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🔵 Microsoft Azure Certification

Azure Fundamentals AZ-900

Complete study reference for Microsoft Azure Fundamentals — covering Cloud Concepts, Azure Architecture & Services, and Azure Management & Governance.

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40–60

questions

45

minutes

700/1000

passing score

Exam area weightings

Azure Architecture & Services

35–40%

Azure Management & Governance

30–35%

Cloud Concepts

25–30%

Topics by exam area

What each area covers

Cloud Concepts (25–30%)

5 topics

Focus on memorising Azure examples for each service model: IaaS = Azure Virtual Machines; PaaS = Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database; SaaS = Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365. The shared responsibility model determines which security tasks shift to the customer depending on the service model.

  • Cloud computing benefits: high availability, scalability, elasticity, agility, geo-distribution
  • Cloud service models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS — with Azure examples for each
  • Cloud deployment models: public, private, hybrid cloud
  • Consumption-based pricing: capital vs operational expenditure
  • Shared responsibility model in Azure

Azure Architecture and Services (35–40%)

6 topics

The largest domain — requires knowing Azure services by purpose. Key comparisons: Azure Functions (serverless, event-driven) vs App Service (web apps, always-on) vs AKS (containerised workloads). Blob storage tiers: Hot (frequent access), Cool (infrequent, 30 days min), Archive (rare, 180 days min, rehydration time).

  • Azure regions, availability zones, region pairs
  • Resource Groups, Subscriptions, Management Groups, Azure AD tenants
  • Compute: Virtual Machines, App Service, Azure Functions, AKS, Container Instances, Virtual Desktop
  • Storage: Blob (tiers), File, Queue, Table, Managed Disks; redundancy (LRS/ZRS/GRS/GZRS)
  • Networking: VNet, VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute, Load Balancer, Application Gateway, CDN, DNS
  • Databases: Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, Azure Database for MySQL/PostgreSQL, Azure Cache for Redis

Azure Management and Governance (30–35%)

7 topics

Governance tools are heavily tested — know what each does: Azure Policy (enforces rules), RBAC (controls who can do what), Resource Locks (prevents deletion or modification), Azure Blueprints (repeatable environment templates). The Well-Architected Framework has 5 pillars: Cost Optimisation, Operational Excellence, Performance Efficiency, Reliability, Security.

  • Cost management: Pricing Calculator, TCO Calculator, Azure Cost Management, Azure Advisor
  • Azure Policy, Initiatives — enforcing compliance at scale
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and scope (Management Group → Subscription → Resource Group → Resource)
  • Azure Blueprints: repeatable environment definitions
  • Resource locks: CanNotDelete and ReadOnly
  • Azure Monitor, Azure Service Health, Azure Advisor
  • Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and Azure Well-Architected Framework

Commonly searched questions

What candidates ask most about Azure Fundamentals

What is the shared responsibility model in Azure?

The shared responsibility model specifies who is responsible for different security aspects. In on-premises, you are fully responsible. In Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), responsibility for hardware/virtualisation goes to Microsoft, but you keep Windows updates, middleware, and app. In Platform as a Service (PaaS), Microsoft handles OS and middleware. In Software as a Service (SaaS), Microsoft manages everything except your data and directory access.

What is the difference between Azure Region Pairs and Availability Zones?

Availability Zones are physically separate datacentres within a single region, used to protect against datacentre failure (99.99% VM uptime SLA). Region Pairs are separated by hundreds of miles within the same geography, used to protect against major regional disasters (like earthquakes or power grids) via cross-region backup replication.

Which Azure cost tool should I use to estimate future spend?

To estimate future costs of new architectures, use the Azure Pricing Calculator. To estimate potential cost savings by moving on-premises datacentres to Azure, use the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator. To monitor, alert, and optimize active live cloud spend, use Azure Cost Management.

Practice

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