The Azure portal
An online
management portal provides the easiest way to manage the resources you deploy
into Azure. You can use this to create virtual networks, set up Web Apps,
create VMs, define storage accounts, and so on, as listed in the previous
section.
As noted
earlier in this chapter, there are currently two versions of the portal. The
production portal is the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com. Most
features have been moved to the Azure portal, with some exceptions such as
Azure AD. The previous portal is called the classic Azure portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com),
and it can still be used to manage Azure AD and to configure and scale classic
resources such as Cloud Services.
In most
cases, you will be using the Azure portal, so that’s what we’re going to focus
on in this book. All of the resources that use the Resource Manager deployment
model can only be accessed in the Azure portal.
Let’s take
a look at the Azure portal and how you navigate through it.
Dashboard
and hub
The Azure
portal is located at https://portal.azure.com. When you open this the first
time, it will look similar to Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1
Azure portal.
This is called your Dashboard. The column on the left
is called a hub; it shows you a core set of options such as Resource Groups,
All Resources, and Recent. The other items on this hub are resources you have
selected and/or used before.
For
example, I have recently created some App Services and VMs. You can click any
of these, and it will show the resources you have for that type. For example,
if you click SQL Databases, it will show a list of your SQL Databases.
You can
customize the list of resources that show up in that left hub. If you click
Browse, you will see a selection screen showing all of the options, and you can
select which ones you want to appear, as displayed in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-2
Configure default hub in the Azure portal.
The area
on the right with the tiles is called your Dashboard. You can customize this by
adding tiles, removing tiles, resizing tiles, and so on by selecting Edit
Dashboard, as shown in Figure 1-3.
Figure 1-3
How to edit the Dashboard in the Azure portal.
As you
create resources, you can choose to pin them to the Dashboard, and it will add
them to this section.
There are
a couple of default tiles on the Dashboard that are of interest.
All Resources Clicking this will bring up a list of all of your
resources.
Service Health This shows the health of the regions around the world. If
you click this, it will show a list of the regions, and you can select one to
get more detailed information.
Marketplace This will take you directly to the Marketplace blade where
you can search for and add resources.
Subscriptions
This shows the subscriptions that can be managed by the account you are
using. You can select a subscription and see the billing information for the
current month. If you have a starting credit, this will
show
the amount of credit left. Accounts having starting credit include MSDN
accounts and BizSpark accounts.
Help
+ Support This takes you to the blade where you can submit a new support
request and manage the requests you have already put in. It also provides links
to the MSDN forums and StackOverflow where you can post questions.
Now, let’s
look at the icons in the upper-right corner of the Azure portal, as shown in
Figure 1-4.
Figure 1-4
Notifications, settings, etc. in the Azure portal.
From left
to right, here’s what these icons mean:
Clicking the bell shows notifications from this session. For example, if you
create a new VM, when it’s finished, it will put a notification here.
Clicking the pencil puts the Dashboard into edit mode, just like clicking Edit
Dashboard above.
Clicking
the gear icon brings up the Settings screen for the portal, where you can do
things
like enable or disable toast notifications, set the default language, and so
on.
Clicking the smiley face will show a dialog you can use to send feedback to the
portal team.
Clicking the question mark will show a drop-down menu allowing you to create a
new support request, view your current support requests, and so on.
The last
field shows the account you have used to log into the portal. If you administer
more than one subscription, this will show the list of Azure ADs to which the
user belongs. You can click this to sign out, change your password, or submit
an idea.