What is the Azure portal?

The Azure portal is a web-based, unified console that provides an alternative to command-line tools. With the Azure portal, you can manage your Azure subscription using a graphical user interface. You can build, manage, and monitor everything from simple web apps to complex cloud deployments in the portal.

The Azure portal is designed for resiliency and continuous availability. It has a presence in every Azure datacenter. This configuration makes the Azure portal resilient to individual datacenter failures and avoids network slow-downs by being close to users. The Azure portal updates continuously and requires no downtime for maintenance activities.

Portal menu

The portal menu lets you quickly get to key functionality and resource types. You can choose a default mode for the portal menu: flyout or docked.

When the portal menu is in flyout mode, it's hidden until you need it. Select the menu icon to open or close the menu.

If you choose docked mode for the portal menu, it will always be visible. You can collapse the menu to provide more working space.

You can customize the favorites list that appears in the portal menu.

Azure Home

As a new subscriber to Azure services, the first thing you see after you sign in to the portal is Azure Home. This page compiles resources that help you get the most from your Azure subscription. We include links to free online courses, documentation, core services, and useful sites for staying current and managing change for your organization. For quick and easy access to work in progress, we also show a list of your most recently visited resources.

You can't customize the Home page, but you can choose whether to see Home or Dashboard as your default view. The first time you sign in, there's a prompt at the top of the page where you can save your preference. You can change your startup page selection at any time in Portal settings.

Dashboards

Dashboards provide a focused view of the resources in your subscription that matter most to you. We've given you a default dashboard to get you started. You can customize this dashboard to bring the resources you use frequently into a single view. Any changes you make to the default view affect your experience only. However, you can create additional dashboards for your own use, or publish your customized dashboards and share them with other users in your organization. For more information, see Create and share dashboards in the Azure portal.

As noted above, you can set your startup page to Dashboard if you want to see your most recently used dashboard when you sign in to the Azure portal.

Getting around the portal

It's helpful to understand the basic portal layout and how to interact with it. Here, we'll introduce the components of the user interface and some of the terminology we use to give instructions.

The Azure portal menu and page header are global elements that are always present. These persistent features are the "shell" for the user interface associated with each individual service or feature. The header provides access to global controls. The configuration page (sometimes referred to as a "blade") for a resource may also have a resource menu to help you move between features.

The figure below labels the basic elements of the Azure portal, each of which are described in the following table. In this example, the current focus is a virtual machine, but the same elements apply no matter what type of resource or service you're working with.

Key	Description
1	Page header. Appears at the top of every portal page and holds global elements.
2	Global search. Use the search bar to quickly find a specific resource, a service, or documentation.
3	Global controls. Like all global elements, these features persist across the portal and include: Cloud Shell, subscription filter, notifications, portal settings, help and support, and send us feedback.
4	Your account. View information about your account, switch directories, sign out, or sign in with a different account.
5	Azure portal menu. This global element can help you to navigate between services. Sometimes referred to as the sidebar. (Items 10 and 11 in this list appear in this menu.)
6	Resource menu. Many services include a resource menu to help you manage the service. You may see this element referred to as the left pane. Here, you'll see commands that are contextual to your current focus.
7	Command bar. These controls are contextual to your current focus.
8	Working pane. Displays details about the resource that is currently in focus.
9	Breadcrumb. You can use the breadcrumb links to move back a level in your workflow.
10	Master control to create a new resource in the current subscription. Expand or open the Azure portal menu to find + Create a resource. You can also find this option on the Home page. Then, search or browse the Azure Marketplace for the resource type you want to create.
11	Your favorites list in the Azure portal menu. To learn how to customize this list, see Add, remove, and sort favorites.

Get started with services

If you're a new subscriber, you'll have to create a resource before there's anything to manage. Select + Create a resource to view the services available in the Azure Marketplace. You'll find hundreds of applications and services from many providers here, all certified to run on Azure.

We pre-populate your Favorites in the sidebar with links to commonly used services. To view all available services, select All services from the sidebar.

Tip

The quickest way to find a resource, service, or documentation is to use Search in the global header.

Watch this video for a demo on how to use global search in the Azure portal.

How to use global search in the Azure portal

Next steps

• Onboard and set up your cloud environment with the Azure Quickstart Center.
• Take the Manage services with the Azure portal training module.
• See which browsers and devices are supported by the Azure portal.
• Stay connected on the go with the Azure mobile app.