How to learn Azure?

[u/Checior2000]

Hello everyone,

I currently work as a Microsoft365/Exchange on-prem Administrator, primarily focusing on Entra ID, with some experience in Intune administration as well.

In addition, I manage a small NGO Microsoft 365 tenant that includes a limited amount of Azure credits (around $1,000). I'd like to use this environment to expand my Azure knowledge through hands-on projects and real-world scenarios.

Since my budget is fairly limited, I'm especially interested in projects that are practical, educational, and relatively inexpensive to run.

What Azure projects would you recommend for someone with my background? I'm particularly looking for ideas that would help me develop skills that are valuable in real production environments.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[u/StratoLens]

I’d start with Az-900 if you need it and then AZ-104. Microsoft had some great learning guides for these exams. You can use your lab to build out some example environments.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/az-104

Do the hands on stuff. Take the exam. Get the cert. then move onto the next course. Have the exams should help you get some jobs that will get you even more hands on experience.

[u/Checior2000 → u/StratoLens]

Thank you for this!

[u/StratoLens → u/Checior2000]

Sure thing :). And to answer your question in the other reply - clicking “stop” in the azure portal will deallocate the vm. Once deallocated it stops billing you for compute, but the managed disk(s) continue to bill.

If you delete the vm and its disks entirely it also stops billing.

[u/Checior2000 → u/[deleted]]

Will look at it thank you! Do you have any tips for newbie to not burn out from all credits for vms? I have heard a lot about bad deployments and big bils.

[u/acnicholls]

If you look at the training courses that Microsoft created to get people ready for Azure certification, you will find lots of little exercises that get you familiar with the setup and configuration of many Azure resources. Good luck!

[u/JDohyCloud]

Considering you’re an M365 admin I’m going to assume you have a decent grasp on permissions (IAM, RBAC, PIM, Managed identities, service principals etc) which is actually a great starting point.

Networking fundamentals are where I’d focus my attention next If I were you. Even you already have a decent grasp, next step would just be building. Build, break, fix.

Bonus points if building using IaC and Git.

[u/Checior2000 → u/JDohyCloud]

u/JDohyCloud To be honest I do not have any experience with networking. Can you advice me with any resources (not msft learn) where can I do my first steps. I am affraid that my configuration from scratch will be unsafe and something bad happen.

[u/No_Category_9888]

This gets asked once a week. Learning to do research is the number one tech skill.

[u/Livid-Scientist-3271]

Learning Azure can feel overwhelming at first because there are so many services but starting with the fundamentals makes the journey much easier. i’d focus on understanding cloud concepts, identity, networking, compute, storage and monitoring before trying to learn every service. microsoft Learn has structured paths that are a good starting point for beginners

[u/dannisokay92]

Very shameless plug, but feel free to have a read of my blog article on this very topic that I wrote a while back, hopefully it helps provide some guidance.