With identity out of the way, this module gets to the part most people picture when they think of "the cloud": actually running code. Azure offers several distinct ways to do that, and picking the right one for a given workload matters more than most beginners expect.
It starts with an overview of Azure's compute options and the trade-offs between them — infrastructure you manage yourself versus a platform that manages it for you. From there it covers Azure Virtual Machines, the most flexible and hands-on option for running Windows or Linux workloads, and Azure App Service, a managed platform purpose-built for hosting web apps and APIs without touching the underlying servers. It closes with Azure Functions, the serverless, event-driven option for running small pieces of code without provisioning anything at all.
Container-based compute — Azure Kubernetes Service and friends — gets its own module later on. Watch these lessons in order, then continue on to Storage Services.
A Microsoft exam-prep episode that quickly tours the compute side of AZ-104: automating deployments with ARM templates and Bicep, creating and configuring VMs, containers in the portal, and Azure App Service.
Episode 20 of Microsoft's official AZ-104 series: the decisions you make before creating a VM, how sizing and images work, and the core concepts behind Azure's most flexible compute option.
Episode 22 of the official AZ-104 series covers Azure App Service plans: pricing tiers, scaling, and how a plan determines the compute resources behind your web apps and APIs.
A beginner-friendly tour of Azure Functions: the event-driven, pay-per-execution compute model, triggers and bindings, and when serverless beats a VM or an App Service plan.