This in-depth hands-on course introduces technology staff to the wide range of core features offered by the Microsoft Azure cloud. The course is organized into three main topic areas, IaaS, Application Services and Big Data features. Day one introduces the foundational infrastructure services offered by Azure. Through lecture, discussion and hands on labs, attendees will learn how to work with cloud compute instances, block storage devices and virtual networks. The course covers a range of use cases and highlights the advantages and drawbacks associated with running cloud based workloads. Object storage and other ancillary IaaS services are also examined at various levels of detail.