Microsoft / Azure Azure Fundamentals Study Library
AZ-900
43 free articles on the concepts the AZ-900 exam tests, grouped by exam domain. Each one backs real questions in our practice exam.
Describe Azure Architecture and Services
- Azure App Service, Functions, and Container Services Compared Compare Azure App Service, Azure Functions, and container platforms like AKS and Container Apps to see which managed compute option fits your workload.
- Azure Authentication Methods: SSO, MFA, and Passwordless Sign-In SSO, MFA, and passwordless sign-in solve different problems in Microsoft Entra ID: convenience, layered verification, and eliminating passwords entirely.
- Azure Availability Zones Explained Azure Availability Zones are physically separate, independently powered datacenters in a region. Learn zonal vs. zone-redundant deployments.
- Azure Blob Storage Access Tiers: Hot, Cool, Cold, and Archive Hot, Cool, Cold, and Archive blob access tiers compared — storage cost, access cost, minimum duration, and rehydration — for the AZ-900 exam.
- Azure Data Migration Tools: AzCopy, Data Box, and Azure Migrate AzCopy, Storage Explorer, Azure File Sync, Data Box, and Azure Migrate compared — which tool fits scripted transfers, offline shipping, or VM migration.
- Azure Hybrid Connectivity: VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute, and Private Endpoints VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute, private endpoints, and VNet peering compared — how each Azure hybrid connectivity option works and when AZ-900 wants which one.
- Azure RBAC vs. Conditional Access: Controlling Who Gets In Azure RBAC decides what a signed-in user can do to resources; Conditional Access decides the conditions under which they're allowed to sign in at all.
- Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Clouds Azure regions, region pairs, and geographies explained, plus how sovereign clouds like Azure Government meet strict legal and compliance needs.
- Azure Resource Groups: What They Are and How to Use Them An Azure resource group is a logical container that holds related resources, managed and deleted as one unit. Learn its rules and design patterns.
- Azure Storage Redundancy Options: LRS, ZRS, GRS, and GZRS LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS, and their read-access variants compared — what each protects against, what it costs, and how the AZ-900 exam tests the difference.
- Azure Storage Services and Account Types Explained Blob, Files, Queue, and Table storage compared, plus how General-purpose v2, Premium block blob, page blob, and FileStorage accounts differ on AZ-900.
- Azure Subscriptions vs. Management Groups: The Governance Hierarchy Azure subscriptions are the billing and access boundary; management groups sit above them to apply policy across many subscriptions via inheritance.
- Azure Virtual Machines: Scale Sets, Availability Sets, and Specialized Compute Learn how Azure VMs, availability sets, scale sets, and specialized compute like Dedicated Host and Azure Virtual Desktop differ and when to use each.
- Azure Virtual Networks, Subnets, and DNS Fundamentals Understand Azure virtual networks, subnet segmentation and sizing, network security groups, and how Azure DNS and Private DNS zones resolve names.
- Microsoft Entra ID Fundamentals and External Identities Microsoft Entra ID, Domain Services, Connect, B2B collaboration, and External ID for customers explained — and how to tell them apart on the AZ-900 exam.
- Zero Trust, Defense in Depth, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Zero Trust is a verification philosophy, defense in depth is a layered-controls strategy, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the tool that measures both.
Describe Azure Management and Governance
- ARM Templates, Bicep, and Infrastructure as Code in Azure How ARM templates and Bicep implement infrastructure as code in Azure, and how the two declarative authoring formats relate to Azure Resource Manager.
- Azure Advisor: Recommendations and the Advisor Score What Azure Advisor analyzes, its five recommendation categories, where its security suggestions come from, and how the Advisor Score is calculated and used.
- Azure Application Insights for Web App Performance Monitoring Application Insights is Azure Monitor's APM feature for live web apps — request rates, failures, dependency calls, and availability tests explained.
- Azure Arc: Managing Hybrid and Multicloud Resources Azure Arc projects on-premises, edge, and multicloud resources into Azure Resource Manager for unified governance — without moving any workload.
- Azure CLI vs Azure PowerShell: Choosing a Command-Line Tool Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell both manage Azure resources from the command line — see how their syntax, backgrounds, and use cases differ.
- Azure Cost Management + Billing: Budgets, Analysis, and Resource Tags How Azure Cost Management + Billing gives visibility into spending through cost analysis, budgets, forecasting, exports, and resource tags for chargeback.
- Azure Monitor: Metrics, Logs, and Alert Rules Azure Monitor collects metrics and logs from Azure resources and lets you query, visualize, and alert on that data. Learn the difference and how alerting works.
- Azure Policy: Effects, Initiatives, and Compliance Enforcement Azure Policy enforces resource configuration standards using effects like Deny and Audit, and differs sharply from RBAC. Here is how it works.
- Azure Portal, Cloud Shell, and the Azure Mobile App Compare the Azure portal, browser-based Cloud Shell, and the Azure mobile app, three built-in management interfaces, and which admin tasks fit each one.
- Azure Pricing Calculator vs Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator The Azure Pricing Calculator estimates Azure-only costs; the TCO Calculator compares on-premises spending to Azure. Learn when to use each tool.
- Azure Reservations, Hybrid Benefit, and Spot VMs: Cutting Compute Costs Compare Azure Reserved Instances, Azure Hybrid Benefit, and Spot Virtual Machines to see which purchasing option cuts compute cost for your workload.
- Azure Resource Locks: CanNotDelete vs ReadOnly Azure resource locks block accidental deletion or edits, overriding RBAC for every user. Learn CanNotDelete vs ReadOnly and how inheritance works.
- Azure Service Health vs Resource Health The difference between the public Azure status page, personalized Service Health, and per-resource Resource Health, plus how to configure alerts for each.
- Microsoft Purview: Data Governance and Compliance Tools Microsoft Purview unifies data governance across on-premises, multicloud, and SaaS sources. Learn its data map, sensitivity labels, and DLP tools.
- What Affects Your Azure Bill: Key Cost Factors Explained Learn what drives Azure spending: resource size, region, network egress, subscription and support plan type, storage redundancy, and access tiers.
Describe Cloud Concepts
- Azure Reservations, Spot Instances, and Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Explained Compare Azure Pay-As-You-Go, Reservations, and Spot Virtual Machines, learn where Azure Hybrid Benefit fits, and see how AZ-900 tests each pricing option.
- CapEx vs OpEx: How Consumption-Based Pricing Changes Cloud Spending See how cloud computing shifts spending from capital to operational expenditure, how consumption-based pricing is metered, and what AZ-900 tests.
- High Availability, Reliability, and SLAs in Azure Understand high availability, reliability, fault tolerance, and Azure SLAs, including how Availability Zones, region pairs, and composite SLAs work.
- IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS: Differences, Examples, and When to Use Each Compare Infrastructure, Platform, and Software as a Service by what each manages, who patches what, and which Azure services map to each model.
- Manageability in the Cloud: Azure Monitor, Automation, and IaC Manageability in Azure means configuring, monitoring, and maintaining resources through consistent tools: the portal, CLI, Azure Monitor, Advisor, and IaC.
- Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) Study Guide: Format, Domains, Cost, and How to Pass Complete AZ-900 guide: exam format, passing score, and $99 fee, plus all three domains explained and a study plan mapped to every AZ-900 topic.
- Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud Deployment Models in Azure Public, private, and hybrid cloud each dedicate infrastructure differently. Learn the definitions, tradeoffs, and how AZ-900 scenarios point to each one.
- Scalability vs Elasticity: Vertical and Horizontal Scaling in Azure Learn the difference between scalability and elasticity in Azure, plus vertical vs horizontal scaling and how autoscale ties them together.
- Security, Compliance, and Governance Benefits of the Cloud How Azure delivers security, compliance, and governance as cloud benefits: shared physical security, audited certifications, Azure Policy, RBAC, and locks.
- Serverless Computing in Azure: Azure Functions and Event-Driven Billing Serverless computing runs your code without you managing any servers, billed only for execution time. See how Azure Functions works and when to use it.
- The 5 Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing (AZ-900) Learn the five defining traits of cloud computing — self-service, network access, pooling, elasticity, metering — and how AZ-900 tests each one.
- The Shared Responsibility Model: Who Manages What in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS The shared responsibility model splits security tasks between Microsoft and the customer. See what shifts across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, and what never does.
Reading is step one — practicing is what passes the exam.
1,300 original AZ-900 questions, every answer explained, $59 once — no subscription.