FREE AZURE FUNDAMENTALS LEARNING PATH

WikiFree original practice workbook

The Azure skyline

CASE STATUS: fictional/synthetic teaching material. Do not present the example as real research, employment experience or measured business performance.

OUTCOME
Create an Azure-oriented architecture brief covering service choices, resource organization, access boundaries, monitoring and cost assumptions.

BEFORE YOU START
General computer literacy. A diagram editor or paper; no Azure subscription or payment card.

CASE
The fictional Cedar Events team needs a public information page, a small booking application and a private booking database. The team expects variable traffic and wants named owners and a recovery plan. This is a design exercise; no cloud resources are deployed.

INPUTS
Need,Constraint
Public information,Readable during a booking outage
Booking application,Variable traffic
Booking database,Private access from application
Operations,"Owner, alert and recovery instructions"


ENTRY CHECK

Question: Does a resource group itself grant application security?

Self-check: No. Organization and access controls are different concerns.

Question: Is cloud spending always fixed?

Self-check: No. Usage and service choices influence cost.

Question: Is this path current exam preparation?

Self-check: No. It assesses a design brief, not an exam syllabus.

STAGE 1: Choose the service responsibility

Prerequisite: General computer literacy. A diagram editor or paper; no Azure subscription or payment card.

Instruction: Compare how much infrastructure the team wants to operate. A virtual machine, a managed application platform and a hosted software product leave different responsibilities with the customer. Choose based on workload and operations needs rather than a product-name collection. The public information page can be separated from booking so a booking failure does not automatically remove all visitor information.

Practice task: Compare two service approaches for the booking application and state which maintenance tasks remain with the team.

Deliverable: A service-choice decision record.

Acceptance check: The choice names a workload need and at least three retained responsibilities.

If stuck: Do not assume a managed service removes responsibility for application data and access.

Record your work, decisions and evidence:




Record your result against the acceptance check:



STAGE 2: Organize resources and ownership

Prerequisite: Bring your previous output: A service-choice decision record.

Instruction: Regions and availability zones describe deployment locations and failure boundaries; resource groups and subscriptions organize resources and management scope. They are not interchangeable. Sketch only the resources needed for the scenario and attach an owner and environment label. A region choice needs a reason such as audience location or a documented requirement, not an invented compliance claim.

Practice task: Draw the resource hierarchy and a simple location plan. Add owner, environment and purpose labels.

Deliverable: An Azure resource organization map.

Acceptance check: Every proposed resource has an owner and a clear resource-group context.

If stuck: Do not draw a subscription as if it were a physical data center.

Record your work, decisions and evidence:




Record your result against the acceptance check:



STAGE 3: Describe identity and network boundaries

Prerequisite: Bring your previous output: An Azure resource organization map.

Instruction: Separate a visitor reading a public page from an administrator changing infrastructure. Least privilege assigns only the needed management actions to each role. The database should be reachable through the intended application path, not casually exposed for convenience. A conceptual diagram should label public and private flows, while acknowledging that exact implementation needs service-specific configuration and testing.

Practice task: Add visitor, application and administrator flows to the map. Define three roles and the actions each needs.

Deliverable: An access and connectivity matrix.

Acceptance check: Visitors have no management role and database access is limited to the intended application path.

If stuck: Replace broad administrator access with the minimum actions needed by each role.

Record your work, decisions and evidence:




Record your result against the acceptance check:



STAGE 4: Plan observability and recovery

Prerequisite: Bring your previous output: An access and connectivity matrix.

Instruction: An alert needs a signal, threshold, owner and action. A recovery plan needs a backup assumption and a test, not merely a backup icon. Choose an application error-rate signal and a booking-data recovery scenario. Availability and recovery objectives are requirements to validate; they are not automatically guaranteed by drawing multiple components.

Practice task: Write two alerts and a recovery rehearsal plan, including who verifies bookings after restoration.

Deliverable: An operations checklist and recovery test outline.

Acceptance check: Each alert has an owner and response; recovery includes a verification step.

If stuck: Do not equate backup existence with a demonstrated successful restore.

Record your work, decisions and evidence:




Record your result against the acceptance check:



STAGE 5: Estimate and review cost drivers

Prerequisite: Bring your previous output: An operations checklist and recovery test outline.

Instruction: A useful cost worksheet records usage assumptions and what could change the bill. Compute, storage, network transfer and support are distinct drivers. This path intentionally avoids live price claims. Use fictional units to compare scenarios, or consult the current official calculator yourself and record its date and inputs. Set a review cadence and an owner for unexpected growth.

Practice task: Create a cost-driver worksheet for normal and doubled traffic. Add an idle-resource review and a budget alert owner.

Deliverable: A cost-assumption and architecture handover.

Acceptance check: The worksheet labels fictional figures and identifies at least one non-compute cost driver.

If stuck: Remove a precise monthly price that has no dated configuration and source.

Record your work, decisions and evidence:




Record your result against the acceptance check:



WORKED CASE
A coherent design separates public information from the booking workflow, gives the application a constrained database route and assigns management access to named roles. A diagram alone does not prove availability, security or cost; each claim needs a test or explicit assumption.

FINAL PROJECT
Submit the service decision, resource map, access matrix, operations plan and cost worksheet. Review a scenario in which the booking application fails while the information page remains available.

REQUIRED CRITICAL CHECK
The design distinguishes public visitor access from management access and never claims a deployed or tested Azure system.

SCORING
Score each of the five stage acceptance checks from 0–16 (0 missing/incorrect; 8 partially supported; 16 complete and evidenced). Score the final integrated project from 0–20 (0 missing; 10 incomplete handover; 20 complete, reproducible and consistent with the case). Target: at least 80/100 AND the critical check must pass. A total score never overrides a failed critical check.

SCOPE LIMIT
Provider videos may reflect earlier Azure interfaces and exam editions. This path is conceptual architecture practice, not current AZ-900 exam coverage or a live deployment.

SOURCES AND ACCESS
Public videos and paper or a free diagram editor are sufficient. No Azure account, paid resource, exam purchase or cloud deployment is required.

Azure Fundamentals AZ-900: Free Course
WikiFree: https://wikifree.com/courses/free-john-savill-azure-fundamentals-az-900/
Official source: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3
Why selected: Selected existing Azure lessons provide service models, resource organization, access, monitoring and cost concepts without requiring all 65 videos.

Stage 1 selected lessons:

4. Differences Between Cloud Service Categories - AZ-900 Certification Course (15:16)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQC1EOQqeU&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=4

5. Identify the Right Service Type - AZ-900 Certification Course (4:01)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH8NH76h2vc&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=5

6. Differences Between Types of Cloud Computing - AZ-900 Certification Course (12:41)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dlCrF2wmXU&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=6

Stage 2 selected lessons:

8. Benefits and Usage of Regions and Region Pairs - AZ-900 Certification Course (13:08)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RjPOAN54AE&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=8

9. Benefits and Usage of Availability Zones - AZ-900 Certification Course (8:41)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0enGb17lnw&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=9

10. Benefits and Usage of Resource Groups - AZ-900 Certification Course (9:38)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6thrYZhPZY&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=10

11. Benefits and Usage of Subscriptions - AZ-900 Certification Course (8:19)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vKAYW_WkLo&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=11

Stage 3 selected lessons:

17. Benefits and Usage of Core Network Resources - AZ-900 Certification Course (22:04)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNK0C9Oj2sg&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=17

18. Describe Public and Private Endpoints - AZ-900 Certification Course - May 2022 New (7:23)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPNkXwRFsek&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=18

42. Explain Authentication and Authorization - AZ-900 Certification Course (3:52)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA-yNu6aFMk&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=42

47. Functionality and Usage of RBAC - AZ-900 Certification Course (9:19)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iVyJBG06fM&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=47

Stage 4 selected lessons:

7. Reliability and Predictability - AZ-900 Certification Course - May 2022 New (7:16)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD2YqdDaO1w&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=7

31. Functionality and Usage of Azure Monitor - AZ-900 Certification Course (10:20)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v68jL-l9Fww&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=31

Stage 5 selected lessons:

58. Factors That Affect Costs - AZ-900 Certification Course (6:32)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMShW_RGcxY&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=58

59. Factors to Reduce Cost - AZ-900 Certification Course (15:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yiKE2DLH8&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=59

61. Functionality and Usage of Azure Cost Management - AZ-900 Certification Course (5:48)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoBjC9CAF08&list=PLlVtbbG169nED0_vMEniWBQjSoxTsBYS3&index=61

Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework strategy
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/strategy/

REUSE
Original WikiFree teaching text and synthetic fixtures are supplied for personal learning and adaptation with attribution. Provider lessons remain on their original sites and retain their own terms. No provider certificate is included.