Microsoft Azure

Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform, offering compute, storage, databases, and AI services that integrate deeply with Windows Server, Active Directory, and the .NET ecosystem. It's the #6 most-used cloud tool in the world, reported in roughly 26.3% of developer surveys. Enterprises already standardized on Microsoft's tooling reach for Azure because it plugs directly into their existing identity, licensing, and development stack.

Example

The Azure CLI (az) manages resources from the terminal — here's creating a resource group and deploying a web app in a couple of commands.

# create a resource group in a region
az group create --name my-rg --location eastus

# deploy the current folder as a web app (auto-detects runtime)
az webapp up --name my-webapp --resource-group my-rg --runtime "NODE:20-lts"

# list all web apps in the subscription
az webapp list --output table

Getting started

Create a free Azure account, install the Azure CLI, then sign in from the terminal.

# install the Azure CLI (example: Windows via winget)
winget install -e --id Microsoft.AzureCLI

# sign in and set the active subscription
az login
az account set --subscription "My Subscription"