🟦 1.

Introduction to Microsoft Azure

❓ What is Microsoft Azure?

Answer:
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and service provided by Microsoft that allows
users to build, deploy, and manage applications and services through a global network of
Microsoft-managed data centers. It offers solutions such as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service),
PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service).

❓ What are the core benefits of Azure?

Answer:

1. Scalability – Easily scale up or down as needed.

2. High Availability – Azure offers a 99.95% uptime SLA.

3. Global Reach – Data centers in 60+ regions.

4. Security – Built-in security and compliance (ISO, GDPR, etc.).

5. Cost-Effective – Pay-as-you-go pricing model.

6. Integration – Works seamlessly with on-premise environments, Active Directory, and

Microsoft products.

❓ What is the global infrastructure of Azure?

Answer:
Azure’s infrastructure includes:

 Regions: Geographic locations (e.g., East US, West Europe).

 Availability Zones: Physically separate locations within a region for high availability.

 Data Centers: Actual facilities hosting Azure services.

❓ What are common service categories in Azure?

Answer:
  Compute: Virtual Machines, App Services

 Storage: Blob, Disk, File storage

 Databases: Azure SQL, Cosmos DB

 Networking: Virtual Network, Load Balancer

 Identity: Azure Active Directory

 AI & ML: Azure Cognitive Services

 DevOps: Azure DevOps, Pipelines

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✅ Step 1: User Sends Request

 The user accesses your website/app via browser or mobile.

 The request goes to Azure Front Door (global entry point) or a Load Balancer.

✅ Step 2: Azure Networking

 Azure Front Door: Routes request to the nearest region for low latency.

 Azure Load Balancer / Application Gateway: Distributes traffic to VMs or Web Apps.

📌 Key Service:

 Azure Virtual Network (VNet): Private network for your Azure resources.

✅ Step 3: Azure Compute

You need a platform to run your app. Azure provides:

Service Description

Azure App Service PaaS for hosting web apps, REST APIs, mobile backends.

Azure Virtual Machines IaaS for full control over OS, ideal for legacy apps.

Azure Functions Serverless compute – runs code on demand.

✅ Step 4: Azure Storage & Databases

Your app likely needs to store data. Use:

Type Service Name Use Case

Object Storage Azure Blob Storage Store files, images, videos.

File System Azure File Storage Shared access across applications.

SQL Database Azure SQL DB Relational data, like user info.

NoSQL Cosmos DB Scalable NoSQL for fast reads/writes.

✅ Step 5: Identity Management

Control access to your app/resources.

Service Description

Azure Active Directory (AAD) Central identity and access management system.

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) Set permissions on who can access what.

✅ Step 6: Monitoring & Security

To ensure everything is healthy and secure:

Tool Description

Azure Monitor Tracks performance, errors, metrics.

Application Insights Deep app-level logging and performance data.

Azure Security Center Security recommendations and threat alerts.

🔐 Bonus: Optional Add-ons

Feature Purpose

Azure CDN Speeds up content delivery globally.

Azure Backup Backs up data for disaster recovery.

Azure Key Vault Securely stores secrets and API keys.

✅ FINAL DIAGRAM (with flow explained in text form)

text

CopyEdit

[User Request]

[Azure Front Door / App Gateway]

[App Hosted on Azure App Service / VM / Functions]

[Database (SQL DB / Cosmos DB) + Blob/File Storage]

[Azure Active Directory controls access]

[Azure Monitor + Security Center track health]

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🟦 Azure Compute Services – What is Compute?

Compute in Azure refers to processing power or the engine that runs your application. It
provides the environment where your code runs — just like a CPU runs software on your local
computer.

Azure offers different compute options, but two of the most commonly used are:
🖥️ 1. Azure Virtual Machines (VMs)

✅ Definition:

Azure Virtual Machines provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). It’s like renting a computer in
the cloud. You control everything — the OS, software, and configurations.

🟦 Key Features:

 Full control over the OS (Windows/Linux)

 You choose the RAM, CPU, storage, etc.

 Supports custom software and legacy apps

 Ideal for:

o Hosting large apps

o Running background services

o Custom server configurations

🛠️ Use Case Example:

If your company has a desktop application that only runs on Windows Server 2016, you can deploy
it on an Azure VM with that exact OS.

🌐 2. Azure App Service

✅ Definition:

Azure App Service is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). It allows you to deploy web apps, REST APIs,
and mobile backends without managing the server or OS.

🟦 Key Features:

 No server management – Microsoft handles that

 Easy deployment with GitHub, VS, Azure DevOps

 Built-in auto-scaling and load balancing

 Custom domains and SSL

  Supports .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, etc.

🚀 Use Case Example:

If you're building a website in ASP.NET Core or a Node.js API, you can just deploy it to App Service
— no need to worry about setting up servers.

⚖️ VM vs App Service – Quick Comparison

Feature Azure Virtual Machine Azure App Service

Type IaaS PaaS

Control Full control (OS + software) Limited (app-level only)

Scalability Manual or via VM scale sets Built-in auto-scale

Setup Complexity High Low

Use Case Legacy apps, full custom apps Modern web apps, APIs

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🟦 3. Azure Storage Services – Explained

✅ Definition:

Azure Storage provides cloud-based storage solutions that are secure, scalable, durable, and
highly available. It's used to store different types of data—files, databases, backups, media, and
more.

📦 Main Types of Azure Storage

1⃣ Azure Blob Storage (Object Storage)

🔹 What it is:

 Used to store unstructured data like documents, images, videos, backups, logs.

 Data stored in containers as “blobs”.

✅ Use Cases:

 Upload/download user files

  Backup and restore

 Streaming media

🟦 Example:

Uploading user profile pictures in a web app.

✅ Use:

Stores unstructured data like images, videos, documents, backups.

📌 Components:

 Storage Account → Main container for all storage types.

 Container → Like a folder inside storage account.

 Blob → Actual file (image, PDF, ZIP, etc.)

🛠️ How to Create (via Azure Portal):

1. Go to Azure Portal

2. Click Create a Resource > Storage > Storage Account

3. Choose:

o Subscription & Resource Group

o Storage account name

o Region

o Performance: Standard or Premium

o Redundancy: LRS/GRS/etc.

4. Click Review + Create, then Create

5. Once created, go to Containers > + Container > Name it (e.g., images)

6. Upload files (blobs) directly.

⚙️ How It Works:

 App uploads an image → stored as blob in container

 Access via URL like:

https://yourstorage.blob.core.windows.net/images/photo1.jpg
2⃣ Azure File Storage (Managed File Shares)

🔹 What it is:

 Provides SMB file shares accessible from anywhere.

 Acts like a traditional file server, but in the cloud.

✅ Use Cases:

 File sharing across apps or users

 Lift-and-shift legacy apps that rely on file shares

🟦 Example:

Sharing a folder among team members in different locations.

✅ Use:

Create SMB file shares to be mounted like a traditional file server.

🛠️ How to Create:

1. Create a Storage Account

2. Go to File Shares → Click + File Share

3. Set name and quota

4. Click Create → Upload files

⚙️ How It Works:

 You get a UNC path like \\yourstorage.file.core.windows.net\myshare

 You can mount this as a drive in Windows or Linux systems using provided credentials.

3⃣ Azure Queue Storage (Message Queue)

🔹 What it is:

 Stores messages for communication between services.

 Useful in distributed apps for decoupling components.

✅ Use Cases:

 Order processing queues

 Background task scheduling

🟦 Example:

A website places a message in a queue when an order is placed, and a background service
processes it later.

✅ Use:

Store messages that apps can read asynchronously.

🛠️ How to Create:

1. Create a Storage Account

2. Go to Queues → Click + Queue

3. Give it a name like orderqueue

4. From app, use SDK to send/receive messages.

⚙️ How It Works:

 One app pushes messages like { "OrderId": 101 }

 Another app polls the queue and processes the message

4⃣ Azure Table Storage (NoSQL Storage)

🔹 What it is:

 Stores structured NoSQL data.

 Key-value pairs with high availability and low latency.

✅ Use Cases:

 Storing telemetry, logs, metadata

🟦 Example:

IoT device data logging (DeviceID, Timestamp, Value)

✅ Use:

Store large amounts of structured NoSQL data.

🛠️ How to Create:

1. Create a Storage Account

2. Go to Tables → Click + Table

3. Set name like SensorData

4. Insert rows via SDKs

⚙️ How It Works:

 Each item has a PartitionKey and RowKey

 Fast lookup for large datasets

5⃣ Azure Disk Storage (Managed Disks)

🔹 What it is:

 Provides persistent disks for Azure Virtual Machines.

 Like a physical hard drive attached to a VM.

✅ Use Cases:

 OS disks

 Data disks for VMs

✅ Use:

Attach persistent storage to Azure Virtual Machines.

🛠️ How to Create:

1. While creating a VM, you can attach disks.

2. Or, separately go to Disks > + New

3. Attach to VM as data disk

4. Format and mount inside VM OS

⚙️ How It Works:

 Works like an external hard drive

 Disk is durable, even if VM is deleted (if detached first)

📊 Summary Table

Storage Type Purpose Format Example Use Case

Blob Storage Unstructured data Object (Blob) Images, videos, backups

File Storage Shared file access SMB File Share Shared documents or logs

Queue Storage Async communication Message Queue Order processing, background jobs

Table Storage Structured NoSQL data Table rows IoT logs, simple datasets

OS or data disks for VMs

Disk Storage VM persistent storage Disk
Interview Questions
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🔹 Basic Azure Interview Questions
1. What is Microsoft Azure?

Answer:
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services including
compute, storage, networking, databases, and more to build, test, deploy, and manage
applications through Microsoft-managed data centers.

2. What are the main types of Azure services?

Answer:

 IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) – e.g., Azure VMs

 PaaS (Platform as a Service) – e.g., App Services
 SaaS (Software as a Service) – e.g., Microsoft 365

3. What is a Resource Group?

Answer:
A container that holds related Azure resources like VMs, databases, storage accounts, etc. It
helps manage and organize Azure assets.

4. What is an Azure Region?

Answer:
A set of data centers deployed within a specific geographic area. Example: East US, West
Europe.

5. What is Azure Virtual Machine?

Answer:
A virtualized server instance in Azure’s IaaS offering, allowing you to run Windows or Linux.

🔹 Intermediate Azure Interview Questions

6. What is Azure App Service?

Answer:
A PaaS feature that allows you to host web applications, REST APIs, and mobile backends
without managing infrastructure.

7. Difference between Azure Blob Storage and File Storage?

Answer:

 Blob: Stores unstructured data (images, videos).

 File: Provides SMB-based shared file system for legacy apps.

8. What is a Virtual Network (VNet)?

Answer:
Azure VNet is a logically isolated network in Azure where you can securely run your services,
VMs, and connect to on-premises networks.

9. What is Azure Active Directory?

Answer:
A cloud-based identity and access management service for Azure resources and third-party apps
(SSO, MFA).

10. What is Azure Functions?

Answer:
A serverless compute service that lets you run event-triggered code without provisioning servers.
🔹 Advanced Azure Interview Questions
11. How does Azure ensure high availability?

Answer:
Through Availability Sets, Availability Zones, Load Balancers, Geo-Redundancy, and auto-
scaling features.

12. What is the difference between Availability Set and Availability Zone?

Answer:

 Availability Set: Protects against hardware failures within a data center.

 Availability Zone: Physically separate zones across a region for disaster recovery.

13. What are ARM Templates?

Answer:
JSON templates used to automate deployment and configuration of Azure resources via
Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

14. What is Azure Key Vault?

Answer:
A cloud service to securely store secrets, keys, passwords, and certificates.

15. What are Managed Identities in Azure?

Answer:
A feature to provide Azure resources with an automatically managed identity to authenticate to
Azure services (no need to store credentials in code).
🔹 Bonus: Scenario-Based Questions
16. How would you secure a web app in Azure?

Answer:

 Enable HTTPS
 Use Azure App Gateway with WAF
 Configure Azure AD authentication
 Use Key Vault for secrets
 Monitor with Azure Security Center

17. How do you scale an Azure Web App?

Answer:
Via Azure Portal > App Service > Scale out (increase instances) or Scale up (higher pricing
tier). You can configure Auto-scaling based on CPU or other metrics.

🔹 More Intermediate to Advanced Azure Interview

Questions

18. What is Azure Load Balancer?

Answer:
A Layer-4 (TCP, UDP) load balancer that distributes incoming traffic among healthy instances in
a backend pool to ensure high availability and scalability.

19. What is Azure Traffic Manager?

Answer:
A DNS-based traffic load balancer that distributes user traffic across global Azure regions for
better responsiveness and availability.
20. What is the difference between Azure Load Balancer and Application
Gateway?

Answer:

Feature Azure Load Balancer Azure Application Gateway

Layer Layer 4 (TCP/UDP) Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS)
SSL Termination ❌ ✅
Web Application Firewall (WAF) ❌ ✅

21. What is Azure Monitor?

Answer:
A platform for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry data from Azure resources. It helps
with performance monitoring, alerts, and diagnostics.

22. What is Azure Application Insights?

Answer:
A feature of Azure Monitor that helps monitor live applications, detect anomalies, and diagnose
performance issues using telemetry data.

23. What are Azure Availability Zones?

Answer:
Physically separate locations within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and
networking, to increase fault tolerance.

24. What is the difference between Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell?

Answer:

 Azure CLI: Cross-platform tool with syntax similar to Bash.

 Azure PowerShell: Cmdlet-based tool designed for Windows PowerShell users.
25. How do you automate deployment in Azure?

Answer:
Using:

 ARM templates
 Azure Bicep
 Terraform
 Azure DevOps pipelines
 GitHub Actions

🔒 Azure Security Interview Questions

26. What is Azure Defender?

Answer:
An enhanced security feature in Microsoft Defender for Cloud that provides advanced threat
protection for Azure and hybrid resources.

27. What is Azure Policy?

Answer:
A service used to create, assign, and manage policies that enforce rules across your resources
(e.g., only allow VMs in a specific region).

28. How does Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) work?

Answer:
RBAC restricts access based on roles assigned to users/groups at the resource level. Roles
include Reader, Contributor, and Owner.

29. What are Shared Access Signatures (SAS)?

Answer:
A URI that grants limited access to Azure Storage resources without exposing the account key.
30. How do you secure secrets in Azure?

Answer:
Using Azure Key Vault to securely store secrets, certificates, and encryption keys.

🔁 Azure DevOps and CI/CD

31. What is Azure DevOps?

Answer:
A suite of tools for DevOps practices including Boards (Agile tracking), Pipelines (CI/CD),
Repos (Git), Test Plans, and Artifacts.

32. What are Azure Pipelines?

Answer:
CI/CD service in Azure DevOps to build, test, and deploy code automatically using YAML or
Classic editor.

33. How do you implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure?

Answer:
Using:

 ARM Templates
 Azure Bicep
 Terraform
 Pulumi

34. What is Azure Repos?

Answer:
A Git repository service in Azure DevOps for managing source code with branching and pull
requests.

💰 Azure Cost Management Questions

35. What is Azure Cost Management?

Answer:
A tool for tracking, analyzing, and optimizing cloud spending.

36. How can you reduce Azure costs?

Answer:

 Use reserved instances

 Auto-shutdown VMs
 Use cost alerts and budgets
 Choose right pricing tiers
 Use Azure Advisor recommendations

37. What is an Azure Reserved Instance?

Answer:
A commitment to use a VM for 1 or 3 years in exchange for up to 72% cost savings compared to
pay-as-you-go pricing.

38. What is Azure Spot VM?

Answer:
A VM that allows you to use unused Azure capacity at a lower price, but it can be evicted
anytime when capacity is needed.
🟦 Bonus Scenario-Based Questions

39. Your web app is slow in some regions. What would you do?

Answer:

 Use Azure Traffic Manager or Front Door to route traffic to nearest region
 Deploy app in multiple regions
 Use CDN for static content

40. You need to run a background task every 5 minutes. What Azure service do
you use?

Answer:

 Azure Functions with Timer Trigger

 Or Logic App with recurrence trigger

-------------------------------

🔹 .NET + Azure Interview Questions

1. How do you deploy a .NET Core application to Azure App Service?

Answer:

 Use Visual Studio → Right-click project → "Publish" → Select Azure App Service.
 Or use Azure DevOps Pipelines with build and release stages.
 Can also deploy via ZIP deploy, FTP, or GitHub Actions.

2. How do you use Azure Key Vault in a .NET application?

Answer:
  Install NuGet package: Azure.Security.KeyVault.Secrets.
 Authenticate using DefaultAzureCredential.
 Use SecretClient to retrieve secrets.

csharp

CopyEdit

var client = new SecretClient(new Uri(keyVaultUrl), new DefaultAzureCredential());

KeyVaultSecret secret = await client.GetSecretAsync("MySecret");

3. How do you connect a .NET application to Azure SQL Database securely?

Answer:

 Use managed identity and access via Azure AD.

 Connection string includes Authentication=Active Directory Default.

csharp

CopyEdit

Server=tcp:yourserver.database.windows.net,1433;

Authentication=Active Directory Default;

4. What is the difference between Azure Blob Storage and Azure Files? How do you use
them in .NET?

Answer:

 Blob: For unstructured data (images, videos).

 Files: For SMB file share scenarios.

Using Blob in .NET:

csharp

CopyEdit

var blobClient = new BlobClient(connectionString, "container", "file.jpg");

await blobClient.UploadAsync(fileStream);

5. What is the benefit of using Azure App Configuration in a .NET app?

Answer:
Centralizes configuration settings and feature flags outside the app code.

6. How do you monitor a .NET application hosted on Azure?

Answer:

 Use Application Insights for performance, telemetry, and error logging.

 Install Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.AspNetCore.

csharp

CopyEdit

services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry();

7. How do you handle background tasks in Azure for .NET apps?

Answer:

 Use Azure Functions (Timer Trigger, Queue Trigger).

 Use Azure WebJobs in App Services.
 Or Azure Logic Apps for no-code automation.

8. How do you implement CI/CD for .NET apps using Azure DevOps?

Answer:

 Use YAML or Classic pipelines.

 Build: Restore, Build, Test, Publish.
 Release: Deploy to App Service, Azure SQL, etc.
9. How do you authenticate users in a .NET app using Azure AD?

Answer:

 Use Microsoft.Identity.Web and Microsoft Entra (Azure AD).

 Register the app in Azure portal.
 Use AddMicrosoftIdentityWebAppAuthentication in Startup.cs.

10. How can you store logs and exceptions from a .NET application in Azure?

Answer:

 Use Application Insights

 Or use Azure Monitor with ILogger in .NET
 Can also log to Azure Blob/Table Storage

11. How do you use Azure Redis Cache with .NET?

Answer:

csharp

CopyEdit

var redis = ConnectionMultiplexer.Connect("yourcache.redis.cache.windows.net,password=...");

var db = redis.GetDatabase();

await db.StringSetAsync("key", "value");

12. How can you scale a .NET web app in Azure?

Answer:

 Scale up: Change pricing tier

 Scale out: Increase instance count or use Auto-Scaling based on CPU/memory

13. What is the difference between Azure Functions and App Services for .NET apps?
Answer:

Feature Azure Functions App Service

Type Serverless (event-driven) Fully managed web hosting
Pricing Consumption-based Tier-based
Use Case Background tasks, API Web apps, REST APIs

14. How do you protect sensitive config values in appsettings.json for Azure deployment?

Answer:

 Use Azure App Configuration or Key Vault

 Override using Azure App Settings in the portal
 Never commit secrets to source control

15. Explain how Azure Service Bus can be used in a .NET microservices architecture.

Answer:
Azure Service Bus allows decoupling of microservices using messaging queues or topics. In
.NET, you can use Azure.Messaging.ServiceBus SDK to send/receive messages asynchronously.

🔸 Bonus: Scenario-Based .NET + Azure Questions

16. A .NET app crashes after deployment to Azure. How do you troubleshoot?

 Check App Service logs, App Insights, and Kudu console

 Check configuration mismatches and connection strings

17. You need zero-downtime deployment for a .NET app on Azure. How?

 Use Deployment Slots in App Services

 Deploy to staging slot → Test → Swap slots
18. How would you implement feature flags in .NET using Azure?

 Use Azure App Configuration + Microsoft.FeatureManagement.AspNetCore

19. How to optimize a slow .NET app on Azure?

 Use Application Insights Profiler

 Scale out App Service
 Optimize DB queries, caching with Redis

20. How do you implement logging in a .NET Core API deployed to Azure?

 Use ILogger<T> interface

 Integrate with Application Insights or Serilog + Blob Storage