Command Line, Scripting, and Automation with Azure

Interactions with Azure will be for different purposes, and the different options have relative advantages and disadvantages, depending on the type of interaction you are performing. Consider the primary methods of interaction available to us for Azure:

The Azure Portal The Azure portal is very useful for quickly browsing the resources deployed and interacting with dashboards. However, the portal is very slow and prone to user error for provisioning.

The PowerShell and CLI These can expose anything the portal can but require more skill to ascertain the right command. However, they are invaluable for performing management actions, especially if you want to automate/script them—something that can’t be done with the portal.

JSON Templates These are used to provision resources and provide the best experience for provisioning, as they are idempotent, declarative, and easy to integrate with change control systems.

There are...