How to Pass AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam

I recently passed this exam, after some light-core studying, over maybe three to four weeks, I wasn't preparing all that intensively but considering what is recommended by a lot of people. I prepared more than I needed to prepare, I like to play it safe. A lot of people have been asking me how I prepared for the exam so that gave me the idea to put together this blog post with a few tips. Since this is an entry-level exam it's not too hard, compared to more specialized certification exams. It covers the basic cloud literacy and basic knowledge about Microsoft Azure, its services, and products. If you're new to IT or planning a change of career, this might give you a nice boost of confidence, if this is the case it makes take you a bit more to get acquainted with all the terms that will be new to you, but a few weeks of studying should suffice. On average, one or two weeks should be ample enough to prepare for this exam.

The exam topics (at the time I'm writing this) are as follows:

• Describe cloud concepts (20-25%)
• Describe core Azure services (15-20%)
• Describe core solutions and management tools on Azure (10-15%)
• Describe general security and network security features (10-15%)
• Describe identity, governance, privacy, and compliance features (20-25%)
• Describe Azure cost management and Service Level Agreements (10-15%)    

These can get changed/updated by Microsoft from time to time so it's best to check on the official certification page here. What do these percentages mean? For, example the could concepts sections is the largest, on average, so there will be more questions on the exam from this category -  20% to 25% of the questions will be on the topic of cloud concepts, so it's a good idea to learn these major sections really well.

Which resources I used to prepare for this exam?

Free Online Course From Microsoft

Microsoft Learn has a six-part free online course which covers all sections of this exam. The course is module based, there are knowledge-check quizzes at the end of each section, you get experience points for completing lessons and passing quizzes (gamification of learning can be a good motivation) and also, there are some exercises included for which you can active Azure Sandbox, which is a simulated Azure environment where you can try the same things as with a real active Azure subscription, the only difference being is that it's totally free! If you're completely new to Azure, and cloud, I would highly recommend taking this free course, as it's very easy to understand, it's self-paced and each individual lesson has a pretty optimized duration - not too long and not to short either.

Paid Instructor-led Training 

This is also something that Microsoft offers, for AZ-900, at the moment, this is a two day paid training, these instructor-led trainings can be a bit pricy, but for some people the best motivation for learning is to invest money, also for these paid training you would need to check availability dates when they are held, it's not self-paced like the free online course on MS Learn. You can find more info about it on the official certification page. Another possibility is to get this payed for you by someone else, for example lot of companies that are Microsoft partners might have such opportunities, so it's a good idea to ask around and do some research before enrolling, and coughing up the dough yourself.

Microsoft's Free Instructor-led Training

These are quite good, I attended one such training for this cert, but the thing is they are not always available, Microsoft organizes these from time to time and for fundamental level certifications, another really nice thing is that after attending these learning sessions you often get an exam voucher to register for the exam with 100% discount! I got one of those - 50 bucks saved! Keep an eye out for these by subscribing to Microsoft's newsletter. The session was held by Matt Hester, who is an Azure technical trainer at Microsoft, and it was very informative.

AZ-900 Certification Path on Pluralsight

This certification path has four course in it, about eight hours combined length. The four individual courses also have mini quizzes called knowledge checks and are not just theoretical - the instructors also provide plenty of explanations how things are done in Azure. The thing I like the most about Pluralsight (compared to most other online course platforms) is that not just everyone can publish a course there, instructors that have their courses on Pluralsight are heavily seasoned industry veterans. Pluralsight is a paid service, but they do offer a 10 day free trial. Using a free Visual Studio Dev Essentials subscription (for this all you need is a free account with Microsoft, such as an Outlook or a Hotmail account) can give a 30 days free trial at Pluralsight, instead of just 10 days.

Online Practice Exams

While these exams will not have questions identical to the actual exam, they will give you a good feeling of how the exam is structured regarding the format of questions and question types. I used the AZ-900 practice exam included with Pluralsight's Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) certification path (they're partnered with Kaplan Learn for this), certification practice exams are included with Premium subscription plan. This one is a bit more expansive than the usual Individual plan but I got a nice deal on the yearly subscription for a Black Friday so it's a good idea to keep an eye out for such deals.

These are the main resources I used to prepare for this certification exam, and they were more than enough for me to pass the exam. There are plenty of other resources out there, a lot of them free. One such course, that is really worth mentioning is a free 3-hour Youtube course on Free Code Camps channel. 

Lastly, I would recommend avoid using brain dumps, they can often have wrong misleading info and to the best of my knowledge they are illegal and could result in you losing the certification , since this is a violation of the non-disclosure agreement, as you are required to agree to the NDS prior to taking the exam.

I sincerely hope that this post will be helpful to you, dear reader, in passing the exam!