AZ-900 Self-Study Guide for Azure Fundamentals

There are many good reasons to become Microsoft Azure Certified and take the Microsoft Azure AZ-900 exam. If you are reading this blog post, you might already have decided that you want to take a I want to share how to prepare for this exam and pass.

Free Online Microsoft Learn AZ-900 Exam Study Guide resources

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) > Capital expenditure (CapEx) versus operational expenditure (OpEx)

Describe the consumption-based model > Azure pricing

Describe the differences between categories of cloud services

Describe the shared responsibility model > Shared responsibility in the cloud

Describe Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) > What is IaaS?

Describe Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) > What is PaaS?

Describe serverless computing > Serverless computing

Describe Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) > What is SaaS?

Identify a service type based on a use case > What are the different types of cloud computing services?

Describe the differences between types of cloud computing

Define and describe cloud computing > What is cloud computing?

Describe private cloud > What is a private cloud?

Describe hybrid cloud > What is a hybrid cloud?

Compare and contrast the three types of cloud computing > What are public, private, and hybrid clouds?

Describe core Azure services (15-20%)

Describe the core Azure architectural components

Describe the benefit and usage of Regions and Region Pairs

Describe the benefit and usage of Availability Zones > What are Availability Zones in Azure?

Describe the benefit and usage of Resource Groups > Resource groups

Describe the benefit and usage of Subscriptions > Azure subscription and service limits, quotas, and constraints

Describe the benefit and usage of Management Groups > What are Azure management groups?

Describe the benefit and usage of Azure Resource Manager > What is Azure Resource Manager?

Explain Azure resources > Azure resource providers and types

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 Windows Virtual Desktop

Describe as the benefits and usage of Virtual Networks, VPN Gateway, Virtual network peering, and Express Route

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, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and SQL Managed Instance

Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Marketplace > Azure Marketplace

Describe Core Solutions and Management Tools on Azure (10-15%)

Describe core solutions available on Azure

Describe the benefits and usage of 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 solutions for software development including 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 > Introduction to Azure Advisor

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates > What are ARM templates?

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Monitor > Azure Monitor

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Service Health > Azure Service Health

Describe General Security and Network Security Features (10-15%)

Describe Azure security features

Describe basic features of Azure Security Center, including policy compliance, security alerts, secure score, and resource hygiene > What is Azure Security Center?

Describe the functionality and usage of Key Vault > Key Vault

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Sentinel > Azure Sentinel

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Dedicated Hosts > Azure Dedicated Hosts

Describe Azure network security

Describe the concept of defense in depth > Azure network security overview

Describe the functionality and usage of Network Security Groups (NSG) > Network Security Groups (NSG)

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Firewall > Azure Firewall

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure DDoS protection > Azure DDoS Protection

Describe Identity, Governance, Privacy, and Compliance Features (20-25%)

Describe core Azure identity services

Explain the difference between authentication and authorization > Windows Authentication Concepts

Define Azure Active Directory > 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) > Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Policy > Azure Policy

Describe the functionality and usage of resource locks > resource locks

Describe the functionality and usage of tags > Azure tags

Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Blueprints > Azure Blueprints

Describe the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure > What is the Microsoft 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 > Microsoft Trust Center Describe the purpose of the Azure compliance documentation > 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) > Azure pricing

Identify factors that can reduce costs (reserved instances, reserved capacity, hybrid use benefit, spot pricing) > Tutorial: Optimize costs from recommendations

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 > What is Azure Cost Management + Billing?