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Guided AZ-900 Domain 3
Domain 3 — Module 7 of 8 88%
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AZ-900 Study Guide

Domain 1: Describe Cloud Concepts

  • What is Cloud Computing? Free
  • Cloud Models: Public, Private, and Hybrid Free
  • Cloud Pricing: Consumption, Serverless, and Pay-as-You-Go Free
  • High Availability and Scalability Free
  • Reliability, Security, and Manageability Free
  • IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS Explained Free
  • Choosing the Right Cloud Service Free

Domain 2: Describe Azure Architecture and Services

  • Azure Regions, Zones, and Datacenters
  • Resources, Resource Groups, and Subscriptions
  • Azure Virtual Machines
  • Azure Compute: Containers, Functions, and App Service
  • Azure Networking: VNets, Subnets, and Peering
  • Connecting to Azure: VPNs, ExpressRoute, and DNS
  • Azure Storage Services
  • Data Migration: Moving to Azure
  • Microsoft Entra ID: Your Identity Hub
  • Authentication and External Identities
  • Azure Security: RBAC, Zero Trust, and Defender

Domain 3: Describe Azure Management and Governance

  • What Affects Your Azure Bill
  • Pricing Calculators: TCO and Azure Pricing
  • Cost Management and Tags
  • Azure Governance: Purview, Policy, and Locks
  • The Azure Portal and Cloud Shell
  • Infrastructure as Code: ARM, Bicep, and Arc
  • Azure Advisor and Service Health
  • Azure Monitor: Logs, Alerts, and Insights

AZ-900 Study Guide

Domain 1: Describe Cloud Concepts

  • What is Cloud Computing? Free
  • Cloud Models: Public, Private, and Hybrid Free
  • Cloud Pricing: Consumption, Serverless, and Pay-as-You-Go Free
  • High Availability and Scalability Free
  • Reliability, Security, and Manageability Free
  • IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS Explained Free
  • Choosing the Right Cloud Service Free

Domain 2: Describe Azure Architecture and Services

  • Azure Regions, Zones, and Datacenters
  • Resources, Resource Groups, and Subscriptions
  • Azure Virtual Machines
  • Azure Compute: Containers, Functions, and App Service
  • Azure Networking: VNets, Subnets, and Peering
  • Connecting to Azure: VPNs, ExpressRoute, and DNS
  • Azure Storage Services
  • Data Migration: Moving to Azure
  • Microsoft Entra ID: Your Identity Hub
  • Authentication and External Identities
  • Azure Security: RBAC, Zero Trust, and Defender

Domain 3: Describe Azure Management and Governance

  • What Affects Your Azure Bill
  • Pricing Calculators: TCO and Azure Pricing
  • Cost Management and Tags
  • Azure Governance: Purview, Policy, and Locks
  • The Azure Portal and Cloud Shell
  • Infrastructure as Code: ARM, Bicep, and Arc
  • Azure Advisor and Service Health
  • Azure Monitor: Logs, Alerts, and Insights
Domain 3: Describe Azure Management and Governance Premium ⏱ ~10 min read

Azure Advisor and Service Health

Azure Advisor is your free cloud consultant — giving personalised recommendations. Azure Service Health tells you when Azure itself has problems.

Your cloud helpers

☕ Simple explanation

Azure Advisor = a free personal consultant who reviews your Azure setup and says “Hey, you’re paying for this VM but barely using it. Downsize it and save $50/month.” It gives personalised recommendations across five categories.

Azure Service Health = the traffic report for Azure. It tells you when Azure services have issues, when planned maintenance is coming, and when something might affect YOUR specific resources. Like knowing there’s roadwork on your commute route.

Azure Advisor is a free, personalised cloud consultant that analyses your resource configurations and usage telemetry to provide recommendations across five pillars: Reliability, Security, Performance, Cost, and Operational Excellence.

Azure Service Health combines three services: Service Issues (current Azure outages affecting you), Planned Maintenance (upcoming maintenance windows), and Health Advisories (changes that may affect your resources). It provides personalised health information based on the specific services and regions you use.

Azure Advisor — personalised recommendations

Advisor analyses your Azure environment and provides recommendations across five categories:

CategoryWhat It RecommendsExample
ReliabilityMake your apps more resilient”Add a second VM for high availability”
SecurityReduce vulnerabilities”Enable MFA for admin accounts”
PerformanceImprove speed and responsiveness”Upgrade this SQL Database tier — it’s maxing out”
CostReduce spending”This VM is underutilised — downsize or deallocate”
Operational ExcellenceImprove management practices”Enable diagnostic logging on your App Service”

How Peak Roasters uses Advisor

When Peak Roasters opens Advisor, they see:

  • Cost: “Your B2s VM averages 5% CPU usage. Consider downsizing to B1s — save $15/month.”
  • Security: “Enable MFA for 3 admin accounts that don’t have it.”
  • Reliability: “Your SQL Database has no geo-redundancy. Consider enabling geo-replication.”

Key concept: Advisor recommendations are FREE and personalised to YOUR resources. They’re not generic tips — Advisor analyses your actual usage data.

ℹ️ Advisor Score

Advisor provides an Advisor Score (percentage) showing how well you follow best practices in each category. It’s similar to Defender for Cloud’s Secure Score but broader — covering cost, performance, and reliability too.

Exam tip: Don’t confuse Advisor Score (overall best practices) with Secure Score (security posture in Defender for Cloud).

Azure Service Health

Service Health is a dashboard that shows you the health of Azure services relevant to YOUR environment:

Three components

ComponentWhat It ShowsExample
Service IssuesCurrent outages affecting Azure services you use”Azure SQL Database in Australia East is experiencing degraded performance”
Planned MaintenanceUpcoming maintenance that may affect you”VMs in Australia East will have maintenance on Saturday”
Health AdvisoriesChanges that could affect your resources”TLS 1.0 is being deprecated — update your apps”

How it’s different from Azure Status

Azure Status PageAzure Service Health
Shows ALL Azure issues globallyShows only issues affecting YOUR resources
Public webpage (status.azure.com)In the Azure portal, personalised
No notificationsConfigurable alerts and notifications

Summit Construction configures Service Health alerts for their production subscription. If any Azure service they use in Australia East has an issue, the IT manager gets an email and Teams notification immediately.

💡 Exam tip: Advisor vs Service Health vs Monitor

These three services are easy to confuse:

  • Azure Advisor — “How can I improve my Azure environment?” (recommendations for cost, security, reliability, performance)
  • Azure Service Health — “Is Azure itself healthy?” (outages, maintenance, advisories)
  • Azure Monitor — “How are MY resources performing?” (metrics, logs, alerts for your resources)

Quick test: Advisor = recommendations. Service Health = Azure’s health. Monitor = your resources’ health.

🎬 Video walkthrough

🎬 Video coming soon

Azure Advisor and Service Health — AZ-900

Azure Advisor and Service Health — AZ-900

~8 min

Flashcards

Question

What is Azure Advisor?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

A free, personalised cloud consultant that analyses your Azure resources and provides recommendations across five categories: Reliability, Security, Performance, Cost, and Operational Excellence.

Click to flip back
Question

What five categories does Azure Advisor cover?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

Reliability, Security, Performance, Cost, and Operational Excellence. Recommendations are personalised based on your actual resource configurations and usage data.

Click to flip back
Question

What is Azure Service Health?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

A personalised dashboard showing Azure issues that affect YOUR resources. Three components: Service Issues (current outages), Planned Maintenance (upcoming), and Health Advisories (changes that may affect you).

Click to flip back
Question

What is the difference between Azure Status and Azure Service Health?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

Azure Status (status.azure.com) shows ALL Azure issues globally. Service Health shows only issues affecting YOUR specific resources and regions, and lets you set up alerts.

Click to flip back

Knowledge Check

Knowledge Check

Peak Roasters opens Azure Advisor and sees a recommendation to downsize their VM. This recommendation is based on what?
Knowledge Check

Summit Construction wants to know if any planned Azure maintenance will affect their production VMs next week. Where should they look?

Next up: Azure Monitor — the comprehensive monitoring platform for all your Azure resources.

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Infrastructure as Code: ARM, Bicep, and Arc

Next →

Azure Monitor: Logs, Alerts, and Insights

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