Preface – This post is part of the Microsoft Azure Cloud Computing series.

Introduction

Microsoft Azure was previously also known as Windows Azure. Azure is Microsoft’s platform with solutions including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), and Software as a service (SaaS). It can be used to reinstate or insert your on-premise servers. Azure is an extension of Office 365 that Microsoft launched in February 2010. It is an extended and pliable cloud platform that helps in the development, data storage, service hosting, and service management. It provides various types of cloud services, including computing, analytics, storage, and networking. These services and resources include storing your data and transforming it, depending on your requirements. It is the best public cloud offering on the market. To use Azure’s cloud-based services, you first need to purchase a subscription. Let’s know about the Free tier account and its services offered by Microsoft Azure.

What is Microsoft Azure Free Account?

Azure is an exceptionally big and powerful cloud platform that you can use to build and run your applications. Azure Free tier is an account where you can get many services for free of cost by just signing in the account. With the free tier account, you will be able to experience many services and can wisely choose the package of services that is perfectly applicable to your project.

Top services

You can get 12 months of free use of the following major services:

• Linus Virtual Machines
• Windows Virtual Machine
• Managed Disks
• Blob Storage
• File Storage
• Microsoft SQL Server Database
• Azure Cosmos DB
• Bandwidth (Outbound Data Transfer)
• Cognitive Services
• Computer Vision
• Personalizer
• Translator text
• Anomaly Detector
• Form Recognizer
• Content Moderator
• Custom Vision
• Face
• Ink Recognizer
• Language Understanding
• QnA Maker
• Text Analytics

You will be charged if you use a service that is not on the list of free services or if you exceed the free service limits. This fee is subtracted from the $200 that you receive for free within the first 30 days after creating your account. Any service usage that exceeds the parameters of the free service will be charged to you once you’ve spent the $200 or your 30-day trial period has expired.

Steps to create your free account

1. Go to the Microsoft Azure official account.

2. Use a GitHub or Microsoft account to sign in by first creating them.

3. Do the steps of verifications by entering your mobile number and OTP.

4. Next, you need to fill in the details of a credit card. You would not be charged. You can only utilize the free $200 that you receive since the Azure subscription you create by default has a spending cap; until you manually remove this cap, you can use more than that.

5. Fill in your details and click Next.

6. Finally, agree with the agreement and Sign up.

7. Your free tier Azure account is now created.

Conclusion

The article will help you to understand the steps of creating a free tier account of Microsoft Azure in brief. Also, you will be getting knowledge of the free tier account and the top most beneficial services provided by Microsoft Azure so that one can pick them up wisely for their project or organization.