AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam

Describe the Azure Portal

The Azure portal is a web-based, graphical user interface (GUI) that allows you to manage your Azure subscription and resources. Through a single console, users can build, manage, and monitor everything from simple web apps to complex cloud deployments. The portal features customizable dashboards, which let you organize and view your most important resources in one place. It also includes a search bar to quickly locate services, resources, and help. Because it is highly visual, the Azure portal is the ideal starting point for beginners or for performing manual, one-off administrative tasks.

Describe Azure Cloud Shell, Azure CLI, and Azure PowerShell

For administrators who prefer command-line tools over visual menus, Azure provides several options to manage resources. Azure Cloud Shell is a browser-accessible, interactive terminal that runs in the cloud and automatically authenticates you to your Azure account. When you open Cloud Shell, you can choose between two environments: Bash or PowerShell. Microsoft manages and updates this environment, pre-installing popular command-line tools so you do not have to configure them on your local computer.

Within Cloud Shell, or on a local machine, you can use Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell to execute commands. Azure CLI is a cross-platform command-line tool that uses simple, text-based commands starting with "az" to manage resources. Azure PowerShell uses modules of cmdlets, which are small built-in commands designed to interact with the Azure backend. Both tools allow you to write scripts that automate repetitive tasks, making deployments faster and less prone to human error.

Describe the Purpose of Azure Arc

Organizations often run applications across multiple environments, including on-premises data centers and other public clouds. Azure Arc is a management service that extends Azure resource management and services to resources located outside of Azure. By installing a lightweight agent on your external physical servers, virtual machines, or Kubernetes clusters, you register them with the Azure control plane. This bridge allows you to manage non-Azure infrastructure as if it were running natively inside Azure.

Using Azure Arc simplifies governance and security across a diverse IT environment. Administrators can apply Azure governance tools, such as policies and compliance checks, to all connected resources regardless of where they physically reside. This centralized approach means you can view, secure, and monitor your entire hybrid infrastructure from a single pane of glass in the Azure portal.

Describe Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Infrastructure as code (IaC) is the practice of managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable definition files rather than manual configuration. Instead of manually clicking buttons in a portal to create servers and databases, you write a descriptive file that defines exactly what you need. This file serves as a single source of truth for your infrastructure. Because the infrastructure is defined as code, you can store it in a version control system to track changes over time and easily redeploy it.

Using IaC offers several major benefits for managing cloud environments:

• Consistency ensures that every deployment is identical, eliminating human errors and configuration drift across development, testing, and production environments.
• Speed allows operations teams to deploy complex environments in minutes rather than hours or days.
• Repeatability makes it easy to duplicate environments in different regions for disaster recovery or testing purposes.

Describe Azure Resource Manager (ARM) and ARM Templates

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is the central deployment and management service for Azure. Every time you create, update, or delete a resource using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell, your request passes through ARM first. ARM acts as a gatekeeper that authenticates your identity, verifies your permissions, and then sends your request to the appropriate Azure service to execute. This ensures that all management operations are secure and consistent, no matter which tool you use to perform them.

To implement infrastructure as code in Azure, you can use ARM templates. An ARM template is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file that defines the infrastructure and configuration for your project. Because these templates use a declarative syntax, you simply describe what resources you want to deploy without having to write the programming steps to create them. For a more readable and simpler language, Azure also supports Bicep, which allows you to write cleaner code that automatically compiles down into standard ARM templates.