Introduction to Azure PowerShell

3 minutes

Azure PowerShell is a collection of modules for managing Azure resources directly from PowerShell. PowerShell provides automation features that you can use to manage your Azure resources.

The Az PowerShell module is based on .NET Standard. It works with PowerShell 7.x or later on all operating systems. It's also compatible with Windows PowerShell 5.1.

You can install the Az PowerShell module locally on Windows, Linux, and macOS. You can also use it from a web browser through Azure Cloud Shell or inside a Docker container.

Prerequisites

Because your company already uses Azure, you have an active Azure subscription. You're using PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell.

Create a resource group

Before you create a storage account, you need to create a resource group or use an existing one.

Create an Azure resource group named storageaccountexamplerg in the eastus region by using the New-AzResourceGroup cmdlet:

New-AzResourceGroup -Name storageaccountexamplerg -Location eastus

Create a storage account

Storage account names must be 3 to 24 characters in length and can contain numbers and lowercase letters only. Your storage account name must be unique within Azure.

Use the Get-AzStorageAccountNameAvailability cmdlet to verify that the name that you chose for your storage account is valid and not already in use:

Get-AzStorageAccountNameAvailability -Name <storage-account-name>

Use the New-AzStorageAccount cmdlet to create a new Azure storage account. The mandatory parameters are Name, ResourceGroupName, Location, and SkuName. The Kind parameter is optional and defaults to StorageV2 when it's not specified.

New-AzStorageAccount -Name <storage-account-name> -ResourceGroupName storageaccountexamplerg -Location eastus -SkuName Standard_RAGRS

Verify the storage account

You use the Get-AzStorageAccount cmdlet to verify that a storage group exists. There are no mandatory parameters. Use the ResourceGroupName parameter to return only storage accounts in a specific resource group. Use the Name and ResourceGroupName parameters to return only a specific storage account.

Get-AzStorageAccount -Name <storage-account-name> -ResourceGroupName storageaccountexamplerg

Clean up resources

Use the Remove-AzResourceGroup cmdlet to delete a resource group. The only mandatory parameter is Name. Deleting a resource group deletes the group and all resources that it contains. If resources outside the scope of the storage account that you created in this unit exist in the storageaccountexamplerg resource group, they're also deleted.

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name storageaccountexamplerg

Use the Remove-AzStorageAccount cmdlet to remove a storage account. The mandatory parameters are Name and ResourceGroupName.