Best Microsoft Azure Courses, Tutorials, and Certifications Online – Updated [April 2024]

Here at SkillComplete, our team of experienced cloud developers and technical enthusiasts has compiled the list of Best Azure courses, tutorials, training, certifications, and classes for you after a thorough research of all the available courses on leading online learning platforms such as Udemy, Coursera, Edx, Linkedin learning. We have also consolidated the best AWS, Openshift, Docker, and Kubernetes courses. The listed programs are suitable for beginners, intermediate, and advanced developers. First, let us look at a brief introduction about Cloud and Azure.

Cloud or Public cloud is an alternative to conventional in-situ architectures. Cloud Computing provides Virtual machines, analytics, networking, servers, storage, or applications facilities over the internet using a Cloud computing model. The benefits of using the cloud to maintain traditional hardware are lesser wastage of resources, reduced effort to maintain on-premise resources, and scalability. Some widely used cloud providers are AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Microsoft Azure is an open-source cloud computing platform—with services including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). These solutions address organizational requirements such as analytics, virtual computing, storage, networking, and much more. Azure services can replace the on-premise servers.  

Benefits of Azure :

Let us look at some of the scenarios where we can use Azure.

• Application development: Azure provides you a platform to create any web application.
• Testing:  Post-development of the application, you can test your service in Azure itself.
• Application hosting: Azure provides a virtual cloud platform to host your tested application.
• Create virtual machines: Azure provides you the platform to create virtual machines with custom configuration settings. 
• Integrate and sync features: You can integrate and sync virtual devices and directories using Azure. 
• Collect and store metrics: Azure lets you collect and store metrics, which can help you analyze the performance of your application. 
• Virtual hard drives: These are extensions of virtual machines that provide vast data storage platforms.

The above-listed benefits and the trend of using cloud resources among the software organizations make Azure the hottest skill to acquire. To help you gear up for learning Azure, our team has performed thorough research of all the available resources and listed the best ones for you. Let us now look at the best Azure courses.

Best + Free Azure Courses and Tutorials Online for Cloud practitioners

This online tutorial is a regularly updated course on Azure. This course will help you gain knowledge about some key concepts of Azure such as Azure SQL Server, Azure SQL Data warehouse, Azure Data Lake Storage account, Azure Data Factory, Hadoop Ecosystem, Cosmos DB, DataBricks, etc. 

Key points :

• Identify the right Azure SQL Server deployment option, purchasing model, and service tier as per the requirements and deploy it on the cloud.
• Deploy Azure Synapse Analytics (Azure SQL Data warehouse) in Azure Cloud environment.
• Gain MPP architecture understanding, analyze your on-premises data warehouse and migrate data to Azure Data Warehouse.
• Create Azure Data Lake Gen1 storage account, populate it with data, and analyze it using U-SQL Language.
• Develop an understanding of Azure Data Factory key components and advantages. Create, schedule, and monitor simple pipelines.
• Understand how HDInsight makes Hadoop easy, and learn to fetch data from Data Lake, process it through Hive, and later store it.

Pre-requisites: No prior knowledge of cloud or Azure is required. However, basic Database concepts are preferred.

Duration: 33.5 hours | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This short course on Microsoft Azure is the best seller course on the Udemy platform to learn Azure in a short period. You will be able to learn to create queries, charts, custom work items, and many other features offered by Azure. It is mostly popular among novice professionals trying to get started with Azure. 

Key points :

• Learn about Azure DevOps (Boards) Project Management.
• Create Epics, Features, Backlogs, Tasks, Queries,and Charts.
• Explore Azure Boards, Business Analyst, Analyst.

Pre-requisites: No prior knowledge of cloud or Azure is required.

Duration: 1.5 hours | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This Azure course starts right from the basics of cloud and takes you to more advanced topics such as Azure Policy, Cost management, Azure IMDS, etc. The tutor takes a practical approach to teaching Azure. He walks you through building a fictional book-store Reddis website on the Azure platform.

Key points :

• What are the cloud and its benefits?
• Basic terminology of the cloud: Regions, Zones, etc.
• Fundamentals of Microsoft Azure – Resource Groups, Storage Account, Budgets, and more.
• Working with the Azure portal and Azure compute – Virtual Machines, App Services, AKS, Functions.
• Design and implementation of networking in Azure – VNets, Subnets, NSG, App Gateway.
• Data in Azure – Azure SQL, MySQL, CosmosDB, Storage.
• Messaging in Azure using Queues, Event Grid, Service Bus, and Event Hubs
• Managing authentication using Azure AD and securing your apps in Azure.
• Designing disaster recovery strategy.
• Manage costs in Azure.
• Architecting applications for Azure and migrating existing applications to Azure.

Pre-requisites: No prior knowledge of cloud or Azure is required. However, Node Js and .NET concepts are preferred.

Duration: 20.5 hours | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This video tutorial is a frequently updated learning class on Microsoft Azure. You will understand about Azure Storage accounts- working with file and table service and Access tiers. Familiarize yourself with Azure AD, Azure blueprints, and Azure SQL. This course covers all the key topics accessed in the Azure Architect Technologies Certification exam.

Key points:

• Prepare yourself for the AZ-303 – Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies exam.
• Learn the fundamentals of Azure required for preparing the various objectives for the exam.
• Deploy and configure infrastructure.
• Implement workloads and security.
• Create and deploy apps.
• Implement authentication and secure data.
• Develop for the cloud and Azure storage.

Pre-requisites: No prior knowledge of cloud or Azure is required.

Duration: 27.5 hours | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This course introduces you to Microsoft Azure’s core concepts and services. Get started with the basics of cloud computing, its advantages, and learn to choose the right Microsoft Azure solution for different business scenarios. Learn to use the Microsoft Azure portal and a sandbox to create and test Microsoft Azure resources at no cost to you.

Learn database and big-data services available on Microsoft Azure, and advantage of several virtualization services in Microsoft Azure compute, which can help your applications scale out quickly and efficiently to meet increasing demands. This course will help you prepare for AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam. This course teaches you the core concepts and skills assessed in the cloud concepts and core Microsoft Azure services exam domains.

Key points:

• Gain an understanding of the benefits of cloud computing in Microsoft Azure.
• Explain core cloud concepts.
• Understand core Microsoft Azure services.
• Describe core Microsoft Azure architecture components.

Pre-requisites: You should be familiar with the general technology concepts such as networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.

Duration: 10 hours | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This Microsoft Azure course helps you securely access cloud resources and build a cloud-governance strategy. In this video tutorial, you will understand the factors that influence cost, tools you can use to help estimate and manage your cloud spend, and how Microsoft Azure’s service-level agreements (SLAs) can impact your application design decisions. This course can help you prepare for AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam. It teaches you the core concepts and skills assessed in the Microsoft Azure identity services and governance exam domains. 

Key points:

• Understand what it means to create a cloud governance strategy in Microsoft Azure
• Estimate and manage your cloud spend in Microsoft Azure.
• Understand how Microsoft Azure adheres to common regulatory and compliance standards.
• Define how Microsoft Azure’s service-level agreements (SLAs) can impact your application design decisions.
• Secure admission to cloud resources in Microsoft Azure.

Pre-requisites: You should be familiar with the general technology concepts such as networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.

Duration: 7 hours | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

In this video tutorial of Microsoft Azure offered by Pluralsight, the tutor focuses on the basics of cloud computing by defining the cloud at a fundamental level, its benefits, and how Microsoft fits in each type of cloud offering. By the end of this course, you will understand why the cloud is so important to an organization’s business and know the differences between public, private, and community clouds.

Key points :

• Learn about the fundamental concepts of the cloud and its importance.
• Learn the different types of cloud computing.
• Explore the various cloud computing deployment models.

Pre-requisites: This is a beginner cloud course, so there are no specific requirements before starting learning.

Duration: 1 hour | Level: Beginner | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This online course of Coursera focuses on writing serverless code to handle events at scale, with minimal overhead and cost using Azure Functions.

You will not only be able to create your custom Azure functions but also learn about building a custom Function pipeline. You will develop an understanding of triggers, bindings, and deploying Azure functions.

Key points : 

• Introduction to Azure Functions.
• Learn about Serverless architecture.
• Understand Azure Functions pricing.
• Creating your custom Azure function.
• Understand triggers and bindings.
• Build a function pipeline.
• Deploy Azure Functions
• Work with Function keys.

Pre-requisites: Some experience with Microsoft Azure as well as a working knowledge of a programming language such as C# or JavaScript is preferred.

Duration: 4 hours | Level: Intermediate | Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

This course focuses on deployment and navigation of your services to Azure by familiarizing the basic deployment tasks such as virtual machine deployment, virtual network deployment. Also, learn to create Resource Groups, Virtual Networks, Storage Accounts, VMs, and More in Microsoft Azure.

Key points:

• Deploy Azure Resource Groups.
• Deploy Azure Virtual Machines.
• Deploy Azure Virtual Networks.
• Deploy Azure Storage Accounts.
• Deploy Network Security Groups.
• Deploy Azure File Shares.
• Deploy Firewall Rules in Azure.

Pre-requisites: Some experience with the concept of virtualization is preferred.

Duration: 2 hours | Level: Beginner| Access: Lifetime | Certificate: Certificate of completion

Conclusion

That’s all about the best Microsoft Azure courses online. Microsoft Azure is one of the leading cloud service providers today, at par with competitors such as Amazon Web services and Google Cloud Platform. It is seen as the benchmark for functional, reliable, interoperable, and affordable cloud services by organizations globally. Developers need to understand the significance of development and migration to the cloud. Thus, Microsoft Azure certification is in high demand, and Azure practitioner jobs are among the highest-paid tech jobs. Therefore, learning Azure is a must. We hope the above list of the best Microsoft Azure courses helps you in your learning journey. 

Thanks for reading this article. If you found the list useful, share it with your friends and colleagues. You may also want to check AWS, Openshift, Docker, and Kubernetes courses. In case you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to drop a note.

Happy learning!

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