Azure Course

Lesson 1 • Cloud Computing Core Concepts

Defines IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS models and contrasts public, private, and hybrid clouds. Establishes vocabulary used throughout the entire course.

Lesson 2 • Azure Service Categories at a Glance

Surveys compute, storage, networking, database, and AI service families. Prepares learners to select the right category for a given workload.

Lesson 3 • Azure Portal and Account Setup

Guides creation of a free Azure account and navigation of the Azure Portal interface. Provides hands-on orientation before any resource deployment.

Lesson 4 • Azure Pricing and Support Plans

Explains pay-as-you-go, reserved, and spot pricing models alongside support tier options. Enables cost-aware decisions from the first deployment.

Lesson 1 • Azure Active Directory Essentials

Covers tenants, users, groups, and guest accounts in Azure AD. Establishes identity as the control plane for all subsequent security configurations.

Lesson 2 • Role-Based Access Control

Assigns built-in and custom RBAC roles at management group, subscription, and resource scopes. Enforces least-privilege access across the resource hierarchy.

Lesson 3 • Management Groups and Subscriptions

Organises subscriptions into management group hierarchies for inherited policy and RBAC. Supports enterprise-scale governance across multiple teams.

Lesson 4 • Azure Policy and Blueprints

Creates and assigns policies to enforce compliance standards and deny non-conforming resources. Automates governance at scale using initiatives and blueprints.

Lesson 1 • Azure Load Balancing Services

Compares Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway, and Traffic Manager for different traffic patterns. Enables high availability and geographic distribution of workloads.

Lesson 2 • Virtual Networks and Subnets

Creates VNets, subnets, and address spaces while applying network security groups. Provides the foundational network layer for all Azure resource communication.

Lesson 3 • DNS and Name Resolution

Configures Azure DNS zones, private DNS, and custom name resolution for VNets. Ensures reliable service discovery across public and private resources.

Lesson 4 • Hybrid Connectivity Options

Establishes site-to-site VPN, point-to-site VPN, and ExpressRoute connections to on-premises. Extends on-premises networks securely into Azure.

Lesson 1 • Azure App Service and Web Apps

Deploys web applications using managed PaaS runtimes without managing underlying VMs. Connects to CI/CD pipelines and custom domains covered later.

Lesson 2 • Azure Functions and Serverless Compute

Builds event-driven functions using triggers, bindings, and Durable Functions patterns. Minimises infrastructure overhead for lightweight, scalable tasks.

Lesson 3 • Containers with ACI and AKS

Runs single containers via Azure Container Instances and orchestrates clusters with AKS. Bridges VM-based and serverless compute paradigms.

Lesson 4 • Virtual Machine Scale Sets

Configures autoscaling rules and rolling upgrades for identical VM fleets. Enables elastic, fault-tolerant compute for high-traffic applications.

Lesson 1 • Azure Files and File Sync

Mounts SMB and NFS file shares and synchronises on-premises file servers with Azure File Sync. Replaces or extends traditional file server infrastructure.

Lesson 2 • Storage Security and Access Control

Secures storage using shared access signatures, stored access policies, and Azure AD authentication. Prevents unauthorised data access at the storage layer.

Lesson 3 • Storage Account Fundamentals

Creates storage accounts, selects performance tiers, and configures redundancy options. Establishes the container for all Azure storage service types.

Lesson 4 • Azure Blob Storage

Manages containers, blobs, lifecycle policies, and versioning for unstructured data. Covers the most widely used Azure storage service in depth.

Lesson 1 • Open-Source Database Services

Deploys Azure Database for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB as fully managed services. Enables lift-and-shift of open-source workloads with minimal re-architecture.

Lesson 2 • Azure Data Factory and Integration

Builds ETL and ELT pipelines using Data Factory activities, linked services, and triggers. Orchestrates data movement across heterogeneous sources and sinks.

Lesson 3 • Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance

Provisions Azure SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance with high availability and backup. Covers the primary relational database option for cloud-native apps.

Lesson 4 • Azure Cosmos DB

Configures globally distributed NoSQL containers using multiple consistency levels and APIs. Addresses multi-region, low-latency data access requirements.

Lesson 1 • Azure Monitor and Log Analytics

Collects metrics and logs from all Azure resources into a centralised Log Analytics workspace. Enables unified observability across compute, network, and data tiers.

Lesson 2 • Application Insights

Instruments applications for distributed tracing, dependency tracking, and availability tests. Provides developer-level observability for App Service and AKS workloads.

Lesson 3 • Azure Key Vault and Secrets Management

Stores secrets, keys, and certificates in Key Vault and integrates them with applications. Eliminates hardcoded credentials from code and configuration files.

Lesson 4 • Microsoft Sentinel SIEM Overview

Connects data connectors, builds analytics rules, and responds to incidents in Sentinel. Extends security operations beyond individual resource monitoring.

Lesson 1 • GitHub Actions for Azure

Deploys Azure resources and applications using GitHub Actions workflows and OIDC auth. Integrates source control and deployment in a single GitHub-native workflow.

Lesson 2 • Terraform on Azure

Provisions Azure resources using Terraform HCL with remote state stored in Azure Storage. Provides a cloud-agnostic IaC alternative to ARM and Bicep.

Lesson 3 • ARM Templates and Bicep

Authors Azure Resource Manager templates and Bicep files to declare infrastructure state. Replaces manual portal deployments with auditable, repeatable code.

Lesson 4 • Azure Container Registry and DevOps

Builds, stores, and scans container images in ACR and integrates them into CI/CD pipelines. Completes the container delivery chain from code commit to AKS deployment.