What you'll learn

Technical teams often struggle to choose the right hosting environment, resulting in high costs or unnecessary management tasks. In this course, Strategic Foundations for Azure Compute Services, you’ll gain the ability to evaluate various Azure compute offerings to make informed architectural decisions. First, you’ll explore the fundamental differences between Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and serverless models, specifically comparing services like Azure VMs, App Service, and Azure Functions. Next, you’ll discover how to analyze the technical trade-offs regarding scalability, management overhead, and cost structures. Finally, you’ll learn how to apply a strategic decision framework to select the appropriate service for production scenarios, ranging from simple web apps to complex containerized microservices using AKS and Azure Container Apps. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge of Azure compute selection strategies needed to build scalable, cost-effective cloud environments while reducing manual operational burdens.