What you'll learn:
- Why organizations move to the cloud, and what they gain
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
- Azure architecture and organization
- Availability zones and availability sets
- Resource groups
- Azure Resource Manager
- Subscriptions and how they're structured
- Core Azure services
- Azure compute services, including virtual machines
- Azure networking services
- Azure storage services
- Azure Monitor
- Management, identity, and monitoring
- Azure management tools
- Azure Advisor
- Entra ID
- Cost and pricing
- How Azure pricing and subscriptions work
- Using the pricing calculators to estimate costs
- ...and more along the way.
Updated August 2026— entire course updated, every lesson and demonstration re-recorded!
Almost every company you'd want to work for is already running something in the cloud, or has a migration on the roadmap. That shift has changed what hiring managers expect: whether you're an administrator, a developer, a DBA, a project manager, or someone trying to break into IT, you're now expected to know how cloud platforms work and how to talk about them clearly.
This course gets you there, and prepares you to pass the Microsoft AZ-900: Azure Fundamentals exam along the way.
You don't need prior cloud experience to start. You don't need a Microsoft background. You need about a weekend of focused attention, and by the end you'll understand what the cloud actually is, how Microsoft Azure implements it, and how to find your way around the portal without guessing.
What you'll be able to do
By the time you finish, you will be able to:
Explain cloud computing in plain language — including the differences between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, and when each one makes sense.
Navigate the Azure Portal confidently and locate the services you need.
Describe how Azure is organized: regions, availability zones, availability sets, resource groups, and Azure Resource Manager.
Identify the right Azure service for a given requirement across compute, networking, and storage.
Read an Azure bill, estimate costs before you spend anything, and explain how subscriptions and pricing work.
Sit the AZ-900 exam knowing what the questions are actually asking.
How the course works
We start with the concepts, because Azure makes far more sense once you understand the problems it was built to solve. From there, we move into the platform itself and build up the core Azure infrastructure piece by piece — the services you'll encounter in nearly every real environment.
You'll also create your own Azure subscription early in the course. This matters: instead of watching someone else click through a portal, you'll be following along in your own environment, creating resources and seeing the results for yourself. Hands-on time is what turns exam facts into knowledge you keep.
Lessons are short and focused, so you can work through a topic in a coffee break or sit down and cover a full section in an evening.
