How to prepare for Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 Certification Exam

Hello Readers! Hope you all are doing well. I see that you have chosen AZ-900 certification, and this is the right time to grow your career and take advantage of cloud innovation. Before starting your preparation for Azure certification, you should know that Microsoft brought about role-based certifications which can help you to prepare for careers by training in specific skills. The role-based certifications are at different levels: fundamental level, associate level, and expert level. AZ-900 is the foundation level of Azure certification.

What to expect from this article?

This is a comprehensive study guide that will help you in your AZ-900 certification preparation. In this article you learn about the core concepts of Microsoft Azure, the exam pattern along with the % of questions from different modules, tips, and tricks to crack the exam, and other useful information. Sample questions and self-learning portal links are available in the later sections. Follow them thoroughly and you will pass the exam on your first attempt.

You can also watch the webinar for Azure Fundamentals by the Founder and CEO of CloudThat, Mr. Bhavesh Goswami here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBsW1GVd-mg

Prerequisites: Who all should attempt this certification?  

Whether you are a Software Developer, System Administrator, Sales and Marketing personnel, or into procurement, gaining knowledge about cloud services is imminent.

Irrespective of your technical background or your skill as a technical wizard, AZ-900 is for everyone and anyone trying to get elementary knowledge on Azure cloud services. Even fresh graduates can take up this exam and gain proficiency in Azure fundamentals and build a career as a cloud expert.

About the certification

AZ-900 exam can be classified on difficulty level as ‘Easy’ when compared to other Microsoft role-based exams.  In this exam, you can expect questions from 4 modules as described below. You must gather knowledge about these 4 modules before appearing for the exam

• Module 1: Cloud Concepts (15-20%)
• Module 2: Core Azure Services (30-35%)
• Module 3: Security, Privacy, Compliance, and Trust (25-30%)
• Module 4: Azure Pricing, Service Level Agreements, and Lifecycles (20-25%)

Let us look at the exam pattern for AZ-900: 

Percentage of question from all 4 modules: Topic breakage

Module 1: Describe cloud concepts (15-20%)

From this module, there will be questions related to the basic cloud concepts such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). You must understand the difference between these services because the questions will be based on what type of service is WebApp or Office 365. Another important concept here is the cloud models i.e., Public, Private, and Hybrid cloud models. Understand the keywords such as High Availability, Scalability, Elasticity, Agility and Fault tolerance, and some examples related to them.

Module 2: Describe core Azure services (30-35%)

From this module, we can expect questions on core Azure architectural components, core Azure services and solutions, and various management tools available. It is important to understand the network of secure datacentres to deploy services, how redundancy is provided, and service guarantees from Azure to answer questions based on these. We will get a greater number of questions on virtual machines, and containers, Networking services like Virtual Network, Azure Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Application Gateway, and Azure Content Delivery Network.  Few questions will be on SQL Data Warehouse, HDInsight, Azure Data Lake Analytics. Finally, in the management section, we will get questions on Portal, PowerShell, CLI, Cloud Shell, and Azure Advisor, which provides recommendations on high availability, security, performance, and cost.

Module 3: Describe security, privacy, compliance, and trust (25-30%)

From this module, we can expect questions on security, compliance requirements, protecting sensitive customer data.  A good number of questions are anticipated on Azure identity solutions like Authentication, Authorization, Multi-Factor Authentication hence should be given more emphasis. A few questions can be asked on from Azure Policy, Blueprints, Resource Locks help governance in Azure. Finally, the Monitoring and reporting topic also attracts a few questions.

Module 4: Describe Azure pricing Service Level Agreements, and Lifecycles (20-25%)

From this module, we can expect questions on costing, Azure support plans, Azure SLAs, and the service lifecycle in Azure. This section has important questions though it attracts a few questions. We will get questions on Service Level Agreements on different plans taking into consideration the uptime of the cloud, Azure Lifecycle, etc. SLAs topic is highly emphasized for getting more questions in the certification exam.

Study Materials and Reference:

There are various ways to prepare for the AZ-900 course. Microsoft Learn Portal, Microsoft Documentation, and Microsoft Official Courseware (MOC) are self-learning portals. Otherwise, there is an option for instructor lead training that can help you learn the Azure fundamentals with a structured approach.

Check out the AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals course link and enroll.

CloudThat also provides Test Prep https://testprep.cloudthat.com/ for anyone attempting this course where you get unlimited access to our library for Azure, MCQs, and performance tracker.

Tips and Tricks:

Few things you should understand before attempting the final exam to be able to sweep through smoothly. Appear for the exam right after attending the training so that the concepts are fresh in your mind. While answering the questions, eliminate the wrong choices and choose the final answer. If you find any complicated question can be attempted later and mark it for later after finishing the whole test. There is no negative marking for the wrong answers, so attempt all the answers. Take a deep breath before you dive in and remember everyone starts somewhere so there is provision for reattempts to the AZ-900 exam.

Get Certified now:

It is always great to get the right source of learning to Move Up. At CloudThat we have a course aimed at preparing participants for AZ-900 Azure fundamentals and you can find the below link to register.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-900

Look forward to my next blog ‘Sample questions for Microsoft Azure fundamentals AZ-900 certification exam’

Special thanks to Anandteerth Mathad for co-authoring this blog.

Feel free to drop any questions in the comment box, we would love to address them. I hope you enjoyed the article. Best of luck!

WRITTEN BY Anusha Shanbhag

Anusha Shanbhag is an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Technical Content Writer specializing in technical content strategizing with over 10+ years of professional experience in technical content writing, process documentation, tech blog writing, and end-to-end case studies publishing, catering to consulting and marketing requirements for B2B and B2C audiences. She is a public speaker and ex-president of the corporate Toastmaster club.