Azure is a cloud platform offered by Microsoft, offering more than 200 products and cloud services¹. The UniBE campus account is automatically linked to the Azure platform, so no separate account is required.

The guide First Steps introduces the Azure Cloud and shows step by step how to get started in the cloud.

Services

Microsoft offers a plethora of services. It is impossible to know or even master them all. However, each service is very well documented and supplemented with examples and tutorials. The following is a list of base services with direct links to their documentation to provide an overview:

• Azure Virtual Machines for Windows and Linux
• Azure App Services
• Azure Storage Services
• Azure Key Vault
• Azure Function App
• Azure CosmosDB
• Azure AI Services
• Azure Container Apps

Costs

Most Azure services are offered in several pricing tiers, e.g., Standard and Premium. The tiers differ in terms of features and performance.

To better calculate costs, Azure provides a pricing calculator.

Here are some tips to help you save costs:

• Often the cheaper pricing tier, e.g., Standard, is already sufficient for the respective use case. An upgrade is possible later.
• Some services offer Azure Reservations, which can significantly reduce costs, e.g., >50% for a Linux-based VM.