If you are like me, you may have heard Azure a few years ago for the first time. You may even have tested and tried to work with it. But somehow, either you’ve been turned off by the cost (it starts reasonably small, but it can have snow ball effect if you are not careful) or the demands were not really out there. So you decided to stop using the service because you’d better use your time for something else.
However, cloud computing is the thing now, and it makes sense to give it another look.
When I first learned about Azure 5-6 years ago, it was only for infrastructure, or so I thought. Basically it was just another data center where you could put your data and create virtual machine on the cloud. As a database developer, I was not really interested to dig deeper because of this. Besides, only a handful of companies at that time were really convinced to put their data on servers other than their own.
Even now, I still don’t know many organizations that put all their data completely on the cloud. The obvious solution at the moment is hybrid, a combination of cloud and on-premise, with the cloud solution being a backup or in small amount of data. As Azure becomes mature and more decision makers are jumping into the cloud ship, though, having some Azure knowledge is not a bad choice for your career.
Start With Free Trial
Like other software as a service solution, Azure offers a free trial for 12 months, with credit of $200 (170 euros) for the first 30 days. This means:
- The credit is valid only for the first 30 days. You can go crazy and use every service Azure has to offer (to get the full benefit of this offer, I recommend to try the services not covered in the point below)
- For the first 12 months, you can use a wide range of services such as SQL Database, Virtual Machine, File Storage, and other AI services.
- Other than that, Azure also offers services that are ALWAYS free, such as DevOps, SQL Server Developer Edition, and Data Factory.
Click the free trial link above to see the service detail. During the free trial, your subscription here is free trial.
Note that you have to put your credit card at the time on free-trial registration for identity purpose. When your free trial period is over, you have the option to either cancel it or upgrade it. When you choose to upgrade, your subscription will change to pay-as-you-go.
As Database Developer
Azure has a wide range of services, it is almost impossible to be an expert in every one of them, unless you are not human. The choices are very overwhelming. If you are a database developer, there is a big chance that you are not really into Kubernetes, App Service or Service Fabric. If you are new to Azure and just start now, I recommend to get to know these at minimum:
If you want to go further in your career or just have too much time on your hand:
- Databricks
- Azure Synapse Analysis
- Cognitive Services (it wouldn’t hurt)
To help you get going (and a little bit extra source of income), Microsoft offers tutorials as preparation for Azure certifications. With the price ranges from $99 to $200 each, which is reasonable, I recommend to get at least one certification.
If you don’t care about certifications, you can at least follow the tutorials with no cost.
Photo from ClipartMax
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.