Updated March 13, 2023
Introduction to Azure AZ-900
The AZ-900 exam is taken as the Azure fundamental certification, but it is optional for all the other Azure paths. It is structured for the candidates who are willing to gain the basic level knowledge in cloud services and the structure of the services that are provided in Microsoft Azure. The learning plan for this certification covers basic cloud concepts, network structure, security policies, azure management tools, and core services of Azure.
What is Azure AZ-900?
- Nowadays, Azure has a rapid growth place in cloud platforms. The Azure-900 covers the fundamental concepts of the Azure cloud, and it is a genuine beginning for those who are fresh to the Azure world. Even though it is a beginner-level exam, it plays a tough role to pass the exam.
- The exam test the candidate’s foundation-level knowledge of Azure administration and cloud concepts. The resources from the non-technical and technical field can prepare for this exam and validate their cloud services skills and make you prepared to appear for the next level certifications of Azure roles.
- For the people who have experience in Azure services, it is the best opportunity to prove his skills in core concepts and services of Azure like Compute, Networking, App services, Storage, Internet of things, and Artificial intelligence.
How do we Prepare for the Azure AZ-900 Exam?
- The fundamentals of Microsoft Azure are targeted at the candidate who is yet to begin their career with the Microsoft Azure domain.
- First, begin with cloud concepts which cover 25% of the exam. It used to find the consideration and benefits of using cloud services. The benefits of cloud computing are scalability, agility, elasticity, high availability, and disaster recovery. It is used to identify the differences between operational expenditure and capital expenditure and describes the consumption-based model. It helps to differentiate between various categories of cloud services and describes the shared responsibility model, Iaas, Saas, Paas, service types based on usage, and serverless computing. It also explains the various types of cloud computing like hybrid cloud, public, and private cloud.
- Then the core services of Azure cover 20% of the topics in the exam. The architectural components of Azure are availability zones, resource groups, usage and subscriptions, regions and region pairs, management of azure groups, and benefits of Azure resource manager. The advantages of virtual machines, azure container instances, azure app services, azure virtual desktops, virtual networks, express route, virtual network peering, blob storage, storage tier, file storage, and disk storage. The databases such as Azure SQL databases, Cosmos DB, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and MySQL.
- The candidate then should cover the management tools of Azure like IoT central, Azure sphere, Internet of things, Azure synapse, Azure data bricks, HDInsights, Cognitive services, Azure bot services, Logic applications, GitHub, Actions of GitHub, Devtest labs, and Azure DevOps. The other Azure management tools are Azure PowerShell, Azure Mobile App, Azure CLI, Azure advisor, templates of Azure resource manager, Azure service health, and Azure monitor. Then he should start with general and network security features, which cover around 15% of the syllabus. The basic features of Azure cover compliance policies, security scores, security alerts, and resource hygiene. The important security tools of Azure are key vault, Azure sentinel, Azure dedicated hosts, concepts and application of Network security groups, Azure DDoS protection, and Azure firewall.
- Then after covering the security management in Azure, he should go through the compliance features, privacy, identity, governance policies of Azure which almost covers 20% of the exam. The identity services of Azure should be kept at their fingertips. The candidate should know to differentiate between authorization and authentication and functions of the Azure active directory. The functionality of Single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and conditional access should be revised well. The governance features in Azure like resource lock, application of tags, azure policies, azure framework, cloud adoption, azure blueprints, and role-based access control should be fed into his skills. The compliance resources and policy features in Azure like Data protection amendment, Online service terms, the privacy statement of Microsoft should be revised. The candidate should be aware of the purpose of Azure china cloud services, Azure sovereign region, trust center, and Azure compliance documentation.
- The service level agreement and cost management of Azure should have effective planning on egress and ingress traffic, resource types, location, services, hybrid models, reserved capacity, reserved instances, calculator on total cost ownerships. The service life cycle, which is defined properly, is the mandatory part of the assessment as it relies directly on a client part. The purpose of service level agreement in Azure and action that affects the SLA in different availability zones, general availability, and public preview should be revised as they score the highest one.
Learning Project
So the candidate should be skilled in the important services of Azure and related topics.
- In summarizing the above, the candidate should be aware of cloud computing.
- Get skilled in important azure components like storage, compute and networking.
- Go for a minimum of three hands-on lab experiences and practice sessions.
- Practice by creating virtual private networks, virtual instances, peering, integration of load balancer, and gateways.
- Get trained in the creation of application services, and make yourself updated in pricing and available service plans.
- Revise well on storage features like cosmos DB, blobs, and queue.
- Take a view on pricing model concepts and security.
AZ-900 Certification Expires
- There is no expiry date defined for certification on AZ-900.
- But another related Azure certification comes with an expired date, and it needs to be updated, renewed periodically every eighteen months.
Conclusion
The candidate can take many practice exams before taking the main exam so that it helps him to be calculative in time allocation for every question and understand the question faster. Therefore, be prepared and confident before appearing for the exam, which plays an important role in clearing the exam successfully.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Azure AZ-900. Here we discuss the introduction; how do we prepare for the Azure AZ-900 exam? Learning project & certification expires. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
