![Microsoft Certified Azure Fundamentals: Exam Guide [2020]](https://urbancodex.com/wp-content/uploads/microsoft-certified-azure-fundamentals.png)
If you are new to Cloud technology or want to start your career in Microsoft Azure platform, and planning to take the Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals Certification exam, then read this article where I discussed how to prepare for the exam.
Here I’ve shared tips from my personal experiences on how to study and which all areas to cover. I hope that will help you get well prepared for the exam.
About the Exam
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, commonly known as AZ-900, is a beginner level exam. The exam details can be found at the official certification page.
Prerequisites
Candidates for this exam should have foundational 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 or are new to Azure. There is no prerequisites that you need to meet prior to taking this exam.
If you don’t have prior experience working with Azure, then you can follow these learning activities:
- Create your own Azure account (free) at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/free/. This is a free account as long as you stay within the free tier usage. For more details, do visit the link.
- Learn Azure online courses from different sites like Pluralsight, Linux Academy, Lynda, Coursera, A Cloud Guru etc. and make sure to do enough hands-on learning activities to gain the confidence.
- Microsoft recommends following their learning paths which is available in the exam page.
- Take the Official practice test before taking the final exam to be familiar with the types of questions that you are going to expect.
Taking the Exam
Following are the high-level details about the exam:
| Length | 85 minutes |
| No. of questions | 40 – 60 (Multiple-choice, multiple-answer) |
| Passing Score | 700 |
| Cost | $ 99 USD |
You get approximately 1 and half minutes per question, however I recommend to target to spend 1 minute per question. If any question is taking longer time then mark that for review and proceed for the next question. This way you can cover all the questions first and later you can revisit the questions which you had not answered earlier. Also, you will have the opportunity to go back and change the answer of any question.
Pro-Tips
Question Format
There are two types of questions – i) single answer and ii) multiple answers.
In single answer type question, you choose one single answer from a list of say 4 answers. In the other type, you may have to choose say 2 answers from a list of say 5 answers.
Testing Center
You have to take this exam at Pearson VUE. Their testing centers are located in most of the major cities. Check the nearest center in your locality and choose the time and date to book an exam. However, for the first time I registered for the online proctored exam and attended it from my home during COVID-19 lockdown period.
Taking the exam from home
You have to to attend this from a quiet room where nobody will enter throughout the exam duration.
First, you need to login to Microsoft certification account (refer link in your exam confirmation email). Then you need to download the OnVue client app on your computer. This app requires administrative privileges on your computer. This app monitors and doesn’t allow to run any other app throughput the exam duration.
You can start the verification process by entering your mobile no. where you get link to upload photos. You need to upload 1 photo of yourself, 1 photo of your identity proof with photo and 4 photos of the room from 4 sides.
Once you submit, the monitoring starts and you are supposed to sit straight and follow all exam etiquettes. They can see you throughout the exam but you can’t.
They will verify your documents and may connect you online where you might need to shows your hands that you are not warning any gadgets like digital watch. They might ask you to show any parts of the room if they find something suspicious from the photos that you uploaded. Your workstation must be clean and free from electronic items. Your mobile phone should be far away from arm reach.
Once the verification is done, they release your exam where you need to check if your name and the test that you are taking mentioned on the screen are correct or not. Next you need to agree the Microsoft Terms which essentially says you are not going to disclose the questions in the exam. Once you agree, your exam starts, timer begins, you get your first question and a clock on your screen starts showing how much time is left.
When you are done, you can submit all the answers. If not, then at the end of 85 minutes your answers are automatically submitted and it shows your results.
Question Breakdown
Most questions cover features that are General Availability (GA). The exam may contain questions on Preview features if those features are commonly used.
| No. | Skills Measured | % of Exam |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Describe Cloud Concepts | 20 – 25 |
| 2 | Describe Core Azure Services | 15 – 20 |
| 3 | Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure | 10 – 15 |
| 4 | Describe general security and network security features | 10 – 15 |
| 5 | Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features | 20 – 25 |
| 6 | Describe Azure cost management and Service Level Agreements | 10 – 15 |
Study and Learning
Azure Fundamentals exam is an opportunity to prove knowledge 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 general technology concepts, including concepts of networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.
Read Azure documentation to learn about the best practices and be familiar about different services. I highly recommend to refer Azure CLI Documentation to learn about its capabilities and usage.
Stay Tuned
Cloud is a moving target. New services and features are continuously getting added to it. Subscribe to Azure updates to stay tuned.
Following are some topics from key services which you should have good understanding of:
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)
- Describe the consumption-based model
Describe the differences between categories of cloud services
- Describe the shared responsibility model
- Describe Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
- Describe Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
- Describe serverless computing
- Describe Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
- Identify a service type based on a use case
Describe the differences between types of cloud computing
- Define cloud computing
- Describe Public cloud
- Describe Private cloud
- Describe Hybrid cloud
- Compare and contrast the three types of cloud computing
Describe Core Azure Services (15-20%)
Describe the core Azure architectural components
- Describe the benefits and usage of Regions and Region Pairs
- Describe the benefits and usage of Availability Zones
- Describe the benefits and usage of Resource Groups
- Describe the benefits and usage of Subscriptions
- Describe the benefits and usage of Management Groups
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Resource Manager
- Explain Azure resources
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 the benefits and usage of Virtual Networks, VPN Gateway, Virtual Network peering, and ExpressRoute
- 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 forMySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and SQL Managed Instance
- Describe the benefits and usage of Azure Marketplace
Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure (10-15%)
Describe core solutions available in Azure
- Describe the benefits and usage of Internet of Things (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 the benefits and usage of 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
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Monitor
- Describe the functionality and usage of 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
- Describe the functionality and usage of Key Vault
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Sentinel
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Dedicated Hosts
Describe Azure network security
- Describe the concept of defense in depth
- Describe the functionality and usage of Network Security Groups (NSG)
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Firewall
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure DDoS protection
Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features (20-25%)
Describe core Azure identity services
- Explain the difference between authentication and authorization
- Define Azure Active Directory
- Describe the functionality and usage of 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)
- Describe the functionality and usage of resource
- Describe the functionality and usage of tags
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Policy
- Describe the functionality and usage of Azure Blueprints
- Describe the 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, Product Terms site, and Data Protection Addendum (DPA)
- Describe the purpose of the Trust Center
- Describe the purpose of the 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)
- 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
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)
- Describe the service lifecycle in Azure (Public Preview and General Availability)
After the Exam
Email Confirmation
Within 1 to 2 hrs., you receive an email confirmation with subject line Congratulations on your Microsoft certification!. You also get instruction to download your transcript and score report.
Digital Badge
The email mentions that You’ve earned a badge. Claim it today! And, you get the link to the Acclaim badge.
Bottom Line
I’ve cleared multiple certifications (both associate and professional levels) on different Cloud technologies and realized that there is no short-cut to achieve that. The only things that are required to clear these exams are your knowledge and understanding of context. Most of the questions in this exam will be scenario based where they will make you think and choose the best possible answers isolating them from the incorrect answers (they call as “distractors”). You can only expect a very few direct questions. So, in every question you need to understand the context and apply your knowledge to solve that puzzle.
But if you prepare well and get your hands dirty on the key services I mentioned above, you will succeed. All the best for your exam!
Did you appear for the exam? Then please share your experience in the comments below.
![OCI Foundations 2020 Certified Associate: Exam Guide [2020]](https://urbancodex.com/wp-content/uploads/oci-foundations-2020-certified-associate-300x300.png)