It's important to understand the structure and terms that are specific to Azure resources. The following image shows an example of the four levels of scope that are provided by Azure:
Cloud computing is not only about creating virtual machines and deploying applications. Before working with Azure resources, it is important to understand how Azure organizes resources and how identities are managed.
As part of my Azure learning journey, I completed a hands-on lab covering:
- Azure Subscription
- Resource Groups
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Microsoft Entra users
- Azure hierarchy
- User sign-in and access
This practical exercise helped me understand how identity and resource management work together in Microsoft Azure.
What is Azure Hierarchy?
Azure uses a hierarchical structure to organize and manage cloud resources.
A simplified view is:
Management Group → Subscription → Resource Group → Resource
At the top level, management groups can be used to organize multiple Azure subscriptions.
A subscription provides a boundary for billing and resource management.
A Resource Group is a logical container for related Azure resources.
Resources are the actual services deployed in Azure, such as:
- Virtual Machines
- Storage Accounts
- Virtual Networks
- Databases
- App Services
Understanding this hierarchy is important because permissions, policies and management operations can be applied at different levels.
What is a Microsoft Entra ID?
Microsoft Entra ID is Microsoft's cloud-based identity and access management service.
It allows organizations to manage identities such as:
- Users
- Groups
- Applications
- Devices
It also provides authentication and authorization capabilities.
In simple terms:
Microsoft Entra ID answers the question: "Who are you and what are you allowed to access?"
Azure resources then use permissions and roles to determine what an authenticated user can do.
My Practical Azure Lab
For this exercise, I performed four major tasks.
1. Azure Subscription
The first step was to create/access an Azure subscription.
The subscription provides the management and billing boundary for the Azure resources I create.
Azure Subscription
Figure 1: Azure Subscription
I learned that every Azure resource is associated with a subscription.
2. Creating a Resource Group
The next step was creating a Resource Group.
I created a Resource Group called:
rg-4cloud_test-environment
A Resource Group provides a logical container for related Azure resources.
For example, if I were building a web application, I could place the application's virtual machine, storage account and networking resources within the same Resource Group.
Resource Group
Figure 2: Resource Group created successfully
One important lesson I learned is that Resource Groups make it easier to organize and manage related resources.
3. Creating a Microsoft Entra ID User
The next stage was creating a new user in Microsoft Entra ID.
I navigated to:
Microsoft Entra ID → Users → New user
I created a test user for the lab.
Microsoft Entra Test User
Figure 3: Microsoft Entra ID user created
This demonstrated how Azure identities can be centrally managed using Microsoft Entra ID.
4. Testing the New User
After creating the user, I opened a private/incognito browser window.
I then navigated to the Azure Portal and attempted to sign in using the new Microsoft Entra account.
New User Sign-in
Figure 4: Signing in with the newly created Microsoft Entra user
This was an important part of the exercise because creating an identity is different from actually granting that identity access to Azure resources.
Azure uses role-based access control to determine what users can do with Azure resources.
Azure Hierarchy in Practice
The practical exercise helped me connect the concepts together.
The structure can be visualized as:
Microsoft Entra Tenant
|
Azure Subscription
|
Resource Group
|
Azure Resources
The Microsoft Entra tenant manages identities, while the Azure subscription provides the resource management boundary.
The Resource Group then organizes related Azure resources.
What I Learned
This exercise gave me a better understanding of several important Azure concepts.
1. Azure is structured
Azure resources are not simply created randomly. They are organized into management scopes.
2. Identity is important
Before users can securely access cloud resources, their identities need to be managed and authenticated.
3. Microsoft Entra ID manages identity
Microsoft Entra ID provides the identity layer for users, groups and applications.
4. Resource Groups improve organization
Resource Groups make it easier to manage related resources as a logical unit.
5. Authentication and authorization are different
Authentication verifies who the user is.
Authorization determines what the user is allowed to do.
This distinction is very important in cloud security.
Final Thoughts
This lab was a valuable step in my Microsoft Azure learning journey.
Before this exercise, concepts such as subscriptions, resource groups, tenants and Microsoft Entra ID could easily seem like separate topics.
The practical exercise helped me understand how they connect.
My simplified mental model is:
Microsoft Entra ID → Identity
Subscription → Resource management boundary
Resource Group → Resource organization
Resources → Actual Azure services
I am continuing to build my practical knowledge of Azure, cloud computing and DevOps by combining theory with hands-on labs.
The next step is to continue working with Azure resources, role-based access control, networking, virtual machines and eventually automation and DevOps pipelines.
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