Stage 5 · Platform
Azure Cloud Engineering
Microsoft Azure from first subscription to production-grade SRE infrastructure — AKS, Key Vault, Monitor, Cost, and the cloud-native patterns used at Microsoft.
6 modules36 lessons4.4h of reading36/36 live today
Prerequisite
IaC + Kubernetes basics.
What this course leaves you with
- Operate AKS, Key Vault, and Azure Monitor confidently
- Design multi-region Azure architectures
- Apply SRE practices to Azure-native systems
AzureAKSCloudTerraformSRE
Why this stage matters — Cloud is covered — now deliver changes to it automatically.
Progress
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01
6 lessons
Azure Foundations
Resource hierarchy, IAM, naming conventions, and the tools every Azure engineer uses every day.
- 01Azure Resource HierarchyManagement groups, subscriptions, resource groups — structuring cloud accounts.6 min
- 02Azure CLI & Portalaz CLI, Azure Portal, Cloud Shell, and resource tagging conventions.7 min
- 03Azure AD & RBACEntra ID (Azure AD), service principals, managed identities, and RBAC roles.8 min
- 04Managed IdentitiesSystem-assigned vs user-assigned identities — the zero-secrets credential pattern.7 min
- 05Azure Networking BasicsVNets, subnets, NSGs, peering, Private Endpoints, and DNS zones.8 min
- 06Cost Management & FinOpsBudgets, alerts, reservations, spot VMs, and reading your billing invoice.7 min
02
6 lessons
Compute & Containers
VMs, Azure Container Registry, Azure Container Instances, and AKS clusters.
- 01Azure Virtual MachinesVM sizes, managed disks, availability sets, scale sets, and VM extensions.7 min
- 02Azure Container RegistryBuild, store, scan, and replicate Docker images with ACR.6 min
- 03AKS Cluster ArchitectureNode pools, system pools, kubelet identity, and cluster autoscaler.8 min
- 04AKS Networking (Azure CNI)Azure CNI, kubenet, Private clusters, and ingress with Application Gateway.8 min
- 05AKS SecurityWorkload identity, pod security standards, network policies, and Defender for Containers.8 min
- 06AKS Upgrades & OperationsBlue-green node pool upgrades, node drain, and zero-downtime cluster maintenance.7 min
03
6 lessons
Storage & Secrets
Azure Storage, Key Vault, and the secret lifecycle every production app depends on.
- 01Azure StorageBlob, File, Queue, Table — choosing the right storage tier and access patterns.7 min
- 02Azure Key VaultSecrets, keys, certificates — creating, rotating, and auditing with Key Vault.8 min
- 03Key Vault in KubernetesSecrets Store CSI Driver, workload identity, and zero-downtime cert rotation.8 min
- 04Managed Disks & Persistent VolumesPremium SSD, LRS/ZRS/GRS replication, and PVC provisioning in AKS.7 min
- 05Backup & Disaster RecoveryAzure Backup, Velero for AKS, and RTO/RPO planning.7 min
- 06Storage SecurityPrivate endpoints, SAS tokens, RBAC for storage, and immutable blobs.7 min
04
6 lessons
Azure Monitor & Observability
Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, and SLO-backed alerting.
- 01Azure MonitorMetrics, logs, traces — the three pillars in Azure's monitoring stack.7 min
- 02Log Analytics & KQLWrite KQL queries to analyze container logs, audit logs, and metrics.8 min
- 03Application InsightsInstrument apps, track dependencies, set availability tests, and sample traces.7 min
- 04Alerting in AzureMetric alerts, log query alerts, action groups, and PagerDuty integration.7 min
- 05AKS Monitoring with Container InsightsNode/pod metrics, KEDA scaling metrics, and multi-cluster views.7 min
- 06Dashboards & WorkbooksBuild Azure Monitor Workbooks for SLO tracking and capacity dashboards.7 min
05
6 lessons
Infrastructure as Code on Azure
Provision Azure with Terraform, Bicep, and GitOps — reproducible, auditable infrastructure.
- 01Bicep LanguageResources, parameters, variables, modules, and deployment stacks.8 min
- 02Terraform for Azureazurerm provider, state backend in Azure Storage, and AKS with Terraform.8 min
- 03Azure DevOps PipelinesYAML pipelines, environments, approvals, and multi-stage deployments.8 min
- 04Azure Policy as CodeBuilt-in policies, custom policy definitions, initiatives, and compliance.7 min
- 05Azure Landing ZonesEnterprise-scale architecture, management group hierarchy, and CAF patterns.8 min
- 06Cost Optimization PatternsRight-sizing, auto-shutdown, reservations, and budget guardrails in IaC.7 min
06
6 lessons
SRE Patterns on Azure
Multi-region AKS, disaster recovery, SLO-backed operations, and incident patterns specific to Azure.
- 01Multi-Region AKS ArchitectureActive-active and active-passive patterns, Azure Front Door, and Traffic Manager.8 min
- 02Disaster Recovery on AzureAzure Site Recovery, geo-redundant storage, and cross-region failover runbooks.8 min
- 03SLOs on AzureAzure platform SLAs vs your service SLOs, error budget burn rate, and dashboards.7 min
- 04Incident Management on AzureAzure Service Health, maintenance windows, and ICM integration.6 min
- 05Security OperationsMicrosoft Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, and threat detection patterns.7 min
- 06Azure Certification PrepAZ-900 → AZ-104 → AZ-400 path — what to study and in what order.7 min