Microsoft Azure: From Zero to Hero - The Complete Guide

Understand the shift from on-premises servers to cloud computing, where maintaining and overprovisioning hardware wastes resources. Elastic cloud resources manage spikes like Black Friday.

Discover how the cloud replaces self-managed servers with on-demand compute, storage, and services, as providers maintain and secure infrastructure while you pay only for what you use.

Explore the five cloud characteristics: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service, and how automated provisioning and scalable resources optimize cost.

Compare capex and opex to distinguish upfront investments from paying for what you use. The cloud shifts it to opEx, delivering flexibility and financial efficiency.

Clarify the differences between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS by showing how the cloud provides infrastructure, platform, or software, with virtual machines, web apps, and Office 365 as examples.

Learn about public, private, and hybrid clouds, with a focus on the public cloud: internet-accessible, managed by major providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, without access to underlying infrastructure.

Explore cloud providers and services such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, focusing on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, highlighting Azure's 29% growth as fastest growing provider.

Explore how Microsoft Azure evolved from a PaaS-focused public cloud to offer the broadest range of cloud services with global regions and major clients.

Explore how Azure organizes its global footprint into roughly sixty regions and availability zones, with paired regions and geo replication to keep data available across continents.

Discover Azure cloud services across regions and zones, from virtual machines and databases to AI and central user management, with hundreds of compute offerings.

Create an Azure free account, verify your phone, and add a credit card for pre-authorization so you can use resources and access the portal.

Navigate the Azure portal as the main entry point to create, manage, view, and remove resources, using the search bar, favorites, cloud shell, and customizable settings.

Understand that a subscription is the logical container for cloud resources, while an account is the access identity; you can have multiple subscriptions and attach accounts to them.

Create a resource group in Azure by selecting your subscription, naming the group, and choosing a region such as West Europe, then review the deployment progress.

Find the resource group in the portal using the search bar and recent resources, then type the name, like my-rg, to locate it in the resource groups section.

Explore the Azure resource page, identify the resource name and type, pin to dashboard or add to favorites, and navigate the overview, the activity log, and access control.

Delete a resource by clicking delete and typing the resource group name to confirm, then track the Azure notifications and verify the group is gone by searching the list.

Explore Cloud Shell for Azure management, using bash or PowerShell to create and delete resource groups with Azure CLI and PowerShell, including storage, switching shells, and the command structure.

Select Azure regions by weighing audience proximity, service availability, availability zones for redundancy, and pricing. Note that some services are unavailable in certain regions and costs vary.

Resource groups are logical containers for resources, organized by development, test, production, or by teams; use RG naming conventions to identify environments.

Discover how Azure storage accounts serve as a versatile, low-cost resource used by services to store backups, VM disks, and diagnostic data, with explicit data storage discussed later.

Learn how service level agreements work in the cloud and how Azure App Service and Azure SQL SLAs combine, via multiplying their percentages to compute the actual system SLA.

Explore cloud costs, pricing models like per resource and per consumption, and reservations, and learn to use the Azure pricing calculator to compare resources, reservations, and region-based pricing.

Define an annual budget in Azure cost management, set a $200 limit, and configure a 90% alert to email you when spending reaches $180 to avoid charges during free trial.

Understand how cloud-based architectures require infrastructure knowledge, including networking, firewalls, VPNs, and load balancers. Explore cloud security and hands-on experience that set architects apart in securing and designing modern systems.

Deploy ReadIt!, a cloud-based bookshop app with a books catalog, shopping cart, inventory management, and order engine, to Azure while exploring compute options, networking, security, databases, messaging.

Explore the Read It demo with the catalog, shopping cart, and inventory management, including a sign-in page for authorized employees and real-time stock updates as items move to the cart.

Install the .NET SDK version 8 with long-term support from dotnet.microsoft.com, selecting the SDK (not the Core Runtime), and follow OS-specific installer steps to complete the setup.

Install Visual Studio Code to develop Read It app, choose the version compatible with your operating system, complete installer, launch the app, and pin the icon to the task bar.

Install the C# extension for .NET Core and the Azure tools extension pack in VS Code to enable .NET development and cloud work.

Install and run the catalog component of the ReadIt system using VS Code, then load books into an in-memory database and prepare for cloud migration.

Walk through code files like Index.cshtml.cs and Startup.cs to see how OnGet retrieves books with context and how in-memory or Azure SQL with Redis will support the shopping cart.

Discover the Azure compute landscape, comparing IaaS and PaaS, and explore compute services like virtual machines, App Services, AKS, and Azure Functions to host and run your applications.

Explore Azure virtual machines as unmanaged servers you control inside the guest OS, while Azure manages the host; learn to create VMs by region, image, and size.

Explore how to estimate costs with the Azure pricing calculator, select region, Windows VM, and standard size, and apply reserved instances and Azure hybrid benefit for savings.

Understand the real cost of an Azure virtual machine, including the VM, premium disk, public IP, and storage, totaling about $180 per month, with cost-reduction tips in the next lecture.

Discover how to cut VM costs with auto shutdown, reserved and spot instances, disk optimization, right sizing, Linux, and regional pricing for production machines.

deploy multiple virtual machine instances across availability sets or zones to improve Azure VM availability, learning fault domains, update domains, and how load balancers route traffic.

Create a new Azure virtual machine in a resource group, select region and availability options (zone or availability set) for reliability, enable auto-shutdown, and review an ARM template for automation.

Explore how the ARM template, an Azure Resource Manager template, a JSON file, defines and deploys resources declaratively. Use what-if simulations, deploy several resources, and integrate with CI/CD pipelines.

Discover how an ARM template defines core resources, namely network interface, NSG, VNet, public IP, and VM, using parameters and setting OS disk type to standard SSD.

Learn to delete an Azure virtual machine and apply force delete to the resource group, removing the IP address, disk, and other associated resources.

Explore how virtual machine scale sets group identical VMs, monitor load, and scale out or in, using a load balancer for web apps, while updating only via new images.

Learn to create, configure, and use an Azure virtual machine scale set with manual and autoscale modes, including cpu-based scale-out and scale-in rules.

Discover Azure instance metadata services, a rest api accessible from inside a virtual machine that reveals vm details such as sku, size, storage, networking, and eviction notifications for scale sets.

Publish the catalog app for Azure, create and configure a Windows Server VM, install IIS and the dotnet eight hosting bundle, and host the app on port 8080.

Set up a linux weather vm in azure, install nodejs and git, clone and run a weather API with npm start, and verify connectivity between two VMs using private IP.

Design Azure architecture diagrams using official Azure icons and SVG icons, and map the ReadIt app with two VMs for catalog and weather API.

Warn learners about the security risk of exposing a virtual machine to the internet via remote desktop protocol, and emphasize never leaving a virtual machine publicly reachable.

App Services provides fully managed web hosting that runs your code without a VM, with security and compliance, GitHub deployments, and support for .NET, Node.js, Java, Python, PHP, and containers.

Choose the app service tier that fits your needs, from free to test to standard for performance, noting Linux is cheaper than Windows and prices rise with CPU and RAM.

Discover how app service autoscaling handles load spikes by automatically adding and removing instances, guided by scale-out rules based on cpu percentage or http queue length.

Deploy the inventory component as an Azure app service, test locally in VS Code, then publish .NET 8 on Windows to memi-readit-inventory.azurewebsites.net with the standard S1 plan and autoscale options.

Leverage Azure deployment slots to test new code on a separate app service instance with its own URL, swap to production, and gradually roll out via traffic splitting.

Learn how to create and manage deployment slots in an app service, push code to a staging slot, test with traffic routing, and swap slots to promote v2 updates.

Explore basic, rolling, and blue-green deployment types in App Service, using deployment slots and traffic routing to update versions safely, with rollback options and cost considerations.

Review the current architecture, moving from two virtual machines (catalog app and weather API) to three elements with an app service for the inventory app.

Explore Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) as a managed Kubernetes on Azure, deploy and manage containers with Kubernetes tools, and understand pay-per-use VM instances powering the service.

Discover containers, a lightweight packaging model that bundles software, dependencies, and configuration files for consistent deployment. Compare containers to virtual machines, and weigh predictability, fast startup, density, and isolation trade-offs.

Explore the Docker architecture, including the Docker daemon, images, registries, containers, and the CLI, and learn how Dockerfiles build portable images.

Explore container-based deployment at scale, addressing deployment, scalability, monitoring, routing, and high availability, and learn how container management tools—the most popular one—solve these challenges.

Meet Kubernetes, the de-facto standard for container management, enabling routing, scaling, automated deployment, and high availability via pods as atomic units wrapping Docker containers and exposed by services.

Learn to install Azure CLI locally, use Docker with the VS Code extension, build and push a Docker image to Azure Container Registry, and prep for AKS deployment.

Create and configure an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster, configure dev test resources, integrate with an Azure Container Registry, and deploy a cart container using kubectl to a load balancer service.

Examine the ReadIt! app architecture, including two VMs for catalog and Weather API, an app service for inventory, and AKS hosting the cart app via the Azure Container Registry.

Explore Azure Functions, a serverless, event-driven compute resource that auto scales and uses triggers and bindings. It supports HTTP triggers, Event Grid bindings, and multiple languages.

Explore Azure functions hosting options: consumption, premium, and dedicated plans, with pricing, RAM limits of 1.5 GB, and cold start trade-offs.

Master durable functions in Azure, a stateful pattern that manages flow across external resources with simple syntax, enabling function chaining and hiding state, retries, and orchestration details.

Learn to run azure functions locally with the Azure Functions Core Tools, create HTTP-triggered functions for processing orders in the Readit app, and test storage and Cosmos DB outputs.

Deploy an azure function app with consumption hosting and a .NET 8 isolated runtime, configure storage, publish from VS Code, and validate http endpoints with postman.

Explore the current architecture of the Readit website, integrating two VMs, app service, AKS, and ACR with a function app for order processing, completing the Azure compute section.

Learn how to choose the right Azure compute type—virtual machines, app services, AKS with ACR, and Azure Functions—using a decision flow for new, legacy, or container-based apps.

Explore Azure compute options, including virtual machines, App Service, AKS, and Azure Functions, and note additional options like Logic Apps, Azure Container Instance, and App Service Container.

Explore networking in azure, including virtual networks (vnets), subnets, load balancer, and application gateway, and learn how firewalls protect cloud resources and secure rdp.

Explore Azure virtual networks (VNet) as private, region-scoped networks for cloud resources; learn default intra-VNet communication, cross-VNet isolation, subnets with NSG, peering, and CIDR address ranges.

Explain CIDR notation, classless inter-domain routing, using a 32-bit IP and a bit range; smaller ranges yield larger networks, with Azure showing the range, first and last addresses, and size.

A subnet is a logical segment of a virtual network using a subset of the VNet’s IP range and must host resources; subnets in the same VNet can communicate.

Explore how two VMs share readit-app-vnet and the default subnet, enabling communication via catalog-vm137 and weather-vm414 network interfaces, with address space details and cost savings by turning off unused VMs.

Create a new virtual network (VNet) in a fresh resource group, configure two subnets (front and back), and review address spaces to avoid overlap before deployment.

Deploy two Windows Server VMs inside a VNet, place them in separate subnets, and test connectivity using private IPs; explain how cross-VNet communication depends on peering.

Network security groups act as gatekeepers for subnets, enforcing security rules via five tuples. Attach NSGs to subnets and VM interfaces, manage rule priorities, and address default RDP/SSH exposure.

Explore how to manage an Azure network security group for the catalog-vm, view its rules, and add an inbound 8080 rule to expose the catalog app while restricting RDP access.

Show how to start weather-vm and connect via ssh to run the weather API on port 8080. Explain private IP access within the VNet and securing ssh to your IP.

Move the weather api to a dedicated subnet in the readit app vnet, migrate the weather vm, and ensure inter-subnet communication remains seamless with NSG updates.

Explore how network peering connects VNets to form a single network across regions, enabling front-end and database VMs to communicate while protecting resources with NSG.

Move the weather-vm to a new weather-vnet by creating an address space that does not overlap and deploying a new vm from the existing disk.

Configure two vnet peerings to enable cross-vnet access between weather vnet and readit-app-vnet, then restrict traffic with NSG rules to allow only the catalog VM's private ip over tcp.

Explore Azure Network Watcher to visualize and troubleshoot connectivity between resources, using the topology viewer to examine VNets, subnets, peering, and network interfaces.

Outline the current architecture of the Readit web app, now featuring each VM in its own VNet with an NSG and VNet peering for stronger security.

Minimize the attack surface of public VM endpoints in Azure by using secure access techniques—JIT Access, VPN, Jump Box, and Bastion—while controlling on-demand RDP/SSH access.

Learn to set up Azure Bastion to securely connect to virtual machines without open RDP ports. Deploy Bastion, remove NSG rules, and use the web-based viewer to access the VM.

Enable a service endpoint on the subnet to connect a virtual machine or app service to a managed service over the Azure backbone, keeping traffic on Azure.

Explore Private Link, a solution that extends a managed service into a VNet, so traffic never leaves the VNet, stays private, blocks public internet access, and enables on-prem connectivity.

Compare service endpoints and private link, highlighting security with public vs private IPs, setup complexity, cost, and on-prem connectivity, and guide when to choose each.

Learn how App Service VNet integration enables downstream access to resources inside an Azure VNet in the same region. It contrasts with service endpoint and private link.

Discover how app service access restrictions control traffic by IP, VNet, or service tag, enabling backend access from frontend apps or behind gateways, with testing via rule changes.

Explore App Service Environment (ASE) and how it delivers isolated, VNet-integrated app services on dedicated hardware with NSGs and subnets, enabling elevated security and great scaling capabilities at a cost.

Explore Azure load balancer, a layer four service that distributes traffic across virtual machines or a skillset, with public or private deployment, health probes, and routing rules.

Explore Azure application gateway as a layer seven web traffic load balancer with url-based routing, a web application firewall, and support for App Services, Kubernetes, and virtual machines.

Learn to estimate Azure Application Gateway costs and configure a standard v2 gateway with virtual networks, public IP, and routing rules for App Service and a VM backend.

Learn to configure the Application Gateway to securely access the inventory app service, fix backend health by host name override in SSL certificate, and enable service endpoints and access restrictions.

connects the catalog vm to the application gateway via vnet peering, updates the gateway backend pool with the catalog vm private ip, and denies direct internet access.

Explore why Application Gateway lacks built-in integration with AKS, examine the AGIC in preview and buggy status, and consider third-party gateways for AKS protection and routing.

Explore how to protect function apps with Azure Application Gateway by configuring backend pools and access restrictions to block access not originated in the gateway.

Analyze the current Readit! architecture, showing the app gateway connecting to app service via service endpoint and peered catalog Vnet, with an NSG blocking direct catalog traffic.

Examine affinity in application gateway HTTP settings, showing how it pins users to a single VM or app service, and why stateless designs are preferred to avoid load imbalance.

Explore stateless architecture, storing state in a data store and distributing requests across multiple servers behind a load balancer to enhance scalability, redundancy, and user experience.

Explore how Application Gateway and App Service cookies interact, revealing domain mismatch issues when mysite.com redirects to myapp.azurewebsites.net, and learn to fix by using a shared custom domain.

Adopt a hub-and-spoke secure network design in azure by placing the App Gateway and each layer in its own VNet, with NSG-controlled peerings to limit exposure.

Explore how Azure offers data solutions as fully managed cloud services, including relational databases, NoSQL, and object stores. Choose managed services to avoid managing underlying infrastructure, patches, and maintenance.

Explore major database features to help you select a database, focusing on security with network isolation and encryption, backup type and retention, and availability through SLA, replication, and disaster recovery.

Explore database on a virtual machine from the Azure marketplace, including Oracle, and weigh its full flexibility and control against managed service tradeoffs like updates, security, and backups.

Discover Azure SQL flavors: Azure SQL Database, Elastic Pool, and Managed Instance. Compare security, backups, availability, and on-prem compatibility across each flavor.

Explore Azure SQL pricing across managed instance and Azure SQL database, detailing flavors, service tiers, vcores and dtus, and how reservations and serverless options affect cost.

Evaluate migration needs and utilization to pick the right Azure SQL flavor: migrate on-prem to managed instance for compatibility, or use elastic pool for low-utilization databases, otherwise Azure SQL Database.

Create an Azure SQL database, configure a new server, choose SQL authentication, set dev workload, enable geo-redundant backups, then connect with a connection string using the SQL Server extension.

Connect the catalog app to Azure SQL by setting useInMemory to false in Startup, configure the connection string in appsettings.json, and run Entity Framework migrations to create the Books table.

Secure the database connection by switching from public access to a private endpoint and private DNS, linking the Catalog VM's VNet to Azure SQL, and removing the public firewall rule.

Connect the inventory app to Azure SQL by configuring the app service connection string, deploying changes, and enabling vnet integration with a private endpoint for secure catalog and inventory data.

Explore Cosmos DB, a managed NoSQL database delivering sub-10 ms performance, globally distributed, and automatic management, with multiple APIs and a hierarchical data model of accounts, databases, containers, and items.

Compare SQL and NoSQL databases to decide the data store for your project, balancing relational schemas, ACID transactions, and SQL against schema-less, scalable JSON document stores.

Explore Cosmos DB's five consistency levels—strong, bounded staleness, session, consistent prefix, and eventual—and learn how they balance replication, latency, and data consistency across regions.

Explore cosmos db pricing based on RU/s, where reading a 1 kilobyte item by ID costs one read unit per second, and examine provisioned, autoscale, and serverless options.

Create and configure an Azure Cosmos DB account with the NoSQL SQL API, set up databases and containers with a partition key, and insert and query JSON items using SQL.

Configure the order function to save orders to Cosmos DB by enabling CosmosDBOutput with the database and container. Deploy to Azure and verify new items appear in Cosmos DB.

Explore Azure MySQL as a managed, compatible service with built‑in security, backups, and high availability, including tiered backup options and 7–35 day retention.

Explore Azure MySQL pricing by tier and vCores options, including basic, general purpose, and memory optimized, plus the preview flexible server deployment and reserved for one or three-year discounts.

Create an Azure MySQL flexible server, choose a burstable tier with 1 vCore and 20 GB storage, then connect via MySQL Workbench to create a schema and table.

Explore Azure PostgreSQL, a managed PostgreSQL service on Azure with hyperscale options, built-in security and backups, tls encryption, Azure Active Directory authentication, and on-prem compatibility using standard PostgreSQL tools.

Discover Azure storage as an object store centered on blobs, containers, and redundancy options. Compare hot, cool, and archive tiers and understand geo and read-access replication and costs.

Discover how Azure blob storage pricing depends on redundancy, access tier, and capacity, illustrated with LRS hot, cool, and RA-GRS examples and their monthly and operations costs.

Create and configure a storage account in Azure, manage resource groups, unique naming, redundancy (GRS, GZRS), TLS minimums, and container access with public and private access and blob uploads.

Access private Azure blobs using three authentication methods: Azure AD identity, access keys with rotation, and shared access signatures for restricted, time-limited, read-only blob access.

Learn to view storage capacity and monitor usage, and understand networking, private endpoints, and RA-GRS failover to a secondary region for secure access.

Enable a public storage container, create an Azure CDN profile and endpoint, and review lifecycle rules and JSON code view to optimize retrieval and costs.

Delete the storage-rg resource group, then create a new storage account for the Read It app in West Europe with standard tier and a private neworders container for new orders.

Use the Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer desktop app to sign in to Azure, view storage accounts and blob containers, and upload, download, and delete blobs.

Explore Azure Redis, a fully compatible managed in-memory distributed cache on Azure, supporting OSS Redis and Redis Enterprise. Choose from basic, standard, premium, enterprise, or enterprise flash, with TLS-based security.

Explore Azure Redis pricing by tier and memory, comparing basic 250 MB ($16/mo) with premium 26,624 MB ($1,619/mo) and noting three-year reservations at 55% off.

Learn to create and configure an Azure Cache for Redis and connect it to the catalog app to store shopping cart items in memory for fast access.

Connect the shopping cart to Redis, configure the Redis and database connections, and deploy the updated cart to Azure AKS to complete the end-to-end order flow with Cosmos DB.

Examine the ReadIt cloud architecture, detailing Azure SQL, Redis, and Cosmos DB connections, and identify security and region redundancy gaps in orders and inventory.

Apply Azure data-store decision flow: use relational options (Azure SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL) for structured data, Cosmos DB for semi-structured or graph data (Gremlin API), and Azure Blob Storage for blobs.

Explore messaging in Azure as a concern, covering four managed services: Storage Queue, Service Bus, Events Grid, and Event Hub, and how to choose the fit for microservices.

Explore storage queue in Azure storage accounts by creating queues, sending and receiving messages. Understand pricing, availability, performance, and the 64 kilobytes max message size, with client libraries across languages.

Create an Azure storage queue, send a json message, and pull it with a sample code project, demonstrating connection string setup, message retrieval, deletion, and resource group cleanup.

Explore Azure Event Grid for event-based architectures, publishing events to subscribers without queues or guaranteed order. Learn the six terms—event, publisher, event source, topic, subscription, and event handler—and 99.99% SLA.

Learn that Event Grid pricing rests on operation count, with the first 100,000 free and no tiers or region factors, and one million operations cost 54 cents, highlighting Azure integration.

Connect the orders function to Azure Event Grid by using a storage account system topic and an Event Grid trigger, then validate with ordersample.json.

Connect the shopping cart to the storage account, upload orders as blobs, and deploy the flow to AKS, wiring Event Grid and Cosmos for end-to-end order processing.

Restrict access to the orders function by configuring the function app to allow only Azure Event Grid traffic via a service tag. Deny all other traffic for improved security.

Explore Azure Service Bus, a durable, managed message queuing service for queue and topic pub/sub patterns. It offers fifo, dead-lettering, scheduled delivery, and tier options including basic, standard, and premium.

Understand service bus pricing based on tier and operations, with standard pricing under $10 for 10 million operations and premium pricing at $1,354 with two message units for higher throughput.

Create and configure an Azure service bus, set the basic tier, create a queue named my-items, and send a test message via a VS Code project using Service Bus Explorer.

Event Hubs is a managed Kafka implementation and big data streaming platform for high-volume event ingestion, using producers, partitions, and consumer groups with per-partition order and up to 32 partitions.

Event Hubs pricing depends on tier, ingress, and throughput units, illustrated by a basic tier at about $11/month for 10 million events and a four-capacity dedicated tier at $19,999/month.

Create an Azure Event Hubs namespace and event hub in a hub-rg resource group. Use the VS Code project and data explorer to listen to events and send test messages.

Compare storage queue, service bus, event grid, and event hubs to choose Azure messaging tools for your needs, considering simple vs advanced queuing, event-driven patterns, and big data streaming.

Explore the Readit! web app architecture and the event grid topic connecting the storage account to the function app, with the event grid trigger making it more secure and asynchronous.