To get the most out of this book

To enjoy the book and practice our hands-on exercises, you will of course need an Azure subscription, and for the bravest readers (those who are implementing our use cases), you'll also need Docker, Visual Studio 2019, and/or Visual Studio Code. All our code samples are built in .NET Core. From a higher-level perspective, you'll be able to quickly grasp the concepts in this book if you're already an architect or a senior developer/IT pro. Don't worry if you need to use Google from time to time (to look up names and terms); it's perfectly normal, as we explore the main architectural dimensions. (We do explain all the basic concepts, but to keep the content focused for senior developers, senior IT pros, and new architects, the book is written with a certain expectation of technical knowledge.)

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (the link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.