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Acknowledgments
I've written more than 60 books over the past 30+ years, and each has been a unique experience. With every book, however, success comes from a team approach. Once again, I need to thank the members of the team who helped bring this book together.
First, thanks to Kenyon Brown for bringing me this opportunity and helping to get it off the ground. Thanks also to my agent, Carole Jelen, for all she has done through the years and for this project. Many thanks also to John Sleeva, the book's project editor, and to Rob Tidrow, the technical editor for this project and a partner in crime throughout most of my writing career. Special thanks to Victoria Hester, one of my peers at Microsoft, for taking the time out of her busy schedule to also review the content. Finally, thanks go to Liz Welch, the book's copyeditor, to Louise Watson, the proofreader, and to Saravanan Dakshinamurthy for helping polish the rough content. Thanks also to all of the people who push the buttons and move the levers to turn words on virtual paper into a finished product.
About the Author
Jim Boyce has been involved in IT since the late 1970s in a wide range of roles. He has been a structural steel designer, CAD operator and trainer, college instructor, consultant, ISP owner, and freelance author. He was a director at Xerox, where he managed globally distributed teams providing managed services for Windows Server and collaboration platforms, including SharePoint and Documentum. Over the past 10 years, Jim has held multiple roles as an individual contributor and people manager at Microsoft, including Technical Account Manager, Delivery Management Manager, and now Customer Success Account Manager. In a writing career spanning over 30 years, Jim has written more than 60 books and upwards of a thousand articles for many print and online publications, including InfoWorld, TechRepublic.com, WINDOWS Magazine, and Microsoft.com. He has also created video training content for WatchIT and Lynda.com. In his spare time, he is a building inspector for his small town; works on construction and woodworking projects; flies model aircraft, drones, and full‐sized aircraft; and participates as a coach and unified player for Special Olympics.
About the Technical Editor
Rob Tidrow works as an information technology consultant in the education field. He has been working with technologies professionally for more than 25 years, including operating systems, cloud‐based technologies, databases, mobile devices, networking, security, and more. He has written over 15 books and contributed to over 30 books. His focus is on Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, and SharePoint. He resides in Richmond, Indiana, IN and can be reached at [email protected].
Introduction
I currently manage the support and proactive services experience for a portfolio of Microsoft customers, many of whom have either already made a significant transition from on‐premises to Azure or are in the process of evaluating a move to Azure. I field questions daily about Azure services, deployment strategies, and proactive services designed to not only educate our customers on Azure and Microsoft 365, but also assist them in planning, deploying, and supporting their Azure and M365 workloads.
Continuing technical training is one of the commitments that most Microsoft employees make in addition to the core responsibilities of their roles. As part of that commitment, I completed the AZ‐900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification. The certification helped broaden my background across the entire Azure service portfolio. It also reinforced my understanding that not only highly technical roles benefit from the training and certification—less technical roles benefit from the certification as well.
That's the approach we've taken for this book. The content is intended to help you understand the requirements of the AZ‐900 Fundamentals exam and prepare to successfully pass the exam. The book does not go deep into Azure but rather focuses on core concepts, services, and resources in Azure that are covered by the exam objectives. The goal of the AZ‐900 exam is not to give you a technical depth in Azure, but rather to give you a broad understanding that will enable you to understand the benefits that Azure offers and begin to integrate Azure into your role, whether technical or not.
Microsoft AZ‐900 Certification Exam
Microsoft currently offers 17 certifications at many levels across the Azure cloud offering, ranging from fundamental to very technical. The AZ‐900 exam and certification should be the first certification step in your Azure certification path if you do not yet have a fundamental understanding of cloud offerings and Azure in particular. So, whether you are interested in certification in Azure solutions, data, AI, or other areas, your certification path often begins with AZ‐900.
The following section explores the certification paths and process in more detail.
How Do You Become Certified in Azure?
As explained earlier, Microsoft currently offers 17 certifications for Azure. Obviously, fundamentals is one certification area, but there are multiple certification paths for Azure administration, app development, data, AI, security, DevOps, IoT, and Azure Stack. These certifications are currently supported by 39 exams. Even if you plan to pursue certification in, for example, Azure IoT development, you should consider AZ‐900 Fundamentals to give you a broader understanding of Azure; the knowledge you gain will supplement your understanding of your selected certification. It will also help you leverage and integrate additional Azure workloads in your area of specialization.
Becoming certified in Azure is relatively simple. Choose the certification you want to achieve, work through the prescribed learning path for the certification, prepare for the exam, and pass it. Preparation can take many forms, and this book is intended to be your primary one. People have different learning styles, varying backgrounds and experiences, differing amounts of time to study, and so on. So, this book might be one of a handful of resources you use to prepare for the exam.
To begin, work through the chapters of this book and develop a strong understanding of the questions and answers offered in each one. Practice does make perfect, so consider working through additional practice test options before taking the exam. Microsoft offers some knowledge checks online within the content at the following URL: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/azure-fundamentals
You will also find other sample test options online, some for free and some for a fee. All of them provide good additional preparation for the exam. The more questions you work through before taking the exam, the more likely you are to be successful on your first attempt.
Types of Exam Questions
We have tried to model the sample questions in this book on the types of questions you will see in the official AZ‐900 exam. Because the test is online, however, some types of questions are difficult to model in print. The following sections explore the types of questions you will experience in the official, online AZ‐900 exam.
Multiple Choice
These are generally straightforward and come in two variants.