AZ-900 Study Guide: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
This AZ-900 Study Guide has been updated with the January 25, 2022 exam objectives
The AZ-900 exam is the only exam needed to get the Azure Fundamentals certification, and an optional exam in all the other Azure Paths. This exam is designed for candidates looking to demonstrate foundational level knowledge of cloud services and how those services are provided with Microsoft Azure. The exam is intended for candidates with non-technical backgrounds, such as those involved in selling or purchasing cloud-based solutions and services or who have some involvement with cloud-based solutions and services, as well as those with a technical background who have a need to validate their foundational level knowledge around cloud services.
In this AZ-900 Study Guide, I will share both free and paid options, whether books, video training or simply links to articles and blog posts. I will not share any dumps as those are against the Microsoft Terms of Service, and by using dumps, we decrease the value of our certifications.
AZ-900 Books
Many people still prefer books to study, and this is why Microsoft still does the Exam Ref series! Books are sometimes a bit late on the exam objectives – so always check when the book was published and if any major changes have been made to the objectives.

Exam Ref AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
Prepare for Microsoft Exam AZ-900―Demonstrate your real-world knowledge of cloud services and how they can be provided with Microsoft Azure, including high-level concepts that apply throughout Azure, and key concepts specific to individual services. Designed for professionals in non-technical or technical roles, the Exam Ref series focuses on the critical thinking and decision-making acumen needed for success at the Microsoft Certified Fundamentals level.
- Amazon.com: https://amzn.to/3DmWYgc
- Amazon Canada: https://amzn.to/307V30N
- Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3oOde6b
- Amazon FR: https://amzn.to/303qSYy
- Amazon DE: https://amzn.to/2X1UnZO
AZ-900 Video Training
There are many video training providers out there, both free and paid. Paid options such as Pluralsight usually go more in depth and explain the content, and are also peer reviewed to ensure quality. As for YouTube and Udemy the quality will depend on the individual creating the video, so make sure to check the reviews.

Includes Practice Exam
Recommended Option
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) Certification Prep Path (6 Courses – 9h30)
This certification path is intended to cover the foundational knowledge needed to understand Microsoft’s Azure offering. The courses in this path cover the basics when it comes to the products and services a Microsoft Azure subscription provides. This is an excellent starting point for those looking to get started in working with cloud services and solutions in the Azure space.
- Link: https://spvlad.com/AZ-900Path
- Free Trial: http://spvlad.com/PS10DayTrial

AZ-900 Azure Exam Prep: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
AZ-900 Course Includes 5 Hours of Video Lectures, Interactive Labs, Realistic AZ-900 Exam Simulator, Flash Cards, & More

AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Prep
Learn the fundamentals of Azure, and get certified, with this complete beginner’s AZ-900 course, includes practice test!

Microsoft Azure – Beginner’s Guide + AZ-900
Beginning your journey on Microsoft Azure + 2 practice tests on AZ-900 certification exam

Microsoft Azure Exam AZ-900 Certification | Online Course
Exam AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals checks and validates your fundamental knowledge of cloud services and how Microsoft Azure provides the cloud services, irrespective of any specific role.
AZ-900 Practice Exams
Those are practice exams and not dumps. I do not encourage dumps as they ruin the certification value for everyone. Practice tests are a great way to get ready for the exam after studying everything in this AZ-900 Study Guide

Recommended Option
Microsoft Azure Exam AZ-900 Certification | Practice Test
Exam AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals checks and validates your fundamental knowledge of cloud services and how Microsoft Azure provides the cloud services, irrespective of any specific role. Includes 275 Unique questions.

AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Original Practice Tests
Three complete timed practice tests for AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals exam, 150 questions, 100% original material

AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Sample Questions
These sample questions are intended to provide an overview of the style, wording, and difficulty of thequestions that you are likely to experience on this exam
AZ-900 Microsoft Learn Modules
Microsoft learn is a great free way to learn about the AZ-900 exam content! It contains mostly text-based articles, while also providing you small quizes at the end of every module.

New to the cloud? Azure fundamentals is a six-part series that teaches you basic cloud concepts, provides a streamlined overview of many Azure services, and guides you with hands-on exercises to deploy your very first services for free.
- Azure Fundamentals part 1: Describe core Azure concepts
- Azure Fundamentals part 2: Describe core Azure services
- Azure Fundamentals part 3: Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure
- Azure Fundamentals part 4: Describe general security and network security features
- Azure Fundamentals part 5: Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features
- Azure Fundamentals part 6: Describe Azure cost management and service level agreements
AZ-900 Instructor-led training (Microsoft Official Courses)
This is the Microsoft Official Course, which you can schedule at a Microsoft learning partner. Those classes are presented by Microsoft Certified Trainers. This is the best way to learn any topic as you can ask questiosn to a live instructor – but also the most expensive one.

Course AZ-900T01-A: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
This course will provide foundational level knowledge of cloud services and how those services are provided with Microsoft Azure. The course can be taken as an optional first step in learning about cloud services and Microsoft Azure, before taking further Microsoft Azure or Microsoft cloud services courses.
AZ-900 Articles / Blog Posts Per Objective
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 Azure 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 for MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Azure 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 Azure 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 (15-20%)
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 locks
- 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, Online Services Terms (OST) and Data Protection Amendment (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)
- Service-level agreements (Service-level agreements (SLAs) describe Microsoft’s commitments for uptime and connectivity)
- identify actions that can impact an SLA (i.e. Availability Zones)
- describe the service lifecycle in Azure (Public Preview and General Availability)
Additional Tips
I think the best thing that you can do after reading AZ-900 Study Guide, or even while following it , is to open a free Azure Trial , and play with those features, follow the tutorials and you shouldn’t have any problems with the exam!
Did I miss any cool links in this AZ-900 Study guide? Let me know in the comments! Don’t forget to check out my other Microsoft Certification Study Guides!
Leave a comment and don’t forget to like the Vlad Talks Tech Page on Facebook and to follow me on Twitter here for the latest news and technical articles on SharePoint. I am also a Pluralsight author, and you can view all the courses I created on my author page. |
20 Comments
Fantastic job, Vlad. So many important links in one place. Great!
great work. Thanks
Great resource, especially the part with links to the articles
Hi there,
Your ,suggested resource for Microsoft Azure Fundamentals in Pluralsight is very outdated. The instructors materials were release on March of 2010 and so much has change in Azure Fundamentals since.
CB
Hello Chris! Pluralsight just released a brand new AZ-900 path and courses! > https://spvlad.com/AZ-900Path
Does this need to be updated to reflect the recent changes? Love your series on. pluralsight
I am waiting for the big update in November!
Thank you for your time in putting this together, very very helpful and much appreciated.
I am amazed how you bring all these together. Great work ! Thanks a lot.
You did a great work in putting everything together. Thanks.
Cleared the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam today. This page was awesome and very helpful!
Great Work.Thanks!!
Great collection of resources!
Hello Mansoor,
I think this is when Microsoft was supposed to update the Objectives on September 15th but it’s been delayed to November now.
Hi Vlad,
Many thanks for the clarification. I will hold on until November to do AZ-900 exam.
On a wonderful note, i must say your site is full of very useful information regarding Ms Exams, and your training courses are amazing. Thank you so much for transferring this knowledge to people like us.
Great stuff,
Thanks again.
Regds
Mansoor
I scheduled the AZ-900 Exam for November 5th, but now I don’t understand if it will be based on a new syllabus.
Do you have any info about the date on which the topics will change?
Thanks in advance, keep up the good work!
The AZ_900 will be updated on November 9. You can check the new syllabus here > https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-900
Vlad, thank you for spending so much time and effort to bring all the resources in one place, it is much appreciated.
P.S. Love your Pluralsight courses too!
Regards
Thank you! 🙂
Supper collection 🙂 One Month is enough time for AZ-900 certification ? 29th Dec is my date. Suggest please!