Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) Exam Survival Guide

Window: Global | Cloud concepts, services, security, pricing/SLAs

Must-do topics

• Core concepts: IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS; shared responsibility model
• Global infrastructure: regions, region pairs, availability zones, resource groups
• Compute/storage/network: VM/Scale Sets, App Service, Functions; Blob/File/Queue/Table; VNets/NSGs
• Identity & security: Azure AD (Entra ID), RBAC, Defender for Cloud, Key Vault, PIM
• Reliability & governance: SLAs, Azure Policy, Blueprints, Cost Management, tags
• Pricing: CAPEX vs OPEX, reservations, spot, Total Cost of Ownership

Top traps (avoid)

• Picking VMs when App Service/Functions (PaaS) fit requirements better
• Confusing NSG (L4) vs Azure Firewall (L3–7); RBAC vs ACL
• SLAs: composing multi-service availability incorrectly (multiply SLAs)
• Storing secrets in code instead of Key Vault; forgetting soft delete

Time split

• ~40–60 Q / 60–85 min; steady pace, minimal calculation
• Two-pass method: straightforward → scenario mapping

Last-48h checklist

• Service mapping sheet (compute/storage/network/serverless)
• Identity/RBAC basics; Policy vs Initiative vs Blueprint differences
• Pricing calculator play; reservations vs spot concepts; SLA math examples

Quick facts

• Region pairs provide paired updates and recovery priority
• Availability Zone = physically separate datacenter in a region
• App Service = PaaS web apps; Functions = event-driven code
• Cost Mgmt + Budgets for alerts; Advisor suggests optimization

Speed tactics

• Map requirement → service and responsibility tier (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS)
• Eliminate answers violating security baselines (no secrets in code, no public storage)
• Prefer managed services for reliability and cost unless constraints say otherwise

Day-of mini-plan

• 10-min warm-up: service match game (10 scenarios)
• Read stem → underline constraints (SLA, cost, governance)
• Quick final pass for identity/RBAC trick questions