Microsoft Azure

Common Services

I'd recommend taking a look at Microsoft's tour of Azure services

Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI)

The Azure Command-Line Interface documentation is pretty solid, definitely check it out. They keep a list of Azure services the Azure CLI can manage, a handy reference to be aware of. I'm going to follow along in the docs, and write notes here. Goal number one, time to get started with Azure CLI.

Basic Notes

Some of these are taken from learning to work with the Azure CLI

Find the most popular commands related to the word blob
```
az find blob
```

The Azure CLI

Azure's CLI, az, is a great way to turn repetitive tasks into a one-liner from your command line. Their documentation walks you through installing the Azure CLI very well, so follow along their and come back when you have az set up.

Logging into the Azure CLI
```
az login
```
Loggout out of the Azure CLI
```
az logout --username USERNAME
```
Search for a command
```
az find secret
```
Upgrade the az CLI
```
az upgrade --all --yes
```
Enter interactive mode
```
az interactive
```
Quickstart for Bash in Azure Cloud Shell

File Shares

Link to quickstart

Virtual Machines

Functions

Link to quickstart

Virtual Network

Link to quickstart

SQL Database

Link to guide

Provisioning Storage

You can provision storage using either the az CLI or the python SDK

Python SDK:

pip install \
  azure-cli-core \
  azure-mgmt-storage \
  azure-mgmt-resource \
  azure-storage-blob \
  azure-identity

Azure Cost Management

Below you'll find notes from a time I needed to learn how to control spending and manage bills for a team project in Microsoft Azure. Both the Azure Advisor and Azure Cost Management services provide ways to reduce the amount of money that is spent, and prevent it from being spent in the first place.

Before the project gets started, it may be a good idea to learn to estimate costs with the Azure pricing calculator.

Subscriptions

Interestingly, you can't create a subscription from the command line. You'll have to go to the Azure Portal and set one up manually. Once you have, however, continue along below:

Get a list of all subscriptions for the current account (az account)

# Short form
az account list -o table

# Long form
az account list --output table

Set the default subscription to use in the Azure CLI:

# Short form
az account set -s SUBSCRIPTION_NAME

# Long form
az account set --subscription SUBSCRIPTION_NAME

Configurations

Check out the documentation for az configure

View a list of all current defaults

# Short form
az configure -l

# Long form
az configure --list-defaults

Set the default location to LOCATION, (e.g. westus)

# Short form
az configure -d location=LOCATION

# Long form
az configure --defaults location=LOCATION

Resource Groups

Create an Azure resource group in LOCATION, (e.g. westus)

# Short form
az group create -n GROUP_NAME [-l LOCATION]

# Long form
az group create --name GROUP_NAME [--location LOCATION]

Set the default Azure resource group to GROUP_NAME
```
az configure --defaults group=GROUP_NAME
```

Listing information about a resource group

resource_group='learn-ff1ca2e8-ec34-4b09-abf6-e1a70c9ce459'
resource_type='Microsoft.Web/sites'

az resource list \
--resource-group ${resource_group} \
--resource-type ${resource_type}

Providers

Print a list of resource providers
```
az provider list --output table
```

# `--wait` until the registration has completed
az provider register --wait --namespace 'Microsoft.Search'

Show the registration status of a particular namespace

az provider show --namespace 'Microsoft.Search' --output table

Storage

Create a storage account

az storage account create \
--name 'firestationhub' \
--resource-group 'firestationhub' \
--location 'westus' \
--sku 'Standard_LRS' \
--kind 'StorageV2'

Create a blob storage container

az storage container create \
    --account-name STORAGE_ACCOUNT \
    --name CONTAINER_NAME \
    --auth-mode 'login'

Set the Azure storage account name to be read from the environment
```
typeset -gx AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT=STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME
```

Upload a directory of files to a blob storage container

az storage blob upload-batch -d CONTAINER_NAME -s ${PWD}

Authorize access to the container scoped to the resource-group layer

az role assignment create \
    --role 'Storage Blob Data Owner' \
    --assignee 'ttrojan@usc.edu' \
    --resource-group RESOURCE_GROUP

If you're still stuck, take a look at Authorize access to Blob storage

Azure Storage for File Shares

Before you go crazy, be sure to check out the pricing page before following along below. If this is a new topic for you, check out the intro page for Azure Files as well.

Create a storage account

az storage account create \
    --name ACCOUNT_NAME \
    --resource-group GROUP_NAME \
    --location 'westus' \
    --kind StorageV2 \
    --sku Standard_LRS

Create a file share

az storage share-rm create \
    --resource-group GROUP_NAME \
    --storage-account ACCOUNT_NAME \
    --name SHARE_NAME
    --access-tier TIER

Where TIER is one of cool, hot, or TransactionOptimized

After you've done these two steps, make sure you secure the environment before you continue on to create a directory and upload a file.

You can remove the storage account and its contents whenever you'd like with the following command:

Deleting a storage account

az storage account delete \
--resource-group GROUP_NAME \
--name ACCOUNT_NAME

Updating the storage tier to cool

az storage share-rm update \
    --group GROUP \
    --storage-account ACCOUNT_NAME \
    --name STORAGE_NAME \
    --access-tier 'cool'

The next step is for me to create an Azure website using the CLI but one could just as easily create a web app in the Azure portal if that's less intimidating.

Azure App Service

If you need a web server to render content, use Azure's App Service. If, per chance, you find you don't actually need a web server, use their Static Web App service instead.

An App Service plan defines the resources that run an App Service app. Every App Service app must have a corresponding App Service plan in order to run it.

A single App Service plan can host multiple App Service apps.

Azure App Service
- Here is a useful walkthrough
- an HTTP-based service that enables you to build and host many types of web-based solutions without managing infrastructure. For example, you can host web apps, mobile back ends, and RESTful APIs in several supported programming languages.

List existing App Service plans

# Short form
az appservice plan list -o table

# Long form
az appservice plan list --output table

Create a new app service SERVICE_NAME

az appservice plan create \
    --name SERVICE_NAME \
    --resource-group GROUP \
    --subscription SUBSCRIPTION \
    --sku 'FREE'

Get the details of a source control deployment configuration

az webapp deployment source show \
    --name WEB_APP_NAME \
    --resource-group GROUP \
    --subscription SUBSCRIPTION

Get the details for available web app deployment profiles

az webapp deployment list-publishing-profiles \
    --name WEB_APP_NAME \
    --resource-group GROUP \
    --subscription SUBSCRIPTION

Set an environment variable for an Azure web app

az webapp config appsettings set --settings KEY=VALUE

Delete an app service (and all apps within it)

az appservice plan delete --name SERVICE_NAME

Azure Web Apps

Create a web application APP_NAME

az webapp create \
    --name APP_NAME \
    --resource-group GROUP \
    --plan SERVICE_NAME

Set the default web application to APP_NAME
```
az configure --defaults web=APP_NAME
```

Configure continuous deployment from GitHub repository REPO (https://github.com/ttrojan/helloworld)

az webapp deployment source config \
    --name APP_NAME \
    --resource-group GROUP \
    --repo-url REPO \
    --branch 'master' \
    --git-token ${GITHUB_TOKEN}

Start a web app

resource_group='learn-ff1ca2e8-ec34-4b09-abf6-e1a70c9ce459'
name='sandboxappforlearning'

az webapp start \
  --resource-group ${resource_group} \
  --name=${name}

Stop a web app

resource_group='learn-ff1ca2e8-ec34-4b09-abf6-e1a70c9ce459'
name='sandboxappforlearning'

az webapp stop \
  --resource-group ${resource_group} \
  --name=${name}

List available runtimes
```
az webapp list-runtimes
```
View the web app in your browser
```
az browse --name APPLICATION_NAME
```

Microsoft's documentation has a great article about the steps to configure a Node.js app for Azure App Service

Cognitive Search

Create a Cognitive Search service

az search service create \
    -n SERVICE_NAME \
    -g RESOURCE_GROUP \
    --sku 'Free'

You won't be able to do much else using the command-line interface past this point. Follow along in the Azure documentation to learn how to create a search index