Having just passed my AZ-900 exam using no paid resources I will share my knowledge and resources used to hopefully help you pass the exam (Without making the same mistakes I did).

The Exam

The majority of details about the exam can be found in the Microsoft documentation, however I will highlight the important information below:

Cost
The exam can be purchased here. I sat my exam online through Pearson VUE and the cost was £82.80 including VAT

Skills Measured Breakdown

Describe Cloud Concepts (25–30%)
Describe Cloud Computing
Describe the benefits of using cloud services
Describe cloud service types

Describe Azure Architecture and Services (35–40%)
Describe the core architectural components of azure
Describe Azure compute and networking services
Describe Azure storage services
Describe Azure identity, access and security

Describe Azure Management and governance (30–35%)
Describe cost management in Azure
Describe features and tools in Azure for governance and compliance
Describe features and tools for managing and deploying Azure resources
Describe monitoring tools in azure

Sitting the exam

• The AZ-90 exam can have anything between 32–60 questions
• The passing grade for the exam is 70%
• The exam length is 45 minutes

My Training Path

Although there are many paid resources out there for the AZ-900 exam I took the route of finding freely available resources and found them to be more than sufficient.

1. Microsoft Learning Path (4–5 Hours)

Microsoft has a learning path for each of the three skills measured in the breakdown.

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: Describe cloud concepts
Azure Fundamentals: Describe Azure architecture and services
Azure Fundamentals: Describe Azure management and governance

I found this to be the most concise and informative resource. If you have experience with using Azure you use this as your only learning resource and go directly to exam preparation.

2. AZ-900 Certification Course — John Savill’s Technical Training (13 Hours)

John Savill provides a 62 video playlist with around 13 hours of content. This content goes above and beyond what you need to know for the exam and it provides a clear explanation of each point. I personally did not feel the need to go through the entire playlist. Instead, I chose specific videos to just cover topics I did not fully comprehend after finishing the Microsoft learning path.

Direct link to the playlist here

Exam Preparation

1. AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Full Course and Study Guide

I found this resource extremely helpful as it provides multiple small practice tests and a direct YouTube video to explain each of the 37 topics. I recommend going through each practice test and watching the accompanying video if you answer any question incorrectly.

Direct link to the course here

2. AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals Certification Exam Cram — Inside Cloud and Security (2 hours)

This YouTube video breaks down everything you will see in the exam and back it up with some specific use case scenarios. (I watched this video on 1.25x speed using YouTube settings)

Direct link to the video here

Practice Questions

I found multiple sources for free exam questions. I also used YouTube videos for exam practice as I found someone explaining the reasoning behind each question extremely helpful to fully understand a question.

1. Exam Topics

Exam topics have a bank of 394 questions. I did around 10–15 questions every few hours in the days leading up to the exam.

Link to practice questions here

2. The Tech BlackBoard

This YouTube video was probably the most valuable pre-exam resource I found. Around 30% of the questions on my exam (sat on 12/09/22) were in the video. The video also talks about how specific changes in words can change the answer to questions and gives multiple examples.

Link to video here

Mock Exams

These mock exams are more similar to the real exam than the above practice questions. (You are given a time limit and will not instantly see the answer to your questions)

Thomas-Mitchell — Mock Exam
Inside Cloud and Security — Mock Exam

My Exam Experience

Firstly this is where I should share a mistake I made:

I booked my exam online using Pearson VUE where they give you the option of selecting a date and a range of time slots. However I recommend you double check if you are selecting AM or PM. I made the mistake of booking a AM time. Due to this mistake I missed my exam, fortunately I was able to contact them and reschedule. Please make sure to double-check this when you are booking the exam as you could forfeit the cost.

When sitting the exam you are required to take pictures of the ID document of our choice, of your face and four individual pictures of your testing environment. You are given 45 minutes to complete the exam. I finished faster than 45 minutes so I got the chance to go over each question again. After completing the exam you are given an option to complete a quality survey, and after this you are given your total score, so you can see if you have passed or failed instantly.

For a far more detailed breakdown of the exam experience please read Cosmin Vlad’s how to pass the AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam “My Online Exam Experience” section

Recommendations

The AZ-900 can be compared directly to the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. I would say that the AZ-900 is the easier of the two although many of the cloud concepts and ideas are similar. Therefore, my recommendation would be to pursue the AWS exam following this.

Hopefully, this will help you pass the exam on your first attempt!

Good luck.