Azure AZ-720 study guide
Azure AZ-720 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
Exam AZ-720, Troubleshooting Microsoft Azure Connectivity, was a Microsoft certification exam aimed at support engineers who resolve networking and connectivity problems in Azure. According to Microsoft's exam page, candidates for this exam are support engineers with subject matter expertise in using advanced troubleshooting methods to resolve networking and connectivity issues in Azure, and they troubleshoot hybrid environments including Azure virtual machines, virtual networks, and connectivity between on-premises and Azure services. The Azure AZ-720 study guide has 6 sections and about 1,713 words.
01Troubleshooting Business Continuity Issues
Business continuity on Azure rests on four measurable pillars: Recovery Point Objective (RPO, tolerable data loss), Recovery Time Objective (RTO, tolerable downtime), backup retention, and geo-redundancy. Understand which service protects which layer.
295 words, about 1 min02Troubleshooting Hybrid and Cloud Connectivity Issues
Hybrid connectivity troubleshooting centers on the path between on-premises and Azure: VPN Gateway (site-to-site, point-to-site), ExpressRoute circuits, Azure Virtual WAN hubs, and private endpoints. For each, know the building blocks: gateway subnet sizing, local network gateway address spaces, connection shared keys, BGP peering (ASN, APIPA 169.254.x.x peering addresses), IPsec/IKE parameters, and route tables.
305 words, about 2 min03Troubleshooting Platform as a Service (PaaS) Issues
PaaS troubleshooting spans App Service, Azure Functions, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Storage, and messaging services. For App Service, separate plan-level problems (CPU/memory exhaustion, scale limits, quota) from app-level problems (bad configuration, missing app settings, startup failures, deployment slot swap effects).
269 words, about 1 min04Troubleshooting Authentication and Access Control Issues
Authentication and authorization troubleshooting requires separating identity proof (authentication) from permission (authorization). Know Microsoft Entra ID primitives: users, groups, service principals, managed identities (system- and user-assigned), app registrations, and enterprise applications.
275 words, about 1 min05Troubleshooting Networks
Azure networking troubleshooting revolves around name resolution, routing, and filtering. Know VNets, subnets, network security groups (NSGs), application security groups, user-defined routes (UDRs), Azure Firewall, NAT Gateway, load balancers, and private endpoints.
276 words, about 1 min06Troubleshooting VM Connectivity Issues
VM connectivity failures split into boot/agent problems, network problems, and guest OS problems. Know the Azure serial console, boot diagnostics (screenshot and serial log), the VM agent and extensions, and Run Command.
293 words, about 1 min