Azure Cloud Integration: Four Tips to Help You Master the Platform

Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud provider in the world today, according to Gartner. The platform provides organizations with more than 100 cloud services. The biggest selling point for Azure is its ability to integrate with other Microsoft products. It’s little wonder why 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 75 percent of big banks use it.

The cloud can seem complex for beginners. Today, we’ll take you through the basics of Azure cloud integration to make the transition completely seamless.

1. Get Acquainted with Azure Terminology

Like all industries, cloud computing comes with its own set of terminologies you need to grasp. Here are some common terms you should know:

• Azure Resource Manager (RM) — This is a framework that allows organizations to set up and manage resources on the Azure platform.
• Azure Active Directory (AD) – Commonly referred to as tenant, this is Azure’s identity and access manager. It facilitates login by users.
• Azure Stack – This is software that allows organizations to deploy Azure resources in a private cloud.
• Resource – This refers to individual service offerings from Azure. These include Azure Storage, Azure Virtual Machine, and Azure SQL database.
• Resource Group – This refers to logical collections of Azure resources, e.g., storage accounts, virtual machines, virtual networks, databases, web apps, and database servers.
• Virtual Machine – This is a software equivalent of a physical machine. Several virtual machines run on the same hardware on Azure and other cloud platforms.

2. Create an Azure Account and Explore the Portal

Now that you know the basic terminology, you can explore the portal. You can create a free account and start with $200 in free credit. This is valid for 30 days. After logging in, you can access the portal where you can interact with the Azure products. You can now start spending your free credits. There are more than 25 Azure services that are free forever.

3. Go through the Azure Application Developer Languages

You can access hands-on tutorials, blogs, events, and many other Azure resources. Cloud architects and developers can go through the language pages to understand how everything ties in together. There’s a ton of information on .NET, Python, Node.js, and others. If you’re a novice, you can go through the Python for Beginners tutorials.

4. Go through the Developers Guide to Azure and Azure Documentation

You can go through this free developer guide eBook. You’ll learn how to work with Azure through practical examples. Tutorials include how to work with containers, databases, serverless scenarios, and more. There are also sections on DevOps, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (artificial intelligence), and ML (machine learning). More than 20 pages of the eBook cover the deployment of SQL Server and .NET Core web apps to Azure from scratch.

Going through the Azure documentation will get you unstuck whenever you encounter an issue. It is a comprehensive document that covers all Azure services.

Conclusion

Azure cloud integration is a step in the right direction. Once you’ve learned how all the moving parts work together, you can take the plunge. There are a vast number of Azure cloud services to help your organization meet your business challenges.

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