1. Organizations, Subscriptions, Licenses, Accounts and Tenants

Getting Started with Microsoft Azure

Welcome to the course Getting Started with Microsoft Azure. I'm Barry and I'll be your instructor. I'm a software developer and architect with a passion for the cloud.

What is this course about?

This course covers the basics of Microsoft Azure. Here’s a breakdown of what you'll be learning:

  1. Introduction to Azure Basics

    • Subscriptions and Tenants: Learn the foundational elements crucial to Azure operation.

  2. Deep Dive into Azure Components

    • Availability Zones
    • Resource Groups
    • Fault and Update Domains

  3. Tools for Working with Azure

    • Which tools are available?
    • How to use them for creating infrastructure as code.

  4. Bonus Module: Cost Management

    • Strategies for managing and reducing costs in Azure.

Basic Elements of Azure Organizations

Microsoft Cloud Offerings

Microsoft Azure is a part of a broader Microsoft cloud ecosystem that includes:

  • Azure Subscriptions
  • Microsoft 365
  • Power Apps Subscriptions
  • Dynamics 365

All of these subscriptions belong to an organization. Subscriptions can contain licenses that you need to assign. For instance, licenses in Azure are used by virtual machines such as Windows Server or SQL Server.

Understanding Tenants

A tenant in Azure is essentially an Azure Active Directory (AD), housing users, devices, application registrations, and more. Microsoft's cloud offerings can share a tenant.

Types of Azure Clouds

  1. Global Cloud: The public cloud offering we usually interact with.
  2. Azure Government: Specifically for U.S. government agencies, using physically isolated data centers managed by U.S.-screened personnel.
  3. Azure China: Operated by a Chinese company and adheres to Chinese laws and regulations, keeping data only within China.

Management Groups

Management groups in Azure act like folders and serve as boundaries for organizing subscriptions:

  • Automatically created within a root management group when you create an Azure subscription.
  • Can nest management groups and subscriptions to organize Azure subscriptions effectively.
  • Assign policies to management groups (e.g., only allow certain virtual machine tiers for this scope).

This course is designed to provide you with a solid foundation to get started working with Microsoft Azure.

Let's dive in!