Build technical skills

Organizational and environmental (technical) readiness can require new skills for technical and nontechnical contributors. The following information can help your organization build the necessary skills.

Organizational readiness learning paths

Depending on the motivations and business outcomes that are associated with a cloud-adoption effort, leaders may need to establish new organizational structures or virtual teams to facilitate various functions. The following articles can help your organization develop the necessary skills to structure those teams to meet the desired outcomes:

• Align your organization: Discover approaches to establishing the proper organizational structures.
• Organization alignment exercises: Get an overview of alignment and team structures to help meet specific goals.
• Establish teams: Learn how to establish teams within your organization that are responsible for delivering cloud functionality.
• Break down silos and fiefdoms: Learn about two common organizational antipatterns and ways to guide the teams to productive collaboration.

Environmental (technical) readiness learning paths

During the readiness phase, technical staff have to create a migration landing zone to host, operate, and govern workloads that they migrate to the cloud. Use the following paths to accelerate development of the necessary skills:

• Create an Azure account: The first step to using Azure is to create an account. Your account holds the Azure services that you provision and handles your personal settings, like identity, billing, and preferences.
• Azure portal: Tour the Azure portal features and services, and customize the portal.
• Introduction to Azure: Get started with Azure. Create and configure your first virtual machine in the cloud.
• Introduction to security in Azure: Learn the basic concepts to protect your infrastructure and data in the cloud. Understand what responsibilities are yours and what Azure handles.
• Manage resources in Azure: Learn how to work through the Azure CLI and web portal to create, manage, and control cloud-based resources.
• Create a VM: Use the Azure portal to create a virtual machine.
• Azure network services: Learn Azure networking basics and how to improve resiliency and reduce latency.
• Azure compute options: Review the Azure compute services.
• Secure resources with Azure RBAC: Use Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) to secure resources.
• Azure Storage options: Learn about the benefits of Azure data storage.

During the readiness phase, architects have to design solutions that span all Azure environments. The following resources can prepare them for these tasks:

• Foundations for Cloud Architecture: A Pluralsight course to help architect the right foundational solutions.
• Microsoft Azure Architecture: A Pluralsight course to ground architects in Azure architecture.
• Designing Migrations for Microsoft Azure: A Pluralsight course to help architects design a migration solution.

Deeper skills exploration

The following information describes resources for additional learning.

Typical mappings of cloud IT roles

Microsoft and partners offer various options for all audiences to develop skills with Azure services.

• Map roles and skills: A resource for mapping your cloud career path. Learn about your cloud role and suggested skills. Follow a learning curriculum at your own pace to build the skills that you need most to stay relevant.

• Explore Azure certification training and exams to gain official recognition for your Azure knowledge.

Microsoft Learn

Microsoft Learn is a new approach to learning. Readiness for the new responsibilities that come with cloud adoption doesn't come easily. Microsoft Learn provides a rewarding approach to hands-on learning that helps you achieve your goals faster. Earn points, reach new levels, and achieve more.

The following are a few examples of role-specific learning paths:

• Business users might experience a steep learning curve when they help plan, test, and adopt cloud-based technology. Learn modules focus on adopting cloud models and tools for better managing business through cloud-based services.

• Solution architects can access hundreds of modules and learning paths. The available topics range from core infrastructure services to advanced data transformation.

• Administrators have access to modules that focus on Azure fundamentals, configuring containers, and even advanced administration in the cloud.

• Developers can use Microsoft Learn training resources to help during architecture, governance, modernization activities.

Learn more

For additional learning paths, browse the Microsoft Learn training catalog. Use the roles filter to align learning paths with your role.