Azure AZ-900 Study Guides
Azure AZ-900: Fundamentals Study Guide
Exam overview
I wanted to share my AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Study Guide with you.
The AZ-900 exam is the only exam needed to obtain the Azure Fundamentals certification. According to Microsoft -
“Candidates for this exam should have foundational knowledge of cloud services and how those services are provided with Microsoft Azure. The exam is intended for candidates who are just beginning to work with cloud-based solutions and services or are new to Azure.
Azure Fundamentals exam is an opportunity to prove knowledge of cloud concepts, Azure services, Azure workloads, security and privacy in Azure, as well as Azure pricing and support. Candidates should be familiar with the general technology concepts, including concepts of networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.
Azure Fundamentals can be used to prepare for other Azure role-based or specialty certifications, but it is not a prerequisite for any of them.”
The high-level view of the skills measured in the exam:
- Describe cloud concepts (20–25%)
- Describe core Azure services (15–20%)
- Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure (10–15%)
- Describe general security and network security features (10–15%)
- Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features (15–20%)
- Describe Azure cost management and Service Level Agreements (10–15%)
More information can be found on the exam’s website. The exam has a passing score of 700.
Free Microsoft Learn resources
Microsoft Learn is an ever expanding catalogue of free training courses provided by Microsoft. After you’ve reviewed the exam objectives I’d highly recommend working through these next. They’re in nice bite-sized sections, and you can easily track your progress.
Microsoft Learn contains a dedicated learning path for the AZ-900 exam. It’s a 10-hour course containing 20 modules -
- Azure Fundamentals part 1: Describe core Azure concepts
- Azure Fundamentals part 2: Describe core Azure services
- Azure Fundamentals part 3: Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure
- Azure Fundamentals part 4: Describe general security and network security features
- Azure Fundamentals part 5: Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features
- Azure Fundamentals part 6: Describe Azure cost management and service level agreements
Also worth checking out is Adam Marczak’s AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals Certification Course on YouTube.
Online Paid Training Courses
In addition to Microsoft’s free resources there are several paid options for online training courses. These are often more interactive and provide a useful way to fill in any gaps in your knowledge.
Below, I’ve linked to what I think are the best options for the AZ-900 exam -
- Pluralsight Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) learning path (6 courses, 9h30min)
- Udemy AZ-900 Bootcamp: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (5hrs)
- Udemy AZ-900: Azure Fundamentals Exam Prep (5hrs, 1 practice test)
- Udemy Beginner’s Guide + AZ-900 (2022) (14.5hrs, 2 practice tests)
- Whizlabs AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (440 questions, 96 videos, 14 labs)
AZ-900 Books
Some people prefer to use books to study which is why Microsoft still publishes the Exam Ref series. As exam objectives get updated fairly regularly make sure that you get the latest edition of any study guides -
Microsoft Docs for AZ-900
This section steps through each of the exam topics with links to the relevant Microsoft documentation.
Describe Cloud Concepts (20–25%)
Identify the benefits and considerations of using cloud services
- Identify the benefits of cloud computing, such as high availability, scalability, elasticity, agility, and disaster recovery
- Identify the differences between Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operational Expenditure (OpEx)
- Describe the consumption-based model
Describe the differences between categories of cloud services
- Describe the shared responsibility model
- Describe Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
- Describe Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
- Describe serverless computing
- Describe Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
- Identify a service type based on a use case
Describe the differences between types of cloud computing
- Define cloud computing
- Describe Public cloud
- Describe Private cloud
- Describe Hybrid cloud
- Compare and contrast the three types of cloud computing
Describe Core Azure Services (15–20%)
Describe the core Azure architectural components
- Describe the benefits and usage of Regions and Region Pairs
- Describe the benefits and usage of Availability Zones
- Describe the benefits and usage of Resource Groups
- Describe the benefits and usage of Subscriptions
- Describe the benefits and usage of Management Groups
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Resource Manager
- Explain Azure resources
Describe core resources available in Azure
- Describe the benefits and usage of Virtual Machines, Azure App Services, Azure Container Instances (ACI), Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and Azure Virtual Desktop
- Describe the benefits and usage of Virtual Networks, VPN Gateway, Virtual Network peering, and ExpressRoute
- Describe the benefits and usage of Container (Blob) Storage, Disk Storage, File Storage, and storage tiers
- Describe the benefits and usage of Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and SQL Managed Instance
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Marketplace
Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure (10–15%)
Describe core solutions available in Azure
- Describe the benefits and usage of Internet of Things (IoT) Hub, IoT Central, and Azure Sphere
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Synapse Analytics, HDInsight, and Azure Databricks
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services and Azure Bot Service
- Describe the benefits and usage of serverless computing solutions that include Azure Functions and Logic Apps
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure DevOps, GitHub, GitHub Actions, and Azure DevTest Labs
Describe Azure management tools
- Describe the functionality and usage of the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, Cloud Shell, and Azure Mobile App
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Advisor
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Monitor
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Service Health
Describe general security and network security features (10–15%)
Describe Azure security features
- Describe basic features of Azure Security Center (Microsoft Defender), including policy compliance, security alerts, secure score, and resource hygiene
- Describe the functionality and usage of Key Vault
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Sentinel
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Dedicated Hosts
Describe Azure network security
- Describe the concept of defense in depth
- Describe the functionality and usage of Network Security Groups (NSG)
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Firewall
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure DDoS protection
Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features (15-20%)
Describe core Azure identity services
- Explain the difference between authentication and authorization
- Define Azure Active Directory
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Active Directory
- Describe the functionality and usage of Conditional Access, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Single Sign-On (SSO)
Describe Azure governance features
- Describe the functionality and usage of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
- Describe the functionality and usage of resource locks
- Describe the functionality and usage of tags
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Policy
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Blueprints
- Describe the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure
Describe privacy and compliance resources
- Describe the Microsoft core tenets of Security, Privacy, and Compliance
- Describe the purpose of the Microsoft Privacy Statement, Online Services Terms (OST) and Data Protection Amendment (DPA)
- Describe the purpose of the Trust Center
- Describe the purpose of the Azure compliance documentation
- Describe the purpose of Azure Sovereign Regions (Azure Government cloud services and Azure China cloud services)
Describe Azure cost management and Service Level Agreements (10-15%)
Describe methods for planning and managing costs
- Identify factors that can affect costs (resource types, services, locations, ingress and egress traffic) — link
- Identify factors that can reduce costs (reserved instances, reserved capacity, hybrid use benefit, spot pricing)
- Describe the functionality and usage of the Pricing calculator and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Cost Management
Describe Azure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and service lifecycles
- Describe the purpose of an Azure Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Identify actions that can impact an SLA (i.e. Availability Zones)
- Describe the service lifecycle in Azure (Public Preview and General Availability)
Additional tips
For any of the Azure certifications I find that deploying the relevant Azure resources and configuring their features to be hugely beneficial to my learning. You can grab a free Azure trial to receive 12 months of free popular services, $200 free credit, and 25+ always free services.
AZ-900 is straightforward as long as you take the time to prepare and practice. It covers a wide range of topics and although very deep knowledge isn’t required you need to understand the concepts and how services relate to each other.
I hope you found this study guide useful and good luck! Please let me know of any other resources that you found helpful for the exam.
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