#Commonly Asked Questions about Azure Certification

[coralhoneyrose]

was thinking about your museum/ modern au and reread it (you cooked btw its sooooo good) and i have a few silly world questions if youre down lol. Chrom asks if he should call for a healer, is magic still around 500 years into the future? Also 👀 is Emm still around? sorry lol i just started thinking about post-story events and oh man it would be kinda scary? knowing all this stuff about people who you havent really met but still exist around you like stahl and miriel. I just like to picture chrom out of the blue "im getting married!" and Lissa and Emm are just So Concerned.

Ahhh thank you so much, anon!! :D I'm so glad you liked the fic enough that you'd decide to reread it--that means a lot <3 And I would be happy to answer your questions!

That's a good catch with the line about the healer; there is still magic around in their world, yes! I was sort of imagining it as a Modern With Magic type setting, but where the existence of technology has removed a lot of the necessity of magic and where there's probably some laws and regulations in place for what constitutes appropriate magic use. White magic would probably be used a lot more commonly and in conjunction with modern day medical procedures; whereas black magic might have niche use cases in certain fields and legal dark magic use would probably be pretty limited. I could see it being the type of thing you have to get a certification to use. Maybe background checks involved too?

As for Emm, she is still around as well! I was imagining this fic as a highly idealized "everyone gets a super happy ending free from the burdens they had to deal with in their past lives" scenario, and Emmeryn is definitely deserving of that. It is admittedly a little goofy to think about some family having three kids that just *happen* to come out looking exactly like Chrom, Emmeryn and Lissa and naming them accordingly but! This is a magical happy ending anyway so I think some suspension of disbelief is appropriate.

In terms of the events following the fic itself, it would definitely put Chrom and Robin in an odd position to be the only ones who remember everything about their past lives LOL. I definitely agree about their friends and family being extremely concerned by the prospect of them both suddenly being head over heels for some person they just met--especially because you KNOW neither of them would be willing to take things slow when they've finally been reunited. I sort of have it in my head that there would probably be some way to restore everyone else's memories of their past lives eventually too, so they could all be friends again, but I never decided how specifically that would work. That being said, @saccharine-azure once left a comment asking if Chrom has to run around kissing all of the Shepherds to make them remember everything and that concept has been living rent free in my head ever since askfghfl

Thank you again for sending this! It makes me really happy that you're interested enough in the fic's world that you would want to hear more about it. You're a treasure, anon <3

[datamount-blog]

20+ Commonly Asked Questions about Azure Certification - FAQ

20+ Commonly Asked Questions about Azure Certification – FAQ

Over the past few months, I received many queries from the readers of my blog regarding preparations for the Azure Certification exam. I compiled this post (Azure Certification FAQs) with all the questions I received. Make sure to go through them before you begin your preparation.

I will update this post as and when I receive unique questions.

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are…

[holytheoristtastemaker]

  Learn the basics of cloud computing with answers to these frequently asked questions. Review the different types of clouds, and see how your company can get started with them.

Cloud computing continues to gain acceptance, but plenty of misconceptions remain. Check out these frequently asked questions about cloud computing to get a better sense of what it is all about.

1. What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a delivery model that provides highly scalable, on-demand access to computer resources, including CPUs, storage, networking and other hosted software services.

2. What are the types of cloud?

Clouds can be public or private, though public clouds are more commonly associated with cloud computing. Public cloud platforms, such as AWS and Microsoft Azure, pool resources in data centers often distributed around the globe, and users access them via the internet. Resources are provided to customers through metered services, and the cloud vendor is responsible for varying degrees of back-end maintenance.

Private clouds are walled-off environments hosted in a corporate data center or a colocation facility. They lack the massive scale of public clouds. But they do have some elasticity, and a company's developers and administrators can still use self-service portals to access resources. In theory, private clouds provide greater control and security, though it's up to a company's IT team to ensure that happens.

Cloud deployment models include private cloud, public cloud, a hybrid integration of both and combination of multiple clouds.

Public clouds and private clouds can be linked to create a hybrid cloud, or two or more public clouds can be connected to create a multi-cloud architecture.

Broadly speaking, there are also three tiers of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). IaaS pertains to foundational building blocks, such as compute, network and storage. It provides the most flexibility for application development, but it also requires the most overhead. PaaS abstracts those lower-level elements and provides sandbox environments for app developers. The least hands-on cloud model, SaaS, consists of licensed software delivered as web apps.

3. What are the benefits of cloud computing?

Cloud computing lowers IT operational costs because the cloud provider manages the underlying infrastructure, including hardware and software. Those managed components are typically more reliable and secure than the standard corporate data center. These advantages free IT teams to focus on work that more directly benefits the business.

The cloud is also global, convenient, immensely scalable and easily accessible, all of which accelerate the time to create and deploy software applications. It opens organizations to a host of newer services that enable the most popular trends in application architectures and uses, including microservices, containers, serverless computing, machine learning, large-scale data analytics, IoT and more.

4. What are the disadvantages or risks of cloud computing?

While IT teams lower their Capex with cloud computing because they're not buying gear, they also add significant Opex to their budgets -- often enough to offset most or all their operational savings. Complex pricing and security models can also lead to major problems if IT teams are unable to adapt.

IT teams often must learn new skills or hire employees to navigate the cloud, and there are limits in the flexibility and control over certain cloud resources.

5. Is the cloud secure?

The clouds themselves are generally more secure than most private data centers since companies such as Amazon and Google can hire talented engineers and automate many of their practices. Cloud infrastructure providers also offer tools and architectural options to isolate workloads, encrypt data and detect potential threats.

Benefits of cloud computing applications include responsiveness, scalability, data security and reduced costs.

However, public clouds operate on a shared responsibility model, where the user secures the data and applications hosted on the cloud. This division of security responsibilities varies based on the tier of cloud computing.

The process to secure a cloud environment is different from more traditional data center practices, so cloud adoption requires a learning curve for IT teams. Unauthorized access to resources is the most common cloud security threat; many high-profile exposures of sensitive data resulted from misconfigurations.

Organizations also must be mindful of data residency requirements and other governance restrictions since they don't have precise control over the location of the servers that host their data in the cloud.

6. How do I develop a cloud strategy?

In the early days of cloud, most enterprise usage was ad hoc, driven by developers and lines of business that wanted to go around traditional IT procurement processes. Today, organizations must formulate a holistic strategy to successfully move to the cloud. Assemble key stakeholders and employees with cloud experience -- a setup also known as a cloud center for excellence -- to map out a strategy based on business objectives.

Also, a cloud strategy should include a decision framework to identify workload characteristics and how those characteristics port to cloud platforms. IT leaders and cloud architects must evaluate risks and benefits and determine how they will manage and secure cloud-based workloads, as well as whether or how those workloads interact with remaining on-premises assets.

7. How do I prepare my business for the cloud?

It can take more than a year to execute a cloud migration strategy, and even then, it's an ongoing process. Communication is critical to success. Keep stakeholders regularly informed, and make sure IT is part of the broader decision-making process for the business. Identify leaders who will evangelize the use of the cloud, and ensure employees are properly trained for the transition.

8. Which workloads can I move to the cloud?

Virtually any workload can move to the cloud, but not all of them should. Large, monolithic applications that run constantly, with relatively consistent and predictable loads, are often more cost-effective on premises. Also, highly regulated enterprises tend to keep applications and sensitive data in their private data centers due to governance and data security concerns.

An organization can move an application as-is to the cloud, but that's typically not the best option. Use a cloud migration to reevaluate your IT architecture and identify greater efficiencies. An application can be broken into microservices to take advantage of the service-based approach of IaaS. Alternatively, a move to PaaS or SaaS can offload undifferentiated heavy lifting.

9. How much does the cloud cost?

Public clouds charge on a per-use basis, so costs will vary wildly based on multiple variables, including the size of your environment, the provider, the region you operate in, the amount of data movement and the number of higher-level services consumed.

The major public cloud providers also have pricing schemes that can lower costs in exchange for certain long-term commitments.

There's considerable debate about whether the cloud is ultimately cheaper or more expensive than traditional on-premises computing -- but that misses the point. The cloud can help modernize an enterprise and its IT department and transition IT from its typical role as gatekeeper into a key participant in the decision-making process for the business side of an enterprise.

10. What training does my IT staff need to manage the cloud?

This depends on the layer of the cloud stack being used. For IaaS, administrators must manage all aspects of the virtualized environment that's delivered as a service. The higher up the cloud stack you go, the less management involved. For SaaS, oversight might be limited to data and identity and access management.

Major cloud providers and third parties offer training and certifications to familiarize IT staff with these processes. Enterprises that plan to transition to the cloud should factor training into every aspect of the process so they're ready to take the reins as soon as the cloud environment goes live

[kellyp72]

10 Ways to eat organic on a tight budget

The controversy over whether it’s better to eat organic or conventional food is still alive and well. Many of the debates have focused on whether or not there are any measurable nutritional benefits to eating organic food, while others point out that organic growers still do use pesticides, including a small number of synthetic ones. However, as a recent post in the Sacramento Bee points out, this is the wrong debate to be having.

The debate should be over the impact of farming practices on the food chain. When we shift the conversation to the question of growing practices, the issue becomes a lot less black and white.

Organic farmers generally use ecologically sound practices that encourage conservation and minimal waste. And while there is still not enough research out there to demonstrate the health effects of organic or natural pesticides (with few exceptions: tobacco, for example, is a commonly used pesticide in organic farming and one that I use in my own urban garden. But it is highly toxic to humans and can penetrate the skin), there is a large body of research that demonstrates the harm that many synthetic pesticides cause to human health.

Some conventional farmers are not certified organic, but use organic growing methods. They should not be cast as examples of the evils of industrial agriculture. In fact, getting organic certification is more difficult than ever, and the problem is compounded by the fact that organic farmers have much less access to subsidies and resources to make their operations financially prosperous.

The difficulties and expenses involved in running an organic farm operation is just one of the reasons why organic food costs more to buy. But buying organic food need not be cost-prohibitive. In fact, there are many ways you can buy organic food and not break the bank.

Some of those ways are discussed in Go Green without Going Broke. (It’s on sale right now: $3.99 on Amazon.com for the next week, so please, get a copy and tell me what you think. The price will be going up soon…)

Here are 10 additional ways that you can buy organic food without having to stretch your food budget out of shape:

Buy in bulk – online. The online grocery shopping market has expanded to include many more organic offerings. Even better, there are now a growing number of organic food companies that specialize in organic fare and that will let you buy bulk, and that ship straight to you. Some of these companies require membership, while others let you buy as much as you like with no other obligations. In the US, Sunfood Superfoods, True Foods Market, Vitacost, Azure Standard and Thrive Market have an extensive selection of offerings and offer discounts, sales, and even (for Sunfood Superfoods) free shipping if you buy a certain dollar amount of items. In Canada, try Organic Matters or Yupik. In the UK go to BuyBigOrganic. In Australia look at the organic supply database, OrganicFood.com. If you have a US- based business (or want to sign up for your school, non-profit, or online store), you should also check out Organic Wholesale, which has over 20,000 organic foods and specialty products to choose from, and ships free when your purchase totals at least $50.  

Eat frozen. Decades after nutritionists told us about the benefits of eating frozen foods, many of us still believe that frozen is not as nutritious as fresh food. In fact, frozen is not only nutritionally similar to fresh foods, it may be healthier in some cases. Here are 3 reasons why. First, frozen foods are typically picked at their peak ripeness, when they’re at the height of their nutritional content. Second, the freezing process only minimally affects the nutritional content of produce. Third, frozen produce lasts longer than its fresh counterparts. Don’t hang on to it in your freezer for over one year, though. After a year, it loses nutrients as a result of the oxidation process inherent in storage. And avoid boiling your frozen produce, which causes a loss of most of its nutrients. By steaming or microwaving it instead, you can come closer to meeting the recommended daily allowances, with associated nutritional content, from your fruit and veggie consumption.  

Plan meals for the week and buy only what you need. Do I need to elaborate on this? Instead of shopping for organic fare on the fly, buying whatever looks good to you at the moment (which always results in spending more money on food), make one day of the week a meal planning day. For maximum savings, start by looking at what you already have in your cabinet, and build meals around that. Need some help planning meals? Try our handy weekly meal planner or healthy grocery shopping list. Want to know what food are best to buy organic? We have a cheat sheet for that too. Download to your phone or print and take with you on your next shopping trip.  

Grow your own (organically). Urban gardening is a real phenomenon nowadays. While it may be hard to believe that urban farming can transform cities and save us from the evils of big agriculture, as some have claimed, it does have some advantages over current agricultural practices (not limited to, but including, big ag). Don’t know where to start? Try this free ebook from Patrick at Urbanvine.co. and learn how to begin or improve your farming game. In early May, Green and Prosperous will be offering some online organic urban farming courses as well. Sign up for our mailing list to be notified when the course becomes available, and to be eligible for limited-time discounts.  

Barter with local farmers. Most farmers have a rough go. The last thing they want to do is have to advertise their wares, on top of all the back breaking work they do just to keep the farm going. And yet, getting their products to market, and finding new markets are two of the most persistent problems that farmers face, aside from lack of access to capital. Here’s where you can help, and benefit. Do you have a skill that you could use to help an organic farmer advertise his or her business? Can you set up a website? Do you know how to market on social media? What about labor? Can you lend a hand? Many farmers need help with labor, especially during sowing and harvesting seasons. Others still would like to take advantage of the grant opportunities that are available (for example, through the US Department of Agriculture or the European Union’s Single Payment Scheme (SPS)), but have no experience or time to write grant proposals. If you have skills, or just a good set of hands and a willingness to work hard, you can trade them for food. Find opportunities by 1) visiting a local farm or farmer’s market and speaking to individuals personally. (If they look busy, just ask when or how you could contact them outside of market hours, or whether they have a phone number or website with email where you could reach them). 2) Volunteer to man someone’s booth in exchange for food. This method works best with farmers who you develop some kind of rapport with beforehand, like that farmer whose veggie stand you’ve been visiting weekly for the past month.  

Buy in-store organic brands (but beware of some corporate brands). Many large stores now offer their own brand of organic fare. Whole Foods’ 365 Brand, Safeway’s O Organics, Albertson’s Wild Harvest, Publix’s Green Wise, Tesco’s Organic, and Sainsbury’s SO organic are among the many store brands available. However, be aware that some corporate organic brands may be diluting the standards for organic products. Others are playing both sides of the food game, with their organic brands promoting GMO-free fare while the corporation behind that brand working to dismiss claims about the harmful effects of GMOs, or actively trying to suppress efforts to legislate for GMO labeling.  

Join an organic co-op. (Caveat: these are not always the cheapest option, and you’ll need to shop around for the best prices) Generally understood, a co-op is any member-owned, voluntary organization comprising of a group of people (or organizations) formed for their mutual financial benefit. Food co-ops have been around a long time, but they weren’t always ideal. Remember the days of food co-ops that you had to drive far and wide to reach, that had very limited selections of organic food, exorbitant membership fees, and high prices? (I do.) These days, there are many choices in the food co-op game, and organic food co-ops are among them. Don’t know where to find a co-op near you? Try this directory if you live in the US: http://www.coopdirectory.org/. Based in Canada? Try the Ottawa Valley Food Co-op, the Ontario Natural Food Co-op (if you have a group of 5 or more families), Eat Local Grey Bruce (in Ontario), or the East End Food Co-op (in Vancouver).  Live in the U.K.? Type “organic food” into the keyword search box at Cooperatives UK. In Australia? The University of Sydney has a food co-op that’s open to everyone. Other food co-ops elsewhere in the country include Thoughtful Foods (New South Wales), Peach ‘n’ Pear (Ellwood section of Melbourne), and The People’s Market (Perth).  

Join a CSA. CSAs work like this: you purchase a share (or partial share) of the seasonal harvest, and a fresh, local supply of fruits and/or veggies is delivered to you (or to a designated place) at intervals (e.g. weekly, biweekly) determined by the farmer(s). The concept is similar to purchasing a subscription. Some growers offer additional products: honey, flowers, eggs, and bread, for example. Not long ago, buying CSA shares — at anywhere from $200 on up for a full share — was out of the reach of most families that were cash-strapped or low income. In part because of new incentives at the level of the US federal government, which have enabled small-scale farmers to benefit financially and spread their reach, and in part because of a growing interest in healthier eating among families across the income spectrum, many farmers have now begun to make purchasing CSAs more affordable for people on a tight budget. If you qualify as low-income, you may be able to pay for your shares on a weekly basis, contributing as little as USD $10 a week for a half share commitment. Payment installations are also being offered by some CSAs in Canada, the UK, and Australia. In the U.S., a few major grocery chains have also begun to offer CSA signups at similar prices, enabling those with less cash up front to not only purchase shares cheaply, but also to save the cost of traveling to the farm to pick up their shares. Instead, shares are delivered to the grocery store and you can collect them while you shop for the rest of your family’s needs. Find a CSA through these databases: Local Harvest (US, Canada), Community Supported Agriculture (UK), or Natural Bridge Organics (Gold Coast, Australia). You can also just Google “CSA” and the name of your city or province to find one near you.  

Contact your local Weston A. Price Foundation. The mission of this non-profit foundation, founded in 1999, is to restore “nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism.” One of their local chapters (located in 41 countries) can help you find fresh, organic food, CSAs, food-co-ops, farmers, and holistic healthcare practitioners. Local chapters also host cooking classes, potluck dinners and other activities, all with the goal of helping you integrate whole, healthy foods into your lifestyle.  

Look for sales and coupons on organic items. Search in store or online. Make it even easier to find discounts and sales by signing up to receive a list of deals on organic, natural, and GMO-free products, whether you live in the US, Canada, UK, or Australia.

Finally, there is one thing you can do to make sure that we’re all able to afford healthy, organic food in the long term. Shop for those brands that practice and support responsible growing, producing, and animal husbandry practices. If you stop buying chicken eggs from chickens that spent their lives cooped up in pens, eating the kind of food you’d never consume yourself, then manufacturers will be forced to stop (or engage less in) raising chickens that way. If you press legislators for GMO labeling, they will support GMO labeling. If you buy more organic fare, more manufacturers will switch to making more organic fare. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

Sometimes the only way to bring change is to be the change you want to see.