Azure AZ-900 study guide
Azure AZ-900 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals is a beginner-level Microsoft certification (listed product: Azure; role: Administrator) for technology professionals who want to demonstrate foundational knowledge of cloud concepts in general and Microsoft Azure in particular. Microsoft describes it as a common starting point in a journey toward a career in Azure. Candidates should be able to describe Azure architectural components and core services such as compute, networking, and storage, and describe the features and tools used to secure, govern, and administer Azure. Relevant background includes experience in an area of IT such as infrastructure management, database management, or software development. Topics on this exam: Describe cloud concepts, Describe Azure architecture and services, and Describe Azure management and governance. The Azure AZ-900 study guide has 3 sections and about 1,013 words.
01Describe Cloud Concepts
Most cloud-concept questions are really asking you to map a business requirement to a term. The foundation is the consumption-based model : you rent capacity and pay only for what you use, which converts capital expenditure (buying servers up front) into operational expenditure (a recurring bill). Economies of scale is why unit prices fall - the provider aggregates demand across millions of customers and passes some savings on. Public cloud runs on provider-owned shared infrastructure; private cloud is dedicated to one organization (on-premises or hosted by a third party); hybrid connects on-premises assets to cloud services; multi-cloud uses two or more providers.
361 words, about 2 min02Describe Azure Architecture and Services
Regions are geographic areas containing one or more datacenters; availability zones are physically separate datacenters within a region, used for high availability. Region pairs sit in the same geography, are updated sequentially, and support geo-replication for disaster recovery. The management hierarchy runs resources → resource groups → subscriptions → management groups . Trap: a resource group is a logical container and can hold resources from different regions; it is not a boundary for security or billing by itself.
339 words, about 2 min03Describe Azure Management and Governance
Three tools, three jobs. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator compares running workloads on-premises versus in Azure. The Pricing Calculator estimates the cost of a new Azure solution before you build it. Microsoft Cost Management analyzes and alerts on actual spend after deployment.
313 words, about 2 min