Microsoft Azure Interview Questions

1. What is Cloud Computing?

Explanation: It is the use of servers on the internet to “store”, “manage” and “process” data. The difference is, instead of using your own servers, you are using someone else’s servers to do your task, paying them for the amount of time you use it for.

2. What are the different type of services offered in the cloud?

Explanation:  The different type of services offered in the cloud are:

1. IaaS
2. PaaS
3. SaaS

IaaS: In infrastructure as a service, you get the raw hardware from your cloud provider as a service i.e you get a server which you can configure with your own qill.

PaaS: Platform as a Service, gives you a platform to publish without giving the access to the underlying software or OS. For example: Web Apps, Mobile Apps in Azure.

SaaS: You get software as a service in Azure, i.e no infrastructure, no platform, simple software that you can use without purchasing it. For example: when you launch a VM on Azure, you are not buying the OS, you are basically renting it for the time you will be running that instance.

3. What are the different cloud deployment models?

Explanation: Following are the three cloud deployment models:

Public Cloud: The infrastructure is owned by your cloud provider and the server that you are using could be a multi-tenant system.

Private Cloud: The infrastructure is owned by you or your cloud provider gives you that service exclusively. For eg: Hosting your website on your servers, or hosting your website with the cloud provider on a dedicated server.

Hybrid Cloud: When you use both Public Cloud, Private Cloud together, it is called Hybrid Cloud. For Example: Using your in-house servers for confidential data, and the public cloud for hosting your company’s public facing website. This type of setup would be a hybrid cloud.

4. I have some private servers on my premises, also I have distributed some of my workload on the public cloud, what is this architecture called?

A.            Virtual Private Network

B.            Private Cloud

C.            Virtual Private Cloud

D.            Hybrid Cloud

Answer: D. Hybrid Cloud

Explanation: This type of architecture would be a hybrid cloud. Why? Because we are using both, the public cloud, and on premises servers i.e the private cloud. To make this hybrid architecture easy to use, wouldn’t it be better if your private and public cloud were all on the same network (virtually). This is established by including your public cloud servers in a virtual private cloud, and connecting virtual cloud with your on premise servers using a VPN (Virtual Private Network).

5. What is Microsoft Azure and why is it used?

Explanation: As discussed above, the companies which provide the cloud service are called the Cloud Providers. There are a lot of cloud providers out there, out of them one is Microsoft Azure. It is used for accessing Microsoft’s infrastructure for cloud.

6. Which service in Azure is used to manage resources in Azure?

A.            Application Insights

B.            Azure Resource Manager

C.            Azure Portal

D.            Log Analytics

Answer: B Azure Resource Manager

Explanation: Azure Resource Manager is used to “manage” infrastructures which involve a no. of azure services. It can be used to deploy, manage and delete all the resources together using a simple JSON script.

7. Which of the following web applications can be deployed with Azure?

A.            ASP.NET

B.            PHP

C.            WCF

D.            All of the mentioned

Answer: D All of the mentioned

Explanation: Microsoft also has released SDKs for both Java and Ruby to allow applications written in those languages to place calls to the Azure Service Platform API to the AppFabric Service.

8. What are Roles and why do we use them?

Explanation: Roles are nothing servers in layman terms. These servers are managed, load balanced, Platform as a Service virtual machines that work together to achieve a common goal.

There are 3 types of roles in Microsoft Azure:

• Web Role
• Worker Role
• VM  Role

Let’s discuss each of these roles in detail:

• Web Role – A web role is basically used to deploy a website, using languages supported by the IIS platform like, PHP, .NET etc. It is configured and customized to run web applications.
• Worker Role – A worker role is more like an help to the Web role, it used to execute background processes unlike the Web Role which is used to deploy the website.
• VM Role – The VM role is used by a user to schedule tasks and other windows services. This role can be used to customize the machines on which the web and worker role is running.

9. A _________ role is a virtual machine instance running Microsoft IIS Web server that can accept and respond to HTTP or HTTPS requests.

A.            Web

B.            Server

C.            Worker

D.            Client

Answer: A. Web

Explanation: The answer should be Web Roles, there are no roles such as Server or Client roles. Also, Worker roles can only communicate with Azure Storage or through direct connections to clients.

10. Is it possible to create a Virtual Machine using Azure Resource Manager in a Virtual Network that was created using classic deployment?

Explanation: This is not supported. You cannot use Azure Resource Manager to deploy a virtual machine into a virtual network that was created using classic deployment.

11. What are virtual machine scale sets in Azure?

Explanation: Virtual machine scale sets are Azure compute resource 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 compute, big data, and containerized workloads.

12. Are data disks supported within scale sets?

Explanation: 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)

13. What is an Availability Set?

Explanation: 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.

14. What are Fault Domains?

Explanation: A fault domain is a logical group of underlying hardware that share a common power source and network switch, similar to a rack within an on-premise data-centers. As you create VMs within an availability set, the Azure platform automatically distributes your VMs across these fault domains. This approach limits the impact of potential physical hardware failures, network outages, or power interruptions.

15. What are Update Domains?

Explanation: An update domain is a logical group of underlying hardware that can undergo maintenance or can be rebooted at the same time. As you create VMs within an availability set, the Azure platform automatically distributes your VMs across these update domains. This approach ensures that at least one instance of your application always remains running as the Azure platform undergoes periodic maintenance. The order of update domains being rebooted may not proceed sequentially during planned maintenance, but only one update domain is rebooted at a time.

More about Microsoft Azure:

• Microsoft Azure Interview Questions