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Azure Cloud Engineering Master Course

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Start Here if You’re Completely New to Cloud

• Buy building ($500,000)
• Buy kitchen equipment ($100,000)
• Buy furniture ($50,000)
• Hire staff ($200,000/year)
• Problem: What if restaurant fails? You lose $650,000!

• Rent building ($3,000/month)
• Rent kitchen equipment ($1,000/month)
• Rent furniture ($500/month)
• Hire staff as needed
• Benefit: If restaurant fails, you only lose a few months of rent!

• Buying physical servers ($10,000 each)
• Maintaining air conditioning, security, backups
• Upgrading hardware every 3-5 years

• Rent virtual servers ($50/month)
• Microsoft handles maintenance, security, backups
• Scale up or down in minutes

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What is Microsoft Azure?

• Buildings full of servers, storage, networking equipment
• Powered 24/7, secured, maintained by Microsoft

• Virtual machines (computers)
• Databases
• Storage (file storage)
• Networking
• AI services
• And 200+ other services

• 95% of Fortune 500 companies use Azure
• $60+ billion in annual revenue
• 60+ regions worldwide
• 200+ services available

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Why Should You Learn Azure?

• 200,000+ job openings for Azure skills (globally)
• Average salary: $120,000-$180,000 in the US
• High demand: More jobs than qualified candidates

• Junior Cloud Engineer: $85,000/year
• Mid-level Azure Engineer: $125,000/year
• Senior Azure Architect: $165,000/year
• Principal Cloud Architect: $220,000+/year

• Cloud market growing 20%+ per year
• Azure growing faster than AWS in enterprise
• Companies migrating from on-premises to cloud

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What Makes This Course Different?

Microsoft Azure is the world’s second-largest cloud platform, powering Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. This comprehensive course takes you from cloud fundamentals to designing and deploying enterprise-grade, production-ready Azure solutions.

• How to click buttons in the Azure Portal
• Basic tutorials without real-world context
• Theory without practical application

• The “Why”: Why Azure works the way it does (internal architecture)
• The “How”: How to actually build production systems
• The “What”: What mistakes cost companies millions
• Real costs: Actual dollar amounts, not vague estimates
• Real incidents: What went wrong and how to prevent it

“Azure has load balancers. Here’s how to create one in the Portal.”

“Target lost $440M on Black Friday because they chose the wrong load balancer. Here's why Azure has 4 different load balancers, when to use each one, real cost comparisons ($18/month vs $125/month), and a decision tree to prevent you from making the same mistake.”

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Why This Course?

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Course Roadmap

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Prerequisites

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What You Need to Know Before Starting

1. Basic Computer Skills
   • Comfortable using Windows or Mac
   • Can install software
   • Understand files and folders
   • Test yourself: Can you install Chrome and create a new folder?
2. Internet & Networking Basics
   • Understand what an IP address is (example: 192.168.1.1)
   • Know what DNS does (converts google.com to an IP address)
   • Understand HTTP/HTTPS (website protocols)
   • Test yourself: Can you explain why you type “https://” before a website?
3. Command Line Basics
   • Can navigate directories (cd, ls/dir)
   • Can create and delete files
   • Understand what a command is
   • Test yourself: Can you open a terminal and list files in a directory?

4. Cloud Basics (We’ll teach this in Chapter 1)
   • Understanding of virtualization (one physical server → multiple virtual servers)
   • Networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls)
   • Distributed systems (servers in multiple locations)
5. Linux/Windows Fundamentals (We’ll review as needed)
   • Comfortable with command line
   • Basic system administration (users, permissions)
6. Programming Knowledge (Helpful but not required)
   • Familiarity with at least one programming language
   • Python, C#, or Java preferred
   • JavaScript/TypeScript helpful for web development
7. Optional (Nice to Have)
   • Experience with Docker and Kubernetes
   • Git and version control
   • Infrastructure as Code concepts

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”Can I Take This Course If…”

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Recommended Learning Path

1. CompTIA A+ (Computer basics) → 2-3 months
2. CompTIA Network+ (Networking) → 2-3 months
3. Linux Basics (Linux Foundation) → 1 month
4. THIS COURSE (Azure) → 3-4 months

1. THIS COURSE (Azure) → Start immediately!

1. THIS COURSE (Azure) → Fast-track through basics

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The Tech Stack

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What You’ll Build

1. Enterprise Virtual Network: Multi-tier network with hub-spoke topology, Azure Firewall, and VPN Gateway
2. Highly Available Web Application: App Service with Traffic Manager, Azure SQL with geo-replication
3. Microservices Platform: AKS cluster with service mesh, monitoring, and CI/CD
4. Serverless Event System: Event-driven architecture with Azure Functions and Event Grid
5. Global E-Commerce Platform (Capstone): Multi-region deployment with:
   • Frontend: Azure Static Web Apps / App Service
   • API: AKS with microservices
   • Database: Cosmos DB (global distribution)
   • Search: Azure Cognitive Search
   • CDN: Azure Front Door
   • Monitoring: Complete observability stack
   • Security: Zero-trust architecture with Azure AD B2C

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Learning Approach

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Theory + Practice

• How it works internally (architecture deep dives)
• When to use it (decision frameworks)
• How to implement it (hands-on labs)
• How to troubleshoot it (real-world scenarios)

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Real-World War Stories

• The $100,000 Azure bill mistake
• How to recover from region-wide outages
• Security breach post-mortems
• Performance optimization case studies

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Interview Preparation

• Common interview questions
• Scenario-based problems
• Architecture design exercises
• Troubleshooting challenges

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Certifications Covered

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AZ-104: Azure Administrator Associate

• Manage Azure identities and governance
• Implement and manage storage
• Deploy and manage compute resources
• Configure and manage virtual networking
• Monitor and maintain Azure resources

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AZ-305: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

• Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
• Design data storage solutions
• Design business continuity solutions
• Design infrastructure solutions

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AZ-500: Azure Security Engineer Associate

• Manage identity and access
• Implement platform protection
• Manage security operations
• Secure data and applications

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Course Structure

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Part I: Foundations (Chapters 1-3)

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Part II: Core Services (Chapters 4-8)

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Part III: Operations & Security (Chapters 9-10)

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Part IV: Advanced Topics (Chapters 11-13)

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Part V: Real-World Engineering (Chapters 14-15)

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Why Azure?

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Time Commitment

• Total Course Duration: 60-80 hours
• Chapter Duration: 3-6 hours each
• Recommended Pace: 1-2 chapters per week
• Hands-On Labs: 30-40 hours
• Capstone Project: 15-20 hours

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Cost Considerations

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How Much Will This Course Cost You?

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Azure Free Tier (What You Get for Free)

1. $200 credit for first 30 days
   • Use for anything
   • Experiment freely
   • No credit card charges until credit runs out
2. 12 months of free services (limited amounts)
   • 750 hours/month of B1S VM (Linux or Windows)
   • 5 GB Blob Storage
   • 250 GB SQL Database
   • 1 million Azure Functions executions
   • And 40+ other services
3. Always-free services (forever!)
   • 1 million Azure Functions requests/month
   • 400 RU/s Cosmos DB
   • 5 GB Azure Files
   • And 25+ other services

• $100 credit (renews annually)
• No credit card required
• Access to student-only resources
• Verify with .edu email

• Typically $50-$100 credit
• Valid for 30 days
• Great for this course

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Estimated Costs (Real Numbers)

• Total cost: $0 ✅

• Student forgets to stop VM
• Runs for 30 days
• Cost: $36 (B2s VM × 720 hours ×$0.05/hour)

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Cost Optimization Tips (Avoid Surprise Bills)

# WRONG (Still charges for compute!)
Stop-AzVM -Name "myVM" -ResourceGroupName "myRG"

# CORRECT (Stops charging)
Stop-AzVM -Name "myVM" -ResourceGroupName "myRG" -Force

# Verify it's deallocated
Get-AzVM -Name "myVM" -Status
# Should show "VM deallocated"

1. Portal → Cost Management → Budgets
2. Create budget: $10/month
3. Alert at 80% ($8)
4. Email notification

# Delete everything in one command
az group delete --name "chapter3-lab" --yes --no-wait

❌ Don't use: D-series (expensive, $70/month)
✅ Use: B1s ($5/month) or B2s ($36/month)

• Cheaper (60% less)
• Perfect for dev/test
• Can “burst” when needed
• Idle most of the time → Lower cost

{
  "if": {
    "field": "type",
    "equals": "Microsoft.Network/expressRouteCircuits"
  },
  "then": {
    "effect": "deny"
  }
}

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What If You Get a Bill?

• Identify what caused it (Cost Analysis in Portal)
• Delete the resource
• Set up budget alert for future

• Contact Azure Support immediately
• Explain you’re a student/learning
• They often waive first-time mistakes
• Show you’ve deleted the resource

• Student created Application Gateway by accident
• Bill: $125 for one month
• Contacted support with explanation
• Microsoft waived the charge ✅

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Cost Summary for This Course

1. Start with Azure Free Account ($200 credit)
2. Set budget alert at $20
3. Delete resources after each lab
4. Total course cost: $10-$30

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Community & Support

• Discord Server: Join our Azure community for live help
• GitHub Repository: All code samples, IaC templates, and architectures
• Weekly Office Hours: Live Q&A sessions
• Real-World Case Studies: Community-contributed production architectures

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Let’s Begin!