Logging in to the Microsoft Azure Portal

Introduction

The Microsoft Azure portal is a browser-based graphical user interface (GUI) to help you manage resources in Azure. Although there are other ways to manage resources in Azure, such as the application programming interface (API) and command line interface (CLI), the portal is the simplest place to start.

• Blade: Portion of the page that pops up as you navigate in the portal. (Note: A Blade is contextual and tied to your navigation. This will become more intuitive as you use the portal.) Opening a series of blades is called a journey
• Hub: Icon/category for navigation within the left Azure Portal menu that is opened by selecting the upper-left accordion icon

With a single click of the 'Start lab' button, Cloud Academy configures an environment in Azure, creating a hands-on learning experience without you having to sign up and create your own Azure account!

When you start a lab in the Cloud Academy platform, an environment is created for you with the following login credentials:

• Username: 
• Password:  

The 'Your lab data' section also contains the credentials for reference. The credentials can always be located by scrolling to the top of a lab step and finding them on the left-hand side:

Instructions

1. Click the following button to access the lab’s cloud environment:

A new tab opens in your browser for signing into the portal. 

2. If you are already signed in to a Microsoft account, select the account information in the upper-right corner of the Portal followed by Sign in with a different account.

You will need to use the special lab environment Cloud Academy configured for you. To do so, you must add another account and use the credentials provided for you.

Note: You may prefer to use an incognito/private mode browser to log in if you want to keep your lab work entirely separate.

3. If presented with the following choice to Pick an account, click the Use another account option.

4. Copy the student Username  and paste it into the Email, phone, or Skype field of the Portal Sign in page.

5. Click Next.

6. Copy the Password  and paste it into the Password field.

7. Select the Sign in button to sign in to the portal. You will be placed in the portal Dashboard (shown earlier).

Summary

You have used the credentials generated by the Cloud Academy platform to log in to the Microsoft Azure portal. The portal allows you to create, configure, and manage infrastructure in the Azure cloud. The environment and portal permissions provided for you by Cloud Academy are specific to the lab you started. For example, when simply starting a virtual machine (VM), you may 'see' many options in the portal but not have the required privileges to use them (such as creating a SQL database). You were also introduced to a few of the most common portal terms: blade, commands, and hub. These terms are used in this lab and throughout the Azure portal documentation.