Azure Tools

I recently attended a training course for AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure and as part of that worked through a number of exercises to create applications and services in the cloud. The labs are freely available on GitHub.

I thought that, because I had Visual Studio installed, I'd have everything I needed - but I ended up installing a load of extra tools:

• VS Code and the .NET SDK - if you don't have (or don't want to use) Visual Studio. The SDK allows you to create .NET projects from the command line
• The Azure CLI (Command Line Interface) - allows you to interact with Azure from the command line, rather than using the Portal
• Azure Functions Core Tools - allow you to create Functions from templates at the command line and to test then locally
• HttpRepl - a command line utility to test APIs
• Azure Storage Explorer - allows you to view and interact with different types of Azure storage. In one of the labs you use it to connect to Queue Storage to view and create messages

The lab materials also encourage you to use the Windows Terminal - but I was happy enough using PowerShell as normal.

Happy Coding!