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Apr 13, 2024
New rack considerations – Introduction to Power E1080

1.7.1 New rack considerations

Consider the following points when racks are ordered:

Ê The new IBM Enterprise 42U Slim Rack 7965-S42 offers 42 EIA units (U) of space in a slim footprint.

Ê The 7014-T42, 7014-T00, and 7965-94Y racks are no longer available to purchase with a Power E1080 server. Installing a Power E1080 server in these racks is still supported.

Vertical PDUs: All PDUs that are installed in a rack that contains a Power E1080 server must be installed horizontally to allow for cable routing in the sides of the rack.

1.7.2 IBM Enterprise 42U Slim Rack 7965-S42

The 2.0-meter (79-inch) Model 7965-S42 is compatible with past and present IBM Power servers and provides an excellent 19-inch rack enclosure for your data center. Its 600 mm (23.6 in.) width combined with its 1100 mm (43.3 in.) depth plus its 42 EIA enclosure capacity provides great footprint efficiency for your systems. It can be placed easily on standard

24-inch floor tiles.

Compared to the 7965-94Y Slim Rack, the Enterprise Slim Rack provides extra strength and shipping and installation flexibility.

The 7965-S42 rack includes space for up to four PDUs in side pockets. Extra PDUs beyond four are mounted horizontally and each uses 1U of rack space.

The Enterprise Slim Rack front door, which can be Basic Black/Flat (#ECRM) or High-End appearance (#ECRT) has perforated steel, which provides ventilation, physical security, and visibility of indicator lights in the installed equipment within.

34      IBM Power E1080: Technical Overview and Introduction

Standard is a lock that is identical to the locks in the rear doors. The door (#ECRG) can be hinged on the left or right side.

In addition to the #ECRT door, you can order the #ECRF high-end appearance door (Figure 1-11)

Figure 1-11 The #ECRF and the #ECRT rack doors.

Orientation: #ECRT must not be flipped because the IBM logo would be upside down.

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Dec 12, 2023
Microsoft Privacy Statement – Azure Privacy and Compliance

Microsoft Privacy Statement

The Microsoft Privacy Statement contains details about how each Microsoft service interacts with your data. It covers how this personal data is collected, the purpose it serves, and how it is used. The Microsoft Privacy Statement extends across all products and services, such as Windows, M365, Azure, and Xbox; across all operating environments such as the cloud and on-premises; and all markets such as commercial, academic, consumer, and so on.

The Microsoft Privacy Statement can be accessed from https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement:

Figure 10.4 – Microsoft Privacy Statement

In this section, we looked at the Microsoft Privacy Statement and what information it contains. The following section will look at the Microsoft Product Terms site.

The Product Terms site

The Products Terms site is an online portal containing the legal agreement and licensing terms and conditions that an organization must comply with through Microsoft commercial licensing programs.

The site covers all products and services; that is, Software and Online Services; these were previously available as separate resources and have now been combined into a single unified online resource.

The Product Terms site can be accessed from https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/terms:

Figure 10.5 – Microsoft Product Terms site

In this section, we looked at the Product Terms site. The following section looks at the Data Protection Addendum.

Data Protection Addendum

The Data Protection Addendum (DPA) is an addendum to the Product Terms site we looked at in the previous section. It defines the data processing and security terms for any Online Services an organization subscribes to under the Product Terms site.

The current and archived versions of the addendum can be downloaded from the Product Terms site and can also be accessed from https://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/DocumentSearch.aspx:

Figure 10.6 – Data Protection Addendum

In this section, we looked at the DPA for subscribed Online Services. The following section looks at the Azure compliance documentation.

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Aug 12, 2023
Hands-on exercise – Azure Privacy and Compliance

Hands-on exercise

To support your learning with some practical skills, we will explore some of the resources and information covered in this chapter.

The following exercise will be carried out:

  • Exercise – exploring Microsoft Trust Center Portal.

Getting started

To get started with this hands-on exercise, you will need the following:

  • Access to an internet browser

Exercise – exploring Microsoft Trust Center Portal

This section will help you explore the Microsoft Trust Center Portal.

Task – accessing Microsoft Trust Center Portal

  1. From a browser, navigate to https://www.microsoft.com/trust-center.

Task – exploring the Trust Center Portal

  • The Trust Center Portal can be explored using the top navigation bar. The core navigation components to explore can be found in the Privacy, Compliance, and Tools & Documentation drop-down menus. In addition to this, from the Products and services navigation component, you can view guidance on security, privacy, compliance, the data’s location, GDPR, and more:

Figure 10.10 – Azure Trust Center Portal

  • From the Privacy menu, click Resources; among other resources, such as GDR, you will be able to access some of the core privacy resources outlined in the chapter, such as the privacy statement, terms, and data protection addendum. These can be seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.11 – Privacy resources

  • From the Compliance menu, you can click through the items to explore each one, such as an overview of compliance, the compliance offerings, regional and country compliance, and so on.
  • From Products and services, you can click through to learn about the specific details of each Microsoft product and service.
  • From the Tools & Documentation menu, you can click through the items to explore each one, such as audit reports and data protection resources. These can be seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.12 – Trust document resources

In this exercise, we explored the Microsoft Trust Center Portal.

Now, let’s summarize this chapter.

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Jun 12, 2023
Exercise 1 – using the Azure Pricing calculator – Azure Cost Planning and Management

Exercise 1 – using the Azure Pricing calculator

In this exercise, you will create a price estimate with the Azure Pricing calculator; the estimate will be for a simple single-instance Windows VM hosted in the North Europe (Dublin) region.

Task – accessing the Azure Pricing calculator

  1. Open a browser and sign into the Azure pricing calculator using your Microsoft account: https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/calculator.

Task – adding a VM to the estimate

  1. From the products tab, click Virtual Machines.
  2. Scroll down to the VM line item that has been added to the estimate.
  3. Adjust the default VM settings to the following for this exercise (or as required):
    • Region: North Europe.
    • Operating System: Windows.
    • Type: (OS only).
    • Tier: Standard.
    • Category: General purpose.
    • Instance Series: Dds v4-series (or as required).
    • Instance: D2ds v4 (or as required).
    • Virtual Machines: Leave as qty of 1 and running for 730 hours.
  1. Leave Savings options as is.
  2. Expand Managed Disks and adjust the default settings to the following for this exercise:
    • Tier: Premium SSD
    • Disk Size: S15: 256 GiB
    • Disks (qty): 1
  1. Leave Storage Transactions as is.
  2. Expand Bandwidth and adjust the default settings to the following for this exercise:
    • Data transfer type: Internet egress
    • Source region: North Europe
    • Routed via: Microsoft Global Network
    • Outbound data transfer: 10 GiB
  1. Leave Support as is.
  2. Leave Programmes and Offers as is.
  3. From the bottom right of the estimate screen, set the currency as required.

Task – saving, exporting, and sharing the estimate

  1. From the bottom left of the Estimate screen, click Save as and enter a name for your estimate.
  2. You will see a message stating that the estimate has been saved and that it can be viewed by clicking on the Saved estimates tab. Click Done.
  3. To export the estimate, click Export.
  4. To share the estimate, click Share.

In this exercise, we created an estimate for an Azure resource to be used in a solution using the Azure Pricing calculator. In the next exercise, we will use the TCO calculator.

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May 12, 2023
Azure compliance documentation – Azure Privacy and Compliance

Azure compliance documentation

As its name suggests, the Azure compliance documentation is an online documentation site that provides detailed information and resources about legal, regulatory standards, as well as compliance an organization has on Azure. The documentation can be accessed at https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/compliance:

Figure 10.7 – Azure compliance documentation

In this section, we looked at the Azure compliance documentation. The following section looks at Azure Sovereign Regions.

Azure Sovereign Regions

Azure supports what is referred to as Sovereign Regions; these support greater compliance for specific markets. These regions, as shown in the following diagram, operate isolated instances of the Azure cloud computing platform that run dedicated hardware and isolated networks:

Figure 10.8 – Azure Sovereign Region cloud

As outlined here, the Sovereign Region platforms also have portals with different URLs and service endpoints in DNS:

  • Azure Government: This is a separate instance of the Azure platform that Microsoft operates; it is for the sole use of US government bodies (and partners):
    • The service endpoints to connect to in DNS are in the form of *.azurewebsites.us.
    • You can find more information at https://azure.microsoft.com/global-infrastructure/government.
  • Azure China (21Vianet): This is a separate instance of the Azure platform operated by 21Vianet; it is for compliance with Chinese government regulations:
    • The Azure portal can be accessed via a dedicated URL: https://portal.azure.cn.
    • The service endpoints to connect to in DNS are in the form of *.chinacloudsites.cn.

In this section, we looked at the Azure Sovereign Region clouds. The following section looks at a thought exercise.

Thought exercise

Returning to our online pizza company MilesBetter Pizza, they wish to know where they should look to determine whether they need to be compliant with regulatory standards such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) as they handle online transactions. They also don’t want to fall foul of any Microsoft product terms for Online Services they have.

In addition, in preparation for an audit, they have been asked to provide evidence in the form of information on the compliance, security, and privacy statements from their cloud service provider of the data stored in Azure. The following diagram visualizes all the resources that are required that were covered in this chapter:

Figure 10.9 – Azure privacy and compliance resources

The following URLs will be required to explore, collate, and present the required audit information:

In this section, we looked at a thought exercise covering privacy and compliance. In the next section, we will complete a hands-on exercise.

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Dec 12, 2022
Exercise 2 – exploring Azure Preview features – Azure Service-Level Agreements

Exercise 2 – exploring Azure Preview features

In this exercise, we will learn where to find information about Azure Preview features.

The following subsections cover how to complete this exercise. They have been segregated into tasks for ease of better understanding.

Task – exploring the Azure updates site

  1. From a browser, go to https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/?status=inpreview.
  2. From this URL, you can see all the Azure updates that are in preview.

Task – exploring the Azure Preview portal

3. From a browser, go to https://preview.portal.azure.com.

From this URL, you can view the preview features for the Azure portal; the title of the page shows Preview in brackets so that you know that this is the Preview portal you are exploring. This can be seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 12.3 – Azure portal – Preview features

Task – exploring Preview features

  1. In the search bar, type preview features and click Preview features from the results list.
  2. From the Preview features blade, you can explore all the preview features available; you can filter to show only those available for a particular subscription and all the states; that is, if these are not registered or if you have registered them for use.
  3. From the top toolbar, you can Register for any preview to try out and unregister any that you do not wish to be available.
  4. You can click on the Documentation hyperlink from the Learn more column or click on a preview feature from the list, which will open a pop-up blade containing more information about this feature. It will also provide the same hyperlink to the documentation that’s relevant to this preview feature; the Register option is also available from this screen. The following screenshot shows the Previews features in the Azure portal:

Figure 12.4 – Azure portal – Preview features

In this exercise, we looked at where to find information about Azure Preview features.

This section covered two hands-on exercises. Now, let’s summarize this chapter.

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