Introduction
The Microsoft AZ-900 exam tests your understanding of Microsoft Azure. The “900” indicates that it is a Fundamental level.
It tests your knowledge of what is theoretically possible in Microsoft Azure. There is no requirement to know how to do things in Azure and, technically, it is possible to pass the exam without ever having used Azure (but we wouldn’t recommend it).
Skills tested
There are three broad categories of skills covered in the AZ-900 exam, broken down as follows:
- Describe cloud concepts (25–30%)
- Describe cloud computing.
- Describe the benefits of using cloud services.
- Describe cloud service types.
- Describe Azure architecture and services (35–40%)
- Describe the core architectural components of Azure.
- Describe Azure compute and networking services.
- Describe Azure storage services.
- Describe Azure identity, access, and security.
- Describe Azure management and governance (30–35%)
- Describe cost management in Azure.
- Describe features and tools in Azure for governance and compliance.
- Describe features and tools for managing and deploying Azure resources.
- Describe monitoring tools in Azure.
Click here for a more detailed list of topics and scroll to ‘Study guide’.
The AZ-900 exam and its qualification
There has been no official Microsoft announcement about the length of the AZ-900 exam but you should anticipate between 35-60 questions to be answered in around 60 to 90 minutes.
Passing the exam requires a scaled score of 700 or greater (out of 1,000). Be careful what this means. A ‘scaled score’ is not equal to the number of points but is weighted based on factors such as difficulty; a harder question will attract a higher score.
After passing the exam, you will gain the certification ‘Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals’. While this is not a prerequisite for other Microsoft exams, it is a useful platform from which to build your knowledge.
American students may gain 3 college credits by passing the AZ-900 exam.
Related exams
Other Microsoft certifications which test Azure knowledge:
- AZ-104: Azure Administrator Associate.
- AZ-204: Azure Developer Associate.
- AZ-220: Azure IoT Developer Specialty.
- AZ-700: Azure Network Engineer Associate.
Other Microsoft certifications at the Fundamental level:
- DP-900: Azure Data Fundamentals – Azure services focusing on data, such as relational and non-relational databases.
- AI-900: Azure AI Fundamentals – how Artificial Intelligence can be used in Azure.
Other Microsoft certifications of interest:
- PL-900: Power Platform Fundamentals.
- MB-910: Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM).
- MB-920: Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP).
- MS-900: Microsoft 365 Certified: Fundamentals.
- SC-900: Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals.
How to learn skills needed for the AZ-900 exam
To learn the skills needed for the AZ-900 exam, . It covers all of the requirements of the AZ-900 exam and includes 10 quizzes, a practise test, and additional videos about further topics in Azure.
I do data… and so can you!
Related Blog Articles
- AZ-900: Management Tools: Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, and Cloud Shell
- AZ-900: Management Tools: Azure Portal
- AZ-900: Resource Locks
- AZ-900: Describe the Purpose of Microsoft Purview in Azure
- AZ-900: Azure Cost Management
- AZ-900: The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator
- AZ-900: The Azure Pricing Calculator
- AZ-900: Microsoft Defender for Cloud
- AZ-900: Network Security: Defense in Depth
- AZ-900: Describe the concept of Zero Trust
- AZ-900: Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
- AZ-900: Microsoft Entra Conditional Access
- AZ-900: Guest Access in Azure
- AZ-900: External Identities in Azure
- AZ-900: Passwordless Authentication Methods
- AZ-900: Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO)
- AZ-900: Authentication and Authorization
- AZ-900: Define and Describe the Functionality and Usage of Microsoft Entra ID
- AZ-900: Migration Options: Azure Migrate and Azure Data Box
- AZ-900: Azure File Sync
- AZ-900: Azure Storage Explorer
- AZ-900: AzCopy – Azure Command-Line File Transfer Tool
- AZ-900: Redundancy Options in Azure Storage
- AZ-900: File Storage
- AZ-900: Disk Storage in Azure
- AZ-900: Azure Storage Tiers
- AZ-900: Azure Blob Storage and Storage Accounts
- AZ-900: Define Public and Private Endpoints in Azure
- AZ-900: Azure ExpressRoute
- AZ-900: Azure VPN Gateway
- AZ-900: Azure DNS
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Virtual Subnets
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Virtual Networks and Virtual Network Peering
- AZ-900: Describe Application Hosting with Azure App Services
- AZ-900: Describe Resources Required for Virtual Machines
- AZ-900: Describe Availability Sets in Azure
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS)
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Functions
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Virtual Machines (VMs)
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Container Instances (ACI) and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- AZ-900: Describe Management Groups
- AZ-900: Describe the hierarchy of resource groups, subscriptions, and management groups
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Subscriptions
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Resources
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Resource Groups
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Datacenters
- AZ-900: Availability Zones
- AZ-900: Describe Azure Regions, Region Pairs, and Sovereign Regions
- AZ-900: Identify Appropriate Use Cases for Each Cloud Service Type (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
- AZ-900: Describe software as a service (SaaS)
- AZ-900: Describe platform as a service (PaaS)
- AZ-900: Describe Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
- AZ-900: Describe the benefits of manageability in the cloud
- AZ-900: Describe the benefits of security and governance in the cloud
- AZ-900: Describe the Benefits of Reliability and Predictability in the Cloud
- AZ-900: Describe the Benefits of High Availability and Scalability in the Cloud
- AZ-900: Describe serverless computing
- AZ-900: Compare cloud pricing models (Capital Expenditure vs. Operational Expenditure)
- AZ-900: Describe the Consumption-Based Model
- AZ-900: Define Cloud Models: Public, Private, and Hybrid Clouds, and Identify appropriate use cases for each cloud model
- AZ-900: Describe the Shared Responsibility Model
- AZ-900: Define Cloud computing
- Microsoft’s AZ-900 Azure Exam: Everything You Need to Know
- What is the Microsoft AZ-900 exam?
- Microsoft AZ-900 exam – detailed requirements
