Azure : simplifying concepts – discussing Azure Subscription in detail- helps in preparing Azure certifications and interviews

Hi All,

Greetings for the day!!!

Takeaway from this article

• What is Azure Subscription
• What are the Azure Subscription limits
• Getting details of Azure subscriptions from Azure Portal
• Few scenarios where we need multiple Subscriptions
• PowerShell CMDLETs required for managing / administrating AZURE Subscription

What is Azure Subscription

• A subscription is group of user accounts and the resources which those user groups have created
• When we sign up an Azure subscription is created by default
• Each subscription has name and unique ID called Subscription ID
• Azure subscription is logical container for provisioning resources in Azure.
• Resource like Virtual Machines (VMs), databases, VNETs, Storage Accounts, Functions and other services
• When we create / deploy any resource / service we need to select the specific subscription
• Resources from one subscription are isolated from another subscription
• For each subscription we have limit or quota for the number of resources we can create and use
• For example – The maximum number of network Azure Express Route circuits per subscription is 10
• To use Azure we need Azure Subscription
• A subscription provides us with authenticated and authorized access to Azure products and services.
• An Azure subscription is a logical unit of Azure services that links to an Azure account, which is an identity in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) or in a directory that Azure AD trusts
• An account can have one subscription or multiple subscriptions that have different billing models and to which we can apply different access-management policies
• We can set specific Azure Policies on subscription level
• Each subscription have its own bill

Subscription Limits

Resource	Limit
Subscriptions associated with an Azure Active Directory tenant	Unlimited
Coadministrators per subscription	Unlimited
Resource groups per subscription	980
Azure Resource Manager API request size	4,194,304 bytes
Tags per subscription	50
Unique tag calculations per subscription	80,000
Subscription-level deployments per location	8003
Locations of Subscription-level deployments	10

Azure Portal – How to see subscriptions assigned to my account

• Navigate to azure portal – Home – Microsoft Azure
• Login with your account

• As we hover on “Subscription” link beauty of Microsoft is it suggests useful reference / documents links and training material as shown in below fig

• As we click on “Subscription” link we will be redirected to subscriton blade
• On Subscription blade page (https://portal.azure.com/?quickstart=True#view/Microsoft_Azure_Billing/SubscriptionsBlade ) we have listing of all subscription associated with our logged in account as

• As we click on “Subscription name” here – “Free Trial” we will be redirected to details of subscription and on “Overview” tab as

• From left blade we can explore various options and approaches.

Scenarios where our organization may need multiple subscriptions

• Our organization may need multiple different subscriptions based on resource need or billing management
• Following are few example of SCENARIOS where our organization may need multiple subscriptions
  • #1 : For maintaining different environments – We may need different AZURE subscription for having different environments like for DEV purpose , TESTING purpose or for PROD
  • #2 : For billing requirements
  • #3 : Hard limit for resources – like for one subscription we have maximum number of network Azure ExpressRoute circuits is only 10. So if in our organization we have need of more than 10 ExpressRoute circuits then we need multiple subscriptions

PowerShell to manage / administrator Azure Subscriptions

• We have very good article to begin with Azure PowerShell, please have a look – Azure PowerShell – Knowing the basics and starting with few important CMDLETS
• Following are the CMDLETs for Azure Subscription – There will be detailed article on Azure Subscription PowerShell CMDLETs
  • Connect-AzAccount – prompts for Azure credentials and connects to default Azure subscription
  • Get-AzSubscription – get all list of all subscriptions
  • Get-AzContext – To know the current Azure Subscription
  • Select-AzSubscription – To change the current Azure subscription

REFERENCES

• Interview Preperation – https://knowledge-junction.in/interview-preparation/
• Azure Administration – Basic questions and answers (help to prepare interviews and respective certifications) – Part 1. Start with Azure Administration
• Azure – Basic questions and answers (help to prepare interviews and respective certifications)
• Azure CLI – Important commands at one place
• Knoweldge Junction AZURE articles – https://knowledge-junction.in/category/technology-articles/azure/

Thanks for reading! HAVE A FANTASTIC TIME AHEAD 🙂 ENJOY BEAUTIFUL LIFE 🙂