{"id":4897,"date":"2026-10-04T00:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T18:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T00:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T18:38:17","slug":"mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering Azure: A Comprehensive Guide to Cloud Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Ghost in the Machine: A 72-Hour Descent into the Azure Portal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The cursor is mocking me. It\u2019s a steady, rhythmic blink in a PuTTY window that hasn&#8217;t seen a packet in four minutes. I\u2019m sitting in a room that is too quiet, too warm, and smells like nothing but stale coffee and dry wall. For twenty years, I lived in the hum. I lived in the 80-decibel scream of 1U fans, the biting chill of a hot-aisle\/cold-aisle containment system, and the comforting, ozone-heavy scent of a short-circuiting PDU. I knew where the wires went. I could touch the silicon. If a disk died, I heard the click-of-death, I saw the amber light, and I swapped the damn thing.<\/p>\n<p>Now? Now I\u2019m &#8220;modernizing.&#8221; Now I\u2019m &#8220;cloud-native.&#8221; Now I\u2019m staring at a spinning blue circle in a browser tab while <strong>azure<\/strong> decides whether or not it feels like acknowledging my existence.<\/p>\n<p>It started with a simple migration. Lift and shift, they said. It\u2019ll be easy, they said. Seventy-two hours later, I am a shell of a man, trapped in a recursive loop of Resource Groups and Tenant IDs. This is my war journal.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_80 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6ac4251eee08c\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6ac4251eee08c\"  aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#02_00_%E2%80%93_The_Resource_Group_Purgatory\" >02:00 \u2013 The Resource Group Purgatory<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#09_00_%E2%80%93_The_VNet_Peering_Hallucination\" >09:00 \u2013 The VNet Peering Hallucination<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#15_00_%E2%80%93_Identity_Management_is_a_Fever_Dream\" >15:00 \u2013 Identity Management is a Fever Dream<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#23_00_%E2%80%93_The_Application_Gateway_WAF_Slog\" >23:00 \u2013 The Application Gateway WAF Slog<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#08_00_Day_2_%E2%80%93_Private_Link_and_the_DNS_Black_Hole\" >08:00 (Day 2) \u2013 Private Link and the DNS Black Hole<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#18_00_Day_3_%E2%80%93_The_Cost_Management_Autopsy\" >18:00 (Day 3) \u2013 The Cost Management Autopsy<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/#Related_Articles\" >Related Articles<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"02_00_%E2%80%93_The_Resource_Group_Purgatory\"><\/span>02:00 \u2013 The Resource Group Purgatory<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The first sign of the rot appeared two hours into the migration. I had scripted the teardown of a staging environment to clear the path for the production import. I ran the command. I waited. The CLI returned a success code, but the portal\u2014that bloated, Javascript-heavy monstrosity\u2014insisted the resources were still there.<\/p>\n<p>I tried to delete the Resource Group manually. The portal hung. I refreshed. The Resource Group was &#8220;Deleting,&#8221; a state of limbo that apparently lasts longer than a physical server&#8217;s entire lifecycle. I dropped to the terminal.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"codehilite\"><code class=\"language-bash\"># azure-cli version 2.61.0\n# Attempting to force delete a hung resource group\naz group delete --name RG-Prod-Alpha --yes --no-wait\n\n# Resulting output after 300 seconds of polling:\n{\n  &quot;error&quot;: {\n    &quot;code&quot;: &quot;ResourceGroupNotFound&quot;,\n    &quot;message&quot;: &quot;Resource group 'RG-Prod-Alpha' could not be found.&quot;\n  }\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>And yet, there it was. In the UI, <code>RG-Prod-Alpha<\/code> sat there, mocking me, containing a single, orphaned Public IP address that refused to die because it was &#8220;in use&#8221; by a Network Interface that I had already deleted. This is the <strong>azure<\/strong> paradox: a resource can simultaneously not exist and be busy. In a real rack, if I pull the cable, the connection is gone. In the cloud, the ghost of the cable haunts the hypervisor for an eternity.<\/p>\n<p>I spent forty minutes clicking &#8220;Refresh.&#8221; Every click is a reminder that I no longer control the hardware. I am a tenant in a building where the landlord is an invisible algorithm that doesn&#8217;t answer the phone. The UI lag is palpable. When you have more than 50 subscriptions, the portal doesn&#8217;t just slow down; it begins to disintegrate. The search bar stops searching. The &#8220;All Resources&#8221; view takes ten seconds to populate. It is a bloated, fragile layer of abstraction over a system that is clearly straining under its own weight.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"09_00_%E2%80%93_The_VNet_Peering_Hallucination\"><\/span>09:00 \u2013 The VNet Peering Hallucination<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>By morning, I was deep into the networking stack. On-prem, I\u2019d just punch a hole in the firewall or trunk a VLAN. In <strong>azure<\/strong>, I have to deal with VNet Peering. I have two virtual networks: one in East US and one in West US 2. I need them to talk. <\/p>\n<p>I set up the peering. I checked the &#8220;Allow forwarded traffic&#8221; boxes. I verified the address spaces didn&#8217;t overlap. And yet, no ping. No SSH. Nothing. I\u2019m looking at the &#8220;Effective Routes&#8221; on the NIC of a <code>Standard_D2s_v3<\/code> instance\u2014a VM that costs more per month than the power bill for my old home lab\u2014and the routes say the traffic should be flowing.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"codehilite\"><code class=\"language-powershell\"># Checking effective routes via PowerShell\n# Module: Az.Network 7.5.0\nGet-AzEffectiveRouteTable -NetworkInterfaceName &quot;NIC-Web-01&quot; -ResourceGroupName &quot;RG-Prod-Alpha&quot; | Select-Object Source, State, AddressPrefix, NextHopType\n\n# Output:\n# Source    State   AddressPrefix    NextHopType\n# ------    -----   -------------    -----------\n# Default   Active  10.0.0.0\/16      VNetLocal\n# VirtualNetworkPeering Active 10.1.0.0\/16 VNetPeering\n# Default   Active  0.0.0.0\/0        Internet\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>The routes say &#8220;Active.&#8221; The reality says &#8220;Timed Out.&#8221; I spent three hours digging through Network Security Groups (NSGs). In <strong>azure<\/strong>, an NSG is like a firewall designed by someone who hates sysadmins. You have to manage priority numbers. You have to remember that there\u2019s a hidden rule at the bottom that will kill your traffic if you don&#8217;t explicitly allow it, but only if you&#8217;re coming from a specific tag. <\/p>\n<p>I miss my Cisco gear. I miss the tactile click of a console cable. Here, I\u2019m just screaming into a Log Analytics Workspace, waiting for KQL queries to tell me why my packets are being dropped by a &#8220;Global&#8221; infrastructure that seems to have the regional awareness of a goldfish. The latency between the portal&#8217;s &#8220;Success&#8221; message and the actual propagation of the rule to the underlying SDN is a yawning chasm of frustration.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"15_00_%E2%80%93_Identity_Management_is_a_Fever_Dream\"><\/span>15:00 \u2013 Identity Management is a Fever Dream<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Then came the &#8220;Global Admin&#8221; paradox. I am the Global Admin of the Entra ID tenant. I should be a god. I should have the power to create and destroy worlds. But when I tried to look at the Cost Management blade to see why we had already burned through $400 in six hours, <strong>azure<\/strong> told me I didn&#8217;t have permission.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Access Denied.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>I had to go into the Entra ID properties, find a tiny toggle at the bottom of a page that says &#8220;Access management for Azure resources,&#8221; and flip it to &#8220;Yes.&#8221; Only then could I &#8220;elevate&#8221; myself to see the subscriptions I supposedly own. It\u2019s a security model built on top of a security model, wrapped in a layer of bureaucratic nonsense. <\/p>\n<p>I tried to assign a Managed Identity to a VM so it could pull secrets from a Key Vault. Simple, right? No. The VM stayed in a &#8220;Updating&#8221; state for twenty minutes. <\/p>\n<pre class=\"codehilite\"><code class=\"language-bash\"># Checking VM identity status\naz vm show -g RG-Prod-Alpha -n Web-Server-01 --query identity\n\n# Output:\n{\n  &quot;principalId&quot;: null,\n  &quot;tenantId&quot;: &quot;f8c88730-...&quot;,\n  &quot;type&quot;: &quot;SystemAssigned&quot;,\n  &quot;userAssignedIdentities&quot;: null\n}\n# Note: principalId is null despite the type being SystemAssigned. \n# The platform is still &quot;thinking.&quot;\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In the old days, I\u2019d just give the server a service account and a keytab. Now, I have to wait for a distributed system to reach eventual consistency. &#8220;Eventual&#8221; is a word that cloud providers use to mean &#8220;whenever we feel like it.&#8221; I\u2019m sitting here, staring at a <code>null<\/code> value, while the project manager pings me on Teams asking if the web tier is up. It\u2019s not up. It\u2019s waiting for an identity that doesn&#8217;t exist yet.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"23_00_%E2%80%93_The_Application_Gateway_WAF_Slog\"><\/span>23:00 \u2013 The Application Gateway WAF Slog<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Night fell, and I moved to the Application Gateway. This is <strong>azure<\/strong>&#8216;s version of a load balancer, but it\u2019s actually a massive, slow-moving beast that takes twenty minutes to update a single rule. I\u2019m using the WAF v2 SKU. I wanted to enable a simple custom rule to block a specific IP range.<\/p>\n<p>I updated the configuration. The portal gave me a &#8220;Running&#8221; notification. I went to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee, drank the pot of coffee, read a chapter of a book, and came back. Still &#8220;Running.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>When you configure a physical F5 or even a HAProxy instance on a bare-metal box, the change is instantaneous. You commit, and the traffic shifts. In <strong>azure<\/strong>, you are at the mercy of the &#8220;Deployment.&#8221; Every change to an Application Gateway feels like you\u2019re submitting a request to a government agency in triplicate.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"codehilite\"><code class=\"language-bash\"># Checking Application Gateway provisioning state\naz network application-gateway show -g RG-Prod-Alpha -n AppGW-External --query provisioningState\n\n# Output:\n&quot;Updating&quot;\n# (18 minutes later)\n&quot;Updating&quot;\n# (22 minutes later)\n&quot;Succeeded&quot;\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>And then, the kicker: the rule didn&#8217;t work. Why? Because the &#8220;Detection&#8221; mode was on, but the &#8220;Prevention&#8221; mode wasn&#8217;t, or maybe it was because the listener wasn&#8217;t correctly associated with the backend pool, or maybe it was just the <strong>azure<\/strong> portal lying to me again. I had to dig into the JSON view\u2014the only place where the truth actually lives\u2014to find a typo in the resource ID that the UI had helpfully obscured.<\/p>\n<p>The WAF logs are another nightmare. They don&#8217;t just show up. You have to pipe them to a Log Analytics Workspace, which costs money per gigabyte, and then you have to wait five to ten minutes for the logs to actually be indexed so you can query them with KQL. Real-time troubleshooting is a myth in this environment. You\u2019re always looking at a ghost of what happened ten minutes ago.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"08_00_Day_2_%E2%80%93_Private_Link_and_the_DNS_Black_Hole\"><\/span>08:00 (Day 2) \u2013 Private Link and the DNS Black Hole<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>I woke up at my desk to a flurry of alerts. The database\u2014an Azure SQL instance\u2014wasn&#8217;t reachable from the web tier. I had implemented Private Link because &#8220;public endpoints are bad,&#8221; but Private Link in <strong>azure<\/strong> is a dark art that involves Private DNS Zones.<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t get the DNS exactly right, your traffic just vanishes. The VM tries to resolve <code>mydb.database.windows.net<\/code>, and instead of getting the private IP (10.0.5.4), it gets the public IP, which is blocked by the firewall. I spent four hours fighting with the &#8220;DNS Forwarding Ruleset.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>I miss <code>\/etc\/hosts<\/code>. I miss having a local BIND server that I could just reload. Here, I\u2019m clicking through a &#8220;Private DNS Zone&#8221; UI that looks like it was designed in 2012. I\u2019m trying to link the VNet to the zone, but the link is &#8220;Pending.&#8221; Why is it pending? There are no cables to plug in. There are no routers to configure. It\u2019s just a database entry in Microsoft\u2019s global ledger, and yet, it\u2019s &#8220;Pending.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I ran a <code>nslookup<\/code> from the VM.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"codehilite\"><code class=\"language-text\">C:\\&gt; nslookup mydb.database.windows.net\nServer:  UnKnown\nAddress:  168.63.129.16\n\nNon-authoritative answer:\nName:    mydb.database.windows.net\nAddress: 52.157.24.10  &lt;-- THE PUBLIC IP. FAILURE.\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>The 168.63.129.16 address is the &#8220;Magic IP&#8221; of the <strong>azure<\/strong> recursive resolver. It is a black box. You can&#8217;t see into it. You can&#8217;t fix it. You just have to pray that your Private DNS Zone link eventually propagates. I felt the familiar itch of ozone-deprivation. I wanted to go to a data center, find the rack, and scream at the top-of-rack switch. At least then, I\u2019d be doing something productive.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"18_00_Day_3_%E2%80%93_The_Cost_Management_Autopsy\"><\/span>18:00 (Day 3) \u2013 The Cost Management Autopsy<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>By the third day, the migration was &#8220;functional,&#8221; in the same way a car with three wheels and a smoking engine is functional. I finally got into the Cost Management blade. <\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Actual Cost&#8221; was a horror show. We had provisioned <code>Premium_LRS<\/code> managed disks for everything, thinking we needed the IOPS. We didn&#8217;t. But the cost of those disks is fixed, whether you use the IOPS or not. On-prem, I bought the disks once. They sat in the SAN, and they cost me nothing but the electricity to spin them. Here, I\u2019m being charged by the hour for the <em>potential<\/em> to use a disk.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Cost Alerts&#8221; I set up for $500 arrived at 17:45. The current spend was already $720. The alerts in <strong>azure<\/strong> are like a smoke detector that only goes off after the house has burned down and the ashes have cooled. <\/p>\n<pre class=\"codehilite\"><code class=\"language-json\">\/\/ Sample from a Cost Management Export\n{\n  &quot;id&quot;: &quot;\/subscriptions\/sub-id\/providers\/Microsoft.Consumption\/usageDetails\/...&quot;,\n  &quot;name&quot;: &quot;usage_detail_123&quot;,\n  &quot;properties&quot;: {\n    &quot;billingPeriodStartDate&quot;: &quot;2023-10-01T00:00:00Z&quot;,\n    &quot;consumedService&quot;: &quot;Microsoft.Compute&quot;,\n    &quot;cost&quot;: 42.15,\n    &quot;currency&quot;: &quot;USD&quot;,\n    &quot;instanceName&quot;: &quot;Standard_D2s_v3&quot;,\n    &quot;meterCategory&quot;: &quot;Virtual Machines&quot;,\n    &quot;unitOfMeasure&quot;: &quot;10 Hours&quot;\n  }\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>I looked at the bill for the &#8220;Inter-region Data Transfer.&#8221; Moving data between East US and West US 2 isn&#8217;t free. It\u2019s a tax on your own architecture. In my old data center, I had a 10Gbps dark fiber link between sites. I paid for the light. Here, I pay for every bit that crawls across their &#8220;Global Network.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m exhausted. My eyes are bloodshot from staring at the high-contrast &#8220;Dark Mode&#8221; of the portal, which is just a different shade of misery. I miss the hum. I miss the cold. I miss the certainty of a physical link light. <\/p>\n<p><strong>azure<\/strong> isn&#8217;t a platform; it\u2019s a sprawling, shifting labyrinth of microservices held together by hope and expensive support contracts. It\u2019s a world where &#8220;Global Admin&#8221; is a suggestion, where &#8220;Deleting&#8221; is a permanent state of being, and where the bill always wins. <\/p>\n<p>I closed the browser tab. The PuTTY window was still disconnected. I didn&#8217;t bother to reconnect. I just sat there in the silence, smelling the lack of ozone, and wondered if it was too late to go back to fixing printers. At least with a printer, you know why it hates you. In the cloud, the hate is distributed, scalable, and billed by the hour.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Related_Articles\"><\/span>Related Articles<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Explore more insights and best practices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/docker-compose-guide\/\">Docker Compose Guide<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/kubernetes-pod-guide-definition-lifecycle-and-examples\/\">Kubernetes Pod Guide Definition Lifecycle And Examples<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/what-is-kubernetes-a-complete-guide-to-k8s-orchestration\/\">What Is Kubernetes A Complete Guide To K8S Orchestration<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghost in the Machine: A 72-Hour Descent into the Azure Portal The cursor is mocking me. It\u2019s a steady, rhythmic blink in a PuTTY window that hasn&#8217;t seen a packet in four minutes. I\u2019m sitting in a room that is too quiet, too warm, and smells like nothing but stale coffee and dry wall. &#8230; <a title=\"Mastering Azure: A Comprehensive Guide to Cloud Success\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/\" aria-label=\"Read more  on Mastering Azure: A Comprehensive Guide to Cloud Success\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mastering Azure: A Comprehensive Guide to Cloud Success - ITSupportWale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/itsupportwale.com\/blog\/mastering-azure-a-comprehensive-guide-to-cloud-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mastering Azure: A Comprehensive Guide to Cloud Success - ITSupportWale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Ghost in the Machine: A 72-Hour Descent into the Azure Portal The cursor is mocking me. 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