Azure Certification Prep

Certification Path

Azure certifications follow a role-based model. The recommended path for cloud engineers is AZ-900 (fundamentals) → AZ-104 (administrator) → AZ-400 (DevOps). Each certification builds on the previous one.

AZ-900: Azure Fundamentals

• Cloud concepts (25-30%) — Benefits of cloud, IaaS/PaaS/SaaS, shared responsibility model
• Core Azure services (35-40%) — Compute, storage, networking, databases, management tools
• Security and governance (15-20%) — Network security, RBAC, Azure Policy, compliance
• Cost management (15-20%) — Pricing calculator, TCO, cost management, SLAs

# Explore Azure services (hands-on practice)
az account list-locations --query "[].{name:name, displayName:displayName}" --output table
az vm list-sizes --location eastus --query "[0:5].{name:name, vcpus:numberOfCores}" --output table
az storage account sku list --query "[].name" --output table

# Practice with the pricing calculator
az vm estimate-deal \
  --resource-group rg-estimate \
  --vm-size Standard_D2s_v3 \
  --days 30

AZ-104: Azure Administrator

• Manage Azure identities (15-20%) — Entra ID, RBAC, subscriptions, resource groups
• Implement storage (15-20%) — Blob, File, Storage accounts, backup
• Deploy compute (20-25%) — VMs, containers, App Service, Azure Functions
• Implement networking (15-20%) — VNets, NSGs, peering, load balancers, DNS
• Monitor (10-15%) — Azure Monitor, alerts, Log Analytics
• Governance (10-15%) — Policy, Blueprints, cost management

# Practice VM management
az vm create --resource-group rg-practice --name vm1 --image Ubuntu2204 --size Standard_B2ms --generate-ssh-keys
az vm start --resource-group rg-practice --name vm1
az vm stop --resource-group rg-practice --name vm1

# Practice networking
az network vnet create --resource-group rg-practice --name vnet1 --address-prefixes 10.0.0.0/16
az network vnet subnet create --resource-group rg-practice --vnet-name vnet1 --name subnet1 --address-prefixes 10.0.1.0/24

# Practice RBAC
az role assignment list --scope "/subscriptions/{sub-id}" --query "[0:5].{principal:principalName, role:roleDefinitionName}" --output table

AZ-400: DevOps Engineer

• DevOps strategy (10-15%) — Agile, SRE, DevOps practices
• CI/CD (35-40%) — Pipelines, releases, artifacts, testing
• IaC (20-25%) — ARM, Bicep, Terraform, Azure Policy
• SRE (15-20%) — Monitoring, alerting, SLOs, incident management
• Security (15-20%) — Secret management, vulnerability scanning, DevSecOps

# Deploy a complete CI/CD pipeline scenario
# 1. Create a service connection for Azure DevOps
az ad sp create-for-rbac --name "sp-azdo-pipelines" --role "Contributor" --scopes "/subscriptions/{sub-id}"

# 2. Enable OIDC for the pipeline
az ad app FederatedIdentityCredential create \
  --id "sp-azdo-pipelines" \
  --name "azdo-main" \
  --issuer "https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant-id}/v2.0" \
  --subject "sc://myorg/myproject/pipelines"

# 3. Store secrets in Key Vault
az keyvault secret set --vault-name kv-devops --name "pipeline-client-id" --value "..."
az keyvault secret set --vault-name kv-devops --name "pipeline-tenant-id" --value "..."

AZ-500: Security Engineer

• Identity access (20-25%) — Entra ID, RBAC, conditional access, PIM
• Platform protection (15-20%) — NSGs, ASGs, Azure Firewall, WAF
• Security operations (25-30%) — Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, threat detection
• Data and apps (20-25%) — Key Vault, encryption, App Service security

Study Strategies

1. Start with Microsoft Learn — Free, comprehensive, and aligned to exam objectives
2. Hands-on practice — Use Azure free account or sandbox for every module
3. Take practice exams — MeasureUp and Whizlabs provide realistic practice tests
4. Focus on weak areas — Use practice test results to guide study time
5. Join study communities — Reddit r/AzureCertification, Microsoft Q&A, Discord servers
6. Schedule the exam early — A deadline creates urgency and focus
7. Review exam objectives — The official exam objectives are your study guide

# Create a dedicated learning subscription
az account subscription create --name "Learning" --offer-type MSDN_ULTIMATE

# Set spending limit
az account set --subscription "Learning"

# Create a practice resource group
az group create --name rg-certification-practice --location eastus

# Clean up after practice sessions
az group delete --name rg-certification-practice --yes --no-wait