AZ-900 prerequisites: what you need first
AZ-900 has no formal prerequisites: anyone can book it, and you do not need another certification, a degree or work experience first. Microsoft’s audience profile does, however, describe candidates who “have skills and experience working with an area of IT”, such as infrastructure management, database management or software development. That background is not checked, but it is assumed by the questions. This page lists what it means in practice and how to close any gaps before you start the study plan.
What Microsoft says
The official audience profile for AZ-900 describes a technology professional who wants to demonstrate foundational knowledge of cloud concepts and Azure. It expects you to be able to describe Azure architectural components and services such as compute, networking and storage, and the features and tools used to secure, govern and administer Azure. It calls the exam “a common starting point in a journey towards a career in Azure”.
There is nothing about coding, scripting or prior certifications. You do not need to have used Azure before.
The background that helps
Basic networking
You will meet virtual networks, subnets, DNS, VPNs and private versus public endpoints. You do not need to configure them, but you should know:
- what an IP address is, and the difference between a public and a private one;
- what a subnet is, in principle — a smaller range inside a network;
- what DNS does: turns names into addresses;
- what a VPN is: an encrypted tunnel over a public network.
If those four points are new, spend an evening on a general networking introduction before you start. It will save more time than it costs.
Servers and virtualisation
The exam assumes you know what a server and an operating system are, and roughly what a virtual machine is: a computer running as software on shared physical hardware. Knowing that a VM needs a disk and a network connection, like a physical machine, makes the compute objectives much easier.
Storage and data basics
Files, databases and backups. You should understand why someone would keep more than one copy of data, and why data that is rarely read might be stored somewhere cheaper but slower. Those two ideas are the whole basis of the redundancy and access tier objectives.
Identity basics
Users, groups, passwords and permissions. If you have ever been added to a shared folder, used single sign-on at work or approved a sign-in on your phone, you already have the intuition behind Microsoft Entra ID, SSO, MFA and role-based access.
Money
Some understanding of the difference between buying something once and paying for it monthly helps with the CapEx versus OpEx objective. Nothing more financial than that.
What you do not need
| Not needed | Why |
|---|---|
| Programming | No objective requires reading or writing code |
| Command-line skills | CLI and PowerShell appear as tools to describe, not to use |
| An Azure subscription | Helpful for exploring, but not required to pass |
| Another certification | No fundamentals exam requires a prior one |
| Experience with other clouds | Useful, but not assumed |
A free Azure account is still worth creating. Clicking through the create screens for a virtual machine or a storage account without deploying anything makes the vocabulary much easier to remember.
Self-check
If you can answer these without looking anything up, you are ready to start AZ-900 preparation:
- What is the difference between a server and a virtual machine?
- Why would a company keep a copy of its data in a second location?
- What does DNS do?
- What is the difference between signing in (proving who you are) and having permission to open a file?
- Why might paying monthly for a service be preferable to buying the equipment outright?
Stuck on two or more? Spend a week on general IT fundamentals first, then follow the four-week plan. Stuck on none? Go straight to the exam format and the study plan.
If you come from a non-technical role
AZ-900 is popular with people in sales, finance, procurement, project management and marketing who work alongside Azure teams. It is achievable without a technical background, but allow more time — five or six weeks rather than four — and spend the first of those on the background above. The cloud concepts domain will feel familiar sooner than you expect, because much of it is about cost and business benefits.
Where it leads
Passing AZ-900 is not a prerequisite for anything else either. Microsoft does not require a fundamentals certification before an associate exam, but many people take AZ-900 first to build the vocabulary those exams assume. If AI is your direction, AZ-900 versus AI-901 explains how the two fundamentals exams fit together.