select a Trigger "Recurrence", You can choose according to your needs like HTTP, etc. Note* Without trigger you can not insert new steps or Actions

• Click on Change Connection and add Send Grid Key 

• Click on Create and Save Button on the Top.

As we have recurrence so it will trigger according to our setup(every 3 months) so just for the test click on "RUN" button 

Finally, you should get an email like below one:

   How to Crack the Microsoft Interview?

Dear Friends, I am a former employee of Microsoft and want to help youngsters and interested people, who are willing to join Microsoft India. When I was trying to join Microsoft that timed I struggled a lot and did not get any correct path and advice. I'll try to simplify things for you... 😊

You need to understand the Microsoft culture before doing anything.

• Microsoft focus on Growth Mindset: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/culture

• Satya Nadella popularized the growth mindset in Microsoft workplace culture when he became CEO in 2014. He had repeatedly credited Dweck's "Mindset" as inspiration for Microsoft's culture change. Now the idea of a growth mindset has embedded itself in Microsoft's rhetoric.

• A growth mindset emphasizes the way you relate your sense of self to a challenge. For example, if you apply a growth mindset when presented with a difficult problem, you don't see the problem and start thinking that you're failing because you don't immediately get it ("I'm not smart enough"). Instead, you start thinking that you're learning and I love a challenge.

How to do your preparations?

• Learn Data Structure and Algorithms (Best site to visit geek for geeks)
• Develop Software Architecture and Desing Skills 
• You should be proficient in at least one programming languageC#, C/C++, Powershell, Javascript, Python, TCL
• Expert in OOPs and Solid Principles
• Understanding in Client Service Architecture
• Mindset for willing to work in any situations(means nothing is impossible)

Interview Process:

Microsoft has three business division IDC, MSIT, Microsoft Consulting Services(MCS)/MSGD(Global Delivery)

The interview process may differ by business division, here will explain about the IDC/MSIT process

Interview Round can be varied for the position and Teams but generally, it goes up to Six Rounds. Here I am giving an example for the Software Engineers positions.

First Round: 

Pure technical round with Problem-solving interview questions, may you be asked to design a solution for a given problem. for example, Design unified custom caching functionality.

Second Round: 

round with Problem-solving interview questions, may you be asked to design a solution for a given problem. for example, present uber app architecture

Third Round: 

Technical questions and write an algorithm(sorting and string etc), may you be given in critical situations and you had/have to design a solution. for example "Find the square root of number up to given precision using binary search"

Fourth Round: 

Some technical questions, Some Managerial questions, About your Past work Experience and learnings

Fifth Round:

Generally Happens with Principle Managers/Business Head

They will tell you about their business group and opportunity, There could be few technical questions, They will check your confidence and what you are expecting from ongoing opportunity.

Sixth Round:

Salary discussions from HR

generally, Microsoft has its own pay standards so you will get beyond your expectations with a lot of perk and facilities with amazing Campus

Points to keep in mind while interviewing:

• Make sure nothing is false in your resume
• Whatever you have written in your resume, be prepared to answer it
• If unfortunately you told something false to the interviewer so keep in mind may the next round interview can cross-verify it.

Where to Apply? 

Go ahead and visit the MS career website and apply it, here is a link for you.

https://careers.microsoft.com/professionals/us/en/

All the best...please provide your comments if you feel that helped you!!!

What is Serverless architecture?

What is Serverless architecture?

   

Serverless computing enables developers to build applications faster as infrastructure will be managed by the service provider(Azure). With serverless applications, the cloud service provider automatically provisions, scales and manages the infrastructure required to run the code.

Advantage of Serverless architecture: The following top 3 points will be managed by the service providers for you.

1. No Infrastructure management
2. Automatic Scalability
3. An efficient way to use azure resources so you will save more money here
4. Serverless applications reduce the operations dependencies on each development cycle, increasing development teams’ agility to deliver more in less time.

Bonus Points: Following are the azure serverless compute/services

• Serverless functions
• Serverless workflows(Logic Apps)
• Serverless API gateway
• Serverless Kubernetes
• Serverless application environments

A short video tutorial: Logic App Integrations with Facebook

Difference between IaaS, PaaS,SaaS and On-Premises

Difference between IaaS, PaaS,SaaS and On-Premises

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet. for example Virtual Machine(VM). The consumer has full control over the VM and has to maintain Patching, Software Updates, Security, etc.

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable you to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated, cloud-enabled enterprise applications. You purchase the resources you need from a cloud service provider(Azure, AWS, Google, etc..) on a pay-as-you-go basis and access them over a secure Internet connection.

Software as a service (SaaS) allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the Internet. Common examples are email, calendaring, and office tools (such as Microsoft Office 365).

In short, I am trying to explain it, see the following table.

Resources	On-Premise	IaaS	PaaS	SaaS
Hosted applications	No	No	No	Yes
Development tools, database management, Business analytics	No	No	Yes	Yes
Operating systems	No	No	Yes	Yes
Servers and storage	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Networking firewalls/security	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Datacenter physical plant/building	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Resources: List of resources that are required for any software service to be live hosted and running
No: means it not managed by Service Provider, you have to manage service and use it.
Yes: means its managed by Service Provider, you have to use the service only.

Service Providers: Azure, AWS, Google, etc..

Bonus points:   I'do recommend always think to use PaaS Services and SaaS service over IaaS, here you will get more time to focus on your app development, business logic, and delivery.  Everything else will be managed by the service provider for you.