Passing the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) exam is more than just a certificate—it’s your official entry pass into the cloud computing world. This beginner-level certification validates your understanding of core cloud concepts, Azure services, security, compliance, pricing models, and support structures. As cloud adoption surges across industries, recruiters now increasingly test candidates not just on theoretical knowledge but also on how well they can apply it. That’s where AZ-900 Interview Questions and Answers come into play—helping you prepare for real-world scenarios and practical discussions that go beyond the exam syllabus.
With cloud adoption becoming a business necessity, top companies like Microsoft, Accenture, TCS, Capgemini, Infosys, HCL, Wipro, and Deloitte are actively seeking candidates with Azure knowledge, even at the foundational level. AZ-900 certified professionals are being recruited for cloud support associate roles, junior cloud consultants, technical sales roles, and even pre-sales analysts, where a sound understanding of Azure is a major plus.
But clearing the exam is only the beginning. The next step is the interview, where recruiters go beyond definitions and ask real-world scenarios, on-the-job challenges, and hands-on case studies that test your ability to apply your learning. Whether you’re applying for a role in support, operations, pre-sales, or cloud administration, these questions are designed to prepare you for what hiring managers really want to know.
Cloud Concepts and Fundamentals | AZ-900 Interview Questions and Answers
Question 1: Your manager is new to cloud and doesn’t understand the difference between elasticity and scalability. How would you explain it with a real-world example?
Answer: I would compare elasticity to ride-sharing apps that automatically increase or decrease the number of cars during peak and off-peak hours. Scalability, on the other hand, is like a company adding more delivery vans as it grows—both increase capacity, but elasticity is dynamic and immediate.
Question 2: You are tasked with advising a client who wants to move their local payroll software to the cloud. How would you decide between IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS?
Answer: I would assess their need for control, customization, and maintenance effort. If they want to avoid software updates and focus purely on usage, SaaS is ideal. If they want to keep their own app but avoid hardware management, PaaS works. If they want full control over OS and configuration, then IaaS is the best fit.
Question 3: Explain the shared responsibility model in Azure with a practical example.
Answer: In Azure VMs, Microsoft handles physical security and hardware maintenance, while the customer is responsible for OS updates, patching, and application security.
Core Azure Services in Practice
Question 4: Your team wants to deploy a web app globally with low latency. What Azure service and strategy would you recommend?
Answer: Use Azure App Service for hosting the app and Azure Front Door or Traffic Manager for global routing and low-latency delivery.
Question 5: A company wants to backup their on-premises data securely to the cloud with minimal admin effort. What Azure solution do you suggest?
Answer: Azure Backup offers a simple, secure, and cost-effective solution for backing up on-prem resources to Azure with centralized monitoring and scheduling.
Question 6: How would you isolate different environments (Dev/Test/Prod) in Azure while keeping them cost-effective?
Answer: Use separate Resource Groups or even Management Groups with Azure Cost Management and RBAC policies to control access and costs per environment.
Security, Compliance, and Governance Scenarios
Question 7: Your security team needs to store database passwords in a secure and centralized location. What Azure service would you recommend?
Answer: Azure Key Vault- it provides secure key management, controlled access, and integration with apps and services.
Question 8: The audit team requires all resources to be encrypted and compliant with company policy. How can you enforce this?
Answer: Use Azure Policy to define and assign a policy that enforces encryption, compliance tagging, and region restrictions.
Question 9: How would you monitor and respond to security threats in a cloud-native application?
Answer: Use Microsoft Defender for Cloud for proactive threat detection and recommendations, and configure Security Alerts and Azure Sentinel for a SIEM-based response.
Cost Management and Pricing Scenarios
Question 10: Your project is going over budget on Azure. What steps would you take to control the cost?
Answer: Use Azure Cost Management to analyze spending, set budgets and alerts, look for unused resources, and consider Reserved Instances or Spot VMs for cost efficiency.
Question 11: You are asked to justify moving a client’s on-prem SQL Server to Azure from a cost perspective. How do you calculate and present the cost advantage?
Answer: Use the TCO Calculator to compare on-premises hardware and license costs with Azure SQL Database. Also, highlight Azure Hybrid Benefit to reuse existing licenses and reduce cost.
Question 12: What’s the best way to estimate monthly Azure service costs before deployment?
Answer: Use the Azure Pricing Calculator to estimate and customize configurations based on anticipated usage and services.
Monitoring, Tools & Real-Time Issues
Question 13: Your web app is experiencing performance issues. Which Azure tools would you use to diagnose the problem?
Answer: Use Azure Monitor for metrics, Application Insights for application-level diagnostics, and Log Analytics to dig deeper into telemetry.
Question 14: A customer reports slow VM performance. What metrics and tools would you use to identify the cause?
Answer: I would check CPU, Disk, and Memory metrics via Azure Monitor, and review NSG flow logs or diagnostic logs to check for network bottlenecks.
Question 15: What are the advantages of using Infrastructure-as-Code with ARM templates?
Answer: ARM templates enable consistent, repeatable deployments, support version control, and automate infrastructure setup, reducing manual errors.
Question 16: If you had to design a DR (Disaster Recovery) strategy for an Azure-hosted app, what services would you use?
Answer: I would use Azure Site Recovery for VM replication, Geo-Redundant Storage, and Azure Traffic Manager for failover routing.
Question 17: What would you do if your Azure region goes down and your service becomes unavailable?
Answer: Ensure resources are deployed across Availability Zones or paired regions to enable high availability and failover.
Question 18: How would you explain the benefit of cloud-native vs. lift-and-shift to a non-technical client?
Answer: Cloud-native uses managed services for scalability and cost-efficiency, whereas lift-and-shift moves existing workloads without optimization.
Question 19: How would you track who made a critical change in Azure resources last night?
Answer: Use Azure Activity Logs to view changes, identify the user, and understand the impact.
Question 20: What’s the best Azure service to use for running scheduled background jobs?
Answer: Azure Logic Apps or Azure Functions with a timer trigger for low-cost, serverless automation.
Cloud Concepts & Deployment Models
Question 21: Your company is debating between public and private cloud. How do you guide them?
Answer: I would highlight the public cloud’s scalability and cost-effectiveness vs. private cloud’s security and control. If data sensitivity is high, hybrid may be ideal—leveraging both models.
Question 22: A new project demands high availability and fast disaster recovery. Which cloud model fits best?
Answer: The public cloud offers geo-redundant services and availability zones at a lower cost, making it ideal for such scenarios.
Question 23: What is the difference between CapEx and OpEx in cloud computing?
Answer: CapEx involves upfront investment in hardware, while OpEx is a pay-as-you-go model, like most Azure services, helping businesses scale without large capital spend.
Question 24: Your team wants to test a new service for a short duration. What’s your cloud recommendation?
Answer: Use Azure free tier or trial subscription, taking advantage of OpEx and scaling resources only for testing period.
Question 25: What’s a region and availability zone in Azure?
Answer: A region is a geographical area; availability zones are isolated locations within a region, designed for resiliency.
Question 26: How would you define the term “economies of scale” in Azure context?
Answer: As Azure serves millions of users, it lowers costs per user by scaling infrastructure globally—these savings are passed on to customers.
Question 27: If an Azure region doesn’t support a specific service, what should you do?
Answer: Check Azure’s regional availability and deploy in a paired region that supports the needed service.
Question 28: Explain the benefits of a consumption-based pricing model.
Answer: You only pay for what you use—reducing waste, encouraging cost optimization, and aligning IT spend with business demand.
Question 29: A startup has limited technical resources. What cloud service model should they adopt?
Answer: SaaS, as it minimizes management overhead while offering ready-to-use applications like Office 365, CRM tools, etc.
Question 30: How does Azure ensure fault tolerance?
Answer: Through Availability Zones, Load Balancers, auto-scaling, and redundancy at compute and storage layers.
Security, Compliance & Identity
Question 31: Your team wants role-based access to Azure resources. What do you suggest?
Answer: Use Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to assign least-privilege access per user role at subscription/resource group/resource level.
Question 32: What is the purpose of Azure Active Directory (AAD)?
Answer: AAD is an identity and access management service that handles user authentication and integrates with Microsoft 365 and Azure services.
Question 33: A partner company needs temporary access to a resource. How do you handle it securely?
Answer: Use Azure AD B2B collaboration to grant access with limited roles and apply Just-in-Time (JIT) access through Privileged Identity Management.
Question 34: What’s the difference between authentication and authorization?
Answer: Authentication verifies identity (e.g., login), while authorization defines what a user can access once authenticated.
Question 35: How do you enforce MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) for all users?
Answer: Use Azure AD Conditional Access to enforce MFA based on user, group, device type, or location.
Question 36: What is Microsoft Defender for Cloud used for?
Answer: It provides threat protection, security posture management, and recommendations to improve the security of Azure resources.
Question 37: You need to ensure only specific VMs can access a database. What tool do you use?
Answer: Use NSGs (Network Security Groups) and service endpoints/private endpoints to restrict access at the network level.
Question 38: What is the Compliance Manager in Azure?
Answer: It helps you track regulatory compliance across standards like GDPR, ISO 27001, with actionable recommendations.
Question 39: How would you monitor suspicious login activity in Azure?
Answer: Enable Sign-In Risk Detection via Azure AD and integrate with Microsoft Sentinel for deeper threat analytics.
Question 40: How is encryption handled in Azure?
Answer: Azure encrypts data at rest (via Storage Service Encryption) and in transit (via SSL/TLS) by default; Key Vault can manage custom keys.
Pricing, SLAs & Lifecycle
Question 41: What is an SLA in Azure and why does it matter?
Answer: An SLA (Service Level Agreement) defines the guaranteed uptime; critical for business continuity planning.
Question 42: Your web app has a 99.9% SLA. How much downtime is allowed per month?
Answer: About 43 minutes/month. Use higher-SLA components or redundancy to reduce downtime.
Question 43: A client wants to track Azure spend across departments. How would you achieve this?
Answer: Use management groups, subscriptions, resource tags, and Azure Cost Management for chargeback and reporting.
Question 44: What is Azure Reservations and when should you use it?
Answer: Reserved Instances let you prepay for resources (like VMs) for 1–3 years, offering up to 72% savings vs. pay-as-you-go.
Question 45: What’s the difference between Azure Free Tier and Pay-As-You-Go?
Answer: Free Tier gives limited free usage monthly; Pay-As-You-Go charges per actual usage with no limits.
Question 46: You want alerts if your monthly Azure bill exceeds $1000. What do you do?
Answer: Set a budget alert in Azure Cost Management.
Question 47: What is Azure Hybrid Benefit?
Answer: A licensing offer allowing use of existing Windows Server/SQL Server licenses in Azure, reducing costs.
Question 48: What is the lifecycle of an Azure resource?
Answer: Creation → Configuration → Monitoring → Scaling → Deletion. Lifecycle management includes automation and cost controls.
Question 49: How do you reduce costs for rarely-used VMs?
Answer: Use auto-shutdown, spot instances, or scale sets with auto-scaling.
Question 50: What happens if you delete a resource group in Azure?
Answer: All resources inside it are deleted permanently, so it should be done with caution and backup verification.
Real-World Understanding & Troubleshooting
Question 51: You deployed a service, but users report slow performance. How do you approach the issue?
Answer: Start with Azure Monitor, use Application Insights, and verify network, storage, and CPU metrics.
Question 52: A VM was accidentally deleted. Can you recover it?
Answer: Only if backup or snapshot was configured. Use Azure Backup or Recovery Services Vault for restoration.
Question 53: What tool helps deploy and manage Azure resources repeatedly and consistently?
Answer: ARM templates, Bicep, or Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
Question 54: You want to automate VM scaling based on load. What’s the Azure approach?
Answer: Use Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) with auto-scaling rules tied to CPU, memory, or queue depth.
Question 55: How would you explain Azure Resource Manager to a non-technical stakeholder?
Answer: It’s like a smart remote control that lets you manage all Azure resources using templates, policies, or APIs.
Question 56: You’re running a batch job every night. Which Azure service do you use?
Answer: Azure Logic Apps, Azure Functions (timer trigger), or Azure Batch.
Question 57: You’re building a multi-tier application. How would you design it using Azure services?
Answer: Web tier on App Service, logic tier using Azure Functions or App Service, and data tier using Azure SQL or Cosmos DB.
Question 58: What are resource locks and when would you use them?
Answer: Use Read-Only or Delete Locks to prevent accidental deletion or modification of critical resources.
Question 59: How do you restrict data from being stored in specific countries?
Answer: Use Azure Policies to restrict deployment to compliant regions only.
Question 60: What is the first thing you check if your Azure resource is not reachable?
Answer: Check NSGs, firewall rules, resource status, and service health dashboard for region-wide issues.
