Tutorial / Cram Notes
They are essential for individuals or organizations to use Azure services. When you sign up for Azure, you’re asked to create a subscription and provide credit card details for billing. A subscription enables you to provision resources and gives you access to Azure services. Each subscription is associated with an Azure account, which can have multiple subscriptions.
Types of Azure Subscriptions
There are different types of subscriptions available, catering to various needs:
- Free Subscription: This involves a free trial period, typically of 30 days or $200 of credit to spend for the first month.
- Pay-As-You-Go Subscription: Often used by individuals or companies for production or development purposes. You’re billed monthly for the services you use.
- Enterprise Agreement (EA) Subscription: Designed for large organizations that go for a contractual agreement with Microsoft to use Azure services at discounted rates.
- Student Subscription: Comes with certain free services and is available for students who can validate their academic status.
Subscription Management
An Azure subscription is a logical container used to:
- Manage costs and billing. You are billed monthly for the services you use within each subscription. You can also set spending limits and alerts.
- Group resources for organization and isolation. You can apply governance conditions, such as roles and policies, at the subscription level.
- Provide access control. You can define who has access and what level of access to the Azure resources within the subscription.
Subscription Limits and Quotas
Azure imposes some limits and quotas on the amount of resources you can deploy and use within each subscription. These limits can typically be raised by submitting a support request.
Subscription and Resource Groups
Within subscriptions, resources can be further organized into resource groups. A resource group is a collection of resources that share the same lifecycle, permissions, and policies. It simplifies resource management and cost reporting.
Examples of Using Subscriptions
- A small business might have a single Pay-As-You-Go subscription for hosting all their workloads, websites, and databases.
- A larger enterprise might have multiple subscriptions to provide isolation between departments. Each department would manage its own subscription, but all might roll up to the main Enterprise Agreement.
- A developer could have a separate subscription for testing applications, separate from the production environment subscription to prevent any accidental interference.
Billing and Cost Management
Azure provides tools such as Azure Cost Management and Billing to help track and manage your Azure subscription expenditure. This includes budgets, alerts, and detailed cost reports.
Multiple Subscriptions
It is not uncommon for a business or individual to have multiple subscriptions. This could be for billing purposes, organizational reasons, or compliance. Having multiple subscriptions can, however, introduce complexity in management. Azure Lighthouse and management groups help manage these scenarios by providing governance across subscriptions.
Transitioning Between Subscriptions
It’s possible to transfer resources from one subscription to another if needed. However, some services have specific constraints, so it’s essential to consult the documentation before proceeding.
Azure Pricing Calculator
Before creating a subscription, you can use the Azure Pricing Calculator to estimate costs based on your projected usage, allowing for better financial planning and subscription selection.
Conclusion
Azure subscriptions are foundational for using Azure services, and understanding them is critical for anyone aiming to work with Azure or preparing for the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam. Proper subscription management ensures that you have the necessary control over costs, governance, and organizational structure required to effectively run your Azure workloads.
Practice Test with Explanation
True or False: A subscription is required to create resources in Azure.
- True
Azure subscriptions create a boundary for billing and resource usage, and you need at least one subscription to deploy Azure services.
True or False: Subscriptions are tied directly to Azure Active Directory.
- False
Subscriptions are associated with, but not tied directly to, Azure Active Directory. They rely on Azure AD for identity services, but the subscription itself is a separate entity for billing and management purposes.
Multiple Select: Which of the following can be used to manage costs in Azure? (Select all that apply)
- A) Azure Cost Management
- B) Azure Policies
- C) Azure Service Health
- D) Azure Budgets
A, B, D
Azure Cost Management, Azure Policies, and Azure Budgets all play roles in managing and controlling Azure costs, while Azure Service Health provides service health notifications.
Single Select: Which Azure component is considered the parent of all Azure subscriptions?
- A) Azure Resource Group
- B) Azure Tenant
- C) Azure Account
- D) Azure Management Group
B. Azure Tenant
An Azure tenant represents a dedicated instance of the Azure AD service and is the parent component of all Azure subscriptions.
True or False: You can have multiple Azure subscriptions within a single Azure tenant.
- True
An Azure tenant can contain multiple subscriptions, allowing organizations to manage billing and resources across different departments or projects.
True or False: Microsoft Azure free account comes with a limited-time free subscription.
- True
The Microsoft Azure free account includes a free subscription with a limited amount of free services for 12 months, plus a specified amount of credit to use in the first 30 days.
Single Select: The Owner role at the subscription level has which of the following permissions?
- A) Read-only access to subscription resources
- B) Ability to manage only cost and billing
- C) Full access, including the ability to delegate permissions
- D) Permissions to create resources but not to assign roles
C. Full access, including the ability to delegate permissions
The Owner role at the subscription level provides full access to all resources in the subscription, including the ability to delegate access to others by assigning roles.
True or False: You can link a subscription to more than one Azure Active Directory tenant.
- False
A subscription is associated with a single Azure Active Directory tenant, which provides identity management for the subscription’s resources.
Single Select: Which of the following options is not a type of Azure Subscription?
- A) Free
- B) Pay-As-You-Go
- C) Enterprise Agreement
- D) Azure in Open
D. Azure in Open
Azure in Open is not a subscription type; the correct subscription types are Free, Pay-As-You-Go, and Enterprise Agreement.
True or False: Subscriptions are the only way to organize resources in Azure.
- False
While subscriptions are a primary way to organize and manage billing for resources, Azure also provides other means such as resource groups and management groups to organize resources.
Multiple Select: Which of the following benefits are associated with Azure Enterprise Agreements (EA)? (Select all that apply)
- A) Discounted pricing
- B) Consolidated billing
- C) Limited time use
- D) Customized policy settings
A, B, D
Azure Enterprise Agreements offer discounted pricing, consolidated billing for multiple subscriptions, and the ability to customize policy settings. They are meant for long-term commitments and not for limited time use.
Single Select: Who can access the Account Center to manage Azure subscriptions?
- A) Any user with a valid Azure account
- B) Only users with an Owner role at the subscription level
- C) Only users invited by the Azure account administrator
- D) Only users with Contributor role at the subscription level
B. Only users with an Owner role at the subscription level
Only users with an Owner role at the subscription level can access the Account Center to manage Azure subscriptions, as it requires the authority to manage billing and subscription details.
Interview Questions
What is a subscription in Microsoft’s cloud offerings?
A subscription is a logical container used to provision and manage resources in Microsoft’s cloud offerings.
What can you do with a subscription?
You can create and manage resources, set access policies and permissions, and track costs and usage.
How do subscriptions relate to tenants?
A tenant is the organization that owns the subscription and the resources provisioned within it.
Can you have multiple subscriptions within a single tenant?
Yes, you can have multiple subscriptions within a single tenant.
How are subscriptions billed?
Subscriptions are billed based on the services and resources provisioned within them, with pricing varying based on the specific service and usage.
What is a user account in Microsoft’s cloud offerings?
A user account is an identity used to access resources within a subscription.
What is a license in Microsoft’s cloud offerings?
A license is an entitlement that allows a user to use a specific service or set of services within a subscription.
How are licenses assigned to users?
Licenses can be assigned directly to users or to groups of users.
What is an account in Microsoft’s cloud offerings?
An account is a collection of user identities and their associated access policies and permissions within a subscription.
How do you manage access to resources within a subscription?
Access to resources within a subscription is managed through the use of roles and role-based access control (RBAC).
What is role-based access control (RBAC)?
RBAC is a method of managing access to resources within a subscription by assigning roles to user identities.
What are the benefits of using RBAC?
RBAC provides a granular and flexible approach to managing access to resources, allowing for more fine-grained control over who can perform specific actions within a subscription.
Can you share resources between subscriptions?
Yes, you can share resources between subscriptions within the same tenant, although some services may require additional configuration to enable this.
What is the Azure portal?
The Azure portal is a web-based interface used to manage resources within Azure subscriptions.
Can you use APIs to manage resources within a subscription?
Yes, you can use APIs and automation tools to manage resources within a subscription, providing greater flexibility and programmability for managing cloud resources.
I find the Azure subscription model a bit confusing. Can anyone explain the basics?
Thanks for the post! Very helpful.
Is it possible to have multiple subscriptions under one account?
Can someone explain the difference between a resource group and a subscription?
Could you share some best practices for managing multiple subscriptions?
Appreciate the clarity in the article. Thanks!
I’ve noticed the cost can quickly add up. Any tips for cost management?
What is the role of an Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) in managing subscriptions?