Singin’ in the Rain

Gene Kelly may have been able to laugh at clouds in Singing in the Rain, but these days clouds are nothing to laugh at. Cloud computing is gaining more and more attention, and rightly so. It is something which every business, company, and establishment now knows – clouds are a powerful, useful, and necessary tool for proper development. If this was once only true for large companies and enterprises, today everyone can enjoy the benefits of using a cloud computing system. Whether it is for running applications, consolidating data, backing up information, or simply sharing resources – internet-based computing is a great solution. It is easy to grasp, and  it is highly customizable.

Microsoft Virtual Academy has seven courses on cloud computing, and while it is one of the smallest section in MVA, there is still a lot to learn. The courses are:

1. Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Virtual Machines (Level 100)
2. Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Storage and Data (Level 100)
3. Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Websites (Level 100)
4. Building Blocks: iOS, Android, Windows [Extend] (Level 100)
5. Universal Windows App Development with Cortana and the Speech SDK (Level 200)
6. Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (Level 200)
7. Microsoft Azure Developer Camp: Build a Cloud-Native App (Level 200)

Microsoft Azure

Two of the most popular courses in this section are Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, and Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Websites, both of which are part of a series of courses on Microsoft Azure, instructed by Bob Tabor. Let’s get a little bit deeper into the courses themselves.

Course Review: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

This is the first installment in the Azure Fundamentals series. It is the ‘go to’ course, for those who are only beginning to tinker with Azure. It is a Level 200 course, though, meaning that it is meant for IT or data professionals with at least six months of experience.

The topics covered in this course are:

• Series Introduction
• Why Microsoft Azure?
• The Scope of Microsoft Azure Services
• Tools and APIs You Use to Access Azure
• Navigating the Azure Portal and the Preview Portal
• Creating an Organizational Account and Subscription
• Understanding Subscriptions and Directories
• How Do I: Manage Directories
• How Do I: Manager Users, Subscriptions Roles, and Directory Roles
• How Do I: Manage Subscriptions and Service Administrators
• Understanding Geos, Regions, and Datacenters
• Where to Go from Here
• Recommended Resources and Next Steps

This is a course which is worth 52 points. It has no prerequisites outside of Level 200 expertise with IT. The course runs approximately four hours, has 13 modules and 10 assessment exams. Each module includes a slideshow presentation, which helps the student follow Tabor as he navigates the student through the basics of using Azure. The course is rated 5 out of 5 stars.

Course Review: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Websites

This is the second installment in a series of four courses on Microsoft Azure. Its focus is on Microsoft Azure Websites, the preferred method for web hosting on the Microsoft Azure platform.

This course begins with core topics and then moves on to real-life “How Do I” topics. The course builds foundational knowledge of this technology. After that, Tabor goes beyond the fundamentals, and discusses how to integrate other software into Azure Websites deployment.

Cloud Services

The topics covered in this course are:

• Course Introduction
• Understanding Your Website Hosting Options: Azure Websites vs. Cloud Services vs. Virtual Machines
• How Do I: Create and Deploy a Simple Azure Website from Visual Studio
• Understanding Certificate and Credential-based Authentication
• Understanding How Azure Websites Work
• Azure Websites Management Portal Configuration Tab Overview
• How Do I: Deploy to Azure Websites via FTP
• How Do I: Deploy to Azure Websites from Source Control
• Creating and Utilizing WebJobs
• Remotely Debugging Windows Azure Websites from Visual Studio
• Understanding Staged Publishing via Deployment Slots
• How Do I: Set Up Monitoring and Alerting for Azure Websites
• How Do I: Set Up Site Diagnostics (Web Server Logging)
• How Do I: Set Up Application Diagnostics (Tracing)
• How Do I: Stream Logs in Visual Studio
• How Do I: Edit Azure Websites in Visual Studio Online
• How Do I: Back Up and Restore an Azure Website
• How Do I: Set Up a Custom Domain for an Azure Website
• How Do I: Set Up an SSL Certificate for an Azure Website
• How Do I: Use Azure Traffic Manager with Azure Websites
• How Do I: Map a Custom Domain to the Traffic Manager for Azure Websites
• How Do I: Set Up and Utilize Redis Cache
• How Do I: Set Up Azure Content Delivery Network for an Azure Website
• Where to Go from Here
• Recommended Resources and Next Steps

This course is worth 80 points. It runs approximately five hours, and includes 25 modules and 22 assessment exams. There are also several slideshow presentations available, as well a link to the code samples used in this course.

Tabor is a .NET and C# developer, a Channel9 / MVA contributor, and the founder of LearnVisualStudio.NET. He is an author and entrepreneur, with a 12-year history of experience and success.

Instructor Bob Tabor

In nature, clouds come in a variety of shapes and sizes. This is also true – to some extent – to internet-based clouds. They come in public, private, and hybrid forms. There are community clouds, distributed clouds, interclouds, and even multiclouds. These clouds can be singular or composed of several clouds.

There are many options out there, and MVA’s courses can help you navigate your way through this world of internet-based computing and learn to “reign in the cloud”, so to speak. The software is here, as is the technology, and Microsoft’s Academy aims to lend students a hand, by delivering courses which introduce clouds and their unique abilities.