What type of account is needed to develop, test and deploy Azure and Office365 apps?

Question

The company I work at, decided to embrace Microsoft's ecosystem and we want to develop for Azure, some Office365 add-ins, Bots etc., using things like SSO from the Azure AD and others. But Microsoft's internet resources are too messy and we are not sure where to start. So we have 1 or 2 developers that will develop, test and deploy apps. Do we need a MSDN subscription for them and what it includes? Does it include Azure and Office 365 developer accounts or these need to be purchased separately? Can someone provide me ordered links to start looking? As far as I can see MSDN subscription includes VS + MSDN "something" and it's very pricey. How to have both Azure and O365 dev subscriptions and why do we need the MSDN ones?

Answer 1

Not necessary, for development you can use trial subscriptions, which do not require and fees to be paid. You can check this link for example.

Also, as far as I know. MSDN subscription doesn't grant you an Office 365 subscription (for me it doesn't at least), but it grants 150$ worth on Azure credits monthly.

Answer 2

For a trial of Office 365, you can start through the Office Developer Program here (https://dev.office.com/devprogram) which will provide you with a 30-day trial. Currently, there's an option to email us at Microsoft with your story to get a longer trial. Note that this is subject to availability as its been very popular since the Microsoft Teams launch.

For Azure trial, you can follow this link - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/onenotedev/2015/04/30/set-up-your-office-365-and-azure-ad-tenant/#GetAzureFromO365

If you have a Visual Studio Enterprise subscription, you should have access to the same Office 365 Developer subscription which is slightly hidden on the second tab under tools.