AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam
Preparation 2025: In-Depth Guide with Updated
Objectives, Cloud Concepts, and Free Practice Tests
Here are the multiple-choice questions, correct answers, and rationales for each of the
scenarios provided:
Scenario 1: You plan to build a new solution in Azure that will use Platform as a Service (PaaS)
products.
Question: What should you use to estimate the monthly costs?
A. Azure Advisor
B. Azure Cost Management
C. Azure Pricing Calculator
D. Azure Total Cost of Ownership Calculator
Correct Answer: C. Azure Pricing Calculator
Rationale:
• The Azure Pricing Calculator is specifically designed to provide an estimated cost for
provisioning and using individual Azure resources (like PaaS products) before you deploy
them. It allows you to select specific services, configure their expected usage, and get a
detailed cost breakdown.
• Azure Advisor provides personalized recommendations for optimizing costs, security,
reliability, operational excellence, and performance of existing Azure resources. It's for
optimization, not initial estimation.
• Azure Cost Management helps you monitor, manage, and optimize your current Azure
spending. It's for analyzing actual costs after deployment.
• Azure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator helps you compare the cost of running
your workloads on-premises versus in Azure over a specific period, including hardware,
, software, datacenter, and IT labor. It's for migration cost comparison, not estimating new
cloud solutions.
Scenario 2: You have an Azure virtual machine that is accessed only between 9:00 and 17:00
each day.
Question: What should you do to minimize costs but preserve the associated hard disks and
data?
A. Deallocate the virtual machine when it is not needed.
B. Delete the virtual machine when it is not needed.
C. Implement Privileged Identity Management.
D. Resize the virtual machine to smaller size.
Correct Answer: A. Deallocate the virtual machine when it is not needed.
Rationale:
• When an Azure Virtual Machine is deallocated (stopped), it releases the compute
resources (CPU, memory) and associated IP addresses, and you stop being charged for
the compute time. However, the attached storage (the hard disks and data) remains, and
you continue to pay for the storage costs. This is the ideal solution to minimize compute
costs for VMs only needed during specific hours while preserving all data.
• Deleting the virtual machine would permanently remove the VM and its associated
hard disks and data, which does not meet the requirement to preserve data.
• Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is an Azure AD service for managing, controlling,
and monitoring access to important resources. It's unrelated to VM cost optimization.
• Resizing the virtual machine to a smaller size would reduce compute costs if the
workload can run on fewer resources, but it doesn't eliminate costs during non-usage
hours as deallocation does.
Scenario 3: You need to review the root cause analysis (RCA) report for a service outage that
occurred last week.
Question: Where should you look for the report?
A. Azure Advisor
,B. Azure Monitor
C. Azure Service Health
D. Log Analytics
Correct Answer: C. Azure Service Health
Rationale:
• Azure Service Health provides a personalized view of the health of the Azure services,
regions, and resources you're using. After a major service outage, Microsoft publishes
official incident reports, including Root Cause Analysis (RCA) documents, directly in
Azure Service Health. This is the authoritative source for post-incident reports.
• Azure Advisor provides recommendations for optimizing your Azure deployments.
• Azure Monitor collects, analyzes, and acts on telemetry from your Azure and on-
premises environments, primarily for real-time monitoring and alerting.
• Log Analytics is a service within Azure Monitor that allows you to collect, index, and
query log data, but it wouldn't contain official RCA reports from Microsoft for service
outages.
Scenario 4: Select the answer that correctly completes the sentence.
Deploying and configuring cloud-based resources quickly as business requirements change is
called [answer choice].
Question: Deploying and configuring cloud-based resources quickly as business requirements
change is called:
A. agility
B. elasticity
C. high availability
D. scalability
Correct Answer: A. agility
Rationale:
, • Agility in cloud computing refers to the ability to rapidly deploy, configure, and adapt IT
resources and applications in response to changing business needs and market
demands. It emphasizes speed, flexibility, and responsiveness.
• Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale resources up or down in response to
fluctuating demand.
• High availability refers to the system's ability to remain operational and accessible for a
high percentage of the time.
• Scalability is the ability of a system to handle an increasing amount of work by adding
resources (either vertically or horizontally).
Scenario 5: Which scenario is a use case for a VPN gateway?
Question: Which scenario is a use case for an Azure VPN Gateway?
A. communicating between Azure resources within the same virtual network
B. connecting an on-premises datacenter to an Azure virtual network
C. filtering outbound network traffic from a virtual network
D. partitioning a virtual network's address space into smaller subnets
Correct Answer: B. connecting an on-premises datacenter to an Azure virtual network
Rationale:
• An Azure VPN Gateway is primarily used to establish secure, encrypted connections
(VPN tunnels) between your on-premises network (e.g., datacenter) and an Azure
Virtual Network. This is commonly known as a Site-to-Site (S2S) VPN connection,
enabling a hybrid cloud environment.
• Communicating between Azure resources within the same virtual network is handled
by the virtual network itself; no VPN gateway is needed.
• Filtering outbound network traffic is typically done using Network Security Groups
(NSGs) or Azure Firewall.
• Partitioning a virtual network's address space is achieved by creating subnets within
the virtual network.
Preparation 2025: In-Depth Guide with Updated
Objectives, Cloud Concepts, and Free Practice Tests
Here are the multiple-choice questions, correct answers, and rationales for each of the
scenarios provided:
Scenario 1: You plan to build a new solution in Azure that will use Platform as a Service (PaaS)
products.
Question: What should you use to estimate the monthly costs?
A. Azure Advisor
B. Azure Cost Management
C. Azure Pricing Calculator
D. Azure Total Cost of Ownership Calculator
Correct Answer: C. Azure Pricing Calculator
Rationale:
• The Azure Pricing Calculator is specifically designed to provide an estimated cost for
provisioning and using individual Azure resources (like PaaS products) before you deploy
them. It allows you to select specific services, configure their expected usage, and get a
detailed cost breakdown.
• Azure Advisor provides personalized recommendations for optimizing costs, security,
reliability, operational excellence, and performance of existing Azure resources. It's for
optimization, not initial estimation.
• Azure Cost Management helps you monitor, manage, and optimize your current Azure
spending. It's for analyzing actual costs after deployment.
• Azure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator helps you compare the cost of running
your workloads on-premises versus in Azure over a specific period, including hardware,
, software, datacenter, and IT labor. It's for migration cost comparison, not estimating new
cloud solutions.
Scenario 2: You have an Azure virtual machine that is accessed only between 9:00 and 17:00
each day.
Question: What should you do to minimize costs but preserve the associated hard disks and
data?
A. Deallocate the virtual machine when it is not needed.
B. Delete the virtual machine when it is not needed.
C. Implement Privileged Identity Management.
D. Resize the virtual machine to smaller size.
Correct Answer: A. Deallocate the virtual machine when it is not needed.
Rationale:
• When an Azure Virtual Machine is deallocated (stopped), it releases the compute
resources (CPU, memory) and associated IP addresses, and you stop being charged for
the compute time. However, the attached storage (the hard disks and data) remains, and
you continue to pay for the storage costs. This is the ideal solution to minimize compute
costs for VMs only needed during specific hours while preserving all data.
• Deleting the virtual machine would permanently remove the VM and its associated
hard disks and data, which does not meet the requirement to preserve data.
• Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is an Azure AD service for managing, controlling,
and monitoring access to important resources. It's unrelated to VM cost optimization.
• Resizing the virtual machine to a smaller size would reduce compute costs if the
workload can run on fewer resources, but it doesn't eliminate costs during non-usage
hours as deallocation does.
Scenario 3: You need to review the root cause analysis (RCA) report for a service outage that
occurred last week.
Question: Where should you look for the report?
A. Azure Advisor
,B. Azure Monitor
C. Azure Service Health
D. Log Analytics
Correct Answer: C. Azure Service Health
Rationale:
• Azure Service Health provides a personalized view of the health of the Azure services,
regions, and resources you're using. After a major service outage, Microsoft publishes
official incident reports, including Root Cause Analysis (RCA) documents, directly in
Azure Service Health. This is the authoritative source for post-incident reports.
• Azure Advisor provides recommendations for optimizing your Azure deployments.
• Azure Monitor collects, analyzes, and acts on telemetry from your Azure and on-
premises environments, primarily for real-time monitoring and alerting.
• Log Analytics is a service within Azure Monitor that allows you to collect, index, and
query log data, but it wouldn't contain official RCA reports from Microsoft for service
outages.
Scenario 4: Select the answer that correctly completes the sentence.
Deploying and configuring cloud-based resources quickly as business requirements change is
called [answer choice].
Question: Deploying and configuring cloud-based resources quickly as business requirements
change is called:
A. agility
B. elasticity
C. high availability
D. scalability
Correct Answer: A. agility
Rationale:
, • Agility in cloud computing refers to the ability to rapidly deploy, configure, and adapt IT
resources and applications in response to changing business needs and market
demands. It emphasizes speed, flexibility, and responsiveness.
• Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale resources up or down in response to
fluctuating demand.
• High availability refers to the system's ability to remain operational and accessible for a
high percentage of the time.
• Scalability is the ability of a system to handle an increasing amount of work by adding
resources (either vertically or horizontally).
Scenario 5: Which scenario is a use case for a VPN gateway?
Question: Which scenario is a use case for an Azure VPN Gateway?
A. communicating between Azure resources within the same virtual network
B. connecting an on-premises datacenter to an Azure virtual network
C. filtering outbound network traffic from a virtual network
D. partitioning a virtual network's address space into smaller subnets
Correct Answer: B. connecting an on-premises datacenter to an Azure virtual network
Rationale:
• An Azure VPN Gateway is primarily used to establish secure, encrypted connections
(VPN tunnels) between your on-premises network (e.g., datacenter) and an Azure
Virtual Network. This is commonly known as a Site-to-Site (S2S) VPN connection,
enabling a hybrid cloud environment.
• Communicating between Azure resources within the same virtual network is handled
by the virtual network itself; no VPN gateway is needed.
• Filtering outbound network traffic is typically done using Network Security Groups
(NSGs) or Azure Firewall.
• Partitioning a virtual network's address space is achieved by creating subnets within
the virtual network.
