Any good Azure books/resources?

Posted by PineappleScanner@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 15 comments

I'm a junior sysadmin, just started my first admin job late last year.

I really liked the "month of lunches" books for learning Powershell and AD Management. I picked up on things better when I was just taking in bite-sized bits of info, followed by a hands-on lab. My boss actually encourages me to use my time on the clock to learn, as long as we aren't slammed with tickets.

Our org is making a big push this year to move stuff to Azure, and I want to make sure I'm up-to-speed.

I know there's an "Azure in a month of lunches" book, but it's almost 6 years old. Are there any similar resources thst are more current?

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Adimentus@reddit

Following this post for the AZ-104 path. Thanks u/AltoGreen

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CeC-P@reddit

Last time I looked into learning Azure, by the time I found a book, they had renamed it Entra so I gave up and learned it ad-hoc. I'd recommend that route.

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teriaavibes@reddit

Azure is not Entra, 2 different things. I would expect you to know that since you claim to study it.

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Wise_Guitar2059@reddit

AWS resources are great. So far Azure also looks good. https://learn.cantrill.io/

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A_Curious_Cockroach@reddit

claude + free azure account + "claude help me build a testlab azure environment as cheaply as possible and explain each step in detail. First show me how to do it in the gui and after we are finish show me how to do it using terraform and or azure cli. Also show me how to decomission it in the gui and with terraform."

It will even screw up steps so that you can get some troubleshooting in while you do it.

If you have already exhausted your free azure account don't worry you can still build a pretty robust lab for like 30 dollars, primarily making sure you only use the free tier resources and you set up minor logging.

AI is fluff for a lot of stuff but it's great for teaching yourself stuff like this. Pretty much my preferred method of learning cloud related technologies now.

If your company is moving to azure talk to management about an environment to learn in.

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Master-IT-All@reddit

No, there are none.

I've given up on trying to remember anything Azure specific. It's a trap. Tomorrow it will be different.

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cjcox4@reddit

Rapidly (emphasis) changing. So.. no books, at least nothing of great value.

The changes are so "rapid", that even Microsoft's own materials aren't adequate day to day.

Anyhow, in a way, the "best thing" is to create your own "project", maintain it actively, and live in the ever changing world. Helps if your "project" is sufficiently complex (network, storage, etc.). Yeah... costs money. So, hopefully "project" makes you some money.

Microsoft Learn (can be a mess) Whizlabs (maybe worth paying for)

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himji@reddit

Yes it does change quickly. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to understand and learn what's under the hood and how it all works together. My MCP's of Windows NT and windows Server 2000 still offer me good insight on how a Wintel network is put together and how to navigate current systems

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cjcox4@reddit

True. Even very out of date books are great for overall concepts.

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himji@reddit

I'm following as I'd like to put more energy into this.
I've tried Microsoft Learn and just find it hard to get on with

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ipreferanothername@reddit

role-based exams allow open book access to MS learn so....i feel you, i dont love poking around it, but also....that makes it very much worth trying to get familiar with.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/skills-hub-blog/introducing-a-new-resource-for-all-role-based-microsoft-certification-exams/3500870

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