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How I Passed AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

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I recently passed the AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals certification exam. In this post, I will share with you why this exam was so important for my professional and personal growth, and how I came to pass with a (nearly) perfect score of 980/1000!

 

The First Dollar Earned

If you’ve ever been to a mom-and-pop shop, you’ve probably seen a single dollar bill framed and displayed proudly on a wall. The first dollar earned. That single dollar bill may not mean much to a passer-by, and it’s worth a measly 100 pennies. It’s true value lies in the significance of that first victory. As more dollars are earned (and some lost), that first dollar will be a reminder that you can do this if you just put in the work. My Azure Fundamentals cert may not mean much to others, or even be very impressive, but it was my first dollar earned. 💵

 

Free as in Beer

I came across the Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: Fundamentals, which included a free voucher for AZ-900 upon completion. I signed up for the webinar, attended, and received my voucher via email a couple of days later. On a whim, I decided to schedule my exam. I mean it was free, so what did I really have to lose?

 

A Little Background

I make a living as an Expert Systems Engineer, designing and operating traditional on-prem solutions. I have a firm grasp on IT fundamentals in general. My current role is heavy on Microsoft Enterprise products, although I am also well versed in Linux and comfortable using a command line. I’ve also worked with Docker containers and several Hypervisors, so I have some experience with those concepts.
 
However, my Azure\Cloud knowledge was practically ZERO coming into this. My team has a Cloud Engineer and anything Azure-related falls in his lap. I may have caught a handful of screen shares in the last couple of years during deployments, but that’s about it.
 
I share this so that you have some context on my skill level when I began studying for AZ-900.

 

How I Prepared

Time Committed

It took me 12 days with ~30 hours of total study time to prepare. Being a night owl, I would study between 11 PM - 2 AM. This is also the quietest time in my house since everyone is asleep and it allows me to give my undivided attention to studying. I would take a couple of 15-minute breaks each night, but nothing that could derail my studying. Yea, I’m talking about you, YouTube!
 

Example
30 hours / 12 days = 2.5 hours/day average.

A breakdown of what my study time actually looked like at the end:

Resource Time (estimated) Cost
Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: Fundamentals 6 hours FREE + FREE Voucher
CBT Nuggets 8 hours Free through employer. Typically $60/mo
SkylinesAcademy 6 hours $15 - Udemy runs sales all the time
WhizLabs Practice Exams 6 hours $8 with 50% off promo
Study Guides \ MS Docs 4 hours FREE
Total 30 hours $23

 

Exam Prep Tips
  • Estimate how much time you want to invest and then COMMIT.
  • Schedule your exam. Open-ended goals are goals that are never fulfilled. You must be intentional.
  • Establish a daily study routine. Pick a timeframe where you can study undisturbed.
  • Avoid time-wasters like YouTube and social media. Your study time is sacred!
  • Share your plans with friends and family for accountability. These same people will celebrate your win or cheer on a re-take!
  • Remember it’s not a race. Enjoy the process and find what pace works for you.
  • The objective is to LEARN, not just memorize.

 

The Night Before

I completed 2 WhizLabs Practice Exams that I hadn’t already taken and scored above 90% on each. I then went back through and retook each of the 5 exams in “Practice mode.” For each question, especially those I got right out of pure luck or got flat wrong, I skimmed the answer guide to make sure I fully grasped the concepts. The answer guide also provides links to related MS Docs, which is super helpful.

 

Exam Day

Since I’m not much of a morning person, I had scheduled my exam mid-day. This allowed me to sleep in a bit and have a relaxed breakfast with coffee ☕. I chose the Pearson OnVue at-home testing option, which I strongly recommend. Everyone left the house about 30 minutes before my scheduled start time, so there was complete silence while I set up my exam station. Proctors can be pretty strict about background noise and can end the exam if they think someone is feeding you answers, so plan to have a quiet space.

 

Exam Day Tips
  • Schedule for a time that will allow you to get ready calmly.
  • If possible, have everyone leave your space 15-30 minutes beforehand.
  • Do the System Test ahead of your scheduled time, even the night before if possible, to avoid issues.
  • Lastly, use the bathroom before your exam! Nerves can get things moving, and you won’t be allowed to get up after the exam has started.

 

Exam Information

Exam Page

Candidates for this exam should have foundational knowledge of cloud services and how those services are provided with Microsoft Azure.

Azure Fundamentals exam is an opportunity to prove knowledge of cloud concepts, core Azure services, Azure pricing, SLA, and lifecycle, and the fundamentals of cloud security, privacy, compliance, and trust.

This exam is intended for people beginning to work with cloud-based solutions and services. Candidates should be able to demonstrate a fundamental knowledge of cloud concepts, as well as Azure services, workloads, security, privacy, pricing, and support. In addition, you should be familiar with concepts of networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.

  • Time Available: 60 minutes
  • Number of Questions: 30-50 (I got 34 on my exam)
  • Pass mark: 700 / 1000 points

 

Skills Measured

Skills Measured

  • Describe Cloud Concepts (15-20%)
  • Describe Core Azure Services (30-35%)
  • Describe Security, Privacy, Compliance, and Trust (25-30%)
  • Describe Azure Pricing, Service Level Agreements, and Lifecycles (20-25%)

 

Training Resources

SkylinesAcademy

 

Review
This course was awesome, it covered all the bases, and really got to the meat of the topics. The presentation was just a basic slide deck with text, graphics, and no fancy animations. Nick Colyer does an excellent job of breaking down each module and jam-packing it with relevant information. You may think that 5 hours is short, but he really does cover practically everything needed to pass with no time wasted. The course materials (slides, docs, links, etc) were also really helpful and appreciated. Demos\Labs were great and easy to follow. The Skylines Study Guides are an awesome resource as well. I would be confident in saying this is the only video course you would need to pass. I would recommend this course to anyone that already has a technical background and can handle a faster pace.
 
My Rating:
☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️
5 / 5 Clouds

 

CBT Nuggets

 

Review
This course was pretty good overall. Chuck Keith AKA NetworkChuck always does a fantastic job presenting information and always seems super excited to teach you (must be all that ☕ he drinks). There is a lot of stylus drawing on the screen with animations, and it works well to get the ideas across. Being a successful YouTuber, his editing is spot on and he has plenty of charisma to keep you awake. Demos\Labs were well done and easy to follow along. My only complaint would be that the course seemed a bit long at 8 hours and there is a fair amount of hand-holding on some of the more basic concepts. I would recommend this one to people who have little to no technical background and could benefit from the slower pace and energetic presentation style.
 
My Rating:
☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️
4 / 5 Clouds
 

Microsoft Webinar

 

Review

I thought this was worth the time to sit through, and the presenter (who’s name escapes me) did a pretty good job overall. I thought the format was a bit awkward, there was another guy with him the whole time, but he didn’t speak much or add any value really. There was a lot of small-talk that I felt added unnecessary time to the presentation. Either way, it was a great starting point to introduce me to the world of Azure. You get a FREE voucher, which is awesome! I used it to schedule my exam through Pearson OnVue with no issues. I would recommend seeking out more training, as I didn’t feel this was enough to pass.

 
My Review:
☁️ ☁️ ☁️
3 / 5 Clouds

 

MS Docs

 

Note
Microsoft Docs is an impressive collection of detailed documentation. Microsoft has done an amazing job of organizing and keeping these up to date. I recommend everyone use them to supplement their training courses and practice exams.
 
My Rating:
☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️
5 / 5 Clouds

 

Microsoft Learn Path

 

Note
Although I didn’t complete these modules, a lot of the Study Guides online recommend this as a starting point. I felt that the Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: Fundamentals webinar I attended covered the learning path pretty well, so I opted to save the time.

 

Practice Exams

WhizLabs

 

Review

The WhizLabs Practice Exams were great! I highly recommend these, and found them to be crucial to my pass. I felt they covered all the topics thoroughly and their answer guides went into detail on why answers were right or wrong. They provide links to relevant MS Docs, and have a community Q&A for each question where people could ask anything. I thought that was an awesome feature and really helpful when an answer didn’t make sense even after reading up on it. I purchased it on sale for $8, which was 50% off, but would have gladly paid full price. I liked them so much I even pre-purchased my AZ-104 Practice Exams. I recommend these for all taking the exam.

 
My Rating:
☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️
5 / 5 Clouds

 

Labs

  • Microsoft Learn AZ-900 Labs on GitHub  
    Note
    I didn’t end up using these, as I felt following along the Labs\Demos in the CBT Nuggets and SkylinesAcademy courses were enough. Browsing through the repository, they look to be a great resource for some extra hands-on practice. I would recommend to anyone who still doesn’t feel comfortable with the Azure Portal after following Labs in the training videos.

 

Study Guides

 

Conclusion

The AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals certification is an excellent exam for those that are new to cloud concepts. Difficulty is low and you should be able to clear it without investing too much time even with no prior cloud experience. The knowledge gained is the perfect precursor to the AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate and AZ-204 Azure Developer Associate certifications.
 
Personally, this exam was the perfect candidate to get me back in the “game.” I was able to shake off all the testing jitters and gain some real confidence to carry me forward through my AZ-104 studies.

 

Question
What are your plans after passing the AZ-900?
 
Leave a comment below!    

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