Understanding Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates

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Firstly, it’s important to know the difference between Azure Resources and Azure Resource Groups. An Azure Resource is a particular resource, such as a virtual machine, storage account, web app, database, virtual network, etc., while an Azure Resource Group is a container that holds all related resources for an Azure solution.

What is an ARM Template?

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file assigned to resource items that are deployed to a resource group. The main reason for using ARM templates is to simplify the deploying process of your own resources into a resource group. You can start from a blank template or you can search the quickstart gallery and choose a scenario that you want to deploy.

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How to deploy?

Choose a template that defines the infrastructure and configuration of your Azure solution. You can repeatedly deploy a solution throughout its lifecycle and customize it to meet your specific needs. It’s possible to retrieve a template for an existing resource group by either exporting the current state of the resource group or viewing the template used for a particular deployment.

“Create, customize, deploy”

How to export a template?

An ARM template can be exported from the existing resources in two ways:
–   export the actual template that you used for a deployment
–   export a template that represents the current state of the resource group

For example, you can create a virtual machine account, and export the template for it. Then you can add a database to modify the resource group and finally, you’ll be able to export a new template that represents its current state.

Is it adjustable?

Once the template is exported, you’re able to use it as many times you need it. Sometimes, during deployment, you’ll need to change the database account.

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Azure Backup Secures Your Business

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Data is the currency of today’s business and therefore require proper care. A large number of companies and their IT departments do not develop Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans for possible crashes or data loss. In the past, such things were reserved only for enterprise businesses. Today, the situation is different; you don’t need expensive on-premises infrastructure for your BCDR solutions, and companies of all sizes can have their own backup systems. Azure Backup replaces or complements on-premises or off-site backup solutions with a cloud-based solution.

 It’s a simple, reliable, and cost-effective option for backing up data

How does Azure Backup work?

Azure Backup works with any apps and data you have, including file servers, SharePoint Server, SQL Server, Exchange, and many others. With Azure Backup Server, which is included at no additional charge, you also have the flexibility to keep a local copy of your backup, so you can reduce the dependency on off-site backup availability and accelerate recovery times. All your data in the public cloud can be encrypted at rest, and is securely transmitted over the network. Only you have an encryption passphrase or key. It does not limit the amount of inbound/outbound data, and also does not charge for the data that is transferred.

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Instead of switching backup copies from disk to tape, and then moving the tape to an off-site location, Azure Backup keeps your data for up to 99 years!

Why is backup important?

People usually learn the importance of backup when their data is already lost forever. Any attempt at recovering lost data can cost you money, and especially time. You should implement a system that will protect your data to make sure that this never happens. Azure Backup aims to provide a simple, consistent management experience delivered directly from the cloud. As an example, you can enable protection in three simple steps: choose the scenario, choose the retention period, and enable backup. Do not let data loss happens to you.

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Web App Deployment via Azure

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Azure is a cloud computing platform that contains a variety of cloud services, including Web Apps which is a part of Azure App Service. Web Apps service allows you to build, deploy, and manage websites and web applications using .NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Java programming languages.

Also, Azure Web Apps supports Windows and Linux operational systems, so it’s possible to deploy apps through the OS you prefer.

Scalability, Agility & Insights

There are few cool benefits why developers should build apps in the cloud:

Applications can scale according to your business needs, especially if you’re building a website and you’re planning a marketing campaign that has a burstable scale requirement.

You are able to deploy multiple versions of applications at any time.

Insights show how your apps behave and run, and it helps you to improve applications, thanks to performance management that detect, triage, and diagnose issues in web apps and services.

It is the fastest way to build web apps

Where to use Azure Web Apps?

Web apps service is suitable for sites that have lots of daily traffic and/or periodic spikes in traffic. For example, web shops with Black Friday and sales, airline ticket sites and their weekly discounts, commercial music streaming sites, etc.

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Let’s say that you have a website that sells airline tickets, and every week you want release discounts for some destination, so it’s expected that you’ll have spikes in traffic.
This is an example where scalability kicks in. Thanks to Azure App Service, it’s possible to increase your plan with bigger disk space and a larger number of instances at any time, without downtime.

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Advanced Technology Days 12: Azure EMS Functionalities

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One of the biggest IT conferences in Croatia – Advanced Technology Days – will be held next month at the Hypo congress center in Zagreb. Novelties from the Cloud world will be discussed, with a focus on Azure and Office 365.

Our COO, Hrvoje Kusulja, will talk about the Azure Enterprise Mobility Suite – a technology that can raise the security of organizations to a higher level. He will elaborate on some new possibilities, such as Intune Conditional Access, Azure Active Directory Premium, Azure Rights Management, and Cloud App Discovery.

When?

Date: November, 16th & 17th 2016

Where?

Hypo kongresni centar, Slavonska avenija 6/II, Zagreb

Register!

Conference registration

Global Azure Bootcamp: Hrvoje Kusulja & Marko Kuntić – Azure IaaS – Site Recovery

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We have all experienced larger or smaller breakdowns in IT systems, from accidental data erasure done by users to all sorts of hardware and software failures. Luckily, just a few of us experienced a larger disaster in the form of a complete destruction of the IT system or its location. Nowadays, protection of business data and continuity is of vital importance. Via Azure Site Recovery service, Microsoft allows you to secure your operations in a simple and flexible way. This will be the main focus of our presentation.

Date and time: April 16th, 2016

Location: Microsoft Croatia, Horvatova 82, Zagreb

Price: Free

Register for the event via the link below:

Event registration

Agenda

9:00 – 9:30 Intro

Bruno Kovačić

9:45 – 10:30 Disaster recovery via Azure

Marko Kuntić and Hrvoje Kusulja

10:45 – 11:30 OMS – a view from the Microsoft Cloud

Romeo Mlinar

11:45 – 12:30 Azure App Services

Petar Kovačević

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
13:45 – 14:30 Azure Service Fabric – microservice without headache

Ivan Čuljak

14:45 – 15:30 Azure Machine Learning or how to predict the death of the next Games of Thrones actor

Renato Jović

 

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