Azure AZ-900 Exam: Personal Experience

If you are planning to take an exam for Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) certification, then you are in the right place. In this blog, I would share how I studied for a week and passed the AZ-900 exam. 

I would also share why I took this exam and how it would help me down the road. 

Basic information about the exam




Microsoft docs is the best place to understand the exam format and to know what are the expectations of this exam. However, there is some information, which is not specified on the Microsoft website, like, how many questions and the duration of the exam. But, here are the numbers based on my exam: 

  • Duration of the exam: 1 hour 30 minutes (90 minutes) 
  • Questions: 45

The exam focuses on four different sections: 

  • Understand cloud concepts (15-20%)
  • Understand core Azure services (30-35%)
  • Understand security, privacy, compliance, and trust (25-30%)
  • Understand Azure pricing and support (20-25%)

You will get your result as soon as you click the final submit button at the end of the exam. If you pass the exam, you will get an official Microsoft badge after a few hours on the completion of the exam. However, you will get a transcript in about seven days. 

How I planned to study for this exam?

I started researching on the Internet for study materials and I saw various amounts of courses online. Not to mention, you have to pay about $10-20 per exam, which I didn't want to pay because the exam is already $99. 

So I decided to not purchase any online courses. I went to Microsoft's website to go through their online learning platform, which consists of 11 modules for absolutely free. 

I skimmed through each module and made notes. I studied for about 3-4 hours every day. It took me some time to go through every module because I was researching for each cloud concept and services on different browser tab side by side to understand the whole concept effectively. The material covered on the Microsoft website is highly useful because it dives deeper into the topic and explains the concepts using great quality videos from experts in the field. 

Since I had solid past experience in using Azure for multiple projects, therefore, it was easy for me to navigate and understand popular services like Virtual Machines, Azure Active Directory (AD), Cosmos DB, Logic Apps, Storage account, etc. 

Don't worry if you are not familiar with these words. Here is the link to the copy of my notes. It would help you to get started. 

I cherry-picked some of the important resources on the Internet that would help you to prepare for the exam. 


A personal opinion on this exam

I took this exam when I am a student. Generally, I have seen people taking this exam in their management career or people who use cloud services at their workplace. The simple reason why I took this exam so early is that my plan is to gain architect level certifications. Let me throw an analogy here, let say that you learn how all the parts of the plane. You learn every usage of plane components and you learn when to use it and how to use it, but if you never have flown the plane, you can't fly it even if you know everything about the plane. So when I thought about taking this exam, I said this to myself that I am just learning about the Azure environment and not actually controlling the Azure environment. If you think that passing this exam would help you to become Azure master then it is wrong thinking. You will just learn the fundamentals of Azure. AZ-900 is just a first step into the whole amazing world of Microsoft Azure. 

It is important to start somewhere and AZ-900 is a perfect start. Passing this exam would motivate you to take more exams to understand more about Azure by actually performing complicated tasks in Azure. Just like I am planning to take more advanced exams in the future. 

I wish you all the best! Believe me, it is worth it to take this exam and expand your knowledge horizon in the world of the Azure environment. 

Just to motivate you, here is a picture of official digital AZ-900 badge: 


Good Luck! 👍 Thanks for spending time to read this blog. (It was my first blog)

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