AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam

Utilize Azure Portal Features for Resource Management

The Azure portal is a web-based console for managing all your Azure services. You can use it to create, configure, and monitor resources like virtual machines, storage accounts, and networking components. A key tool is the search bar at the top, which helps you quickly find any service or resource. The portal also includes Cloud Shell, which provides a built-in command-line for using Azure CLI or PowerShell, letting you switch between clicking and scripting.

To create a new resource, you select + Create from the home page or a service page. This opens a wizard that guides you through choosing a subscription, resource group, location, and specific settings. Before deploying, you can review your choices on a summary page. Once created, resources are organized within their resource groups for easy management. From here, you can perform actions like starting, stopping, or deleting resources directly.

For specialized tasks, the portal offers tools like Storage Browser for working with data and Resource Explorer for inspecting deployment templates. You can also build dashboards to monitor important information by pinning charts, metrics, and service overviews to a single view. These dashboards can be shared with your team and can even be deployed using templates to keep views consistent across different environments.

Understand the Azure Portal Interface

The Azure Portal interface is designed to be a central hub for all your Azure work. When you sign in, you see your personal dashboard, which you can customize with the tiles and charts you use most. The main layout has a global header at the top with search and notifications, and a left-hand navigation bar for quick access to areas like "All resources" and "Resource groups."

When you click on a specific resource, a detailed panel called a blade opens on the right side. Blades show all the settings, metrics, and management options for that resource. As you click into different resources, these blades stack, making it easy to navigate back and forth. From a blade, you can perform actions like scaling a virtual machine or changing a storage account's configuration.

You can customize your dashboard to fit your workflow by entering Edit mode. Here, you can rearrange, resize, add, or remove tiles. Once you publish your changes, the updated dashboard is saved. This customization helps you keep the most important information visible at a glance, improving your efficiency when managing cloud resources.

Navigate and Search within the Azure Portal

Efficient navigation in the Azure portal relies on the search bar, resource groups, and tags. The search bar at the top is the fastest way to find a specific resource, service, or even documentation. Simply start typing, and suggestions will appear, allowing you to jump directly to what you need.

Resource groups are logical containers that hold related resources, like all the components for a single application. You can view all your resource groups from the left-hand menu and use filters to narrow the list by location or subscription. Managing resources as a group simplifies tasks like applying permissions or deleting everything together.

Tags are key/value pairs (like "Environment=Production") that you assign to resources and resource groups. You can then use the Filters pane on resource lists to search and sort by these tags. This helps you quickly find all resources for a specific project or cost center, making organization and retrieval of information much more efficient.

Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) via the Azure Portal

Azure role-based access control (RBAC) is the system for managing who can do what with your Azure resources. You use the Azure portal to assign roles to users, groups, or service identities. To assign roles, you need appropriate permissions, such as the User Access Administrator role.

The process starts by selecting a scope, which defines how broad the permissions are. You can assign a role at the level of a management group, subscription, resource group, or an individual resource. You navigate to the desired resource in the portal and open its Access control (IAM) page.

On the Access control (IAM) page, you select Add role assignment. You then choose a built-in role (like "Contributor" or "Reader"), select the members (users or groups) to assign it to, and review the settings. After you assign the role, you can return to the same page at any time to edit or remove the assignment, allowing you to manage access securely as needs change.

Monitor and Analyze Resource Usage and Performance

The Azure portal provides several tools for monitoring your resources. Dashboards offer a customizable view where you can pin important charts and metrics from different services. You can share these dashboards and even create them using templates for consistency.

Azure Monitor is the core service for collecting performance data. It automatically gathers platform metrics (like CPU usage) from resources like virtual machines. For more detailed resource logs (which record operations), you must first enable them through diagnostic settings on each resource. You can send this data to destinations like Log Analytics for querying, Azure Storage for long-term keeping, or Event Hubs for streaming.

The Activity Log is automatically collected and records subscription-level events, such as when a resource is created or deleted. You can view it directly in the portal or send it to Log Analytics. To analyze data, you use Metrics Explorer to chart metrics and set alerts, or Log Analytics to run powerful search queries. These tools help you track performance, identify issues, and ensure your resources are being used effectively.