Preface

Exam AZ-304 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 Exam AZ-304 so you can take it with confidence, pass the first time, and prepare for real-world challenges.

A common question that is asked about the Azure architecture exams is what is the difference between Exam AZ-303 and Exam AZ-304? AZ-303 tests your ability to create and configure resources in Azure, whereas AZ-304 is about choosing and recommending the correct service for your needs.

This means much of the exam is scenario-based and you are expected to select the correct component for a given use case.

This book will help you investigate the need for good architectural practices and how they address common concerns in cloud-based solutions. You will work through the cloud stack from identity and access, through to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), data, applications, and serverless (PaaS). You will then look at operations including monitoring, resilience, scalability, and disaster recovery. Finally, we look at how these fit into the real world, with full scenario-based examples throughout the book.

By the end of this book, you'll have covered everything you need to pass the AZ-304 certification exams and have a handy, on-the-job desktop reference guide.

Who this book is for

This book is for Azure Solution Architects who advise stakeholders and help translate business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable solutions. Junior architects wanting to advance their skills in the cloud will also benefit from this book. Experience of the Azure platform in general is expected and a general understanding of development patterns would be advantageous.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Architecture for the Cloud, explores what architecture means in the cloud and how it has evolved over the years.

Chapter 2, Principles of Modern Architecture, offers a high-level view of the areas we need to consider when architecting solutions, including security, resilience, performance, and operations.

Chapter 3, Understanding User Authentication, explores the differences between authentication and authorization, followed by an architectural view of Active Directory and using Conditional Access.

Chapter 4, Managing User Authorization, teaches you how to control user authorization using management groups, roles, privileged identity management, and identity protection.

Chapter 5, Ensuring Platform Governance, helps you to keep platforms compliant with corporate and legal policies through the use of tagging, Azure Blueprints, and Azure Policy.

Chapter 6, Building Application Security, shows you how to enhance system security using Azure Key Vault, security principles, and managed identities.

Chapter 7, Designing Compute Solutions, covers the different types of compute in Azure, how to automate VM management, and a look at containerization and Kubernetes.

Chapter 8, Network Connectivity and Security, explores the options for networking in Azure, including IP addressing, DNS, connecting networks, traffic routing, and securing resources with network and application security groups.

Chapter 9, Exploring Storage Solutions, teaches you about the different storage options in Azure, when to use each one, and how to secure them.

Chapter 10, Migrating Workloads to Azure, shows how to assess your on-premises infrastructure, and the options for migrating VMs and databases.

Chapter 11, Comparing Application Components, explores the architectural considerations of using native application components such as Web Apps, Event Grid, Event Hubs, Storage Queues, Service Bus, and API Gateway.

Chapter 12, Creating Scalable and Secure Databases, looks at different database platforms including Azure SQL and Azure Cosmos DB, comparing the use cases for each.

Chapter 13, Options for Data Integration, helps us understand why we use dataflows, and the different technologies available to build data analytics pipelines, including Data Lake Storage, Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, and Data Bricks.

Chapter 14, High Availability and Redundancy Concepts, teaches you how to architect redundancy into your solutions, looking at VM availability options, storage replication, Azure SQL and Cosmos DB.

Chapter 15, Designing for Logging and Monitoring, looks at how to ensure your solutions have adequate and usable monitoring in place for operations, security, compliance, cost management, and reporting.

Chapter 16, Developing Business Continuity, shows you how to design solutions that can accommodate complete regional failures using Azure Backup and recovery solutions.

Chapter 17, Scripted Deployments and DevOps Automation, explores the different options for deploying solutions in an automated and scripted manner using ARM templates, Azure PowerShell, the Azure CLI, and Azure DevOps.

Chapter 18, Engaging with Real-World Customers, offers an exploration of design considerations that goes beyond Exam AZ-304, including how we can best work with customers to help gather and map requirements and respond to feedback.

Chapter 19, Enterprise Design Considerations, continues the beyond-the-exam theme, looking at some example requirements different organizations may have and how best to address them.

To get the most out of this book

An Azure subscription and an Azure DevOps account are required to complete this book, along with the following software/tools:

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Exam-Ref-AZ-304-Microsoft-Azure-Architect-Design-Certification-and-Beyond. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781800566934_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "If you wish to merge tags using an update command, you can use Update-AzTag -Operation Merge."

A block of code is set as follows:

{

  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",

  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",

  "resources": [

    {

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

      "location": "eastus",

"tags": {

                "Dept": "Finance",

                "CostCenter": "001"

            },

      "sku": {

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$resource = Get-AzResource -Name 'packtstoragewithtags' -ResourceGroup 'packtstorageresourcegroup'

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "If you need to modify or add additional tags to an existing resource, this can be performed by clicking on the change option next to Tags."

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

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