AZ-900: Azure Fundamentals Study Guide

I’m excited to announce that this guide is now available as a Notion template! Extended and enhanced for 2023 it provides in-depth notes for all 56+ exam topics, study resources, further tips and the ability to track your study progress. It can be downloaded from Gumroad here.

Exam Overview

I wanted to share my AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Study Guide with you.

The content of this exam was updated on October 28, 2022. This study guide has been updated to reflect the latest objectives

The AZ-900 exam is the only exam needed to obtain the Azure Fundamentals certification. According to Microsoft -

“Candidates are technology professionals who want to demonstrate foundational knowledge of cloud concepts and Microsoft Azure.

These professionals can describe Azure architectural components and Azure services, such as compute, networking, and storage. They can also describe features and tools to secure, govern, and administer Azure.

Candidates for this exam have skills and experience working with an area of information technology, such as infrastructure management, database management, or software development.”

The high-level view of the skills measured in the exam:

• Describe cloud concepts (25–30%)

• Describe Azure architecture and services (35–40%)

• Describe Azure management and governance (30–35%)

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 John Savill’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 -

• 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 Online Course (7hrs, 6 practice tests, 330 questions)

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 -

• Exam Ref AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (Amazon)

Practice Tests

• Microsoft Official Practice Test via Mindhub (155 questions)

Microsoft Docs for AZ-900

This section steps through each of the exam topics with links to the relevant Microsoft documentation.

Describe Cloud Concepts (25–30%)

Describe cloud computing

• Define cloud computing

• Describe the shared responsibility model

• Define cloud models, including public, private, and hybrid

• Identify appropriate use cases for each cloud model

• Describe the consumption-based model

• Compare cloud pricing models

Describe the benefits of using cloud services

• Describe the benefits of high availability and scalability in the cloud

• Describe the benefits of reliability and predictability in the cloud

• Describe the benefits of security and governance in the cloud

• Describe the benefits of manageability in the cloud

Describe cloud service types

• Describe infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

• Describe platform as a service (PaaS)

• Describe software as a service (SaaS)

• Identify appropriate use cases for each cloud service (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)

Describe Azure architecture and services (35–40%)

Describe the core architectural components of Azure

• Describe Azure regions, region pairs, and sovereign regions

• Describe availability zones

• Describe Azure datacenters

• Describe Azure resources and resource groups

• Describe subscriptions

• Describe management groups

• Describe the hierarchy of resource groups, subscriptions, and management groups

Describe Azure compute and networking services

• Compare compute types, including container instances, virtual machines (VMs), and functions

• Describe VM options, including Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets, availability sets, and Azure Virtual Desktop

• Describe resources required for virtual machines

• Describe application hosting options, including the Web Apps feature of Azure App Service, containers, and virtual machines

• Describe virtual networking, including the purpose of Azure Virtual Networks, Azure virtual subnets, peering, Azure DNS, Azure VPN Gateway, and Azure ExpressRoute

• Define public and private endpoints

Describe Azure storage services

• Compare Azure storage services

• Describe storage tiers

• Describe redundancy options

• Describe storage account options and storage types

• Identify options for moving files, including AzCopy, Azure Storage Explorer, and Azure File Sync

• Describe migration options, including Azure Migrate and Azure Data Box

Describe Azure identity, access, and security

• Describe directory services in Azure, including Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), part of Microsoft Entra and Azure Active Directory Domain Services (Azure AD DS)

• Describe authentication methods in Azure, including single sign-on (SSO), multifactor authentication, and passwordless

• Describe external identities and guest access in Azure

• Describe Conditional Access in Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), part of Microsoft Entra

• Describe Azure role-based access control (RBAC)

• Describe the concept of Zero Trust

• Describe the purpose of the defense in depth model

• Describe the purpose of Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Describe Azure management and governance (30–35%)

Describe cost management in Azure

• Describe factors that can affect costs in Azure

• Compare the Pricing calculator and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator

• Describe the Azure Cost Management and Billing tool

• Describe the purpose of tags

Describe features and tools in Azure for governance and compliance

• Describe the purpose of Azure Blueprints

• Describe the purpose of Azure Policy

• Describe the purpose of resource locks

• Describe the purpose of the Service Trust Portal

Describe features and tools for managing and deploying Azure resources

• Describe the Azure portal

• Describe Azure Cloud Shell, including Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell

• Describe the purpose of Azure Arc

• Describe Azure Resource Manager and Azure Resource Manager templates (ARM templates)

Describe monitoring tools in Azure

• Describe the purpose of Azure Advisor

• Describe Azure Service Health

• Describe Azure Monitor, including Log Analytics, Azure Monitor alerts, and Application Insights

Additional tips

For any of the Azure certifications, I find 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.