How to Prepare for Microsoft Azure Exam AZ-100 ?

How to Prepare for Microsoft Azure Exam AZ-100?

Acquiring a certification in Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and Deployment (AZ-100) would be a great outset for software professionals who want to escalate their IT career with in-demand skills. If you are such an aspiring person, we can assist you by providing the best AZ-100 exam preparation resources available now.

This Microsoft AZ-100 Exam Preparation guide can be marked as a vital step on your journey towards becoming a full-fledged Azure administrator. So here, let’s see how to crack this exam with the right AZ-100 Infrastructure and deployment exam study materials.

Why One Should Opt for Microsoft Azure AZ-100 Exam?

If you are one who is passionate about cloud services that span security, storage, compute and networking capabilities within Microsoft Azure, this exam is for you. The AZ-100 Exam requires you to hold a certain skill set that can make you aware of the full IT lifecycle. Same is the case with Azure AZ-101 exam which can be considered as an extension of AZ-100. While AZ-100 exam preparation consists more of infrastructure and deployment with Azure whereas the AZ-101 deals with integration and security related matters of Azure. If you want to be a fully qualified Azure administrator associate, you need to pass both of these exams.  As the first step towards that goal, you can make use of this preparation guide for Microsoft AZ-100 exam.

What Are the Prerequisites for AZ-100 Exam Preparation?

It’s important that you should have some prior knowledge on some basic tech concepts for your Microsoft AZ-100 Infrastructure and Deployment exam preparation. You need to have the basic proficiency in Windows PowerShell and familiarity with the Azure portal, operating system concepts, and networking concepts if you want to crack this exam.

What are the Exam Objectives of Azure AZ-100 Certification?

Here the percentage denotes the probable weight of questions from that respective section of the exam. Let’s dig into the details of each of these objectives so as to make them easy for your AZ-100 Exam Preparation.

1. Manage Azure Subscriptions and Resources

This section comprises almost 15 to 20% questions in AZ-100 exam. This is further subdivided into three sections: one for managing Azure subscriptions, the second one for analyzing resource utilization & consumption and the third one for managing resource groups.

2. Implement & Manage Storage

This section includes configuring Azure files, implementing Azure backup, creating & configuring Azure accounts and importing & exporting data to Azure. Since 20-25% of questions can be asked from this section, candidates who want a preparation guide for Microsoft AZ-100 exam can’t skip this section at any cost.

3. Deploy & Manage Virtual Machines

This part mostly deals with the creation & configuration of virtual machines for Windows and Linux platforms. It also includes automation of VM deployment and management of VM backups. Not less than 25% of questions can come from this section.  

4. Configure & Manage Virtual Networks

In this part, you can expect questions regarding the creation of connectivity between virtual networks along with their management and implementation. You can also expect questions related to name resolution configuration and creation/ configuration of Network Security Groups (NSGs) in this section. From 20 to 25 percent questions of the exam can be asked from this section.

5. Manage Identities

This section contains the questions related to Azure ADs (Active Directories). An Azure Administrator is solely responsible for managing these items. He/She has to manage different AD objects such as users, groups and devices. Also, such a person has to manage hybrid identities related to Azure AD. Around 15-20% weight has been given to this section.

What’s the Overall Pattern of Azure AZ-100 Exam?

While preparing for the Azure AZ-100 certification exam, it is important to understand the exam format and overall pattern first. Let’s have a look at the following exam details of the Azure AZ-100 exam.

Number of Questions

Generally, an Azure AZ-100 exam can contain questions in the rage of 40 to 60. It’s not exclusive to AZ-100; as most of the similar Azure certification exams follow this pattern. And, it’s not necessary that you’ll get the same number of questions each time you attend the exam. The only guaranteed thing is, the question rage will be in the range 40-60.

In the starting of an exam, you’ll get a question to state your experience with Azure networking. There will be three options viz. beginner, medium and expert. However, in contrast to what you’re thinking, the intention of this question isn’t for choosing the difficulty level of questions you have to face. Instead, Microsoft just wants to know when you’re actually taking the exam (for measuring purpose only).  

Time Frame of the Exam

Roughly, the exam will be around 180 minutes long where you have 150 minutes of time in the technical perspective. You can go through each and every question answering the known questions and flagging some questions where you can come back and answer them later.

There’ll be a lot of multiple choice questions in various formats like building, drag and drop, active screen etc. Read each question carefully before answering them. It’s because sometimes you may have to select multiple answers for a question whereas actually most of the time you may select just one answer.

Integrating with a Case Study

Here, you’ll get scenarios across multiple screens where you’ve to explain each scenario with both business & technical perspectives. It’s the real examination of testing your knowledge on how you can effectively manage & deploy things. There’d be many questions surrounding a particular case study and if you move out of one case study, you can’t go back to it again.

So, you have to give more focus and attention to this part when you start your AZ-100 Exam Preparation.

Exam Scores

You can pass the exam if you got 700 marks. Sounds easy, right? Well, it isn’t as simple as you are thinking. Scoring 700 out of 1000 doesn’t mean that you can pass the exam once you score 70%. The 700 score is scalable- that means you can’t guarantee answering short question gives you 25 points and answering a fairly long explanatory question gives 50 marks and so on.

It’s Microsoft’s algorithm that determines the complexity and difficulty level of each question. All the questions are randomly generated once you start the exam.

Steps to Follow in your AZ-100 Exam Preparation

In order to simplify your efforts to pass this exam, we’ve summarized some key steps that you can follow in your Microsoft AZ-100 Infrastructure and Deployment exam preparation. None of these steps will be baffling to you so, just take a look around these.

#1 Go to the Official Microsoft Learning Page

Here, you’ll find the most authentic and up-to-date information on each of the exams from Microsoft. From here, you can know the eligibility criteria, skills required to pass the exam, scheduling options for the exam, detailed pricing information, blueprint of the exam and finally any relevant updates to exam structure.

#2 Know the Exam Modules

As per the previous exam data, the weight given to each of these sections is more or less the same. So, you can’t skip any of these sections in your AZ-100 exam preparation, nevertheless, there isn’t any sectional cut-off in this exam.  We’ve already discussed each of these sections and their probable weight that you can expect in your exam.

#3 Online Training & Practice Tests

Both of these training methods are important to you unless you’ve some prior experience in this exam. From Microsoft AZ-100 learning portal, you can locate these methods. You can opt for instructor-led training from Microsoft classroom training partners across your country. For each module in your AZ-100 exam preparation, you can find specific courses from Microsoft training partners or other online certification training providers.

And, Microsoft along with its partners are providing exam AZ-100 practice tests. You can find links for that in the same AZ-100 page in Microsoft learning.

Check your current level of preparation for Microsoft Azure AZ-100 exam with AZ-100 Practice Tests.

#4 Refer Books & Online Resources

Since AZ-100 is a relatively new exam, you may not find enough books on this topic for your AZ-100 preparation. Anyway, there’s a book written by Michael Washam namely “Exam Ref Az-100 Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and Deployment”. This can be a reliable AZ-100 exam study guide that helps you to maximize your exam performance and to take a professional level approach in the exam.

#5 Join Azure Forums & Participate in Group Discussions on AZ-101

Azure Forums offer wonderful opportunity to aid your AZ-100 exam preparation by helping to discuss your doubts regarding the exam and to solve them. You may find many people in such a forum who’s having the same doubts you’ve. And, you’ll also find people there who are capable enough to solve them.