Free Account & the Azure Portal

By the end of this lesson you will know what the Azure free account gives you, how to sign up safely, which settings to fix on day one, and how to find your way around the Azure portal. A safe start protects both your learning and your bank account.

Ways to get an Azure subscription

You need a subscription to create anything in Azure. Learners usually start in one of these ways:

Amounts, limits and the list of free services change over time, and they differ by country. Always read the current terms on the official Azure free account page before you sign up. This course never quotes prices, because they change.

Step by step: sign up safely

Step 1: use an email account you control for the long term, such as a personal Microsoft account or a GitHub account. Do not use a shared family email.

Step 2: turn on multifactor authentication (MFA), which means signing in with a second proof such as the Microsoft Authenticator app. Azure already requires MFA for the portal and for management tools such as the CLI. Set it up properly instead of waiting to be forced.

Step 3: finish the sign-up and note the name of your subscription, usually "Azure subscription 1".

Step 4: create a budget with an email alert before you create anything else. The Cost Management lesson shows how. A small budget with alerts at 50% and 90% is a good habit.

You should now be able to open https://portal.azure.com and see the portal home page.

A tour of the Azure portal

The Azure portal is the web console for Azure. Think of it as the reception desk of a large hotel: from one place you can reach every room, but you still need to know which corridor to take.

The main parts are:

• Search bar at the top: the fastest way to reach any service, resource or document. Type "resource groups" or "virtual machines".
• Cloud Shell icon (a >_ symbol): opens a terminal inside the browser. The next lesson uses it.
• Notifications (the bell): shows deployments as they run and finish.
• Settings (the gear): switch directory (tenant), choose language and theme, and set the default subscription filter.
• Left menu inside each resource: the same headings appear everywhere, such as Overview, Activity log, Access control (IAM), Tags, Settings and Monitoring.

Step by step: create and inspect a resource group in the portal

Step 1: search for Resource groups and select Create.

Step 2: choose your subscription, type the name rg-portal-demo, and select the region (Asia Pacific) Central India.

Step 3: on the Tags tab, add owner with your name. Select Review + create, then Create.

You should see a notification saying the deployment succeeded. Open the group. Its Overview shows the subscription, region and tags.

Step 4: select JSON View on the Overview page. The portal shows the same JSON that the CLI would return. You can check it from the CLI too:

az group show --name rg-portal-demo --query "{name:name, location:location, tags:tags}"

{
  "location": "centralindia",
  "name": "rg-portal-demo",
  "tags": {
    "owner": "meera"
  }
}

Notice that the CLI sorts the keys alphabetically in this output, not in the order of the query. This is traced from how the Azure CLI prints JSON by default.

The activity log: who did what

Every create, change and delete is recorded in the activity log. It answers questions like "who deleted the database at 2 am?". Open Activity log in the left menu of any resource or group.

From the CLI, you can list the last hour of events for a group:

az monitor activity-log list --resource-group rg-portal-demo --offset 1h \
  --query "[].{Operation:operationName.localizedValue, Status:status.value, Caller:caller}" \
  --output table

Operation              Status     Caller
---------------------  ---------  -----------------
Update resource group  Succeeded  meera@example.com
Update resource group  Started    meera@example.com

This output is illustrative: the exact operation names and number of rows depend on what you did. Creating a group appears as an "Update resource group" write operation, with a Started and a Succeeded event.

Export template: let the portal teach you

Most resources have an Export template page. It shows the ARM template, a JSON description of the resource, that would recreate it. It is a good way to learn property names before you write Bicep. Here is a short part of what you might see for a resource group's tags:

{
  "type": "Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups",
  "name": "rg-portal-demo",
  "location": "centralindia",
  "tags": {
    "owner": "meera"
  }
}

Exported templates are a starting point, not finished code. They often include extra default values that you can delete.

Clean up

Delete the practice group when you finish: open it and select Delete resource group, then type its name to confirm. Or use the CLI:

az group delete --name rg-portal-demo --yes

Common mistakes

• Wrong directory or subscription. If a resource "disappears", check the directory and subscription filter in Settings.
• Ignoring the region drop-down. The portal may preselect a region far from India. Read before you click Create.
• Clicking forever. Use the portal to explore and check results, then repeat the work with the CLI or Bicep so it is written down.

Key points

• You need a subscription; learners start with the free account, Azure for Students or a college subscription.
• Free offers include a short-term credit, some 12-month free services and always-free services; check current terms on the official page.
• Turn on MFA and create a budget alert before creating resources.
• The portal's search bar, notifications, Cloud Shell and settings are the main tools; every resource has the same left-menu layout.
• The activity log records every change; Export template shows the JSON behind a resource.

az group show --name rg-explore --query tags
az group delete --name rg-explore --yes

{
  "course": "azure",
  "owner": "farhan"
}