Azure Portal is a web-based application that allows you to manage your Azure resources. It provides a unified interface to create, configure, and monitor resources like virtual machines, databases, and more. As a Systems Engineer specializing in Windows, understanding how to effectively use Azure Portal can significantly enhance your ability to manage and deploy Windows-based applications and services in the cloud.

Examples:

1. Accessing Azure Portal:

   • Open your preferred web browser on your Windows machine.
   • Navigate to Azure Portal.
   • Log in using your Azure account credentials.

2. Creating a Virtual Machine:

   • Once logged in, click on "Create a resource" in the left-hand menu.
   • Select "Compute" and then "Windows Server 2019 Datacenter".
   • Fill in the required details such as subscription, resource group, and VM name.
   • Choose a region and size for your VM.
   • Configure the administrator account by providing a username and password.
   • Review the settings and click "Create" to deploy the virtual machine.

3. Managing Resources via Azure Portal:

   • Use the "All resources" option in the left-hand menu to view all your Azure resources.
   • Click on any resource to view its details, monitor performance, and make configuration changes.
   • For instance, to change the size of a virtual machine, navigate to the VM's page, click on "Size" under "Settings", and select a new size.

4. Using Azure Cloud Shell:

   • Azure Portal includes an integrated terminal called Azure Cloud Shell.
   • Click on the Cloud Shell icon (>) located at the top of the portal.
   • Choose either Bash or PowerShell to execute commands directly in the portal.
   • For example, to list all resource groups, you can use the command:

     Get-AzResourceGroup

5. Automating Tasks with Azure PowerShell:

   • Install Azure PowerShell on your Windows machine if you haven't already.
   • Open PowerShell and connect to your Azure account using:

     Connect-AzAccount

   • You can automate tasks like creating a virtual network with:

     New-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName "MyResourceGroup" -Location "EastUS" -Name "MyVNet" -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16"