Day 1 lesson 1: Create your Azure account

Do you need your own account?

You do not need an Azure account for the course labs, but we do recommend creating one because a personal account is still useful. It gives you time to repeat a task, explore the portal, and keep a small project. Whether you create one or not, though, is entirely up to you.

Each hands-on lab we provide gives you a temporary sign-in for a real Azure environment. Cybr owns this environment and deletes the resources after the lab, and never transfers the costs of resources to you. So technically, you can complete all 30 days without a personal Azure account but we don’t recommend it.

What the free account includes

Microsoft offers an Azure free account to new Azure customers. The offer currently includes: (but please verify, they can change this at any time)

• $200 in credit for your first 30 days
• Free monthly amounts for many services during your first 12 months and beyond those 12 months as well

Microsoft asks for a credit or debit card to prove your identity. A temporary $1 authorization can appear during this process. They won’t charge the card for Azure usage unless you move to pay-as-you-go pricing.

Azure offers and limits can change. Read the current details on the Azure account page before you create the account.

Create the account

We recommend completing this step with a personal address, not an employer address.

1. Open azure.microsoft.com/free.
2. Select Try Azure for free.
3. Sign in with a Microsoft account.
4. If you need a Microsoft account, select Create one.
5. Use an email address that you will keep.
6. Complete the verifications.
7. Read and accept the terms.

The free account starts automatically. You do not select a paid plan during this process.

When signup is complete, open the Azure portal. The portal is the web console for Azure. Bookmark the portal. You will return to it throughout this course.

If Azure shows a Welcome to Azure page, select the free trial option. Azure for Students is another option for eligible students.

What Microsoft created

Your new Azure account includes two important containers:

• A tenant holds identities in Microsoft Entra ID. These identities include users, groups, and application identities.
• A subscription holds Azure resources and receives the bill. Your free credit applies to this subscription.

The portal can call the tenant a directory. In this course, directory and tenant refer to the same identity container. These terms can feel unusual at first. That is completely normal. The next lesson explains the difference with a simple model.

Take a first look

The portal home page has three useful areas. You can ignore the other areas for now.

The services row contains shortcuts to common Azure services. Later lessons use Storage accounts, Virtual machines, and App Services which you can see here.

The Resources list is empty because you have not created a resource yet. That empty list is a good starting point.

The Navigate area links to Subscriptions, Resource groups, and All resources. You will use these links often.

The Tools area includes Cost Management. This tool helps you understand and control Azure costs.

Start two good habits

Read your costs

1. Enter Cost Management in the portal search bar.
2. Open Cost Management.
3. Read the current cost total (which will be $0 of course)

Cost awareness is part of cloud work, and we’ll touch more on this throughout the course.

You are ready!

You now have a personal place to practice Azure. You also know where to read costs. The next lesson explains tenants and subscriptions. Once these two ideas are clear, the Azure portal and Azure cloud becomes much easier to understand.