Tag Archives: azure

HOW CAN I GAIN HANDS ON IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE WITH AWS AZURE AND GCP

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Get started with free trial accounts on each platform. All three major cloud providers offer free tier accounts that give you access to many basic services at no cost for a set period of time (often 1 year). This allows you to build basic projects and gain exposure to each platform without spending any money. Make use of the free tiers to start experimenting.

Sign up for online courses. All the cloud providers offer free introductory online courses that teach cloud concepts and guide you through building simple demo projects on their respective platforms. Even paid courses from providers like Coursera, Udemy, A Cloud Guru can help you learn cloud services in a structured format. Courses teach you infrastructure provisioning, security best practices, monitoring strategies and more.

Setup projects at home. With free tier access, you can start building test/demo infrastructure at home. For example, deploy a basic LAMP stack on EC2, create VMs and web apps on Azure, set up storage buckets and functions on GCP. Follow documentation, blogs and online tutorials to replicate common use cases using each provider’s services. Face real world challenges like security, high availability etc.

Participate in online communities. All cloud providers have active online user forums where you can ask questions and find help from other users when stuck with implementation problems. Sites like Stack Overflow also have large cloud computing tags where professionals actively discuss issues. Participating exposes you to diverse use cases and troubleshooting strategies.

Try out sandbox offerings. Providers offer sandbox environments where you can experiment risk-free without usage costs. For example, AWS offers AWS Sandbox, Azure offers Hands-On Labs etc. Sandboxes give you fully functioning cloud environments to try services and learn without spending money.

Setup test/dev environments for projects. If you are working on personal/school projects, leverage the cloud providers to host your test/dev environments. For example, deploy a test web application on EC2, use Azure Functions for serverless components etc. Facing real challenges of deploying an application end-to-end expands your skills.

Contribute to open source projects. Look for projects hosted on each provider’s infrastructure and contribute code/documentation. For example, projects using AWS Lambda, Azure Kubernetes Service or GCP Storage. Understand how services are leveraged from the developer perspective. Ask questions and solve issues.

Setup a home lab. You can build a small private cloud lab at affordable costs using on-premise servers and virtualization software. Mimic functionality of major cloud platforms to build hands on experience managing compute, storage, networking etc. Resources like KVM, Proxmox, VMware Workstation let you install hypervisors.

Get vendor certifications. All providers offer fundamental certification programs measuring your cloud skills. For example, AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, Google Cloud Fundamentals: Cloud Infrastructure. Studying for and passing these entry-level exams forces you to learn core concepts and services practically.

Deploy personal projects. Come up with your own simple application ideas and deploy them end-to-end on each provider independently. Ideas could include building simple CRM, CMS sites or IoT projects. Going through full development and deployment cycles like provisioning infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, logging/monitoring teaches you to leverage cloud as more than just an ‘infrastructure provider’.

Help friends/family with their projects. Volunteer to host or migrate other people’s websites/applications to cloud platforms. Work through real issues faced in migrating applications designed for on-premise environments to managed cloud models. Face challenges of updating architectures, ensuring security and high availability etc.

Find internships or junior roles. Many companies offer internships or junior roles focused purely on hands-on cloud implementation work. Roles would expose you to real-world enterprise patterns, best practices, operational processes used by professionals. On-the-job experience is invaluable for cloud careers.

Thus The best way to gain hands-on cloud skills is by using free accounts to experiment independently, study online courses structured by vendors, contribute to open source, get certified, deploy personal projects end-to-end, and leverage intern/job opportunities for professional exposure. Starting small and facing real challenges leads to the deepest learning.

CAN YOU PROVIDE SOME RESOURCES OR TUTORIALS FOR BEGINNERS TO LEARN AZURE CAPSTONE PROJECTS?

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Microsoft Azure provides a wide range of cloud services that you can use to build real-world applications. When you are just starting out with Azure, it’s a good idea to take on capstone projects that allow you to gain hands-on experience with the platform. This will help reinforce your learning and prepare you to work on more advanced Azure projects.

Some good capstone project ideas for Azure beginners include:

Create a basic web application – This is a common first project that introduces key Azure services like Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, etc. You’ll deploy a simple website that interacts with a database and stores files. Microsoft has tutorials for building websites using ASP.NET, PHP, Node.js, etc.

Build a cloud-hosted REST API – APIs are the foundation of modern applications. You can develop a RESTful web API using Azure Functions, ASP.NET Web API, or another framework and deploy it to App Service. Include features like authentication, data access with Cosmos DB, etc.

Develop a serverless mobile backend – Use Azure Functions and other serverless compute services like Logic Apps as a backend for a simple mobile app. Consume APIs, store data in storage accounts or Cosmos DB, send push notifications with Notification Hubs, etc.

Implement cloud infrastructure automation – Learn to deploy and manage your Azure resources using infrastructure as code tools like Azure Resource Manager templates, Terraform, or Bicep. Automatically deploy virtual machines, web apps, databases and other services.

Build an image or file processing pipeline – Use Azure services like Blob Storage, Data Factory, Functions and Cognitive Services to implement a file upload workflow that processes images/files, extracts metadata, applies AI/ML models, and more.

Create an IoT solution – Build a basic IoT prototype that collects sensor data from simulated or real devices into IoT Hub, analyzes it using Stream Analytics, and visualizes metrics with Power BI.

Configure a highly available web application – Implement load balancing, auto-scaling, failover, and other high availability features for a web app using Azure App Service, Traffic Manager, and monitor it with Azure Monitor.

Here are some detailed tutorials and courses to help you successfully complete Azure capstone projects:

Microsoft Learn Modules – Microsoft’s official self-paced learning platform has excellent beginner modules on topics like “Build your first Azure app”, “Work with Azure Storage”, “Implement web apps on Azure”, etc.

Azure Documentation – The documentation includes dozens of step-by-step tutorials on Azure services, with detailed guidance on everything from account setup to building full solutions.

Cloud Skills Challenge – A beginner-friendly hands-on labs from Microsoft that teach core Azure skills through guided scenarios and projects. The “Azure Developer Fundamentals” pathway is very useful.

A Cloud Guru (a.k.a Linux Academy) – Paid courses from this top cloud training provider that teach Azure fundamentals and then guide learners through implementing solutions using common services.

CognoSphere Azure Tutorials – Free video tutorials that walk through building end-to-end cloud apps using Blazor, React, Python, Java and more on Azure. Great for visual learners.

Udemy – Many affordable and highly-rated project-based courses to learn Azure development, DevOps, AI/ML, serverless computing and more through guided tutorials.

edX Microsoft Azure Courses – Free courses from Microsoft on edX platform that range from introductory to advanced levels, from single services to fully-featured applications. Requires verification for certificates.

YouTube Azure Channels – YouTubers like Cloud Concepts, Kevin Williamson, Scott Hanselman, etc. provide project tutorials, code reviews and other guidance for Azure.

When taking on an Azure capstone project, be sure to thoroughly research documentation, ask questions on forums, and carefully plan each step. Break projects into small, well-defined tasks and celebrate incremental wins. Completing even simple capstone projects will accelerate your learning and give you confidence to tackle larger projects. With practice, it gets much easier to design and deploy solutions on the Azure cloud platform.