AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

Certification exam: skills measured

1. Cloud Concepts (20-25%)

1.1 Benefits & Considerations of using cloud services

• Benefits of cloud computing
• Capital Expenditure (CapEx) vs. Operational Expenditure (OpEx)
• Consumption-based model

1.2 Categories of cloud services

• Shared responsibility model
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
• Serverless computing
• Exercise: identify service type based on a specific use case

1.3 Types of cloud computing

• Definition
• Public, Private, Hybrid cloud
• Exercise: compare and contrast the 3 types of cloud computing

2. Cloud Azure Services (15-20%)

2.1 Core Azure Services

• Regions and Region Pairs
• Availability Zones
• Resource Groups
• Subscriptions
• Management Groups
• Azure Resource Manager
• Exercise: explain Azure resources

2.2 Core resources available in Azure

• Virtual Machines, Azure App Services, Azure Container Instances (ACI), Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Windows Virtual Desktop
• Virtual Networks, VPN Gateway, Virtual Network peering, ExpressRoute
• Container (Blob) Storage, Disk Storage, File Storage, storage tiers
• Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, SQL Managed Instance
• Azure Synapse Analytics, HDInsight, Azure Databricks
• Azure Marketplace

3. Core solutions and management tools on Azure (10-15%)

3.1 Core solutions available in Azure

• IoT Hub, IoT Central, Azure Sphere
• Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, Azure Bot Service
• Azure Functions, Logic Apps
• Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Azure DevTest Labs

3.2 Azure management tools

• Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, Cloud Shell, Azure Mobile App
• Azure Advisor
• Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
• Azure Monitor
• Azure Service Health

4. General security and network security features (10-15%)

4.1 Azure security features

• Azure Security Center, policy compliance, security alerts, secure score, resource hygiene
• Key Vault
• Azure Sentinel
• Azure Dedicated Hosts

4.2 Azure network security

• Concept of defense
• Network Security Groups (NSG)
• Azure Firewall
• Azure DDoS protection

5. Identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features (20-25%)

5.1 Azure identity services

• Authentication vs. authorization
• Azure Active Directory
• Conditional Access, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Single Sign-On (SSO)

5.2 Privacy and compliance resources

• Microsoft core tenets of Security, Privacy and Compliance
• Microsoft Privacy Statement, Product Term site, Data Protection Addendum (DPA)
• Trust Center
• Azure compliance documentation
• Azure Sovereign Regions (Azure Government cloud services and Azure China cloud services)

6. Azure Cost Management, SLA (10-15%)

6.1 Methods for planning and managing costs

• Factors that can affect costs (resource type, services, locations, ingress & egress traffic)
• Factors that can reduce costs (reserved instances, reserved capacity, hybrid use benefit, spot pricing)
• Pricing calculator and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator
• Azure Cost Management

6.2 Azure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and service lifecycles

• Azure Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Service lifecycle in Azure (Public Preview and General Availability)