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Hands on Labs

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The AZ-900 exam has no hands on labs, but doing a few builds the intuition that makes the concepts stick. All of these fit inside the free account, and you delete resources at the end so you are not charged.

Before you start: create a free Azure account

  1. Go to the Azure free account page and sign up with a Microsoft account.
  2. You get a credit to spend in the first 30 days, 12 months of popular services free, and a set of always free services.
  3. A credit or debit card is used for identity verification only, and you are not charged unless you upgrade.

Lab 1: Tour the portal and Cloud Shell

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
  2. Explore the menu: All services, Resource groups, Subscriptions, Cost Management.
  3. Open Cloud Shell from the top bar, choose Bash or PowerShell, and run az account show (CLI) or Get-AzContext (PowerShell).
  4. Notice you did not install anything, the tools are already there.

Lab 2: Resource group and storage

  1. Create a resource group named rg-az900-lab.
  2. Inside it, create a storage account (standard, locally redundant storage).
  3. Open the storage account, create a blob container, and upload any file.
  4. Change the blob access tier from Hot to Cool and back, and read the tier descriptions.

Lab 3: Create and delete a virtual machine

  1. Create a small Virtual Machine (the smallest size) in the same resource group.
  2. Look at the options you are asked for: region, size, disk, networking. This is IaaS responsibility in action.
  3. Delete the VM and its disk right away so it does not run up cost. Better yet, delete the whole resource group when the lab is done.

Lab 4: Estimate cost

  1. Open the Pricing Calculator and add a virtual machine and a storage account, then change the region and size to see cost move.
  2. Open the TCO Calculator and enter a small on-premises setup to compare it with Azure.

Lab 5: Governance basics

  1. On your resource group, add a tag such as project = az900.
  2. Add a resource lock of type ReadOnly, then try to delete a resource and watch it get blocked. Remove the lock afterward.
  3. Open Azure Policy and assign a built in policy such as allowed locations, then review the compliance view.

Lab 6: Identity and access

  1. Open Microsoft Entra ID and create a test user.
  2. Go to your resource group, open Access control (IAM), and assign the Reader role to that user. This is RBAC and least privilege.

Lab 7: Monitoring and recommendations

  1. Open Azure Advisor and read its recommendations across cost, security, reliability, and performance.
  2. Open Service Health to see the status of Azure services for your subscription.
  3. Open Azure Monitor and look at metrics for a resource you created.

Clean up

Delete the resource group rg-az900-lab. Deleting the group deletes everything inside it, so you return to zero cost.

Finish with the official practice assessment

Take Microsoft's free AZ-900 practice assessment (linked in Resources) until you score comfortably above the pass mark.

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