Learn the AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

Define cloud computing and explore general cloud concepts, including the shared responsibility model, cloud models (public, private, hybrid), and consumption-based pricing, with use-case guidance and pricing comparisons.

Cloud computing delivers computing services over the internet, including virtual machines, storage, databases, and networking, enabling IoT, machine learning, and AI without being constrained by physical infrastructure.

Identify the shared responsibility model in cloud computing, detailing which security and data duties sit with the provider versus the customer across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

Define cloud models: private, public, and hybrid, and compare deployment types, control, security, and cost implications. Explore Azure Arc, VMware, multi-cloud approaches for managing and migrating workloads across cloud environments.

Describe the consumption-based model and the OpEx vs CapEx contrast in cloud computing. Learn that cloud resources are pay-as-you-go, with no upfront cost, scalable, and maintained by the provider.

Explore the benefits of cloud services, including scalable resources, high availability, reliability, security, governance, and overall manageability, to meet variable demand and deliver a good customer experience.

Explore how Azure ensures high availability and scalable cloud resources, with uptime guarantees and elastic vertical and horizontal scaling to handle demand while controlling costs.

Discover how reliability and predictability in the cloud enable resilient Azure solutions through global scale, auto scaling, load balancing, and cost-aware resource planning.

Explore security, governance, and compliance in the cloud across iaas, paas, and saas models. Learn how templates enforce standards, cloud-based auditing flags non-compliance, and automatic patches enhance security.

Explore cloud manageability with automatic scaling using pre-configured templates, health monitoring, and automatic resource replacement, plus real-time alerts, all controlled via web portal, CLI, APIs, and PowerShell.

Describe cloud service types and the shared responsibility model, and examine how IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS determine resource management and suitable use cases.

Describe infrastructure as a service (IaaS) as a model that gives you control of operating systems, networks, and storage, while the provider handles physical hardware and security under shared responsibility.

Explore platform as a middle ground between iaas and saas, where the cloud provider manages infrastructure, development tools, and operating system, while you own data and identities.

Describe software as a service as a fully developed cloud application you rent, with examples like email and finance software, easy to deploy and governed by a shared responsibility model.

Describe the core architectural components of Azure, including data centers, availability zones, regions, and the Asia organizational structure, along with resources, resource groups, subscriptions, and management groups.

Learn how Microsoft Azure provides a global network of cloud services, hybrid capabilities, and open source support to build, deploy, and manage apps with AI, ML, bots, and scalable storage.

Explore how azure accounts, subscriptions, and resource groups organize resources within each subscription and resource group, and learn how to start with a free account and upgrade when ready.

Describe Azure physical infrastructure, including data centers, regions, and availability zones, and how to achieve resilience through redundancy and regional disaster recovery across paired regions.

Describe the Azure management infrastructure, including resource groups, subscriptions, accounts, and resources, and explain how management groups enable governance across a hierarchical structure.

Explore Azure compute options—virtual machines, containers, and Azure functions—alongside networking basics like virtual networks, DNS, and ExpressRoute, with guidance on VM options, web apps hosting, and public or private endpoints.

Explore Azure virtual machines as infrastructure as a service, offering customizable OS, preconfigured images, and scalable, highly available deployments with scale sets and availability sets.

Describe azure virtual desktop as a cloud-hosted desktop and app virtualization service that runs Windows from anywhere, with Azure AD security and multi-factor authentication, supporting multi-session Windows 10/11.

Describe how containers provide a lightweight, on-demand virtualization alternative to virtual machines, enabling multiple containers per host and scalable microservice architectures with docker and container instances.

Describe Azure functions as an event-driven, serverless compute option that runs code in response to events, scales automatically, and charges only for CPU time, with stateless or stateful options.

Explore Azure virtual networking, including isolation with subnets, linking on-premises and cloud resources, and managing public and private endpoints, DNS, and secure traffic routing.

Understand Azure virtual private networks by describing VPN gateways, site-to-site, point-to-site, and network-to-network connections, encrypted tunnels, policy-based and route-based configurations, and high availability options.

Explore how Azure ExpressRoute enables private, non-public internet connections from on-prem to the Microsoft Cloud via an ExpressRoute circuit, using BGP dynamic routing, built-in redundancy, and global reach.

Describe Azure DNS as an anycast hosting service for domain name resolution on Azure, offering alias records and private DNS, with management via Azure portal, PowerShell, REST API, or SDK.

Explore Azure storage services and storage accounts, compare storage tiers and redundancy options, and learn migration and data transfer using Storage Explorer, file sync, and Azure Migrate.

Explore Azure storage redundancy by replicating data in primary region with LRS or ZRS, and optionally across a secondary region with GRS or GZRS, balancing cost, availability, durability, and RPO.

Describe Azure storage services: learn about blob, file, queue, and disk storage, their scalability, encryption, high availability, and tiered access with cross-region replication.

Identify Azure data migration options, including real-time and asynchronous transfers via Azure Migrate and Azure Database Migration Service, plus offline data transfer with Data Box to Asia.

Identify five Azure file movement options, from large-scale migration with Azure Migrate and Azure Data Box to tools like Copy, Easy Copy, Storage Explorer, and File Sync.

Describe identity, access, and security in azure, including azure active directory, authentication methods (sso, mfa, passwordless), identities and guest access, zero trust, defence in depth, and microsoft defender for cloud.

Explain Azure AD and on-premises Active Directory as identity and access management services, enabling sign-in, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, self-service password reset, and device management across cloud and on-prem environments.

Explore Azure authentication methods, including single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and passwordless options like Windows Hello for Business, Microsoft Authenticator, and FIDO2 security keys.

Explore external identities and securely interact with users outside your organization, including B2B and B2C collaboration, guest access, and identity providers like Google or Facebook, managed via Azure AD.

Describe how Azure conditional access uses identity signals: user, location, and device to decide access, enforce outcomes with multi-factor authentication, and apply granular policies for secure sign-ins.

Learn how Azure role-based access control enforces least privilege by assigning built-in or custom roles to scopes such as management groups, subscriptions, and resource groups.

explore how the zero trust model assumes breach, verifies every request, and authenticates and authorizes based on data points, using least privileged access and end-to-end encryption for visibility.

Explain how defense in depth uses a series of layers to slow attackers and prevent unauthorized data access, covering physical, identity and access, perimeter, network, compute, application, and data protections.

Describe how defender for cloud monitors security posture and threat protection across azure, on premises, and multi-cloud environments, deploying log analytics, edge native protections, and secure score.

Describe factors that affect cost in Asia and master cost management tools, including the price calculator, TCO calculator, and the use of tags to predict, monitor, and control expenses.

Analyze how Azure costs shift from capex to opex and how region, resource type, licensing, maintenance, and subscription type shape pricing for compute, storage, and networking.

Compare pricing and total cost of ownership calculators to estimate provisioning costs for resources in Asia and contrast on-premises with cloud infrastructure, including servers, databases, storage, and network costs.

Discover how Azure cost management analyzes spending with cost analysis, and uses budgets and alerts — including budget, credit, and department spending — to automate resource actions.

Describe how resource tags organize azure resources to track workloads, environments, owners, and costs, enabling governance, compliance, and cost management.

Explore Azure governance and compliance features and tools for managing environments. Describe the purpose of blueprints, policy, resource locks, and the Service Trust Portal to maintain compliance.

Define standard, repeatable Azure subscriptions and environments with Azure blueprints to enforce settings and policies, using artifacts like policy assignments, resource groups, templates, and parameters.

Azure Policy enforces compliance by creating, assigning, and managing policies and initiatives that audit and remediate resources across subscriptions.

Explore how resource locks prevent accidental deletion or changes, apply locks at resource, group, or subscription levels, and manage or remove locks via Azure portal, CLI, PowerShell, or ARM templates.

Describe the purpose of the Microsoft service trust portal, offering security, privacy, and compliance resources to understand controls, audits, and protect customer data.

Explore features for managing and deploying Azure resources. Learn about the Azure Portal, Cloud Shell, PowerShell, Azure Arc, Azure Resource Manager, and ARM templates for on-premises and multi-cloud environments.

Explore tools for interacting with Azure resources, including the Azure portal, Cloud Shell, and PowerShell cmdlets or CLI, enabling scriptable management of subscriptions, resource groups, and resources.

Describe how Azure Arc extends Azure compliance and monitoring to hybrid and multi-cloud environments via ARM, delivering centralized governance across on-premises and cloud resources.

Describe Azure Resource Manager and ARM templates. Learn to deploy resources as a group using declarative JSON templates, enabling infrastructure as code with orchestration, dependencies, and consistent deployments.

Explore monitoring tools for Azure, on premises, and multi-cloud environments, including Azure Advisor, Service Health, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, monitor alerts, and Application Insights.

Discover how Azure Advisor evaluates resources and delivers recommendations to improve reliability, security, performance, operational excellence, and cost while offering portal and API access and alerts.

Learn how Azure service health provides global status, regional outages, and resource health insights, with historical alerts and configurable service health alerts to monitor and notify your resources and regions.

Collects data from workloads and resources, analyzes and visualizes metrics, logs, and traces, and triggers real-time alerts and auto scaling with Application Insights support.

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