Getting Started With Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services

This article is in continuation of my articles related to Cognitive Services. I came across some complicated articles on Cognitive Services, but as I've been working on this service for the last six months, I thought of writing simple, step by step articles on the same.

If you have landed directly on this article, I also recommend, you read the following.

As defined, Cognitive Services provide the best suite for having interactive, automated models of application. It helps to build powerful intelligence into applications to enable natural and contextual interactions.

The Translator Text API, as described by Microsoft, is a cloud-based automatic translation service supporting multiple languages.It easily conducts real-time text translation with a simple REST API call.Translator can be used to build applications, websites, tools, or any solution requiring multi-language support.

We will learn more about Translator Text API in later articles. To start with, let's create Cognitive account to use Translator Text API, using Azure Portal.

Here, let's assume that you have Azure Portal account. If not, create your free Azure account.

Once done with account creation, click '+’ => Category, Intelligence + analytics => Services, Cognitive Services APIs.

account

Fill in the below details.

Account Name
Unique name for Cognitive Translator Text API account.
Subscription
Free; or in case of any subscription you have, must be selected here.
API Type
Cognitive Service provides set of awesome APIs. For this article, will go with Translator Text API.
Pricing Tier
As per API selected, pricing option will be listed. Select anyone among the listed options.
Resource Group
Can select existing Resource group or create new.
Account Name
TranslatorTextwithKasam
Subscription
Have selected my subscription.
Resource Group
Created new resource group for grouping Cognitive related services, named CodeCognitivewithKasam
API Type
Cognitive services provide set of awesome APIs. For this article, selected Translator Text API.

Pricing Tier

For Translator Text API selected, the below pricing option are listed. Let's select Free as pricing tier. You can go with other options, which are available in the free trial account.

account

Once done with choosing pricing tier, Click on "Legal Terms" option. A blade with detailed terms will be displayed.

Read it carefully and then click, I Agree

account

Once you've agreed with Legal terms Click => Create

account

After successful creation, the below box could be seen in Dashboard (if you have opted to pin it, while creating it).

account

Click on Resource groups => CodeCognitivewithKasam (resource group selected) => Overview. Translator Text API cognitive account created will be listed. Click on the account name.

Overview => Will list all details associated with Translator Text API Cognitive account.

Endpoint is base URL of RESTful Translator Text API provided by Microsoft. Will look into it with deep details in coming articles.

account

Click on Keys under Resource Management. This will list the key details (Key 1, Key 2), which we will be using in our application to leverage Translator Text API services.

We can also regenerate this Key by clicking Regenerate Key option available, as shown below.

Click on Quick Start for a quick introduction of Cognitive Services, along with API documentation to use Cognitive Translator Text APIs

account

Summary

How easy it is to get started with Cognitive Services. By now, we saw how effortlessly we can create Cognitive Services Translator Text API account, using Microsoft Azure Portal. We can use the Keys being generated, to allow our app to communicate with super intelligent Translator Text API.

In later articles, we will use Keys and look at how this could be used in our application. I would recommend you try this and be ready with Keys.

Happy Azure coding!