UPDATE - APRIL 2023:
The Azure Projects subreddit has been archived and moved to a GitHub repo, here.
In a nutshell, Azure Projects has come to an end.
At its peak, it reached 1052 users, however, participation quickly tailed off following the initial release.
I still believe it was (and is) a great idea but appreciate it relied on other people's involvement beyond that of my own, and everyone's time is a precious commodity.
I've archived every single submission to the above GitHub repo, and I'm more than happy for people to use that repo how they see fit, and would gladly accept pull requests for future interest.
Thank you to everyone that got involved!
For more information, please see here.
Following on from the success of Azure Pirate, I've been busy working behind the scenes to launch a new Azure community initiative, called AZURE PROJECTS!
What is it?
Azure Projects is a community initiative to facilitate a "learn by doing" approach to Microsoft Azure and related technologies.
Here's the concept: you've been upskilling in an area of Azure and are ready to have a go yourself, but need a little inspiration on what to try.
This is where Azure Projects comes in!
Where can I find it?
Here: reddit.com/r/azureprojects
Find a project idea
Browse the subreddit and search for a project idea related to what you want to learn.
Use the post flairs (tags) to search by category, or the search bar at the top to find something specific.
The projects here are high level ideas with basic learning outcomes - not detailed instructions for you to follow along. Learn by doing and thinking for yourself, but now with a little inspiration!
Have a go
If you have a go at a project, use the comments section within the project post itself to ask questions and report back on your progress. Feel free to share links to your repos and ask for feedback from the community.
Submit an idea
Users are strongly encouraged to submit their own project ideas, which (at present) will be sent for moderation before being published. Please be in-keeping with the concept, and add a tag to your post to assign it a suitable category.
Please see the examples page to get a feel for what we are looking for, or review the existing projects that have already been listed.
Project ideas can be about anything related to Azure and can be as simple or complex as you like - but please, keep them high-level.
Reinventing the wheel?
How is this different from what's already out there, like the Azure Architecture Center, 100DaysOfCloud and The Azure-Resume project?
Well, the simple answer is that it's not! The Azure Projects subreddit is meant to complement these things by being community driven and most importantly interactive. It's not an alternative, it's an add-on. What I believe Azure Projects offers is the interactivity with the community.
Please note that the AZURE subreddit is an excellent Azure forum and source of information and useful links. If you need to post a technical Q/A, please use the AZURE subreddit, keeping this one for project specific posts and replies.
Why Reddit?
Since Reddit has been chosen as the platform for Azure Projects, you can upvote your favourite projects, make comments and suggestions and generally get involved with the community in an interactive way.
Project posts can be filtered by a flair (which is basically a tag), however a new post can only have one flair. Therefore, flairs are high-level, such as "Infrastructure", "Data", "Networking", "Security", "Identity" etc.
Once you're on the subreddit page, you can always use the search bar at the top of the page to search for specific keywords. If you feel a flair doesn't exist for your project, feel free to create a new one.
GitHub (et al.) is still the perfect place to save your work and interact with others at a code level - the subreddit is the go-to place for inspiration and related chat.
Example
You've learnt about Azure Functions on Microsoft Learn, but in isolation. Now you're ready to test your skills in a real-world scenario. But what to try?
Head over to the Azure Projects subreddit to get ideas on what to try next.
Here's some inspiration for you:
Why high-level?
High-level concepts (such as the example above) are aimed at encouraging critical thinking, independent research and a learn-by-doing attitude. All of these I feel are important skills to have for a modern cloud engineer.
If you're anything like me, detailed follow-along tutorials or GitHub repos where I can simply deploy someone else's code are great to have, but not a great way to learn.
Personally, I learn best by having a go for myself - but sometimes I just need a little inspiration on what to try.
If you can relate, then hopefully Azure Projects is the place for you!
Legal bit
This is a community initiative - anyone caught using it for commercial gain or otherwise bending the rules will be banned.
This subreddit is community driven and is not officially endorsed by Microsoft.
For any questions or concerns, please reach out to the moderators. Feedback is always welcome.
Get involved
This is a brand-new initiative that will sink or swim on the input of the Azure community.
Please feel free to get involved in any way you can, be that creating content, having a go and reporting back, posting comments and sharing the word.
Thank you for reading - I really hope this proves to be a useful tool for everyone.