Picture this: you’ve set up your budget alerts, mapped your AWS VPC knowledge to a brand-new Azure VNet, and you’re ready to spin up your first Ubuntu VM. You type the full creation command into the Azure CLI and hit enter. Instead of a running resource, Azure flat-out rejects it. It isn't a quota violation, and it isn't a networking misconfiguration. It is just a brick wall.

As an AWS-certified engineer opening my first Azure free subscription, my introduction to Microsoft’s cloud wasn’t a smooth deployment. It was a multi-region ghost hunt.

This is Part 1 of my hands-on journey: what I built, the SkuNotAvailable wall that blocked me, and how I systematically tested regions until I got a VM running. Part 2 covers the Azure Monitor and Log Analytics work I did while the VM was blocked.

1. Context and motivation

I am currently applying for roles that involve Azure operations, but my background is entirely AWS-native.…