I recently completed a hands-on exercise in Azure to set up the foundation of a cloud environment—and it was a game-changer for understanding real-world cloud infrastructure.
Here’s what I did:
Logged into Microsoft Azure – The portal is your central hub for managing and monitoring cloud resources.
Created a Resource Group – Grouping resources together makes management, access control, and lifecycle policies much easier. I named mine guided-project-rg
Set up a Virtual Network & Subnet – Networking is the backbone of cloud infrastructure. With guided-project-vnet. I defined IP ranges and prepared the network for secure communication.
Provisioned a Virtual Machine – I created guided-project-vm running Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS - x64 Gen2 .VMs provide scalable compute and are the building blocks for cloud applications.
Created a Storage Account – Storage is essential for persisting data. I set up privateokunola2strg with standard performance and hot access tier, perfect for development and testing workloads.
Key Takeaways:
Planning your resources upfront saves headaches later.
VNets, subnets, and resource groups aren’t just concepts—they’re practical tools for building scalable, secure environments.
Hands-on practice bridges the gap between theory and real-world application.
Cloud infrastructure isn’t just about creating resources—it’s about understanding how they connect and scale. Exercises like this are a great way to build confidence and technical skills in Azure.
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter resource groups.
- Select Resource groups under services.
-
Select Create
Note:
Your subscription should already be selected. If you have multiple Azure subscriptions associated with this login, select the one you’d like to use for the guided project.
Enter "guided-project-rg" in the Resource group name field.
The Region field will automatically populate. Leave your region set on Korea central
Select Review + create.
Select Create.
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Return to the home page of the Azure portal by selecting Home.
Create a virtual network with one subnet
From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter virtual networks.
Select virtual networks under services.
Select Create.
Scroll down to the Instance details section and enter guided-project-vnet for the Virtual network name.
Select Review + create.
Select Create.
Wait for the screen to refresh and show Your deployment is complete.
Select Home to return to the Azure portal home page.
Create a virtual machine
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter virtual machines.
- Select virtual machines under services.
- Select Create and then select Virtual machine
- Select guided-project-rg for the Resource group.
- Enter guided-project-vm for the Virtual machine name.
- For the Image, select one of the Ubuntu Server options. (For example, Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS - x64 Gen2)
- Continue further on the Basics page to the Administrator account section.
- Select Password for authentication type.
- Enter guided-project-admin for the admin Username.
- Enter a password for the admin account.
- Confirm the password for the admin account.
- Leave the rest of the settings as default settings. You can uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4y09h45cv9svvlrw5scz.png)
- Select Review + create
- Select Create to confirm the resource cost and create the virtual machine.
- Select Home to return to the Azure portal home page.
Note: Once validation has passed, you’ll receive a cost estimate of how much it will cost per hour to run the VM.
Create a Storage account
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter storage accounts.
- Select Storage accounts under services.
- Select Create.
- Scroll down to the Instance details section and enter a name for the storage account. Storage accounts must be globally unique, so you may have to try a few different times to get a storage account name.
- Select Review + create.
- Select Create.
- Wait for the screen to refresh and show Your deployment is complete.
- Select Home to return to the Azure portal home page.
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welldone