Azure Interview Questions

Cloud computing is nothing but the utilization of technology resources that you can use for storing, processing, and retrieving data over the internet for amplified speed, accessibility, reduced cost, and scalability. Most companies that offer the resources for these processes are cloud providers.

Azure is one of the leading cloud service providers run by Microsoft. Microsoft launched the product on 1 February 2010. The platform initially followed the pay-per-user model that allows users to pay only for selected services. Since businesses are opting for cloud computing, the need for experts in this field is growing exponentially.

Azure is a leading platform, which is why employers ask several tough and basic Azure interview questions to their candidates to find the best talent.

Azure has become the leading service provider where. More than 80% of fortune 500 companies rely on this platform for hosting their resources, applications, and other computing requirements. Azure supports several programming languages, such as C#, Java, etc., and offers a wide range of more than 200 services for cloud computing.

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Other than Azure, there are several other big cloud providers in the market. According to the report, Amazon web services hold about 20% of the share. The Alibaba cloud, Google, Salesforce, IBM, and Oracle owns the shares.

The computing services of Azure divides into 18 categories, including computing, networking, storage, migration, analytics, IoT, management tools, containers, monitoring tools, security, DevOps, security, CRM, etc.

As mentioned, Azure offers several services that help to create any type of web application hosted on Azure. Azure offers a dedicated atmosphere for validation before releasing the application to the target audience. The configuration and creation of virtual machines are now easier than ever with the help of Azure.

Azure offers several syncs and integration features for virtual directories and virtual devices. The platform also offers an extensive monitoring tool that will help collect the application’s metrics to understand how effectively the application is working. Thanks to the features of virtual hard drives, storing massive data on the cloud is now easier than ever.

With such primary and amazing features of Azure topped with the ever-growing demand by the enterprises, it has become quite necessary to know these Azure interview questions and answers as it will open up a path for a wide range of opportunities such as being the Azure developer, Azure administrator, Azure solution architect, etc., these all these job roles offer the best pay benefits. Let us now look at some of the common Azure interview questions and answers for freshers from basic to advanced levels.

What do you mean by Microsoft Azure and Azure diagnostic?

This is one of the most basic Azure cloud interview questions. Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing interface. Moreover, you must know that Microsoft implements’ it so as to benefit from cloud computing.

Azure diagnostics is an API based system that collects the data to diagnose the application which is constantly running. It tunes with the verbose monitoring by enabling roles of the cloud services.

What do you mean by cloud computing?

This is a basic question that finds its mention in most of the Microsoft Azure interview questions eBook. Cloud Computing is the high-level abstraction procedure that focuses on business logic. This is a service you get via the internet that aids you with the computing services without paying much importance on the infrastructural needs just like the electric supply.

What is the scalability of cloud computing?

If the above question appears as the Azure cloud interview questions your most appropriate answer will be scaling is one of the advantages that are of two types;

• Vertical scaling, where the configuration yields to increase the existing capacity of the machine. Just like expanding the size of the RAM from 4GB to 32GB.
• Horizontal Scaling, it is an aspect where the physical aspect increases like putting multiple machines at work instead of replacing the existing machine.

What are the advantages of cloud computing?

There are several advantages of cloud computing which are as follows;

• You can alter the versatility of the system if the business requires certain modification.
• They are highly available which increases its end users and get benefit by every inch.
• The system is capable of tolerating fault of a single part and overcomes it by remaining completely functional.
• The service allows you to pay only when the system is in use. You can easily reallocate the system when you use them, and it saves from the charge.
• The system has brought into light the payment for the operation rather than the investment in the machines.

What do you mean by PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS?

These are the basic terms while dealing with the cloud services and commonly asked in an Azure interview:

• PaaS stands for Platform as a Service that enables you to get a platform to deliver without directly giving authorization to the OS software.
• SaaS stands for Software as a Service is devoid of platform infrastructure software that you can use without direct purchase.
• IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service which enables you to get the hardware from the provider as the specific service which user can configure.

Explain the different deployment models of the cloud?

When asked the Azure cloud interview question you should answer it in the following way. There are various deployment models for the cloud;

• Private Cloud Deployment Model is one where you own the infrastructure and the cloud provider enables you to get the service exclusively.
• Public Cloud Deployment Model is one where you get the multi-tenant infrastructure from the service provider exclusively.
• Hybrid Cloud Deployment Model is a set up of intermixed public and private data in which the confidential data will be served in-house and the public directed website is there to address the public.

What are the differences between a public cloud and a private cloud?

What are the main functions of the Azure Cloud Service?

The main functions of the Azure Cloud Service are;

• It is to host the running application and also manage the background running application.
• The application of web processing is termed as “web role” whereas the background processing is termed as the “worker role”.

State the purpose of the cloud configuration file?

There is a primary .csfg file available with each and every cloud service. The main purpose of this file is

• They hold the main copy of certificates.
• They have the storage of user-defined settings.
• There are a number of instances in any service project.

What is Azure Portal?

Azure Portal is a single portal or a single place where you are accessing and managing all your applications. It helps to build, manage, and monitor your simple web applications to complex cloud applications using a single portal.

Which services can you use to manage the resources in Azure?

When interviewer asks you about this particular Azure cloud interview questions, it is better to answer in the following way. The Azure resource manager is the infrastructure that involves managing deployments or deleting all the resources. Note that Azure resource manager is one of the top Azure services so you may get more questions on it.

What do you mean by roles?

This is another basic, yet important question for the Azure Interview Questions which you should answer in the following way:

Roles in cloud management are often termed to be nothing servers that are linked to managing and balancing the platform as a service machine that collaborates works to attain the goal.

What is the list of Azure Services and Resources?

Azure provides more than 200 services. Some of the services are as below

• Virtual Machine: Helps to create a virtual machine in different operating systems like Windows, Linux, etc.
• Cloud Service: Once you will deploy your application in the cloud, Azure Cloud will take care of everything like load-balancing, monitoring, etc. You do not need to take any headaches on this.
• Functions: With this service, you can create different applications using any programming language.
• Azure CDN: CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. The purpose of the Azure CDN is to deliver content to users. Azure CDN uses a high bandwidth.
• Azure DNS: This service helps you to host your DNS domains in Azure.
• Express Route: This is an excellent service that helps to connect your on-premise network to the Microsoft cloud or any other service.
• Virtual network: Different services can connect with each other with the help of a Virtual network service.
• Blob Storage: Used to store massive amounts of unstructured data.
• Disk Storage: This service is a virtual hard disk that behaves almost similar to a physical hard disk.
• File Storage: This service offers regular file shares in the cloud or on-premises environments.

What is Queue storage in Windows Azure?

Azure Queue storage is a type of Azure storage that can store large numbers of messages that you can access from anywhere in the world using HTTP or HTTPS protocols.

What are the different types of roles?

There are basically three different types of roles;

• You can use web Role to deploy websites by making use of language. Moreover, you should know that the IIS platform supports’ it.
• You use VM Role to schedule the window services and tasks. You can do it by the user through customization of the machine on which the worker’s role is running.
• Worker Role is to execute the process that runs in the background by deploying the website.

What do you mean by a domain?

This is one of the common Azure Interview Questions that may be asked which should be answered as follows the interconnected and interlinked nodes that are often a measure undertaken by the organization is known as the domain. These relations are carried by only one point of the organization.

Explain the fault domain.

This is one of the common Azure interview questions which should be answered in such a way.

It is a logical working domain in which the underlying hardware is sharing a common power source and switch network. This means that when VMs are created the Azure distributes the VM across the fault domain that limits the potential impact of hardware failure, power interruption or outages of the network.

What is auto-scaling in Azure?

The auto–scaling is a feature that enables your application to scale up or down automatically based on your defined condition. Moreover, based on the demand Azure auto–scaling feature scales out the instances more.

An auto-scaling solution actually reduces the amount of manual work engaged in the case of scaling an application.

Discuss Update Domain.

It is a logical group that undergoes maintenance by rebooting the system. The system also automatically distributes the created VMs all across the updated domain that enables the user to run any one of the applications while the Azure platform is undergoing maintenance. The update domain does not work sequentially to the manual rebooting.

Differentiate between the verbose and minimal monitoring.

Verbose monitoring collects metrics based on the performance that enables close analysis of data that is fed during the processing of application whereas the minimal monitoring is a default configuration that makes the use of the performance counters gathered from the operating system of the host. Proceed to the more Azure cloud interview questions that are quite common.

What do you mean by a BLOB and what are their types?

BLOB is a Binary Large Object that is composed of any size and type of file. They are mainly of two types-the page and the block blob.

What do you mean by the block blob and page BLOB?

Blob is a block that has a specific block ID. Each block in this block BLOB comprises the 4MB and maximum size of this BLOB limits to 200 GB. Whereas the Page blob contains pages in which offsets determine the data range. Moreover, you should know that the maximum limit is 1TB where a single page is of the size 1TB.

Differentiate between the Windows Azure bus queues and Windows Azure queues?

Windows Azure queues take care of the storage infrastructure of Windows Azure. The features include the REST based Peek/Get/Put interface that enables the users to get persistent messaging in-between the services and reliability.

Bus queues are a broader aspect of the messaging infrastructure with publishing and subscribing the integrating patterns of remote web service.

What do you mean by the DeadLetter queue?

Messages are transferred to the DeadLetter queue in the following situation:

• When the delivery count has exceeded for a message that is on a queue.
• When the expiry date of the message has crossed and the entire expired message is held in a queue.
• When there is an evaluation exception set by default and the subscription is enabled with a dead letter filter.

Explain the Window Azure platform?

It is collectively a PaaS developed by Microsoft programmed to run a deployment vehicle and a runtime for the data center to host the cloud computing.

How can you place the price of the Azure subscription?

The prices vary in accordance with the product type. The various pricing models are:

• The free model where our customers can avail the system exempted from the market fee.
• The BYOL scheme where the Azure is fetched the Azure with a fee that is not encircled around the limits of market price.
• The trial of the free software where the client gets the full version with an advanced feature for a limited period of time. With the expiration of the introductory period, you will be charged standard rates.
• Usage Based Fee that is billed in accordance with the service that you have taken. Like if you are subscribed for the virtual image then hourly fees may be charged.
• If you sign a particular plan, it activates monthly bills. The fee is not allocated for cancellation or mid-month unused service.

What do you mean by lookup transformation?

Lookup transformation aids to determine source qualifier. It can be an active or passive lookup transformation. The process is yielded to get access to the relevant information or the data.

What do you mean by the connected lookups?

In the unconnected lookup, the input is directly taken from the transformation that takes part in the flow of data. The connected data lookup act as both a static and dynamic cache. You can orient it via multiple ports that can give the output. Moreover, user-defined entity defines it.

What do you mean by the unconnected lookups?

The answer to this Microsoft Azure interview question should be that in the unconnected lookups the input is taken by the LKP operation. Nature is dynamic having a single output port. User-defined values are disregarded in the unconnected lookups.

What do you mean by the command task?

Command task is an operational window that sets off the flow of one or multiple command shells while the system is still running.

What are the PowerCenter commands that you can use in Informatica?

The languages for transformation that can be provided with some basic comment signifiers that are;

• Slashes (//)
• Dashes (–)

If these common signifiers are absent in the line the power integration service will ignore the text.

What is the difference between copy and shortcut?

The answer to this Microsoft Azure interview question will be copied is transferring an object from one to another folder that takes double space. There is no change that corresponds to the original object.

The shortcut is a dynamic link of the object that saves the space reflecting changes in the original object.

What are the differences between Microsoft Azure and AWS?

What do you mean by a service fabric in Azure?

The service fabric is a middleware platform of the following generation that gives the more scalable outcome. It renders with the more managed and reliable enterprise.

What do you mean by SAS?

SAS is an abbreviation for Statistical analytical System which is a software suite performing analysis of multiple variables. It is linked to predictive analysis, data handling, advanced analytics or corporate intelligence. It produces a smooth interface that offers graphical and clicks based solutions. It is user-friendly for the technical or the non-technical with advanced features.

State some features of SAS?

There is some interlinked feature of SAS which includes;

• It provides the user access to manage the resources just like that of the DBMS.
• It is leading with the leading analytical to carry out different business services and products.
• It enables easy visualization and interpretation with the use of graphs and its breaks the complex panels into simple plots.
• It is very efficient in delivering the business analysis which leads to manufacturing the products that you can distribute worldwide.

Describe the common architecture of SharePoint 2010?

There are three main architectural design of the SharePoint 2010 which includes;

• The enterprise farm which is uncommon as it completely is dedicated to the service and aids via the automated management with the feasible isolation of data.
• There is a single farm that is associated with multiple services whose potential advantages are management via individual service application which enables a more complex targeting of sites to a particular application of service.
• Lastly, the single farms employed in single service are very common and at the same time easy to deploy. The application service is simple to be allocated with fullest resource utilization and management.

Describe the log analytics?

The operational management service of Log Analytics provides the entire requirement that runs the particular service. It manifests automation, security, log analytics and availability at a particular dashboard. It generates Power data source that enables the user to get the visuals of the raw data. You can introduce it in three different tiers of prices that include free, premium and standard. You enjoy the convenience of searching the data at a single dashboard and exporting the results.

What are virtual machine scale sets in Azure?

Virtual machine scale sets are Azure compute resources that you can use to deploy and manage a set of identical VMs. With all the VMs configured the same, scale sets are designed to support true autoscale, and no pre-provisioning of VMs is required. So it’s easier to build large-scale services that target big computers, big data, and containerized workloads.

Are data disks supported within scale sets?

Yes. A scale set can define an attached data disk configuration that applies to all VMs in the set. Other options for storing data include:

• Azure files (SMB shared drives)
• OS drive
• Temp drive (local, not backed by Azure Storage)
• Azure data service (for example, Azure tables, Azure blobs)
• External data service (for example, remote database)

What do you mean by Availability Set?

An availability set is a logical grouping of VMs that allows Azure to understand how your application is built to provide redundancy and availability. It is recommended that two or more VMs are created within an availability set to provide for a highly available application and to meet the 99.95% Azure SLA. When a single VM is used with Azure Premium Storage, the Azure SLA applies for unplanned maintenance events.

What are Network Security Groups?

A network security group (NSG) contains a list of Access Control List (ACL) rules that allow or deny network traffic to subnets, NICs, or both. NSGs can be associated with either subnets or individual NICs connected to a subnet. When an NSG is associated with a subnet, the ACL rules apply to all the VMs in that subnet. In addition, traffic to an individual NIC can be restricted by associating an NSG directly to a NIC.

What is a break-fix issue?

Technical problems, generally known as break-fix issues; it is an industry term which refers to “work involved in supporting a technology when it fails in the normal course of its function, which requires intervention by a support organization to be restored to working order”.

How can I use applications with Azure AD that I’m using on-premises?

Azure AD gives you an easy and secure way to connect to the web applications you choose. You can access these applications in the same way you access your SaaS apps in Azure AD, no need for a VPN to change your network infrastructure.

What is a VNet?

VNet is a representation of your own network in the cloud. It logically isolates your instances launched in the cloud, from the rest of your resources.

What is the difference between Service Bus Queues and Storage Queues?

The Azure Storage Queue is simple and the developer experience is quite good. It uses the local Azure Storage Emulator and debugging is made quite easy. The tooling for Azure Storage Queues allows you to easily peek at the top 32 messages and if the messages are in XML or Json, you’re able to visualize their contents directly from Visual Studio Furthermore, these queues can be purged of their contents, which is especially useful during development and QA efforts.

The Azure Service Bus Queues are evolved and surrounded by many useful mechanisms that make it enterprise-worthy! They are built into the Service Bus and are able to forward messages to other Queues and Topics. They have a built-in dead-letter queue and messages have a time to live that you control, hence messages don’t automatically disappear after 7 days.

Furthermore, Azure Service Bus Queues have the ability of deleting themselves after a configurable amount of idle time. This feature is very practical when you create Queues for each user, because if a user hasn’t interacted with a Queue for the past month, it automatically gets cleaned up. It’s also a great way to drive costs down. You shouldn’t have to pay for storage that you don’t need. These Queues are limited to a maximum of 80gb. Once you’ve reached this limit your application will start receiving exceptions.

What is Azure Redis Cache?

Redis is an open source (BSD licensed), in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache and message broker. Azure Redis Cache is based on the popular open-source Redis cache. It gives you access to a secure, dedicated Redis cache, managed by Microsoft, and accessible from any application within Azure.  It supports data structures such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, bitmaps, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes with radius queries.

What are Redis databases?

Redis Databases are just a logical separation of data within the same Redis instance. The cache memory is shared between all the databases and actual memory consumption of a given database depends on the keys/values stored in that database. For example, a C6 cache has 53 GB of memory. You can choose to put all 53 GB into one database or you can split it up between multiple databases.

What are the various power states of a VM?

How can you stop a VM using PowerShell?

Stop-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroupVM -Name "myVM" -Force

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