>> With Microsoft Learn,
you learn by doing with
interactive step-by-step tutorials creating
real resources in Azure.
Even better, it's free and no credit card is required.
Dan is here to show us how,
today on Azure Friday.
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>> Hey everyone, Donovan Brown here
with another episode of Azure Friday.
I'm here with Dan and we're going to learn
all about Microsoft Learn.
So, tell me what is this Microsoft Learn.
>> So, Microsoft Learn is
a free way for you to learn Azure PowerApps,
Power BI, Dynamics, and other Microsoft products and services.
>> Okay. So, it's a series of tutorials.
Is it testing? How do I learn?
>> All of the above.
>> Okay.
>> So, one of the key things we want to do is provide
a guided path for people who are say, new to Azure.
What are the things they need to do to understand
the fundamentals, what is Azure,
and walk through and interactively build and create,
and manage Azure resources all for free.
>> All right. So, I think that's the part that makes it
different than just reading a tutorial.
I'm not responsible for creating
an Azure account and then following
the steps in my own Azure account.
I can actually build these resources actual,
fire up a VM or an app service,
but I'm not being charged for it because
it's part of learning this particular thing.
>> Yes. So, we give you fixed time resources.
So, you know you're learning Cosmos DB.
How do I create a Cosmos DB or an Azure App Service,
and so on, and then we walk you through step by step.
You're doing everything in the browser including writing code,
writing commands for PowerShell or Azure CLI,
or directly in the Azure Portal,
and you can even use your local developer tools.
So, we unlock that free account and you get access for fixed time.
Let's say two hours where I can complete
that Cosmos DB tutorial using that free account.
>> Okay. So, there's a lot of cool features inside of
Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code where I can actually
connect to my Azure subscription and do things.
So, you're saying even with
this account that I get as part of the Docs,
I can do those same tutorials and finish it.
>> Exactly. Learn your way.
>> Got you. Awesome. So, can you show me how it works?
>> Yes. So, first thing here,
we are at the Microsoft Learn homepage.
So, this gives you a number of things for
learning paths, hands-on learning,
and just gives you a product and
overview and you can see some of the content that we have
here for learning Azure and some of
the different tutorials including our partners like Pluralsight,
LinkedIn Learning and some of the Azure certifications.
What I wanted to do though is first show you
how you can see all of the content that we have.
In fact, we have over 80 hours of learning content
available in 17 languages for Azure
and 23 for Dynamics and Power BI.
>> Got you. But now, we started on that first page,
but this is nestled inside of Docs, right?
>> Yes, this is all part of Docs.
So, using the same engine,
all the wonderful tools that we know and love for GitHub as well.
>> So, if I go to docs.com,
I will be able to find my way into Learn.
>> Exactly.
>> Okay. Got it. Okay, just wanted to make sure.
>> So, the first thing that we see here is,
let's just do a search for
say Azure and what we'll see is the results and
we see 73 results for
Azure and you see something called a learning path.
If you're new to Azure,
we'll click on "Azure Fundamentals",
we see we have a set of tags and gamification as well.
>> Cool.
>> Terms and you see that I've done this before.
So, this goes into Intro to Azure.
What are the things that I'm going to do.
We're explains what is Azure.
How do you scale something up?
How do you create a virtual machine?
Or principles of cloud computing.
What is cloud computing?
What are the different models and cloud services and really,
this is a guided path for
hours that takes you through
your first set of experience using compute,
using storage, using networking and using an adding security.
>> Yeah. It's interesting that you've gamified this because,
sometimes I won't do things,
but now that I can be better at it than you can do it like
a nutshell proof, that makes it more fun.
So, I'm going to learn stuff about Azure app I had no interest in,
just so that I have more points than
someone else doing it so, very cool.
>> Yes. Absolutely. So, I'm going to go
ahead and click back and show just another quick search here.
Let's search for, and instead of actually doing a search,
let's show some of the different ways that you can
filter where you just want to see things for developer.
Right, or you want to see beginner
intermediate content or by product.
So, in this case, let's search for a specific product and say
container instances and I see that three things
are in container instances and what
I'll do is take you to this module.
So, in about 15 minutes,
we're going to go from having nothing,
no nothing about Azure container instances
to having something running directly in the cloud.
>> Got you.
>> So, this is the module,
explains the different areas that we
have because I've completed it even shows the time remaining.
So, we really want to be thoughtful
of how much time you're spending.
So, you can see like hey this step takes seven minutes,
this one takes 15.
So, you can plan your lunches better.
>> Sure.
>> Exactly. So, I'm going to go specifically into let's do
the introduction to Azure Container Instances
and we'll start looking at the actual content.
So, we're within the content,
this one takes two minutes and you see the learning objectives,
and let's just get started.
So, what you see here
is the Azure cloud shell and it's activating,
what's called a sandbox.
>> Okay.
>> So, I have logged in before,
I am logged in to my account.
We use organizational ID or Microsoft accounts.
>> Okay.
>> So, what this is doing is,
it's now given me access to basically my sandbox.
So, instead of you know you using
your account where your production environments are working,
accidentally deleting the VMs,
this sandbox you know,
it goes away after a couple hours.
So, that when you're make sure you don't break the wrong thing.
>> Got you.
>> So, it's safe. You can't-
>> It also sounds like, if
it's going to go away in a couple of hours,
I probably want to sit down and try to complete
one of these entire learning path before
that subscription gets recycled like I
wouldn't potentially be able to come
back a week from now and finish this right.
>> Yeah. Well, it depends on the step right.
So, long as you kind of finish the sets,
you can jump back in it.
In some cases, we're looking to make that a little easier.
So, you can actually say clone and start from a certain step.
>> Got you.
>> But yeah just in general,
it really depends on what thing is.
If it's something that builds on the others,
yeah you should probably do it in one sitting.
But we tried to design it as atomically as possible.
>> Oh very cool.
>> Okay. So, we're within here and this gives me
information even why I'd want to use Azure container instances,
what it is and what regions I can create it,
and I'm going to do a couple of things.
I'm just going to start.
This is alive Azure Cloud Shell which lets us
run commands and I'm just going to copy paste here,
and what it's going to do is create a DNS label name for me,
and I'm going to click copy and
this is actually going to create a container for me,
and let's do West US two,
and you saw the list of regions that were available before.
I'll click "Enter", and what this is
actually going to do is remember,
we're creating real live services directly in Azure.
So, as we go kind of step-by-step.
This is the resource group that we're running against.
We see the values and what we're going
to do is once this is done running,
we're going to use the Azure container show to
show the finished container that we just created.
>> All right.
So, we'll get an IP address that we can actually use to
hit this actual ACI image.
So right now, it looks like it's going to be running
a Hello World Image inside of this ACI instance, correct?
>> Yeah. So, just a couple of things that
the Docs walk through like what is the name of it,
what is the image, and we see that it's
actually returned within here.
So, the DNS label and what port to hit.
>> Yeah.
>> Let's try and just copy this,
and because we're doing output to a table,
we'll see a nice preview of that and that's what we did.
We did the provisioning state that fully qualified domain name and
now what I'm going to do is copy paste,
this is the hardest part of the demo.
I'm going to click here, open a new tab,
and click run, and there we see it live directly there.
So, within just a few minutes,
I was able to use free Azure resources,
and be able to build Azure Container Instances,
run, make sure that it actually works,
but wait there's more.
So, one of the things we wanted to do is do that gamification.
So, at the very end of this is the check your work button.
So, what this is going to do is a lot of times for learning,
we had these things called knowledge check which
are multiple choice quizzes.
If you will, but it's really
focused not so much on getting it right or
wrong where you're worried about
googling the answer, but about learning.
So, if you do get it wrong, we'll show you like, "Hey,
here's the reasons it was this option versus this option",
you're not like going to be penalized
where you're worried about getting it wrong.
It really is about learning and retaining the information
which is why we call it knowledge check instead of quiz.
So, let's click "Check your work".
This is going to walk up to my account.
Make sure that I actually had the right property.
So, using Azure Resource Manager,
did they create the container instance correctly?
Did they use the right image?
Is it actually the successful deployment.
If it is think of it as like unit tests.
Yes, then you get the online cheese.
>> So, I can't just go down to the bottom on
this page and click that button if I hadn't run through the steps.
>> Yes absolutely, and with
a number of these specific achievements,
the only way to unlock it
is that we know you've done that deployment.
>> Oh very cool.
>> Yes absolutely. So, let's talk about that just a little.
If we go to our profile page and maybe I'll
just jump to here since we have it loaded already,
we see my profile, I'm level six.
So, you have a little bit of catching up to do.
Badges earned and all the different badges
that you have within your content and of course,
you can share this on Facebook.
So, and this is really our unified user profile
where we're looking to add more information about how you use
kind of our forums or our documentation
or our learning experiences and you can share on just
say Facebook to Twitter or LinkedIn or via email.
>> Got you. So, is there like a leader board
coming yet because that would be a cool feature.
I need to know how much I got it beat you
by and yet able to humiliate you with it,
so how does that come in.
>> Yes. So, one of the things that we assume,
we just unveiled this last month in
September where folks were asking for
organizational leader boards or how do we do
leader boards in the right way where you
can maybe invite your team.
>> Sure.
>> And then it's like your study group right?
>> Right.
>> So, one of the biggest motivations is seeing that notification,
"Hey, Donovan completed that training", you haven't,
and that way, sometimes with leader boards you may
not care about everybody doing it,
but you really really care if it's
your team and your organization.
So, those are things we're definitely looking
at for the future and we'd love your feedback as well.
>> Yeah. I think leader boards are crucially important.
I remember when a friend of mine got a Fitbit as like,
oh what that's that's stupid and then
he showed me a leader board like,
I can beat you at being fat.
I run out, and I bought a Fitbit immediately,
just that I could be higher than him on the leader board.
So, tapping into that competitive drive
of a lot of us I think is going to be awesome.
>> Absolutely.
>> So, this is really really cool stuff.
>> So, again all the contents available for free,
17 languages global, 80 hours of content,
play with it, let us know and let us know what you think.
>> Absolutely. No credit card to get started with,
but you're actually working on real stuff.
>> No credit card required.
>> Awesome. We're learning all about
Microsoft Learn here on Azure Friday.
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