Saturday, I passed the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam (AZ-900).

The topics covered for this exam are listed here.

It had a lot of general knowledge question (a few where you just needed to know the difference between IAAS and PAAS). But there were some trivia questions, as well.

I studied for 2-3 days and got an 850.

Here is how I prepared:

  1. I completed this 12-module course, which took about 8 hours: Azure Fundamentals course
  2. I reviewed this PowerPoint deck: AZ-900 Certification Training, created by Daniel Baker.

While studying the above 2 resources, if I found any service with which I had no experience, I opened the portal and created that service and poked around in it a bit. I found it stuck in my memory much better when I did that.

Also, I kept open a text document while studying, in which I listed any topics that I did not know or felt weak in. After studying, I returned to this and reviewed these topics multiple times.

Related to this practice, I saved a copy of the above deck and deleted the slides covering topics I felt I knew well. I reviewed the remaining slides until I could read the title and articulate the ideas covered by that slide.

This was probably the least technical Microsoft certification exam I've taken. It wasn't difficult, but it did require some preparation on my part. I've worked in Azure for years, but I don't think I would have passed without studying. There were too many questions about support options and SLAs and other things I don't spend much time on.