Top 20 Azure Interview Questions and Answers

Introduction

Are you interested in making a career in cloud computing? If so, then you have come to the right place!

In this blog, we have hand-picked the top 20 most-asked Azure interview questions and their answers that will help you clear Azure interviews. Whether you are a student looking to break into the cloud computing industry or a professional seeking to advance your career, the Azure interview questions and answers cover the most critical concepts of Azure, ensuring that you are well-prepared for your interview.

Now, Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that offers a wide range of services. These services include virtual machines, storage, databases, and much more. It is mainly used by businesses of all sizes, covering small startups and large enterprises, in order to build, deploy, and manage their applications on the cloud. If you’re interested in boosting your Azure knowledge and resume, consider exploring Microsoft Azure Combo Training.

Let us look into the Azure interview questions and answers in detail.

Basic Azure Interview Questions and Answers

The Azure interview questions and answers that we are going to discuss cover a wider range of topics.  By understanding these questions and answers, you will be able to demonstrate your knowledge and skills in Azure, which can give you a significant advantage in your interview.

Q1 – Explain the different services offered in the Cloud with examples.

Mainly, there are three types of cloud services. These are:

• IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
• PaaS (Platform as a Service)
• SaaS (Software as a Service)

Q2 – What is Microsoft Azure, and what are its key features?

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform. It assists in building, deploying, and managing both applications as well as services over the Internet. One can do this without the need for expensive hardware or infrastructure. It offers a wide range of tools and services, which include computing power, storage, networking, DevOps, and AI and machine learning. It is suitable for all types of businesses, from small start-ups to big enterprises.

Some of the key features of Microsoft Azure are:

• Scalability & Reliability
• Robust Security
• Hybrid Capability
• Advanced Analytics and Business Intelligence
• Disaster Recovery, and many more.

Q3 – Explain the different Azure deployment models.

There are three deployment models in Azure. These are:

• Public Cloud Deployment Model: It is one of the most common and widely used models. In this model, resources are deployed on Azure’s public cloud infrastructure. This public cloud infrastructure is a shared and multi-tenant environment.
• Private Cloud Deployment Model: This model is also known as Azure Stack. With the help of this model, organizations can easily deploy Azure services on their premises. It offers a dedicated and isolated environment. These models are mainly suitable for organizations with strict security and compliance requirements.
• Hybrid Cloud Deployment Model: It combines the benefits of both public as well as private clouds. In this model, organizations can deploy resources on both public and private clouds. Hybrid Cloud is suitable for organizations with complex workloads that require both scalability and control.

Q4 – A company wants to migrate its on-premises application to Azure. What is the first step?

When considering migrating an on-premises application to Azure, the first step is to assess the current application and its compatibility with Azure. This assessment includes evaluating the application’s architecture, dependencies, and components in order to determine its readiness for the cloud.

There are many other assessment factors to consider when migrating on-premises applications to Azure. These are the application’s code, databases, integrations, servers, storage, and network configurations.

This first step is crucial as it lays the foundation for a well-planned and efficient migration process.

Q5 – A developer needs to deploy a web app in Azure. What service should they use?

A developer has several options when it comes to deploying a web app in Azure. Some of these include Azure App Service, Azure VM, and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

One of the most popular services is Azure App Service. This fully managed PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) gives the freedom to developers to deploy and scale web applications. With Azure App Service, developers can focus on writing code rather than wasting time on managing infrastructure. The service supports a wide array of frameworks, including .NET, Node.js, Python, and Ruby. It also provides features such as automated deployment, Scaling, and load balancing.

Apart from all this, Azure App Services also offers built-in support for SSL certificates, authentication, and authorization. This makes it a robust and secure choice for deploying web applications.

Q6 – What are the different Azure Storage options and their use cases?

Azure Storage offers several options to meet the diverse storage requirements of cloud applications. Different Azure Storage options and their use cases are:

Q7 – A customer wants to monitor Azure resources. What service should they use?

If customers want to monitor Azure resources,  they can make use of “Azure Monitor”. Azure Monitor is a service that offers a unified view of all Azure resources. With its help, one can collect, analyze metrics, and act on data from their Azure resources. This allows customers to identify as well as troubleshoot issues quickly and leads to improved overall system performance.

Now, customers can gather insights into the performance, availability, and security of their Azure resources. It also includes virtual machines, Azure Storage, Azure Active Directory, and more.

Some of the features of Azure Monitor are:

• Metric Collection and Analysis
• Log Analytics
• Alerting and Notification
• Integration with other Azure services

Q8 – What are Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) and their various types?

Azure Virtual Machines are cloud-based virtual servers. It allows users to create as well as manage virtual machines in the cloud. It gives the freedom to customize the operating system, applications, and resources as needed.

Various types of Azure Virtual Machines are:

Q9 – What is Azure DevOps, and how can it help your organization?

Azure DevOps is a set of services offered by Microsoft that combines people, processes, and technology to deliver value to customers continuously. It allows developers, project managers, and teams to collaborate and work together to deliver high-quality software and services faster and more reliably.

With Azure DevOps, teams can plan, develop, deliver, and operate software while also continuously monitoring and improving the quality of their work. By using Azure DevOps, organizations can improve collaboration, automate repetitive tasks, and gain real-time visibility into their development cycle, leading to faster time-to-market, higher-quality software, and greater customer satisfaction.

Q10 – Can you explain the difference between Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery?

Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery are two essential services offered by Microsoft Azure. The basic differences between Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery are:

These are the basic Azure Interview Questions and Answers. Moving on, let’s discuss some advanced Interview questions.

Advanced Azure Interview Questions and Answers

Here are some most-asked advanced Azure Interview Questions –

Q11 – A customer wants to analyze large datasets in Azure. What service should they use?

Customers who want to analyze large datasets in Azure should use “Azure Synapse Analytics“. This service is a fast, flexible, and trusted platform for data analytics. With Synapse, customers can easily ingest, prepare, and analyze large datasets using various data sources, including relational databases, NoSQL databases, and files.

The service offers a scalable and secure environment to run complex queries, build data models, and create powerful data visualizations.

Synapse also integrates with other Azure services, such as Azure Storage, Azure Data Factory, and Azure Databricks, making it a comprehensive solution for data analysis.

Q12 – Explain how you would optimize Azure costs for a company, including the strategies you would use and why.

Optimizing Azure costs is essential to avoid unnecessary expenses and allocate resources effectively.

Analyzing Azure Cost Estimator and Azure Cost Analysis reports

It is important to understand the company’s current Azure usage first and then identify areas where changes need to be made. This involves analyzing Azure Cost Estimator and Azure Cost Analysis reports. With these reports, one can identify underutilized or idle resources.

Implement a resource tagging strategy

Implement a resource tagging strategy to categorize resources by department, environment, or application, enabling more accurate cost tracking and allocation.

Reserve Instances

Another important strategy is to make use of the resources of the right size. This will ensure that they are not overprovisioned or under-provisioned. One can make use of Reserve Instances (RIs) in order to reduce costs by going for a one-year or three-year term. Also, consider using Azure Hybrid Benefit. With this, companies can use on-premises Windows Server licenses in Azure, which directly reduces costs.

Optimizing storage costs

Storage cost is the most important factor to consider. In this case, consider using Azure Blob Storage. It offers a cost-effective solution for storing large amounts of data. Implementing data lifecycle management policies can help reduce storage costs by automatically moving data to lower-cost storage tiers.

Implementing Azure Cost Advisor

Lastly, consider implementing Azure Cost Advisor. It offers personalized recommendations in order to optimize costs. This tool analyzes Azure usage and, side-by-side, suggests ideas for cost reduction. Ideas such as shutting down idle resources or optimizing resource configurations.

Q13 – How does Azure support content delivery and edge computing?

Azure offers different services and features that support both content delivery as well as edge computing. With this, organizations can deliver content to a wide range of users around the globe. Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches content at strategically placed locations in order to reduce latency and improve performance and user experience. Apart from this, Azure also offers services like Azure Front Door. It provides global load balancing and traffic management for web applications.

Azure’s Edge Computing capabilities allow for data processing and analysis at the edge of the network, closer to the user. This reduces latency and improves real-time processing, making it ideal for IoT, AI, and 5G applications.

Q14 – A developer needs to deploy an Azure Virtual Machine. What should they consider?

While deploying an Azure Virtual Machine, various factors should be considered by the developer. These are:

• Operating System: It is important to choose the right OS for the workload. Various factors have to be considered when choosing an OS, such as compatibility, licensing, and support.
• Instance Size: Select the appropriate VM size based on CPU, memory, and storage requirements to ensure optimized performance.
• Networking and Subnetting: Plan IP addresses, subnets, and network security groups to ensure secure communication.
• Storage: Decide on storage options, such as HDD, SSD, or premium storage, considering factors like cost, performance, and durability.
• Security and Compliance: Implement security measures, such as firewalls, access controls, and encryption, to meet compliance requirements.
• Backup and Recovery: Develop a backup and disaster recovery strategy to ensure business continuity.
• Cost and Budget: Estimate costs and plan budgeting, considering factors like VM size, storage, and usage.
• Monitoring and Maintenance: Plan for regular updates, patching, and monitoring to ensure the VM remains secure and optimized.
• Licensing and Compliance: Ensure compliance with software licensing agreements and organizational policies.

Q15 – Your company wants to migrate an on-premises SQL Server database to Azure. What are the benefits and considerations for migrating to Azure SQL Database?

There are many benefits of migrating an on-premises SQL Server database to Azure SQL Database. It offers better scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, i.e., reduction in maintenance costs and IT resources. Azure provides automatic software updates and, side-by-side, reduces maintenance burdens. The most important feature of all is Azure’s pay-as-you-go pricing model which will help in reducing the overall cost. Apart from all this, by moving to the cloud, the company can eliminate the need for expensive hardware upgrades, server maintenance, and IT staff to manage the infrastructure.

Still, there are some important considerations to keep in mind. One of many is compatibility issues. Azure SQL Database may not always support all existing database features. This can lead to compatibility problems. Another important consideration is data security and compliance. It is crucial to ensure that your data is properly encrypted and meets the regulatory requirements. Also, network latency and bandwidth limitations can affect database performance.

Q16 – Your company wants to build a serverless architecture using Azure Functions. How would you design a serverless architecture for an image-processing application?

It is important to consider some points if someone wants to build a serverless architecture for an image processing application using Azure Functions.

• First, it is important to consider the tasks involved in image processing. This includes image upload, resizing, cropping, and format conversion. All these tasks must be broken down into separate Azure Functions, and each function should be responsible for a specific operation.
• Now, the next step is to select a central repository for images and in this case, it is Azure Blob Storage. Try configuring Azure Functions in order to trigger new image uploads or updates. With this, one can easily make the serverless architecture automatically process images as they arrive.
• It is important to enjoy all the benefits of Azure functions. In this case, Azure Functions’ automatic scaling feature should be used to handle large volumes of image processing requests.
• Lastly, it is important to use Azure Cognitive Services for image analysis and processing. Azure Durable Functions can also be used to orchestrate the image processing workflow.

Q17 – How would you design a hybrid cloud architecture using Azure Arc?

The first step is to assess the organization’s current infrastructure and, side-by-side, identify the workloads that can be migrated to the cloud. Now, the next step is to evaluate the compatibility of existing applications and further determine the required security and compliance requirements. Azure Arc’s cloud-native services (Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Functions) can be used to modernize applications and develop cloud-native ones.

In order to ensure seamless integration, Azure Arc’s hybrid cloud management capabilities can be used to extend Azure services to on-premises environments. This helps organizations in managing their hybrid environment as a single, unified platform. Apart from this, Azure Arc’s role-based access control and policy-based governance assist in meeting the security and compliance requirements.

Q18 – How would you design a data lake solution using Azure Data Lake Storage?

To design a data lake solution with the help of Azure Data Lake Storage, the first step is to create a hierarchical folder structure in order to organize data by category and date. Next is to configure the data ingestion pipelines using Azure Data Factory in order to load data from various sources into the lake.

Also, it is recommended to implement Azure Data Catalog to catalog and discover data sets. Now, it is important to secure the lake with Azure Active Directory authentication and access control lists. In the end, integrate with Azure Databricks and Power BI for data processing and visualization.

Q19 – What is the difference between Windows Active Directory and Azure Active Directory?

The basic difference between the two are:

Q20 – How does Azure support IoT deployments?

Azure provides a comprehensive set of services that support Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, allowing organizations to connect, monitor, and manage their devices and assets. This includes services like Azure IoT Hub, which provides a secure and scalable way to connect, provision, and manage IoT devices, and Azure IoT Central, which offers a SaaS solution for building and managing IoT applications.

Azure also offers services like Azure Stream Analytics, which allows you to process and analyze real-time data from IoT devices, and Azure Digital Twins, which allows you to create digital models of physical environments. By leveraging these services, organizations can build and deploy IoT solutions that drive innovation and efficiency.

These are the most asked advanced Azure Interview questions.

Conclusion

The top 20 Azure interview questions and answers that we have just discussed can significantly boost your confidence and increase your chances of success in your interview. Still, do not stop here! While these questions are a great starting point, it is essential to continue learning and expanding your Azure knowledge. If you are serious about advancing your Azure skills, consider taking Microsoft Azure training courses like AZ 900 and AZ 400 or follow the Azure Certification Path.