What books or software will I need for the IT course?

No books are required for the IT Course. Josh has designed the course so there are no additional costs, except for potential costs related to Microsoft Azure.

Every lab in the course is completed in Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform, which requires a credit card to sign up. Microsoft usually offers free credits to new Azure accounts, but the amount and how long they last are set by Microsoft and can change: see Microsoft's Azure free account page for the current offer.

If your free credits run out before you finish the labs, you can continue on a pay-as-you-go basis. Cleaning up your Azure resources after each lab, as instructed in the course, keeps the cost low. You can also search the student community Discord to see what other students have done.