Top 10 Azure cloud courses to check out in 2023

A Cloud Guru has a ton of awesome Azure courses, so many that it can be hard to know where to start! That's why we've gone back over our most popular courses of last year and created a list, so you can check them out as well. Scroll down to check out the courses our learners loved most when it came to all things Microsoft.

(If you're interested in checking out what our most popular courses were last year overall, check out our article: Top 10 ACG Cloud Courses of 2022).

Certification courses are always popular, so naturally an Azure certification course topped our list. In early 2019, Microsoft developed the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification as an entry point for all students keen to begin navigating their way around the Azure cloud platform. A Cloud Guru partnered with Microsoft to create this course for our learners, and it has been immensely popular.

This course is taught by Azure superstar Lars Klint, and if you've had the pleasure of taking one of his courses, you'll know that it's anything but dry! Expect him to use everything from space rockets to coffee machines to explain basic concepts, making everything about Azure accessible for any audience. By the end, you'll have a firm grasp of the different kinds of Azure tools and solutions available, as well as a smile on your face.

Check out this course: AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

Our second most popular course covers a more advanced certification aimed at anyone aspiring to become (or currently working as) an Azure Administrator. A typical Azure admin implements, manages, and monitors identity, governance, storage, compute, and virtual networks in a cloud environment. This course gives you all the knowledge you need to do that, and trains you in the subject areas you need to memorize to pass the exam.

This eight-hour course is handled by the tag team of Chase Dovey and Robert Burnett, and boasts 23 hands-on labs you can use to get practical experience on top of the video lessons.

Check out this course: AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Prep

Want a crash course in Azure that you can fit into two hours? This course by Matthew Ulasein offers a sift starting point for learning the fundamentals of not just Microsoft Azure, but cloud computing in general. If you're an absolute beginner, this is a perfect "start here" location for kicking off your career in cloud and Azure.

By the end of this course, you should know the fundamental concepts of cloud computing, have an overview of Azure's organizational hierarchy and global infrastructure, the core services Azure offers and the business solutions these solve.

Check out this course: Introduction to Azure

The second in our introductory crash courses to Azure, this one was also very popular, and is a bit shorter than Introduction to Azure. It's also completely free, and there's nothing better than that, right? This course focuses more on the concepts around Microsoft Azure than Introduction to Azure, going over the core components of the Azure flavor of cloud, and how companies are using Azure today. And again, because it's worth repeating, it's completely free!

Check out this course: Azure Concepts

Cybersecurity is one of the top five tech careers of 2023. In January 2023, there were 750,000 cybersecurity-rated job postings open across the U.S., with only enough professionals to fill 68% of those roles. It's also one of the largest skill gaps tech professionals report having, according to Pluralsight's State of Upskilling 2022 report. So it's no surprise that this Azure cybersecurity certification is among the most popular courses on A Cloud Guru!

This course is ideal for people who are performing security tasks in their day-to-day job, or want to become Azure security specialists. It is designed to prepare you to sit for and pass your exam and to prove your skills in implementing secure solutions, services, identity, and operations within the Azure platform.

There are 17 hands-on labs, 16 course quizzes, and a practice exam for you to take, all on top of the robust 42 hours of lessons provided by veteran Azure technical trainer and solutions architect James Lee.

Check out this course: AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Technologies

DevOps ain't dead: it made the list of Pluralsight's top skills for 2023, and it's been one the most searched-for terms on Pluralsight and A Cloud Guru for the last three years. Gartner listed it as a "critical needs" skill in 2022, with a high number of open U.S. jobs calling for professionals with DevOps experience. The wages are also pretty great for anyone with DevOps or cloud certifications.

With all that in mind, learning more about Azure DevOps is a no brainer. In this course you will become familiar with Azure DevOps (formerly known as VSTS and before that, VSO) and explore the five services that make up Azure DevOps. Whether you are a developer or not, working alone or in a team, Azure DevOps can help you organize the way you plan, create and deliver software.

Check out this course: Introduction to Azure DevOps

Did you know the average cloud solutions architect makes $153,105 USD per year? Both solutions architecture and cloud are hot fields, and anyone with both these skill sets are in incredibly high demand. This practitioner-level course is designed to help you obtain the knowledge and skills required to sit the AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure exam. By the end, you'll have hands-on experience designing, building, testing, and maintaining cloud applications on Microsoft Azure.

This course generally assumes you've got one to two years experience working with Azure services such as containers, databases, and functions, so if you don't have this, it may be a bit of a challenge for the uninitiated.

Check out this course: AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure

We live in a data-rich world where the size, complexity, and uses of data are growing exponentially every day. The modern data engineer must build solutions to move, transform, and consolidate both structured and unstructured data from a variety of sources. Azure provides all the necessary services to accomplish these tasks and build a robust data analytics solution. By getting the title of Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate, you can communicate to the world that you're able to build these solutions.

This popular course teaches you exactly what you need to know to pass the exam, have a strong foundation in data engineering is and how Azure meets the needs of this role, as well as performing practical tasks such as data storage, data ingestion and transformation, building batch and stream processing, and more.

Check out this course: Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-203)

This course by James Lee covers everything you need to know to sit (and pass!) the AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam. This robust 35-hour course offers 13 hands-on labs, 14 course quizzes, and 3 practice exams so you are as prepared as you possibly can be to get your certification. It also covers how you can apply the knowledge you gain when architecting Azure solutions in the real world.

Check out this course: AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions

If you're ready to become a true cloud guru, this popular course may be for you. Going through this course, you will gain hands-on experience designing and implementing DevOps processes and practices, but the lion's share of the content is prepping you to meet the AZ-400 exam objectives. Matthew Ulasein, Alex Potasnick, and Mark Mikula form an unstoppable force to teach you everything you need to know, with plenty of hands-on labs, course quizzes, and practice exams to make sure the certificate is as good as yours the moment you sit the exam.

Check out this course: AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions