Book Image

Exam Ref AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design Certification and Beyond

By : Brett Hargreaves
Book Image

Exam Ref AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design Certification and Beyond

By: Brett Hargreaves

Overview of this book

The AZ-304 exam tests an architect's ability to design scalable, reliable, and secure solutions in Azure based on customer requirements. Exam Ref AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design Certification and Beyond offers complete, up-to-date coverage of the AZ-304 exam content to help you prepare for it confidently, pass the exam first time, and get ready for real-world challenges. This book will help you to investigate the need for good architectural practices and discover how they address common concerns for cloud-based solutions. You will work through the CloudStack, from identity and access through to infrastructure (IaaS), data, applications, and serverless (PaaS). As you make progress, you will delve into operations including monitoring, resilience, scalability, and disaster recovery. Finally, you'll gain a clear understanding of how these operations fit into the real world with the help of full scenario-based examples throughout the book. By the end of this Azure book, you'll have covered everything you need to pass the AZ-304 certification exam and have a handy desktop reference guide.
Table of Contents (30 chapters)
1
Section 1: Exploring Modern Architecture
4
Section 2: Identity and Security
9
Section 3: Infrastructure and Storage Components
14
Section 4: Applications and Databases
19
Section 5: Operations and Monitoring
23
Section 6: Beyond the Exam
26
Mock Exam
27
Mock Answers

Introducing Azure AD

Azure AD is a cloud-based mechanism that provides the tools to address our security needs. Backed by Microsoft AD, an industry-standard and, importantly, proven secure authentication and authorization system, it gives both cloud-first (that is, stored and managed entirely in the cloud) and hybrid (a mix of cloud and on-premises) solutions.

Some of these tools are included by default when you create an Azure AD tenant. Others require a Premium add-on, which we will cover later.

These tools include the following:

  • Self-service password resets: Allowing your users to reset their passwords themselves (through the provision of additional security measures) without needing to call the helpdesk.
  • MFA: MFA enforces a second form of identification during the authentication process—a code is generated and sent to the user, and this is entered along with the password. The code is typically sent to a user's device as either a text message or an MFA authentication...