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Azure for  Developers
Azure for  Developers

Azure for Developers: The definitive guide to creating secure, scalable Azure apps with GenAI, serverless, and DevOps pipelines , Third Edition

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Azure for Developers

Getting Started with an Azure Account and Selecting an IDE

Welcome to the third edition of Azure for Developers, where your journey to mastering cloud development begins with setting up your account and choosing the right tools to bring your ideas to life.

For many developers, the most difficult step when starting with Microsoft Azure is obtaining a cloud account and configuring the local environment. While this topic may sound trivial, it really isn’t. Azure offers you multiple ways to start working with cloud infrastructure, and choosing the right option is crucial so you can focus on learning rather than fixing cloud account access.

We will start by explaining how to create an Azure account and what the basic operations are for working with that cloud platform, so you have a good understanding of the baseline for Azure and the overall cloud setup. Then, we will talk about setting up your local environment, which will make it easier for you to work through the exercises...

Technical requirements

For exercises in this chapter, you’ll need the Azure CLI. The process of installing and configuring it will be explained later in this chapter.

Creating an Azure account

To start building your applications using Azure, you’ll need an account. An account in Azure is in fact a subscription, which acts as a high-level building block, allowing charges for Azure services to be linked with your payment method. There are several ways to create an account – we’ll try to find the one that suits you the best.

Note that most of the accounts for Azure aren’t free of charge. However, as you may not always be able to access an account provided by your company, we’ll also try to find a way to be able to learn without spending a penny.

Types of Azure accounts

In general, accounts in Azure can be put in one of two categories:

  • Work or school accounts
  • Personal accounts

The names of these accounts describe exactly what they are – if you’re an employee, you may be given access to a work account. Such a work account may have access to Microsoft Azure, so you don’...

Installing the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell

As we’re going to discuss both the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell, we need to install them first. The installation process is pretty straightforward for both of these tools; however, before we proceed, we need to quickly explain both of these tools. If you don’t want to install the tools locally or use your local machine, you can use Cloud Shell, which is a dedicated environment available to all Azure accounts. You can read more about it at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/get-started/azure-portal/cloud-shell.

Understanding the importance of the CLI

While your main work environment may be an IDE and a specific programming framework, when working with Azure, you’ll realize that there are additional areas of work that need to be covered. You may create and configure resources in Azure using the Azure portal, but that way of working is rarely advisable and, if possible, should be avoided. In many cases, you could...

Learning basic operations

To start working with Azure, you’ll need to understand how to perform certain operations, such as signing in, switching accounts, and even switching tenants. We’ll get to that shortly, but before we start, let’s discuss briefly how Azure is structured.

Basic Azure structure

In Azure, there are several building blocks, which you’ll be using when developing applications and infrastructure. The main building block is called the tenant. A tenant is the most important component as it links Azure subscriptions with user accounts. When you create an Azure account, it’s automatically linked to a new tenant (unless your account is a work/school account, which is created inside an existing tenant).

If you went through the Azure account creation process, you created three separate components:

  • Azure tenant
  • Azure subscription
  • User account in Azure tenant (global/account administrator)

To help you understand...

Using service principals and managed identities

To understand service principals and managed identities, let’s consider the following scenario: you’re developing an application that allows users to upload photos from a user and store them in Azure. If you want to use a managed cloud service such as Azure Storage, you’ll need to find a way to authorize upload operations. In Azure, there are two options:

  • Use an access key
  • Use an access token

Using an access key, which can be quickly developed and deployed, is the simplest option. It’s also the least desirable from the security point of view as it requires your application to store and manage access keys. A much better option (in terms of management and design) is to allow your application to obtain an access token. In this scenario, you’d control access to Azure services by giving your application a certain set of permissions.

If you want to leverage that option, you’ll...

Choosing the right IDE for working with Azure

Azure is one of the most popular platforms for building applications with a cloud infrastructure. To develop those applications, we need to be able to integrate our local workstation with Azure’s capabilities. Being a developer means that your main working environment is an IDE. The choice of a suitable IDE relies on the technology stack you’re using. If you’re .NET developer, you may work with applications such as Visual Studio or Rider. Java developers might be using IntelliJ or Eclipse. Python developers may use PyCharm. There are many choices, so it’s important to understand the implications of our decisions, especially when thinking about development in Azure.

Note

In this book, we’re going to focus on the most popular technology stacks that are closely related to Azure. This means that we’re not going to talk about languages such as C, C++, or Rust, as they’re rarely used with...

Integrating your IDE with Azure

In order to integrate your IDE with Azure, you need to check whether plugins and workloads are available for it. To help you with that, I have prepared a quick summary with links, which will help you set up your local environment.

JetBrains IntelliJ

IntelliJ (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/java/toolkit-for-intellij/install-toolkit) provides quite an advanced extension for working with Azure that enables you to work with the following Azure services:

  • Azure Web App
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Container Apps
  • Azure Storage
  • Azure Virtual Machine
  • Azure Redis Cache
  • Azure OpenAI

It’s a great choice for all web developers who want to encapsulate all their work within the same tool without needing to use additional tools.

Eclipse

Eclipse (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/java/toolkit-for-eclipse/installation) is another IDE that allows you to work with Azure, though the integration...

Learning about plugins and additional workloads

No matter which IDE you choose, it’s important to be aware of additional tools that could be useful when developing an application. Let’s start with WSL, which could help to provide a uniform local setup for all developers inside a team.

WSL

WSL (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install) is one of the best features for developers using mixed operating systems (Windows/Linux/macOS). It can also be helpful if you want to get the most out of tools that target UNIX-based systems at first (which is often true for software meant for the development of containerized applications). WSL gives you the ability to work on your Windows machine as if it were running a Linux-based operating system, making development much easier in a number of ways (for instance, it allows you to develop, run, and test shell scripts on Ubuntu, which is very often used as a default operating system for CI/CD pipelines runners).

Another...

Using Azure emulators

When developing an application, you often need to decide how local development is performed. While running an application locally is quite a simple task, running its dependencies may be challenging. Let’s discuss how to decouple real Azure services from local workstations so that every developer can host their own environment that is secure from outages and unwanted changes.

Benefits of emulators

Consider the following scenario: you’re developing an application that requires an SQL database. If that application is hosted on Azure, it may be tempting to deploy a dedicated Azure SQL instance for development only. This, however, has serious implications:

  • Developers are going to share the same instance of a database.
  • If Azure SQL isn’t available, local development is affected.
  • It’s difficult to test changes in isolation.

To overcome those problems, you’ll need to consider the following options:

    ...

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about the basic structure and operations of Azure. We discussed how you can obtain access to the Azure environment and explored the differences between work/school and personal accounts. You also learned how to sign in to your account, switch the working context, and change the Azure tenant if needed.

We also talked about service principals and managed identities, which will become some of the most important components in the next chapters. In the last part of this chapter, we covered IDEs and additional plugins and emulators that may help you when developing applications in Azure. This knowledge will become important in the next chapters, as we’ll start building simple applications to showcase certain features of Azure services.

In the next chapter, we’ll cover the differences between the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell. Going through this topic will help you build your own scripts and integrate them with CI/CD pipelines, which...

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Key benefits

  • Build and deploy Azure apps with web, serverless, and container-based architectures
  • Create end-to-end cloud solutions on Azure by integrating AI services, monitoring tools, and DevOps
  • Upskill confidently with practical insights and real-world development practices
  • Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Description

Supercharge your development career by mastering Azure’s evolving GenAI, container, and serverless capabilities to build scalable, secure applications with confidence. This third edition of Azure for Developers transforms complex cloud concepts into practical skills, guiding you through the design, deployment, and management of cloud-native solutions while eliminating infrastructure headaches. Fully updated with Azure’s latest features, this hands-on guide helps you automate DevOps pipelines with GitHub Actions, deploy microservices using containers, and integrate generative AI via Azure OpenAI to modernize your development workflows. You will learn how to set up your environment, streamline app deployment, and implement robust service integrations using real-world best practices. The final section is a game-changer for developers who want to stay ahead of the curve. It shows you how to leverage Azure’s AI and machine learning services to automate tasks, fine-tune models, and build intelligent assistants and next-generation workflows. By the end, you will have the confidence and capabilities to deliver production-grade cloud solutions that meet real-world demands and position yourself at the forefront of modern cloud development.

Who is this book for?

This book is for cloud developers and engineers building applications with Microsoft Azure, as well as those looking to begin a career in Azure development. While a basic understanding of programming concepts is recommended, the book covers both basic and advanced ideas and solutions, making it valuable for beginners and experienced developers looking to enhance their skills.

What you will learn

  • Integrate data solutions like Azure Storage and managed SQL databases into your applications
  • Embed monitoring into your application using Application Insights SDK
  • Develop serverless solutions with Azure Functions and Durable Functions
  • Automate CI/CD workflows with GitHub Actions and Azure integration
  • Build and manage containers using Azure Container Apps, Azure Container Registry (ACR), and App Service
  • Design powerful workflows with both low-code and full-code approaches
  • Enhance applications with AI and machine learning components
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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jul 30, 2025
Length: 584 pages
Edition : 3rd
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781836203513
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Table of Contents

27 Chapters
Part 1:Setting Up Your Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 1: Getting Started with an Azure Account and Selecting an IDE Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 2: Choosing between Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Part 2:Web Applications and Workflows in Microsoft Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 3: Hosting Applications with Azure App Service Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 4: Developing Static Web Applications Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 5: Going Serverless with Azure Functions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 6: Managing Secrets and Configuration in Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 7: Integrating Services with Azure Logic Apps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 8: Building Workflows Using Durable Functions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Part 3:Containers in Microsoft Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 9: Learning About Azure Container Registry Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 10: Building Ad Hoc Workloads Using Azure Container Instances Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 11: Developing Microservices with Azure Container Apps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 12: Hosting Containers with Azure App Service Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Part 4:Storage, Messaging, and Monitoring Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 13: Storing Data with Azure Storage Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 14: Using Queues in Microsoft Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 15: Using Relational Databases in Microsoft Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 16: Adding Monitoring to Your Application Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Part 5:AI, ML, and DevOps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 17: Integrating an Application with Azure OpenAI Service Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 18: Leveraging Azure Machine Learning to Automate Machine Learning Tasks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 19: Using GitHub Actions to Build and Deploy Applications to Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 20: Developing, Testing, and Deploying Azure Logic Apps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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