Want to know how to learn Azure Cloud Service? If yes, then you are on the right page!

A few years ago you might hear Microsoft Azure being addressed by Windows Azure or Windows Cloud Services. That term has “extinct” as Microsoft has been popularizing the term “Microsoft Azure” nowadays.

We know Public cloud is becoming more important and one of it is Azure but seriously, where to start?

In this site, I will be sharing on getting started with Azure, exams related to it. Also on how to get ourselves familiar with it by doing hands-on.

Stay tuned for more information!

Resources to learn Microsoft Azure

Below are some resources that I believe will help us to learn Azure faster by understanding the concept and to practice what we have learned. Of course, there are more resources out there but I will put the ones that I’m currently using and familiar with.

• Microsoft Documents
• Practice Labs
• Books
• Microsoft Virtual Academy
• Guided Training

Microsoft Documents

This is where you will find all formal documents from Microsoft and it will be updated from time to time by Microsoft whenever they have a new add-on to the existing concept or technology. Hence, this will become the main reference for us to pass the exam or to complete our daily tasks.

You should have the URL handy on your bookmark to easily refer to it and you can find the documents here: Microsoft Documents

As we go to each topic in more detail, I will also put relevant Microsoft Document links for that topic for easy reference.

Practice Labs

I personally love this! It’s a lab provided by Microsoft and you can literally use it 24×7 to learn new things with tonnes of topics that Microsoft have prepared for users to go through. In case you are wondering how the lab is being constructed or prepared, head on to the link below:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/training/hands-on-labs/

Important: You will need to register your email with Microsoft in order to access the lab.

Once you have your email associated with Microsoft account, you are ready to use this lab for FREE!

You still need to register for Azure Free Trial Account to go through the lab

Books

This is definitely still relevant although you might find the information in the books sometimes is not too relevant or obsolete as the Cloud technology change really fast!

That’s why Microsoft Documents will still be your best friend and the Microsoft lab that I mentioned previously would also still be updated from time to time.

There’s one exception though on the books. Whenever you go for Microsoft classes now, I find it a norm for the Training Center to provide us with online books. At first, I thought that this is only to save their cost or to save the trees but as I went to a few training, I started to understand.

It’s to keep up with the latest update on the technology. Why do I say that? Take a look at the screenshot below

As you can see there are a lot of versions of Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions e-book that I can get automatically when I sign up for the Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions course. And this helps us to keep updated whenever we use this book to update our knowledge.

Users can access books in Skillpipe either via their web portal and also via their application that is available for free from Google Play or Apple Play store.

Another cool feature for Skillpipe is the ability to highlight and put notes while we go through the books (very useful for me as I like to write down notes along the way). Furthermore, whatever notes you write down on the laptop for example via Skillpipe web portal will also be available when you access the book from the Skillpipe application in your mobile devices! How cool is that?

Currently, to my knowledge, you can only access the E-Book from Skillpipe by attending one of the Microsoft Class.

Microsoft Virtual Academy

If you hunger for more latest information, then Microsoft Virtual Academy would be the place for you to go! It’s more to video kind of information where a lot of experts would be sharing on new stuff and concepts.

Head on to this URL: https://mva.microsoft.com/

You will find that the information on MVA is quite mixed. From beginner kind of information to advanced information.

Guided Training by Simplilearn

As I’ve mentioned before, the Microsoft Lab is the best resource for us to get familiar with Azure by doing a hands-on rather than just read about the concept.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there is a guided training close to a class training concept?

(I know I really appreciate the face to face class training but this can be a bit costly especially when we are just starting or trying to explore new things)

Worry no more as Simplilearn have really good modules that can help us to achieve this.

What I love about Simplilearn is we can access the course whenever we want as it is available 24×7 to us and what’s more important than that is the course quality. It is just GREAT!

The link below is the latest offer from Simplilearn and you need to sign up first in order to access it.

Hope this information will benefit anyone who plans to learn Azure from scratch and make this website as your one-stop center to learn Azure.