Introduction to Microsoft Azure: Describe
cloud concepts
Describe cloud computing
Introduction
Term Explanation
Microsoft Azure A cloud computing platform with an ever-expanding set of
services to help you build solutions to meet your business
goals. It supports everything from simple to complex
Azure Azure Fundamentals is a series of three learning paths that
Fundamentals familiarize you with Azure and its many services and
features
Cloud computing The delivery of computing services over the internet. It
includes common it infrastructure such as VMs, storage
databases and networking. It also includes things like IoT,
ML and AI
Describe the Shared Responsibility Model
Term Explanation
Shared Responsibilities are shared between the cloud provider and
Responsibility the consumer. The cloud provider is responsible for the
physical security, power, cooling and network connectivity,
while the consumer is responsible for the data and
information.
Customer • Information and data stored in the cloud
responsibility • Devices that are allowed to connect
• Accounts and identities of the people, services and
devices
Cloud responsibility The physical datacenter
The physical network
The physical hosts
Service model OS
responsibility Network controls
Applications
Identity and infrastructure
Define Cloud Models
Term Explanation
Cloud model Defines the deployment type of cloud resources, private,
public or hybrid
Private cloud A cloud environment dedicated to a single organization,
often evolving from a corporate datacenter. It can be hosted
on-site or in an offsite dedicated datacenter, sometimes
managed by third party. Has greater costs and fewer of the
1
, benefits of a public cloud deployment
Public cloud Built, controlled, and maintained by a third-party cloud
provider. With a public cloud, anyone that wants to
purchase cloud services can access and use resources.
Hybrid cloud A computing environment that uses both public and private
clouds in an inter-connected environment. Can be used to
allow a private cloud to surge for increased, temporary
demand by deploying public cloud resources.
Multi-cloud Involves two or more public cloud providers, either to
leverage different features or during migration between
providers. Requires managing resources and security across
multiple environments.
Azure Arc Technology that lets you manage resources across any
setup within a unified environment
Azure VMware Enables organizations with VMware in a private cloud to
Solutions migrate to Azure, supporting seamless workload integration
and scalable hybrid or public cloud use.
Describe Consumption-based Model
Term Explanation
CapEx One-time, up-front expenditure to purchase or secure
tangible resources, such as a new building, repaving the
parking lot, building a data center or buying company
vehicles
OpEx Spending money on services or product over time, such as:
rent, lease or signing up for cloud services
Cloud computing in Falls under OpEx because it operates on a consumption-
this model based model. You don’t pay for the physical infrastructure,
electricity, security or anything else associating with
2
, maintaining the datacenter. If you don’t use any services for
a month, you don’t pay
Benefits No upfront costs
consumption-based No need to purchase and manage costly
model infrastructure
Ability pay for more resources when needed
Ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer
needed
Traditional vs cloud In the traditional datacenter, if you overestimate you spend
model more on your center than you need and waste money. If you
underestimate, it will quickly reach capacity and your apps
may suffer from decreased performance. In the cloud you
don’t have to worry about this
Cloud computing Pay as you go model. You rent compute power and storage
pricing models instead of owning hardware, paying only for what you use.
This reduces operating costs, improves efficiency and allows
easy scaling whole the provider manages the infrastructure
Describe the benefits of using cloud services
Describe the benefits of high availability and scalability in the
cloud
Term Explanation
Considerations for Uptime (availability) and the ability to handle demand (or
cloud scale)
High availability Focuses on ensuring maximum availability, regardless of
disruptions or events that may occur. In Azure, uptime is
backed by service-level agreements (SLAs), which define
availability guarantees for each service.
Scalability Adjusting resources to match demand. It prevents
overpaying by letting you scale up during peak traffic and
letting you scale down when demand drops. Scaling can be
vertical or horizontal
Vertical scaling When you need more processing power, like CPUs or RAM to
the Virtual Machine, you scale up. You scale down when by
lowering the CPU or RAM
Horizontal scaling When you need more resources, you can scale out by
adding additional Virtual Machines or containers.
Describe the benefits of reliability and predictability in the cloud
Term Explanation
Reliability Ability of a system to recover from failures and continue to
function. Also one of the pillars in the Microsoft Azure-Well
Architected Framework.
Reliability in Azure In Azure, the cloud’s decentralized, global design ensures
resilience—if one region fails, others remain available, and
applications can automatically shift to maintain service
continuity.
3
, Predictability Focused on performance predictability or cost predictability.
Performance Uses autoscaling, load balancing, and high availability to
predictability deliver reliable user experiences.
Cost predictability Relies on real-time tracking, analytics, and tools like the
TCO and Pricing Calculator to forecast and optimize cloud
spending.
Azure Well- The Azure Well-Architected Framework is Microsoft’s
Architected guideline to help organizations design and manage cloud
Framework solutions that are reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-
effective. Five pillars: reliability, security, cost optimization,
operation excellence and performance efficiency.
Describe the benefits of security and governance in the cloud
Term Explanation
Governance Setting rules, policies, and standards to make sure cloud
resources are used correctly, stay compliant with
regulations, and are managed consistently (like cost control,
naming conventions, or legal requirements).
Security Protecting your data, applications, and infrastructure
against threats such as hackers, malware, or DDoS attacks.
It’s about keeping things safe and private.
Describe the benefits of manageability in the cloud
Term Explanation
Management OF the Means handling resources with features like autoscaling,
cloud templates, health monitoring, and real-time alerts.
Management IN the Refers to the tools you use to control resources—via web
cloud portal, command line, APIs, or PowerShell.
Describe cloud service types
Infrastructure as a Service
Term Explanation
IaaS Maximum control over cloud resources. The provider
manages hardware, networking, and physical security, while
you handle operating systems, configurations, and software.
It’s like renting datacenter hardware that you set up and
manage yourself.
Shared IaaS places the largest share of responsibility with you. The
responsibility in cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the physical
IaaS infrastructure and its access to the internet. You’re
responsible for installation and configuration, patching and
updates, and security
Scenarios Lift-and-shift migration or testing and deployment
Platform as a Service
Term Explanation
PaaS Cloud model where the provider manages infrastructure,
4
cloud concepts
Describe cloud computing
Introduction
Term Explanation
Microsoft Azure A cloud computing platform with an ever-expanding set of
services to help you build solutions to meet your business
goals. It supports everything from simple to complex
Azure Azure Fundamentals is a series of three learning paths that
Fundamentals familiarize you with Azure and its many services and
features
Cloud computing The delivery of computing services over the internet. It
includes common it infrastructure such as VMs, storage
databases and networking. It also includes things like IoT,
ML and AI
Describe the Shared Responsibility Model
Term Explanation
Shared Responsibilities are shared between the cloud provider and
Responsibility the consumer. The cloud provider is responsible for the
physical security, power, cooling and network connectivity,
while the consumer is responsible for the data and
information.
Customer • Information and data stored in the cloud
responsibility • Devices that are allowed to connect
• Accounts and identities of the people, services and
devices
Cloud responsibility The physical datacenter
The physical network
The physical hosts
Service model OS
responsibility Network controls
Applications
Identity and infrastructure
Define Cloud Models
Term Explanation
Cloud model Defines the deployment type of cloud resources, private,
public or hybrid
Private cloud A cloud environment dedicated to a single organization,
often evolving from a corporate datacenter. It can be hosted
on-site or in an offsite dedicated datacenter, sometimes
managed by third party. Has greater costs and fewer of the
1
, benefits of a public cloud deployment
Public cloud Built, controlled, and maintained by a third-party cloud
provider. With a public cloud, anyone that wants to
purchase cloud services can access and use resources.
Hybrid cloud A computing environment that uses both public and private
clouds in an inter-connected environment. Can be used to
allow a private cloud to surge for increased, temporary
demand by deploying public cloud resources.
Multi-cloud Involves two or more public cloud providers, either to
leverage different features or during migration between
providers. Requires managing resources and security across
multiple environments.
Azure Arc Technology that lets you manage resources across any
setup within a unified environment
Azure VMware Enables organizations with VMware in a private cloud to
Solutions migrate to Azure, supporting seamless workload integration
and scalable hybrid or public cloud use.
Describe Consumption-based Model
Term Explanation
CapEx One-time, up-front expenditure to purchase or secure
tangible resources, such as a new building, repaving the
parking lot, building a data center or buying company
vehicles
OpEx Spending money on services or product over time, such as:
rent, lease or signing up for cloud services
Cloud computing in Falls under OpEx because it operates on a consumption-
this model based model. You don’t pay for the physical infrastructure,
electricity, security or anything else associating with
2
, maintaining the datacenter. If you don’t use any services for
a month, you don’t pay
Benefits No upfront costs
consumption-based No need to purchase and manage costly
model infrastructure
Ability pay for more resources when needed
Ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer
needed
Traditional vs cloud In the traditional datacenter, if you overestimate you spend
model more on your center than you need and waste money. If you
underestimate, it will quickly reach capacity and your apps
may suffer from decreased performance. In the cloud you
don’t have to worry about this
Cloud computing Pay as you go model. You rent compute power and storage
pricing models instead of owning hardware, paying only for what you use.
This reduces operating costs, improves efficiency and allows
easy scaling whole the provider manages the infrastructure
Describe the benefits of using cloud services
Describe the benefits of high availability and scalability in the
cloud
Term Explanation
Considerations for Uptime (availability) and the ability to handle demand (or
cloud scale)
High availability Focuses on ensuring maximum availability, regardless of
disruptions or events that may occur. In Azure, uptime is
backed by service-level agreements (SLAs), which define
availability guarantees for each service.
Scalability Adjusting resources to match demand. It prevents
overpaying by letting you scale up during peak traffic and
letting you scale down when demand drops. Scaling can be
vertical or horizontal
Vertical scaling When you need more processing power, like CPUs or RAM to
the Virtual Machine, you scale up. You scale down when by
lowering the CPU or RAM
Horizontal scaling When you need more resources, you can scale out by
adding additional Virtual Machines or containers.
Describe the benefits of reliability and predictability in the cloud
Term Explanation
Reliability Ability of a system to recover from failures and continue to
function. Also one of the pillars in the Microsoft Azure-Well
Architected Framework.
Reliability in Azure In Azure, the cloud’s decentralized, global design ensures
resilience—if one region fails, others remain available, and
applications can automatically shift to maintain service
continuity.
3
, Predictability Focused on performance predictability or cost predictability.
Performance Uses autoscaling, load balancing, and high availability to
predictability deliver reliable user experiences.
Cost predictability Relies on real-time tracking, analytics, and tools like the
TCO and Pricing Calculator to forecast and optimize cloud
spending.
Azure Well- The Azure Well-Architected Framework is Microsoft’s
Architected guideline to help organizations design and manage cloud
Framework solutions that are reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-
effective. Five pillars: reliability, security, cost optimization,
operation excellence and performance efficiency.
Describe the benefits of security and governance in the cloud
Term Explanation
Governance Setting rules, policies, and standards to make sure cloud
resources are used correctly, stay compliant with
regulations, and are managed consistently (like cost control,
naming conventions, or legal requirements).
Security Protecting your data, applications, and infrastructure
against threats such as hackers, malware, or DDoS attacks.
It’s about keeping things safe and private.
Describe the benefits of manageability in the cloud
Term Explanation
Management OF the Means handling resources with features like autoscaling,
cloud templates, health monitoring, and real-time alerts.
Management IN the Refers to the tools you use to control resources—via web
cloud portal, command line, APIs, or PowerShell.
Describe cloud service types
Infrastructure as a Service
Term Explanation
IaaS Maximum control over cloud resources. The provider
manages hardware, networking, and physical security, while
you handle operating systems, configurations, and software.
It’s like renting datacenter hardware that you set up and
manage yourself.
Shared IaaS places the largest share of responsibility with you. The
responsibility in cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the physical
IaaS infrastructure and its access to the internet. You’re
responsible for installation and configuration, patching and
updates, and security
Scenarios Lift-and-shift migration or testing and deployment
Platform as a Service
Term Explanation
PaaS Cloud model where the provider manages infrastructure,
4
