Here’s a cheat sheet to help you quickly review the most important concepts before your AZ-900 exam:
1. Cloud Concepts
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Benefits of Cloud Computing:
- High Availability: Services designed for continuous uptime.
- Scalability: Add resources to meet demand.
- Elasticity: Automatically adjust resources based on load.
- Fault Tolerance: Redundancy built into services.
- Disaster Recovery: Cloud-based backup and recovery options.
- Global Reach: Accessible worldwide through data centers.
- Agility: Quick deployments and scaling for fast responses to changing needs.
Types of Cloud Models:
- Public Cloud: Services delivered over the public internet, shared by multiple customers (e.g., Azure, AWS).
- Private Cloud: Dedicated infrastructure for one organization, either on-premises or hosted by a provider.
- Hybrid Cloud: Combination of public and private clouds, allowing workloads to move between both.
Types of Cloud Services:
- IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): Full control of VMs, networking, and storage (e.g., Azure Virtual Machines).
- PaaS (Platform as a Service): Focus on app development without managing infrastructure (e.g., Azure App Services, Azure SQL Database).
- SaaS (Software as a Service): Fully managed applications (e.g., Microsoft 365, Dropbox).
2. Core Azure Services:
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Compute Services:
- Azure Virtual Machines (VMs): IaaS service for running virtualized OS and apps.
- Azure App Service: PaaS for hosting web apps and APIs.
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): Orchestration for managing containers.
- Azure Functions: Serverless computing for running event-driven code.
Storage Services:
- Azure Blob Storage: Storage for unstructured data like media, backups, and logs.
- Azure Disk Storage: Persistent storage for Azure VMs.
- Azure Files: Cloud-based file shares accessible via SMB.
- Azure Queue Storage: Decouple applications using asynchronous messaging.
Networking Services:
- Azure Virtual Network (VNet): Isolated network for Azure resources.
- Azure Load Balancer: Distributes traffic across multiple VMs.
- Azure Application Gateway: Layer 7 load balancer with WAF.
- Azure VPN Gateway: Secure connection between on-premises and Azure.
Databases:
- Azure SQL Database: Fully managed relational database service.
- Azure Cosmos DB: Globally distributed, multi-model database service.
- Azure Database for MySQL/PostgreSQL: Managed open-source databases.
Big Data and Analytics:
- Azure Synapse Analytics: Analytics and data warehousing.
- Azure HDInsight: Managed Hadoop, Spark, Kafka.
- Azure Data Lake: Scalable storage for big data.
AI and IoT:
- Azure AI: Includes Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services.
- Azure IoT Hub: Service for managing and monitoring IoT devices.
3. Security, Privacy, Compliance, and Trust:
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Security Services:
- Azure Security Center: Unified security management for threat protection.
- Azure Firewall: Managed network security to protect your cloud network.
- Network Security Groups (NSGs): Controls inbound/outbound traffic to resources.
- Azure DDoS Protection: Protects against DDoS attacks.
Identity and Access:
- Azure Active Directory (Azure AD): Identity and access management for users, applications.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adds an extra layer of security.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Granular control over who can access resources.
Governance:
- Azure Policy: Enforce rules to ensure resources meet organizational standards.
- Azure Blueprints: Define and standardize resource configurations for consistency.
- Azure Trust Center: Central hub for security, compliance, and privacy information.
Compliance Certifications:
- ISO 27001, SOC 1, 2, 3, HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP.
4. Azure Pricing, SLAs, and Lifecycle:
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Azure Pricing:
- Pay-as-you-go (PAYG): Pay only for what you use.
- Reserved Instances (RIs): Prepay for VMs for 1 or 3 years to save costs.
- Azure Pricing Calculator: Tool to estimate costs for services.
- Azure Cost Management: Monitor and optimize cloud spending.
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator: Estimate cost savings by moving to Azure.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs):
- Uptime Guarantees:
- 99.9% (Single instance VMs)
- 99.95% (VMs in an Availability Set)
- 99.99% (VMs in Availability Zones)
- SLA Credits: Azure provides credits if uptime is below the SLA guarantee.
Azure Lifecycle:
Service Retirement: Services are sometimes retired, with advance notice for users.
Preview: Early access to services, no SLAs.
General Availability (GA): Full SLA coverage, ready for production workloads.
Shared Responsibility Model:
- IaaS: You manage the operating system, apps, and data. Azure manages the infrastructure.
- PaaS: You manage the app and data. Azure manages the OS, platform, and infrastructure.
- SaaS: Azure manages everything. You manage user access and data.
Key Terms to Remember:
- Scalability: Increase/decrease resources based on demand.
- Elasticity: Automatically adjusts resources based on real-time demand.
- Availability: The percentage of time a system is operational (usually tied to SLAs).
- Disaster Recovery: Recovering operations after a failure.
- Fault Tolerance: The ability of a system to continue operating when part of it fails.
- Geo-Redundancy: Replicating data across multiple geographical regions to ensure availability.
Quick Tips Before the Exam:
- Practice questions: Go through practice exams and mock questions.
- Hands-on: Explore Azure Portal, create resources (e.g., VMs, storage), and explore pricing tools.
- Time management: You’ll have 40-60 questions in 85 minutes, so pace yourself.
- Understand SLAs and Pricing: Be familiar with the consumption-based model and the shared responsibility model.