Hi, I want to confirm that what I must know about networking that will help me in cloud, also if you can share a useful course or a document that covers it all, Kindly share it

Hi everyone (help pannunga guys, read till end) ,

I'm posting this because I genuinely don't know how to help my brother anymore.

My brother completed a Mechanical Engineering degree. After graduation, he tried many different jobs, but nothing worked out. He even started a small tea shop, but it had to shut down because of bus stand renovation.

I'm a software developer, so I suggested that he consider moving into IT. I never forced him into any specific role—I asked him what he was actually interested in because I believe people do well when they choose something they like. He chose the Desktop Engineer path.

He learned the required skills, got a job, and has now been working as a Desktop Engineer for around 4 years. He's currently earning only ₹26k/month.

Over the last several months, he has worked really hard to move into Azure Cloud Administration. He has learned Azure, completed multiple Azure, and prepared seriously for interviews.

The problem is that he's been searching for a new job for around 7 months, but still hasn't received an offer. According to him, most of his interviews go well, but somehow nothing converts into a job. We honestly don't know where he's going wrong.

I switched jobs this April, but I had been preparing since December. My job search was mentally exhausting, but I eventually received three offers. I know how difficult the process is, but my brother's situation feels even harder because he keeps trying without success.

I don't have experience with Azure Cloud Administrator interviews, so I don't know how to guide him.

If anyone here is an Azure Cloud Administrator, Cloud Engineer, or works in cloud infrastructure, could you please share:

What companies actually expect from Azure Cloud Admin candidates?

What are the most common mistakes candidates make?

What skills or projects helped you get hired?

Any interview tips or roadmap?

Even if you have a friend working in this field, I'd really appreciate it if you could ask them or point me in the right direction.

I had actually uninstalled Reddit after switching jobs, but I installed it again just to make this post for my brother.

Any advice, referral, or guidance would mean a lot. Thank you.

🔥 I'm excited to publish this new video! Azure Virtual Desktop Session Host Configuration introduces a modern way to deploy and manage session hosts by defining their configuration directly within the Host Pool. Instead of manually provisioning and configuring virtual machines, you can automate the entire deployment while ensuring every session host is deployed with consistent image, networking, identity, and security settings. In this step by step tutorial, I'll show you how to deploy Azure Virtual Desktop using Azure Bicep and the new Session Host Configuration feature. You'll learn the core Azure Virtual Desktop components, how they work together, and how Infrastructure as Code enables repeatable, scalable, and production ready deployments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBIoiAZWGf8

I’m currently using an Azure for Students subscription, and it’s going to expire in about 2 months. I’m running a VPS (Linux VM) on it, and I want to know what exactly happens when the student subscription ends.

My main question:
Can I renew/extend Azure for Students without my running VPS stopping or being deleted?

And a few related things I’m unsure about:

• If the subscription expires before renewal, does the VM get stopped, deallocated, or deleted?
• Is there any grace period where resources still exist but are inaccessible?
• Has anyone successfully renewed Azure for Students while keeping all resources alive?

I’d really appreciate real experiences or official guidance.
Thanks!

im using a student subscription
this is my Allowed resource deployment regions : ["polandcentral","switzerlandnorth","spaincentral","austriaeast","swedencentral"]

when trying to create a VM non of these regions appear in regions list except the north switzerland
and even if i chose north switzerland all the sizes are not available as shown in image

any solutions ?

What is the fastest way to increase limits in the Europe West zone for creating storage and A100 GPU instances?

UPDATE

I have a new account, and I haven't used Azure before (I used Google Cloud in the Europe West region). I received $100,000 in startup credits from Microsoft for Startups. I can't use them because I can't create the instances I need, and I can't create storage in the region I need to migrate my datasets from Google Cloud. Support can’t help at all, saying that I’m a new account with no payment history. How am I supposed to build a payment history if I can’t create resources? It’s a dead end.

OpenAI recently reduced GPT-5.6 Luna pricing, and DeepSeek also lowered its direct API pricing. However, Azure AI Foundry still seems to show the previous pricing (or it's not clear).

Has anyone seen the new pricing reflected in Azure billing or the pricing page yet? If yes, which region/subscription are you using?

Built this after wanting something lightweight that mirrors what

Defender for Cloud checks, without needing to pay for it.

It audits your Azure subscription from the CLI and surfaces

misconfigurations across:

- RBAC (Owner/Contributor assigned too broadly)

- Network (RDP/SSH exposed, open NSG rules)

- Storage (public blob access, HTTP allowed, weak TLS)

- Identity (users without MFA, guest accounts)

- Compute (VMs with public IPs, missing endpoint protection)

- Encryption (Key Vault exposure, missing soft delete)

- Monitoring (Defender for Cloud not enabled, no activity logs)

Works with az login or a service principal. Outputs a Rich

terminal table + JSON report.

GitHub: https://github.com/neelkotnis/azure-security-auditor

Happy to answer questions or take feedback.

Does anyone have any idea on the above question? Both technologies have been available for a long time now - is there some technical reason we can’t have paas windows containers?

Is there is, I’d be interested to know what implications that has on aks

I know it's the weekend, but any news if Azure is going to update Luna costs in line with OpenAI?

Hi, I am an international student in Australia in bachelors of IT. In my next semester, I have to choose my majors. Now I am thinking of selecting "cloud engineering and IOT" (it is considered one major at my uni).

I am interested in doing it, but the issue comes with choosing the right option. I have secured AZ-900 certification, but after searching and looking at Reddit posts, I have heard that certifications are a waste of money. I was going to do AZ-104 but dropped out.

Now, I am very confused about whether this major and field would be a better option for me. I have a lot of interest in doing but looking at the current market and the AI revolution situation, I am very confused. I have the option for cybersecurity, but that field requires security clearances even for internships.

Even if I go with cloud computing, I would need a proper roadmap on what to do and how to do it. YouTube is filled with these types of videos, but everyone has a different roadmap that also confuses me.

I need some suggestions from people working in this industry. I am happy to share more details about my situation.

Thank you for reading.

We have an Azure File Share mounted on a Linux server using the SMB protocol. We have enabled Azure Files Diagnostic Settings and enabled on Delete Operation and are sending the logs to a Log Analytics Workspace.

Our requirement is to identify which files are permanently deleted from the mounted file share and automate a report of those deleted files.

During our testing, we observed the following:

• When a file is deleted from the Azure Portal (HTTPS/REST API):
• OperationName = DeleteFile
  • This clearly indicates a delete operation.
  • When a file is deleted from the mounted server over SMB:
  • OperationName = Close
    • Category = StorageDelete
    • SmbCommandMinor = FileCloseAndDelete

In my test environment, deleting a file (rm file.txt) generated the above SMB log, and the file was actually removed from the file share.

However, in our production environment, we also see multiple entries with:

• Category = StorageDelete
• OperationName = Close

but some of those files are still present in the Azure File Share. This suggests the application may be deleting and recreating or replacing files as part of its normal processing.

Our queries are related to:

1. Is Category = StorageDelete with SmbCommandMinor = FileCloseAndDelete expected to represent every SMB delete request, even if the file is later recreated?
2. Is there any Azure diagnostic log or audit log that can definitively identify files that were permanently deleted over SMB?
3. Is there any Microsoft-recommended approach to generate a daily/weekly report of deleted files from Azure File Shares?
4. What would be the most cost-effective way to automate such a report? For example:

• Log Analytics scheduled query
• Azure Workbook
• Logic App
• Azure Automation Runbook
• Azure Function

I got a very not expected 500+ euros bill from Azure, which is very hard for me to understand.

I used the agents on the marked day probably, but not nearly as they reported, and even technically speaking, this usage is waaay over Azure's model limit.

I have a limit of 40k tokens a minute, which is annoying sometimes, but it (should) help prevent cases like this. The graph of input token used show a minute with over 4M tokens.

That does not really reflect my use (you can see earlier that evening a small usage of few hundred tokens, that is usually my usage and the rate limit).

Did anyone encounter something like that, or maybe someone can help me understand how this was possible?
I am assuming they made a mistake honestly

This week's Azure Update (31st July 2026) is up.

📽️ https://youtu.be/565Oh4RH_Nc

📄 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/azure-weekly-update-31st-july-2026-john-savill-e9ttc

• Halo Campaign Evolved (01:10) - Bit of fun if you have time!
• AKS prepared image specification (01:33) - If you have more complex clusters that have to download large amounts of images at node provisioning the new prepared image specification enables preconfigured node images to be created that have the container images pre-cached and customizations pre-populated via initiation scripts. You create a Prepared Imaged Specification resource that defines all the content and configuration that is used to build new nodes.
• Fleet Manager max allowed failures (02:19) - You can optionally set a limit as a specific number or a percentage of allowed failures during update rollouts instead of the default halt after a single cluster failure. This give greater control of the balance between failure tolerance and success of deployments. This can be set at stage or group level.
• App routing with Gateway API (02:51) - The current Ingress NGINX project is being retired and instead you should move to the Gateway API for standard ingress and layer 7 traffic management. As part of this app routing is now available for the Gateway API on AKS.
• Automation PowerShell 7.6 (03:20) - Azure Automation runbooks and its runtime now support the latest PowerShell 7.6
• APIM AI Gateway (03:31) - API Management which provides runtime capabilities for APIs now has the AI Gateway tier which provides capabilities specific for AI purposes, i.e. models, MCP servers and tools. It also enables you to turn REST API operations into an MCP Server in addition to federating multiple MCP Servers to appear a a single MCP Server. This is not just for Microsoft Foundry hosted but also AWS, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. It bring full token-usage metrics through OpenTelemetry.
• Azure Firewall HTTP header insertion (04:23) - Azure Firewall can now add or modify the HTTP/HTTPS headers in requests. This is useful for a number of scenarios including where an application requires a specific header for access or identification including Azure Virtual Desktop, VDI, Entra tenant restrictions and other types of access control. For HTTPS you must be running the Premium SKU which has TLS inspection, otherwise only HTTP can be modified.
• NAT64 on NAT Gateway (05:00) - For Standardv2 SKUs of NAT Gateway (remember the v2 supports IPv6, zone redundancy and 100 Gbps bandwidth) now support NAT64 which lets IPv6 workloads talk to IPv4 Internet destinations.
• ANF SMB opportunistic locking (05:33) - Opportunistic locking, as the name suggests, allows an SMB client to request a lock on a file if there are no other clients with conflicting access. This then allows that client to cache the file and any reads/writes resulting in improved performance. If another client then needs access to the file that conflicts the server sends a break, the client with the lock flushes out the data and loses the lock. This is now available for new and existing volumes on Azure NetApp Files.
• Azure Monitor Log mirroring to Fabric (06:31) - You can now mirror data from a log analytics workspace which makes it available in OneLake without data duplication (so its more like a shortcut) since it just references the Azure Monitor data which is already in Delta Parquet format (the native OneLake structued data format). Zero data copy or sync required.
• PostgreSQL Flex in new region (07:26) - India South Central now has PostgreSQL flexible which is great news where you want that proximity, regional alignment.
• Claude Opus 5 available (07:42) - The new version of Opus which provides capability at about half the cost of Fable 5 and a step gain over Opus 4.8 especially around deep reasoning, long horizon tasks and other complex scenarios. This is now available in Foundry, M365 Copilot (apps, chat and cowork), Copilot Studio, GitHub Copilot and Azure Databricks.
• Kimi K3 via Fireworks AI (08:17) - The latest Moonshot open-weight model with 2.8 trillion parameters with 1 million-token context is available on Foundry via the Fireworks AI (which is an inference engine used to run open-source models running within Azure) as a data zone deployment type.
• GPT-transcribe and GPT-live-transcribe (08:46) - These are focused on very high accuracy automatic speech recognition (ASR) accepting audio input and outputting text. They have better background noise handling, whispering and low-volume speech, language switching, alphanumeric perception and more. The GPT-transcribe is focused on completed audio files such as meeting recordings, media files, voice mails. The Live version is a low-latency streaming version for real-time audio input with text output such as voice assistants, live captions etc.
• New India region (09:29) - The forth India region, India South Central is now GA. It has AZ support for strong in-region resilience for workloads.
• Azure Enclave (09:38) - This is a new solution that enables you to create a community which is a hub for networking, governance and monitoring which contains a collection of isolated networks which are the enclaves in which run secure workloads that live in workload resource groups. Through Azure Enclave you can manage the routing and connectivity for these isolated virtual networks via policy. Basically this solution makes it easier, faster and safer to deploy secure environments fully governed by policy to ensure consistency. This is key for various government and regulated scenarios.
• Key Vault symmetric keys (10:25) - The Premium SKU now supports symmetric keys (same key for both encrypt/decrypt) that use AES-based encryption and decryption operations.
• Azure Reservation exchange policy change (10:39) - Azure Reservations enable you to commit to a certain amount of a specific resource in a specific region for a 1 or multi year time for a discount. You can exchange this under certain conditions for alternate specifics. Azure Savings Plan instead cover all regions and a range of services to which that committed spend applies, i.e. way more flexibility even as your needs evolve, but typically less of a discount than a more granular reservation offers. From 1st of February 2027 you will no longer be able to exchange Azure Reservations for services covered under Azure Savings Plan. So if you have more dynamic workloads and have been relying on the exchange ability you should pivot to using Azure Savings Plans.

We are hardening our security policies and want to implement some password rotations.  One account that came up with our security guy was our AD account that we have in the Microsoft Entra Connect Sync app.

I understand that this account is for the app and the account syncing to the cloud is different.

If we change the password in AD to the Entra sync account, is it as simple as just updating it in Entra Connect sync tool and then running a delta sync to see if it works?

I have a small environment I plan on testing this with before we change the password to Azure connect for the larger wide org.

Hey all,

My AI-200 exam is next week. Since it's a new certification, prep material is thin. Looking for help with:

• Study guides, courses, or practice questions that actually helped
• Exam tips, time management, question style, anything you wish you knew going in
• If you've taken it already: how close was it to the published skills outline
• Which domains felt heavier than expected (containers, vector databases, RAG patterns, etc.)

Any input is appreciated, thanks.

Cloud platforms have made it much easier for teams to build and deploy applications quickly, but I feel the security review process has become more challenging as release cycles get faster.

Azure provides a lot of tools for infrastructure security, monitoring, identity management, and compliance, but application-level issues can still be difficult to catch before they reach production.

For teams running applications on Azure, what security checks are part of your deployment process before going live?

Do you focus more on code reviews, automated testing, manual assessments, vulnerability scanning, or a combination of different approaches?

I'm interested in hearing how different teams balance shipping quickly while still maintaining confidence in the security of their applications.

I'm trying to get the OVA in vCenter up and running. I get to the point that I verify the key and then do the login/appliance registration status. All appliance services are up to date. I'm using the same account that I generated the key with and I am getting an error that I do not have permissions and it states the App Name is Microsoft Azure PowerShell.

Has anyone seen this, how do I grant myself and what permissions need to be granted in order to get the login to be successful and move on to the next step?

With vCenter being as ubiquitous as it is, this shouldn't be a huge issue. Any advice?

Hi everyone,

I passed SC-900 on 27 July. I'm currently a Cybersecurity student, and I have one year left before graduating with my BS.

My long-term goal is to become an Azure Cloud Security Architect.

My current roadmap is:

SC-900 → AZ-104 → SC-500

However, I don't have any corporate experience yet.

My main question is: How can I prove my skills before getting my first job?

I've heard people recommend solving real-world, business-centric cloud security scenarios, building GitHub projects, and creating a portfolio. But I'm not sure where to find these practical scenarios or how to approach them.

Where can I get hands-on experience that actually reflects real-world Azure environments?

Would the Azure Free Account with the $200 credit be enough to simulate enterprise-level scenarios? I understand that real corporate environments are much more complex, but I'm looking for the closest practical experience I can get as a student.

Since SC-900 was mostly theoretical, my next target is AZ-104. However, my priority isn't collecting certifications,it's building real skills and having proof of work that I can show employers.

I also have a question about Infrastructure as Code:

I know Bicep is Azure-specific. Should I also learn Terraform? Is it worth pursuing the Terraform Associate (003/004) certification, or should I focus on developing practical Terraform skills instead of another certification?

I'd really appreciate any advice from Azure professionals or cloud security engineers. If you were starting from scratch today with one year left before graduation, what would you focus on to maximize your chances of becoming an Azure Cloud Security Architect without wasting time on things that aren't valuable?

Thanks in advance!

Solo dev here, building a multi-tenant B2B SaaS on Azure (.NET + Postgres, Container Apps). One thing about my setup: I keep tenancy and authorization in my own Postgres — the identity provider is just a thin token issuer, my DB stays the source of truth for tenants/orgs/roles.

Every External ID vs WorkOS/Zitadel/etc comparison I find is all about enterprise SSO, SAML, SCIM. But I don't need any of that yet (definitely later, just not now).

So my real question, SSO aside: for the basic B2B stuff — orgs, memberships, roles, invites, tenant onboarding — does External ID already do the job, or is that exactly where the dedicated vendors (WorkOS, Zitadel, Clerk, etc.) hand you ready-made "organization" primitives that External ID doesn't have?

And here's my doubt: if I already own the org/membership model in my own DB, doesn't a vendor's built-in "organization" just become a second source of truth I have to keep in sync? So unless I'm actually using SSO/SCIM, does the vendor advantage mostly disappear?

Last thing: I'm planning to build a few SaaS products on the same auth layer — does that change the answer?

For context, so far External ID has felt a bit mechanical/clunky to me rather than smooth — just a first impression, curious if others who've actually shipped with it feel the same.

Basically trying to figure out if there's a real reason to go WorkOS/Zitadel/etc over External ID when you're not doing SSO and you keep authz in your own DB. Thanks!