AZ-900 Study Guide: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals 2020

AZ-900 Study Guide: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals 2020

The content of the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam will be updated on May 28, 2020. That is why I want to share my new updated AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam Study Guide for 2020 with you. To learn and prepare for the exam, I usually use a couple of online resources, mainly Microsoft Docs and Microsoft Learn, which I am going to share with you. You can find more information about how I prepare for a Microsoft Certification exam on my blog post: How to prepare and pass Microsoft Certification Exam.

NOTE: This exam study guide is updated to cover the new content starting from November 9, 2020. If you want to see the differences between the old exam content and the new, check out the skills measured doc on the exam website.

Also, check out other Microsoft Azure Certification Exam Study Guides:

I passed the AZ-900 exam awhile back, but now I am looking forward to refreshing it. If you want to learn more about how to get started with Azure, I recommend my blog post: How to get started learning Microsoft Azure and Cloud Computing

Here is my AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam Study Guide

It is essential to get familiar with the exam objectives and skills measured first. That is why I recommend reading the description of the exam and the skills measured.

Exam AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

This exam is designed for candidates who need to validate foundationallevel 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. Candidates must be prepared to demonstrate a fundamental understanding 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 concepts of networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.

This exam can be taken as a precursor to other Microsoft certifications, such as Azure Administrator. While it would be a beneficial first step, taking this exam is not a prerequisite before taking any other Azure-based certifications.

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

• Describe cloud concepts (15-20%)
• Describe core Azure services (30-35%)
• Describe security, privacy, compliance, and trust (25-30%)
• Describe Azure pricing Service Level Agreements, and Lifecycles (20-25%)

You can find more information on the exam website.

Free Online Microsoft Learn AZ-900 Exam Study Guide resources

I personally believe is you are going through the Azure Fundamentals learning path on Microsoft Learn, you should be able to pass the exam. Microsoft Learn provides you with free online training and learning paths for different Microsoft technologies. They not just offer reading material, but also control questions and free online labs. Here are some relevant Microsoft Learn modules and learning paths for the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam. Microsoft Learn is an important part of my AZ-900 exam study guide.

Free Azure Account

I also highly recommend that you create a free Azure account to try out the Azure services and get familiar with the Azure platform.

Microsoft Docs AZ-900 study guide resources

One thing I always used to prepare for my Microsoft exams is Microsoft Docs. Here are the relevant Microsoft Docs which I used to prepare and study for the AZ-900 exam.

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)
  • Microsoft Learn: Cloud Concepts – Principles of cloud computing
• 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

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
  • Azure Resource Manager overview
• Describe the benefit and usage of Subscriptions
  • Azure subscription and service limits, quotas, and constraints
• Describe the benefit and usage of Management Groups
  • Organize your resources with Azure management groups
• Describe the benefit and usage of Azure Resource Manager
  • Azure Resource Manager overview
• 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
  • 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
  • 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

• Describe the functionality and usage of resource locks

• Describe the functionality and usage of 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)

• 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?

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)
  • Overview of the reliability pillar

• describe the service lifecycle in Azure (Public Preview and General Availability)

AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals Study Guide Tips and Resources

I hope this AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam Study Guide helps you pass the exam and get other Microsoft Azure certifications. I also recommend that you open a free Azure account if you don’t have one yet. You can create your free Azure account here. Also, check out my blog posts about Microsoft Azure Certification:

I hope you enjoyed my AZ-900 Study Guide and it helps you as exam prep. Did I miss any link, or do you have any recommended AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam Study resources? Let me know in the comments.