AZ-900 MICROSOFT AZURE FUNDAMENTALS EXAM READY - VERIFIED
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - COMPREHENSIVE LATEST VERSION
2026/2027
1. What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage,
databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the internet ('the
cloud') to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.
2. What are the three main cloud service models?
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a
Service (SaaS).
3. What is IaaS?
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) provides virtualized computing infrastructure over
the internet. The cloud provider manages hardware; the customer manages the OS,
middleware, and applications. Example: Azure Virtual Machines.
4. What is PaaS?
PaaS (Platform as a Service) provides a platform for developers to build, test, and
deploy applications without managing the underlying infrastructure. Example: Azure
App Service.
5. What is SaaS?
SaaS (Software as a Service) delivers software applications over the internet on a
subscription basis. The provider manages everything. Example: Microsoft 365,
Dynamics 365.
6. What is a public cloud?
A public cloud is owned and operated by a third-party cloud provider and delivers
resources over the internet. Resources are shared among multiple customers (multi-
tenancy). Example: Microsoft Azure.
,7. What is a private cloud?
A private cloud is dedicated exclusively to one organization. It can be hosted on-
premises or by a third party. It offers greater control and security.
8. What is a hybrid cloud?
A hybrid cloud combines public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to
be shared between them. It provides greater flexibility and more deployment options.
9. What are the key benefits of cloud computing?
High availability, scalability, elasticity, agility, geo-distribution, disaster recovery,
reduced capital expenses (CapEx), and a consumption-based pricing model.
10. What is the difference between CapEx and OpEx in cloud computing?
CapEx (Capital Expenditure) involves upfront investment in physical infrastructure.
OpEx (Operational Expenditure) is paying for services as you use them. Cloud
computing shifts spending from CapEx to OpEx.
11. What is scalability in cloud computing?
Scalability is the ability to increase or decrease resources (compute, storage, etc.) to
match demand. It can be vertical (scaling up/down) or horizontal (scaling out/in).
12. What is elasticity?
Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale resources up or down quickly in
response to changes in demand, ensuring you only pay for what you use.
13. What is high availability in Azure?
High availability ensures services remain operational for as long as possible, even
during failures. Azure provides SLAs guaranteeing uptime percentages (e.g., 99.9% or
99.99%).
14. What is fault tolerance?
Fault tolerance is the ability of a system to continue operating correctly even when
some of its components fail.
15. What is disaster recovery?
Disaster recovery is the ability to recover from catastrophic events (natural disasters,
data loss, outages) and restore normal operations, often using replication across
geographies.
16. What is the consumption-based model?
In the consumption-based model (pay-as-you-go), you only pay for the resources you
actually use. There are no upfront costs and you stop paying when you stop using.
17. What is agility in cloud computing?
, Agility is the ability to rapidly deploy and configure cloud-based resources, allowing
organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements.
18. What is geo-distribution?
Geo-distribution means deploying applications and data to multiple geographic
regions worldwide, improving performance for global users and enabling compliance
with data residency requirements.
19. What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
An SLA is a formal commitment by Microsoft defining the expected uptime and
connectivity of Azure services, typically expressed as a percentage (e.g., 99.9%,
99.99%).
20. What does 99.9% SLA mean in terms of downtime?
A 99.9% SLA allows approximately 8.7 hours of downtime per year, or about 43.8
minutes per month.
21. What is the shared responsibility model?
The shared responsibility model defines what the cloud provider (Microsoft) and the
customer are each responsible for securing. Responsibility shifts depending on the
service type (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).
22. In IaaS, what is the customer responsible for?
In IaaS, the customer manages the operating system, middleware, applications, and
data. Microsoft manages the physical hardware, networking, and virtualization layer.
23. In SaaS, what is the customer responsible for?
In SaaS, the customer is only responsible for their data and user access management.
Microsoft manages everything else.
24. What is a multi-tenant environment?
A multi-tenant environment is one where multiple customers share the same physical
hardware or infrastructure, but are logically isolated from each other.
25. What is serverless computing?
Serverless computing allows developers to run code without provisioning or
managing servers. The cloud provider automatically scales the compute resources.
Example: Azure Functions.
26. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical scaling?
Vertical scaling (scale up/down) adds more power (CPU, RAM) to an existing
machine. Horizontal scaling (scale out/in) adds or removes instances of a resource.
27. What is a cloud-native application?
, A cloud-native application is designed specifically to take advantage of cloud
computing frameworks—built using microservices, containers, and DevOps practices.
28. What is DevOps?
DevOps is a set of practices combining software development (Dev) and IT operations
(Ops), aiming to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver high-quality software
continuously.
29. What is the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)?
TCO is a financial estimate that helps organizations compare the cost of running
workloads on-premises versus in the cloud, including hardware, software, labor, and
facility costs.
30. What is the Azure TCO Calculator?
The Azure TCO Calculator is a tool that helps estimate the cost savings of migrating
on-premises workloads to Azure by comparing current on-premises infrastructure
costs to Azure costs.
31. What is microservices architecture?
Microservices architecture structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled,
independently deployable services that communicate over APIs.
32. What is a container?
A container is a lightweight, portable unit that packages an application and its
dependencies together, ensuring it runs consistently across different computing
environments.
33. What is Docker?
Docker is a popular platform for developing, shipping, and running containerized
applications. Azure supports Docker containers via Azure Container Instances and
Azure Kubernetes Service.
34. What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system that automates
deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
35. What does 'pay-as-you-go' mean in Azure?
Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) is a pricing model where you are billed only for the resources
you consume, with no upfront commitment or minimum fee.
36. What is Azure Reserved Instances?
Azure Reserved Instances allow you to commit to a 1-year or 3-year plan for VMs,
saving up to 72% compared to pay-as-you-go pricing.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - COMPREHENSIVE LATEST VERSION
2026/2027
1. What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage,
databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the internet ('the
cloud') to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.
2. What are the three main cloud service models?
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a
Service (SaaS).
3. What is IaaS?
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) provides virtualized computing infrastructure over
the internet. The cloud provider manages hardware; the customer manages the OS,
middleware, and applications. Example: Azure Virtual Machines.
4. What is PaaS?
PaaS (Platform as a Service) provides a platform for developers to build, test, and
deploy applications without managing the underlying infrastructure. Example: Azure
App Service.
5. What is SaaS?
SaaS (Software as a Service) delivers software applications over the internet on a
subscription basis. The provider manages everything. Example: Microsoft 365,
Dynamics 365.
6. What is a public cloud?
A public cloud is owned and operated by a third-party cloud provider and delivers
resources over the internet. Resources are shared among multiple customers (multi-
tenancy). Example: Microsoft Azure.
,7. What is a private cloud?
A private cloud is dedicated exclusively to one organization. It can be hosted on-
premises or by a third party. It offers greater control and security.
8. What is a hybrid cloud?
A hybrid cloud combines public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to
be shared between them. It provides greater flexibility and more deployment options.
9. What are the key benefits of cloud computing?
High availability, scalability, elasticity, agility, geo-distribution, disaster recovery,
reduced capital expenses (CapEx), and a consumption-based pricing model.
10. What is the difference between CapEx and OpEx in cloud computing?
CapEx (Capital Expenditure) involves upfront investment in physical infrastructure.
OpEx (Operational Expenditure) is paying for services as you use them. Cloud
computing shifts spending from CapEx to OpEx.
11. What is scalability in cloud computing?
Scalability is the ability to increase or decrease resources (compute, storage, etc.) to
match demand. It can be vertical (scaling up/down) or horizontal (scaling out/in).
12. What is elasticity?
Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale resources up or down quickly in
response to changes in demand, ensuring you only pay for what you use.
13. What is high availability in Azure?
High availability ensures services remain operational for as long as possible, even
during failures. Azure provides SLAs guaranteeing uptime percentages (e.g., 99.9% or
99.99%).
14. What is fault tolerance?
Fault tolerance is the ability of a system to continue operating correctly even when
some of its components fail.
15. What is disaster recovery?
Disaster recovery is the ability to recover from catastrophic events (natural disasters,
data loss, outages) and restore normal operations, often using replication across
geographies.
16. What is the consumption-based model?
In the consumption-based model (pay-as-you-go), you only pay for the resources you
actually use. There are no upfront costs and you stop paying when you stop using.
17. What is agility in cloud computing?
, Agility is the ability to rapidly deploy and configure cloud-based resources, allowing
organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements.
18. What is geo-distribution?
Geo-distribution means deploying applications and data to multiple geographic
regions worldwide, improving performance for global users and enabling compliance
with data residency requirements.
19. What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
An SLA is a formal commitment by Microsoft defining the expected uptime and
connectivity of Azure services, typically expressed as a percentage (e.g., 99.9%,
99.99%).
20. What does 99.9% SLA mean in terms of downtime?
A 99.9% SLA allows approximately 8.7 hours of downtime per year, or about 43.8
minutes per month.
21. What is the shared responsibility model?
The shared responsibility model defines what the cloud provider (Microsoft) and the
customer are each responsible for securing. Responsibility shifts depending on the
service type (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).
22. In IaaS, what is the customer responsible for?
In IaaS, the customer manages the operating system, middleware, applications, and
data. Microsoft manages the physical hardware, networking, and virtualization layer.
23. In SaaS, what is the customer responsible for?
In SaaS, the customer is only responsible for their data and user access management.
Microsoft manages everything else.
24. What is a multi-tenant environment?
A multi-tenant environment is one where multiple customers share the same physical
hardware or infrastructure, but are logically isolated from each other.
25. What is serverless computing?
Serverless computing allows developers to run code without provisioning or
managing servers. The cloud provider automatically scales the compute resources.
Example: Azure Functions.
26. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical scaling?
Vertical scaling (scale up/down) adds more power (CPU, RAM) to an existing
machine. Horizontal scaling (scale out/in) adds or removes instances of a resource.
27. What is a cloud-native application?
, A cloud-native application is designed specifically to take advantage of cloud
computing frameworks—built using microservices, containers, and DevOps practices.
28. What is DevOps?
DevOps is a set of practices combining software development (Dev) and IT operations
(Ops), aiming to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver high-quality software
continuously.
29. What is the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)?
TCO is a financial estimate that helps organizations compare the cost of running
workloads on-premises versus in the cloud, including hardware, software, labor, and
facility costs.
30. What is the Azure TCO Calculator?
The Azure TCO Calculator is a tool that helps estimate the cost savings of migrating
on-premises workloads to Azure by comparing current on-premises infrastructure
costs to Azure costs.
31. What is microservices architecture?
Microservices architecture structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled,
independently deployable services that communicate over APIs.
32. What is a container?
A container is a lightweight, portable unit that packages an application and its
dependencies together, ensuring it runs consistently across different computing
environments.
33. What is Docker?
Docker is a popular platform for developing, shipping, and running containerized
applications. Azure supports Docker containers via Azure Container Instances and
Azure Kubernetes Service.
34. What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system that automates
deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
35. What does 'pay-as-you-go' mean in Azure?
Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) is a pricing model where you are billed only for the resources
you consume, with no upfront commitment or minimum fee.
36. What is Azure Reserved Instances?
Azure Reserved Instances allow you to commit to a 1-year or 3-year plan for VMs,
saving up to 72% compared to pay-as-you-go pricing.
