How can I set-up a domain in Azure and use Exchange Server services there?

I'm currently raising a startup company that's using an ISP's services. All we have at this time is IMAP for e-mail. And we're using JIRA/Confluence.

I want to migrate us to a comprehensive infrastructure, using domain accounts for our Windows 10x64 machines, e-mails, shared calendars, shared contacts (i.e. Exchange Server features), Azure DevOps, MS Teams, SharePoint etc.

I did some research, but I couldn't find any information explaining on how to do that, particularly regarding using Outlook 2019 with Azure. When it's about Azure AD, I only find information on how to synchronize a local domain to Azure, but no information on how to easily utilize Azure as a replacement for a domain controller.

As a start, I would need to know what to do in order to create a domain on Azure (i.e. using Azure as a domain controller), migrate our domain name to Azure AD and to get Exchange Server features running in Azure, so we can use Outlook 2019 on their machines.

Solution 1:

Rather than creating a domain in Azure with a DC VM in Azure and running Exchange Server in an Azure VM, you could simply sign up for Office 365 for email, Sharepoint, OneDrive, Teams, etc. and use Azure AD Join to join your Windows 10 client computers to Azure AD and join a Windows Server 2019 VM running in Azure to Azure AD.