A frontend, no domain name
HTML, CSS and JavaScript already built, no server to manage. A Storage Account is all it takes, and the HTTPS URL comes with it.
Allow 15 minutes and a few cents a month.
Deploy in my lab
Pick your scenario
Section titled “Pick your scenario”An application with its resources
A back end to run, a database to fill, dependencies to install. One VM, with the database on that same VM.
Allow an hour and a budget to keep an eye on.
The two combine well: a static frontend calling an API hosted on the VM is a classic setup, and both resources live side by side in the same Resource Group.
Prerequisites
Section titled “Prerequisites”A Resource Group created with its tags and a declared lab. If not, fifteen minutes will do: create my Azure lab.
Both scenarios use Azure vocabulary — Storage Account, VNet, NSG, managed service. One sentence per term in the short Azure glossary, worth keeping open in a tab if the terms are new to you.
Another scenario
Section titled “Another scenario”To try Kubernetes, don’t create anything: a shared cluster is already up, with its Ingress and its certificates. See the Kubernetes lab.
To try an AI model, don’t create anything either: a shared Azure AI Foundry resource is waiting, with its playground and model catalog. See the AI lab.
The other common case outside these two pages is a lab whose subject is an Azure managed service: AKS itself, a managed database, a gateway. That’s no longer getting started, it’s a cost trade-off to make before creating anything. Auto-shutdown only covers VMs; a managed service bills nights and weekends. Read Costs, then write to lab@qiminfo.ch saying what you want to test and for how long.
On Proxmox, there’s no equivalent tutorial: you build your VMs and containers in the Pool created by the lab administrators, within the quota. Network rules are in network and security.