Azure administration level questions along with their answers:
Category: 1
- What is Azure Active Directory (AAD)?
– Answer: Azure Active Directory (AAD) is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service. It provides authentication and authorization services, enabling users to securely sign in and access resources in the Azure cloud.
- How do you secure access to Azure resources?
– Answer: Access to Azure resources can be secured through Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), which allows administrators to assign permissions to users, groups, and applications at a granular level. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) can also be enabled for additional security.
- What is Azure Resource Manager (ARM)?
– Answer: Azure Resource Manager is the deployment and management service for Azure. It provides a unified management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure account in a consistent manner.
- How do you monitor Azure resources?
– Answer: Azure Monitor is the primary tool for monitoring Azure resources. It allows you to collect and analyze telemetry data from Azure services, applications, and infrastructure. Azure Monitor provides metrics, logs, and alerts to help you understand the performance and health of your resources.
- What is Azure Virtual Network (VNet)?
– Answer: Azure Virtual Network is a networking service that enables you to create isolated networks in the Azure cloud. It allows you to define your own IP address range, subnets, and routing tables, and connect VNets together securely using VPN gateways or Azure ExpressRoute.
- How do you backup and restore Azure VMs?
– Answer: Azure Backup is the service used to backup and restore Azure VMs. It allows you to schedule backups of VMs and store them in the Azure Recovery Services Vault. In case of data loss or corruption, you can restore VMs from these backups.
- What is Azure Policy?
– Answer: Azure Policy is a service that allows you to enforce compliance requirements and organizational standards across your Azure environment. It enables you to define and enforce policies that govern resource properties and configurations.
- How do you deploy applications to Azure?
– Answer: Applications can be deployed to Azure using Azure App Service, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Virtual Machines, or Azure Container Instances (ACI), depending on the requirements of the application.
- How do you manage Azure costs?
– Answer: Azure Cost Management + Billing is the service used to manage Azure costs. It provides tools for monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing Azure spending. Additionally, Azure Budgets can be set to track spending against predefined thresholds.
- What is Azure DevOps?
– Answer: Azure DevOps is a set of development tools and services for software development, including version control, build automation, release management, and project management. It enables teams to collaborate and deliver high-quality software more efficiently.
Category: 2
- What is Azure AD Connect?
– Answer: Azure AD Connect is a tool that synchronizes on-premises Active Directory with Azure Active Directory, allowing for a single identity for accessing both cloud and on-premises resources.
- Explain Azure Regions and Availability Zones.
– Answer: Azure Regions are geographical areas containing data centers, while Availability Zones are physically separate locations within a region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking.
- How do you monitor Azure resources for performance issues?
– Answer: Azure Monitor collects and analyzes telemetry data from Azure resources, providing insights into performance metrics, logs, and alerts.
- What is Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets?
– Answer: Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets allow you to create and manage a group of identical, load-balanced VMs that can automatically scale based on demand or schedule.
- What are Azure Policies and Initiative Definitions?
– Answer: Azure Policies enforce rules and effects over resources to ensure compliance, while Initiative Definitions group related policies together for easier management.
- How do you secure Azure Storage accounts?
– Answer: Azure Storage accounts can be secured using access keys, Shared Access Signatures (SAS), Azure RBAC, and Azure AD authentication.
- What is Azure Key Vault and why is it important?
– Answer: Azure Key Vault is a service for securely storing and managing secrets, keys, and certificates. It helps protect sensitive information and simplifies key management tasks.
- Explain the difference between Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery.
– Answer: Azure Backup is used for backing up data and VMs to Azure, while Azure Site Recovery is used for disaster recovery, replicating VMs and applications to Azure or another datacenter.
- How do you deploy a highly available web application in Azure?
– Answer: You can deploy a highly available web application using Azure App Service with multiple instances, Azure Traffic Manager for global load balancing, and Azure SQL Database for the backend.
- What is Azure DevOps Pipelines used for?
– Answer: Azure DevOps Pipelines is used for automating the build, test, and deployment of applications, enabling Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) workflows.
- How do you manage network security in Azure?
– Answer: Network security in Azure can be managed using Network Security Groups (NSGs), Azure Firewall, Azure DDoS Protection, and Azure Virtual Network Service Endpoints.
- Explain the concept of Azure Resource Groups.
– Answer: Azure Resource Groups are containers that hold related resources for an Azure solution. They allow you to manage and monitor resources as a single entity, including applying access control and tags.
- What is Azure Managed Disks?
– Answer: Azure Managed Disks are block storage disks for Azure VMs that are managed by Azure, eliminating the need to manage storage accounts and simplifying disk management tasks.
- How do you automate Azure tasks using PowerShell?
– Answer: Azure tasks can be automated using Azure PowerShell cmdlets, which interact with Azure Resource Manager to manage resources, configure settings, and deploy solutions.
- What is Azure Virtual Network Peering?
– Answer: Azure Virtual Network Peering enables connectivity between virtual networks in the same region, allowing resources to communicate securely without the need for a VPN gateway.
Feel free to ask for more questions or explanations on any specific topic!
Azure DevOps Concepts:
- What is Azure DevOps?
– Answer: Azure DevOps is a suite of cloud-based collaboration tools for software development, including version control, build automation, release management, and project management.
- Explain the components of Azure DevOps.
– Answer: Azure DevOps consists of Azure Repos, Azure Pipelines, Azure Boards, Azure Artifacts, and Azure Test Plans.
- What is Azure Repos, and what types of version control systems does it support?
– Answer: Azure Repos is a version control service that supports two types of version control systems: Git and Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC).
- What are the benefits of using Git version control in Azure Repos?
– Answer: Git in Azure Repos provides distributed version control, branching and merging capabilities, collaboration features, and integration with Azure Pipelines.
- How does Azure Pipelines facilitate Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD)?
– Answer: Azure Pipelines automates build and release processes, enabling CI by automatically building and testing code changes and CD by deploying code changes to target environments.
- What is a pipeline in Azure Pipelines?
– Answer: A pipeline in Azure Pipelines defines a series of steps to build, test, and deploy applications. It can include tasks for building code, running tests, and deploying artifacts.
- How do you define build and release pipelines in Azure DevOps?
– Answer: Build and release pipelines in Azure DevOps are defined using YAML or the visual designer in the Azure DevOps portal.
- What is an Azure DevOps Agent, and what are its types?
– Answer: An Azure DevOps Agent is a software agent that runs build and release tasks. It comes in two types: Microsoft-hosted agents and self-hosted agents.
- Explain the difference between Microsoft-hosted agents and self-hosted agents.
– Answer: Microsoft-hosted agents are managed by Azure DevOps and provided as a service, while self-hosted agents are managed and maintained by the user on their own infrastructure.
- What is Azure Boards, and how does it facilitate Agile project management?
– Answer: Azure Boards is a project management tool in Azure DevOps that enables Agile planning and tracking of work items, including user stories, tasks, bugs, and epics.
Azure DevOps Configuration and Administration:
- How do you create a new project in Azure DevOps?
– Answer: You can create a new project in Azure DevOps by navigating to the Projects page, clicking on “New Project,” and specifying the project name, description, and visibility options.
- What are service connections in Azure DevOps, and how are they used?
– Answer: Service connections in Azure DevOps are used to connect to external services, such as Azure subscriptions, GitHub, Docker, or other third-party services, to integrate with pipelines and deployments.
- How do you manage permissions and access control in Azure DevOps?
– Answer: Permissions and access control in Azure DevOps are managed using Azure DevOps groups, which can be assigned permissions at the project, repository, or pipeline level.
- What is Azure DevOps YAML and how is it used?
– Answer: Azure DevOps YAML is a declarative syntax used to define pipelines as code. It allows for version-controlled, repeatable, and automated pipeline configurations.
- How do you integrate Azure DevOps with other Azure services?
– Answer: Azure DevOps can be integrated with other Azure services using service connections, allowing for seamless integration with Azure resources such as Azure Repos, Azure Boards, Azure Artifacts, and Azure Pipelines.
These questions cover various aspects of Azure DevOps. Let me know if you’d like more questions or if there’s a specific area you’d like to focus on!
