AZ-900 Exam Study Guide (Microsoft Azure Fundamentals)
You can access AZ-900 Exam Microsoft official page here
Preparing for the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certificate exam? Don’t know where to start? This post is the Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 Certificate Study Guide (with links to each exam objective).
I have curated a detailed list of articles from Microsoft documentation for each objective of the AZ-900 exam. Please share the post within your circles so it helps them to prepare for the exam. You can also download the AZ-900 Study Guide PDF version.
Skills Measured
- 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 (20-25%)
- Describe Azure Cost Management and Service Level Agreements (10-15%)
AZ-900 Exam Free Study Guide
For each test objective, I’ve compiled a thorough collection of articles from Microsoft documentation. Please feel free to forward this page to your friends and coworkers in order to assist them in preparing for the test .
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
- Disaster Recovery vs. High Availability vs. Fault Tolerance
- Cloud Elasticity vs Cloud Scalability
- Watch here a wonderful lecture on Elasticity
- Cloud Computing: Two Kinds of Agility
- Identify the differences between Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operational Expenditure (OpEx)
- Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operational Expenditure (OpEx)
- Describe the consumption-based model
- Consumption-based model
Describe the Differences between Categories of Cloud Services
- Describe the shared responsibility model
- Shared responsibility in the Azure cloud
- Describe Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
- What is Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)?
- Describe Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
- What is Platform as a service (PaaS)?
- Describe serverless computing
- An introduction to serverless technologies
- Describe Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
- What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?
- Identify a service type based on a use case
- Types of cloud services
Describe the Differences between Types of Cloud Computing
- Define cloud computing
- What is cloud computing?
- Describe the public cloud
- What is a public cloud in Microsoft Azure?
- Describe private cloud
- What is a private cloud – Definition?
- Describe a hybrid cloud
- What is a hybrid cloud?
- Compare and contrast the three types of cloud computing
- Cloud deployment models
Describe Core Azure Services (15-20%)
Describe the Core Azure Architectural Components
- Describe the benefits and usage of Regions and Region Pairs
- Understand Datacenters and Regions in Azure
- Describe the benefits and usage of Availability Zones
- Understand Availability Zones in Azure
- Describe the benefits and usage of Resource Groups
- Resource groups
- Describe the benefits and usage of Subscriptions
- What is an Azure subscription?
- Describe the benefits and usage of Management Groups
- What are Azure Management Groups?
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Resource Manager
- What is Azure Resource Manager?
- Explain Azure resources
- What is an Azure resource?
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 - Windows virtual machines in Azure
- Azure App Service, What are they?
- Azure Container Instances, What are they and their benefits?
- Introduction to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Four compelling reasons to use Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- What is Windows Virtual Desktop?
- Describe the benefits and usage of Virtual Networks, VPN Gateway, Virtual Network peering, and ExpressRoute
- Azure Virtual Network Concepts and Benefits
- What is Azure Virtual Private Network Gateway?
- What is Azure Virtual Network Peering?
- What is Azure ExpressRoute?
- Azure ExpressRoute benefits
- Describe the benefits and usage of Container (Blob) Storage, Disk Storage, File Storage, and storage tiers
- What are Azure Blob Storage and its benefits?
- What is Azure Disk storage?
- Benefits of managed disks
- Azure File Storage and its benefits
- Azure Blob storage: hot, cool, and archive access tiers
- Describe the benefits and usage of Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and SQL Managed Instance
- Azure Cosmos DB and its key benefits
- Azure SQL Database and its benefits
- Microsoft Azure Database for MySQL
- What is Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
- What is Azure SQL Managed Instance?
- YouTube: Know the differences between Azure SQL DB and Managed Instance
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Marketplace
- https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/about
- TechTarget: definition/Microsoft-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
- What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?
- What is Azure Internet of Things (IoT)?
- What is Azure IoT Hub?
- What is Azure IoT Central?
- What is Azure Sphere?
- Why Azure Sphere From Microsoft Is A Big Deal For The IoT Ecosystem?
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Synapse Analytics, HDInsight, and Azure Databricks
- Understand What is Big Data?
- What is Analytics?
- What is Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW)?
- Azure HDInsight overview
- A technical overview of Azure databricks
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services and Azure Bot Service
- A wiki article on artificial intelligence
- What is Azure Machine Learning?
- A look at different cognitive services and their APIs
- Example: Build a Chat Bot with Azure Bot Service
- Describe the benefits and usage of serverless computing solutions that include Azure Functions and Logic Apps
- Learn about serverless architectures
- An introduction to Azure Functions
- Azure Logic Apps overview
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure DevOps, GitHub, GitHub Actions, and Azure DevTest Labs
- What is Azure DevOps?
- What Is GitHub, and What Is It Used For?
- About GitHub Actions
- Azure DevTest Labs overview
Describe Azure Management Tools
- Describe the functionality and usage of the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, Cloud Shell, and Azure Mobile App
- Azure Portal overview
- Getting started with Azure PowerShell
- What is Azure CLI?
- Overview of Azure Cloud Shell
- About Mobile Apps in Azure App Service
- 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 Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates and how they are used?
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Monitor
- Azure Monitor overview
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Service Health
- What is 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?
- Security alerts – a reference guide
- Introduction to secure score in Azure Security Center
- Security Center: Resource Security Hygiene
- Improve your regulatory compliance
- Describe the functionality and usage of Key Vault
- About Azure Key Vault
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Sentinel
- What is Azure Sentinel?
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Dedicated Hosts
- Benefits & limitations of Azure Dedicated Hosts
Describe Azure Network Security
- Describe the concept of defense in depth
- Defense in depth security in Azure
- Azure Essentials: Defense in depth security
- Describe the functionality and usage of Network Security Groups (NSG)
- Network security groups
- How network security groups filter network traffic?
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Firewall
- What is Azure Firewall?
- List all the features of Azure Firewall
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure DDoS protection
- Azure DDoS Protection Standard overview
Describe Identity, Governance, Privacy, and Compliance Features (20-25%)
Describe Core Azure Identity Services
- Explain the difference between authentication and authorization
- Medium Post: authentication-vs-authorization
- Define Azure Active Directory
- Definition of Azure Active Directory
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Active Directory
- Features of Azure Active Directory
- Describe the functionality and usage of Conditional Access, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Single Sign-On (SSO)
- Usage of Conditional Access
- Multi-factor Authentication in Azure
- What is single sign-on (SSO)?
Describe Azure Governance Features
- Describe the functionality and usage of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
- Overview of Role-based Access Control
- Describe the functionality and usage of resource locks
- Lock Azure resources to prevent unexpected changes
- Describe the functionality and usage of tags
- Use tags to organize your Azure resources
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Policy
- Overview of Azure Policy
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Blueprints
- What are 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
- Seven Key Principles of Cloud Security and Privacy
- Microsoft’s 6 key privacy principles
- Compliance and Ethics at Microsoft
- Compliance in the trusted cloud
- Describe the purpose of the Microsoft Privacy Statement, Online Services Terms (OST) and Data Protection Amendment (DPA)
- Microsoft Privacy Statement
- Microsoft Online Service Terms (OST)
- Microsoft DPA documents
- Describe the purpose of the Trust Center
- Azure Trust Center Launched
- 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)
- What is Azure Government?
- Available services in Azure government
- Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet in China
- Service availability and roadmaps in Azure China
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)
- Factors affecting costs in Azure
- Pricing for inbound & outbound data traffic
- Identify factors that can reduce costs (reserved instances, reserved capacity, hybrid use benefit, spot pricing)
- Azure Reserved VM Instances (RIs)
- What are Azure Reservations?
- Reserved capacity pricing
- Bring Windows Server licenses with Software Assurance to Azure
- Use Spot VMs in Azure to lower your costs
- Describe the functionality and usage of the Pricing calculator and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator
- Microsoft Azure Pricing calculator
- Estimate costs with the Azure pricing calculator
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator
- Estimate the Total Cost of Ownership with the Azure TCO calculator
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Cost Management
- What is Azure Cost Management?
- Use Azure Cost Management for free
Describe Azure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Service Lifecycles
- Describe the purpose of an Azure Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/support/legal/sla/summary/
- https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/support/legal/sla/
- Identify actions that can impact an SLA (i.e. Availability Zones)
- Use availability zones to protect from datacenter level failures
- Configure multiple VMs in an availability set for redundancy
- Managed disks
- SLAs for Azure Virtual Machines
- Describe the service lifecycle in Azure (Public Preview and General Availability)
- Understand service lifecycle in Azure
This brings us to the end of the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Study Guide.
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