Chapter 2: Getting Started with Azure

Creating Your Azure Account

1. Go to https://azure.microsoft.com/free
2. Sign in with a Microsoft account (or create one)
3. Complete identity verification and enter a credit card (not charged, just to prevent abuse)
4. You receive $200 in free credits for 30 days and access to always-free tier services

Always-Free Services (selected)

After the free trial ends, you are only charged for resources you explicitly use. Nothing auto-upgrades to paid without action.

The Azure Portal

The Azure Portal at portal.azure.com is a web-based UI for managing all Azure resources.

Key Portal Areas

Azure Portal Layout
├── Left sidebar
│   ├── Home                  - Dashboard with recent resources
│   ├── Dashboard             - Customisable pinned tiles
│   ├── All services          - Full catalogue of Azure services
│   ├── Favourites            - Your starred services
│   └── Recent resources      - Last visited resources
├── Top bar
│   ├── Search bar (/)        - Search resources, services, docs
│   ├── Cloud Shell (>_)      - Browser-based terminal
│   ├── Notifications (bell)  - Deployment and alert history
│   └── Settings (gear)       - Portal appearance, language
└── Main content area
    └── Resource blades        - Configuration panels for each resource

Portal Tips

• Press G + /, or just /, to focus the global search bar instantly
• Pin frequently-used resources to your Dashboard
• Use Cost Management + Billing to track spending
• Use Resource Graph Explorer to query all your resources with Kusto Query Language (KQL)

Azure CLI

The Azure CLI (az) is the primary command-line tool for managing Azure resources. It works on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Installation

macOS:

brew install azure-cli

Ubuntu / Debian:

curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash

Windows (PowerShell):

winget install Microsoft.AzureCLI

Verify installation:

az version
# Output: {"azure-cli": "2.x.x", ...}

Authentication

# Interactive browser login
az login

# Login to a specific tenant (if you have multiple)
az login --tenant <tenant-id>

# Login with a service principal (CI/CD environments)
az login --service-principal \
  --username <app-id> \
  --password <client-secret> \
  --tenant <tenant-id>

# Check who you are logged in as
az account show

# List all accessible subscriptions
az account list --output table

# Switch to a different subscription
az account set --subscription "<name-or-id>"

Output Formats

# JSON (default): best for scripting
az group list --output json

# Table: best for human reading
az group list --output table

# TSV: best for shell scripting (no headers)
az group list --output tsv

# YAML: useful for config file generation
az group list --output yaml

# Set a default output format
az configure --defaults output=table

Querying with JMESPath

The --query flag accepts JMESPath expressions to filter JSON output:

# Get only names of resource groups
az group list --query "[].name" --output tsv

# Get name and location of all VMs
az vm list --query "[].{Name:name, Location:location}" --output table

# Filter VMs in East US
az vm list --query "[?location=='eastus'].name" --output tsv

# Get the ID of a specific storage account
az storage account show \
  --name mystorageaccount \
  --resource-group myapp-rg \
  --query id \
  --output tsv

Setting Defaults

Avoid repeating --resource-group and --location in every command:

# Set default resource group and location
az configure --defaults group=myapp-dev-rg location=eastus

# Now these commands don't need --resource-group or --location
az vm list
az storage account list

# Clear defaults
az configure --defaults group='' location=''

Useful CLI Commands

# Find all available commands for a service
az vm --help
az storage blob --help

# Search for a command by keyword
az find "create virtual machine"

# List all resource types in a namespace
az provider show --namespace Microsoft.Compute --query "resourceTypes[].resourceType" -o table

# Show available VM sizes in a region
az vm list-sizes --location eastus --output table

# Interactive mode (autocomplete + docs inline)
az interactive

Azure PowerShell

If you prefer PowerShell (common in Windows/enterprise environments):

# Install the Az module
Install-Module -Name Az -Scope CurrentUser

# Login
Connect-AzAccount

# List resource groups
Get-AzResourceGroup | Format-Table

# Create a resource group
New-AzResourceGroup -Name "myapp-rg" -Location "EastUS"

For this tutorial, all examples use Azure CLI (az). The concepts are identical in PowerShell; only the syntax differs.

Azure Cloud Shell

Cloud Shell is a browser-based terminal available directly in the portal (click the >_ icon in the top bar). It provides:

• Pre-installed Azure CLI, PowerShell, Terraform, kubectl, Helm, git, and more
• Automatic authentication (no az login needed)
• Persistent storage in an Azure Storage account (5 GB free)
• Both Bash and PowerShell environments

Cloud Shell is ideal for quick one-off tasks without installing anything locally.

Bicep & Infrastructure as Code

Azure Bicep is Microsoft's declarative language for deploying Azure resources. It compiles to ARM (Azure Resource Manager) templates.

// main.bicep: deploy a storage account
param storageAccountName string = 'mystorageacct${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'
param location string = resourceGroup().location

resource storageAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2023-01-01' = {
  name: storageAccountName
  location: location
  sku: {
    name: 'Standard_LRS'
  }
  kind: 'StorageV2'
  properties: {
    accessTier: 'Hot'
  }
}

output storageAccountId string = storageAccount.id

# Deploy a Bicep file to a resource group
az deployment group create \
  --resource-group myapp-rg \
  --template-file main.bicep

# Preview changes without deploying (what-if)
az deployment group what-if \
  --resource-group myapp-rg \
  --template-file main.bicep

Terraform is equally popular and cloud-agnostic. See the DevOps chapter for details.

Your First Deployment

Let's deploy a minimal web app to verify everything is working:

# 1. Create a resource group
az group create \
  --name hello-azure-rg \
  --location eastus

# 2. Create an App Service plan (free tier)
az appservice plan create \
  --name hello-plan \
  --resource-group hello-azure-rg \
  --sku F1 \
  --is-linux

# 3. Create a web app (Python runtime)
az webapp create \
  --name hello-azure-$RANDOM \
  --resource-group hello-azure-rg \
  --plan hello-plan \
  --runtime "PYTHON:3.11"

# 4. Deploy a simple HTML page via zip deploy
echo "<h1>Hello from Azure!</h1>" > index.html
zip app.zip index.html

az webapp deploy \
  --resource-group hello-azure-rg \
  --name <your-app-name> \
  --src-path app.zip \
  --type zip

# 5. Open the app in your browser
az webapp browse \
  --resource-group hello-azure-rg \
  --name <your-app-name>

# 6. Clean up everything
az group delete --name hello-azure-rg --yes --no-wait

Naming Conventions

Consistent naming avoids confusion across teams and subscriptions.

Recommended Pattern

{project}-{component}-{environment}-{region (optional)}-{instance (optional)}

Naming Constraints

Next Steps

Continue to 03-compute.md to explore Azure's compute options: virtual machines, App Service, containers, and Kubernetes.