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  • Writer's pictureAndrew Kelleher

AZ-700: Azure Network Engineer Associate Study Guide

I recently passed the AZ-700 network exam and wanted to share my study guide and notes. Hopefully, this will also help you if you’re looking to sit the exam.

The content of this exam was recently updated on April 25, 2024. This study guide reflects the latest objectives

The AZ-700 exam is the only exam needed to obtain the Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate certification. According to Microsoft -


“As a candidate for this exam, you should have subject matter expertise in planning, implementing, and managing Azure networking solutions”


“As an Azure network engineer, your responsibilities include optimizing performance, resiliency, scale, and security of Azure networking solutions. You proactively monitor network environments to identify issues and minimize risk. You also identify and resolve connectivity issues.”


“…you should have experience creating and managing compute, storage, and networking resources in Azure”


The high-level view of the skills measured in the exam are -

  • Design and implement core networking infrastructure (25–30%)

  • Design, implement, and manage connectivity services (20–25%)

  • Design and implement application delivery services (15–20%)

  • Design and implement private access to Azure services (10–15%)

  • Design and implement Azure network security services (15–20%)


More information can be found on the exam’s website. The exam has a passing score of 700.


Free Microsoft Learn resources

Microsoft Learn is an ever-expanding catalogue of free training courses provided by Microsoft. After you've reviewed the exam objectives, I highly recommend working through these next. They're in nice bite-sized sections, and you can easily track your progress.


Microsoft Learn contains a dedicated learning path for the AZ-700 exam, which contains 8 modules -


According to Microsoft, these modules should take around 9 hours to complete. I completed the entire course, and this feels about right. I needed to do additional reading for some of the topics, while I felt confident enough to skip through quite quickly for others.


Videos

I highly recommend John Savill’s YouTube study guide if you prefer to learn via video.


Microsoft’s own Exam Readiness Zone also has five exam prep videos for AZ-700 here.


Online Paid Training Courses

In addition to Microsoft's free resources, there are several paid options for online training courses. These are often more interactive and provide a useful way to fill in any gaps in your knowledge.


Below, I've linked to what I think are the best options for the AZ-204 exam -


AZ-700 Books

Some people prefer to use books to study, which is why Microsoft still publishes the Exam Ref series. As exam objectives get updated reasonably regularly, make sure that you get the latest edition of any study guides -


Practice Exams

So you’ve studied for the exam and want to assess your readiness?

Practice tests are a great way to assess your readiness for the actual exam. Here are some links to the most popular ones -


If you’re new to certification exams, Microsoft recently announced an “exam sandbox.” The aim is to allow you to experience the look and feel of a certification exam before you sit one for real.


Microsoft Docs for AZ-700

This section links each exam topic to the relevant Microsoft documentation.


There's a lot of content here, but all of the exam questions will be based on these topics. Skim through as many of these as possible and deep dive into those you are less familiar with.


Design and implement core networking infrastructure (25–30%)

Design and implement IP addressing for Azure resources


Design and implement name resolution


Design and implement VNet connectivity and routing


Monitor networks


Design, implement, and manage connectivity services (20–25%)

Design, implement, and manage a site-to-site VPN connection


Design, implement, and manage a point-to-site VPN connection


Design, implement, and manage Azure ExpressRoute


Design and implement an Azure Virtual WAN architecture


Design and implement application delivery services (15–20%)

Design and implement Azure Load Balancer and Azure Traffic Manager


Design and implement Azure Application Gateway


Design and implement Azure Front Door


Design and implement private access to Azure services (10–15%)

Design and implement Azure Private Link service and Azure private endpoints


Design and implement service endpoints


Design and implement Azure network security services (15–20%)

Implement and manage network security groups


Design and implement Azure Firewall and Azure Firewall Manager


Design and implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) deployment


Additional Tips

My approach for tackling this exam was to start with the Microsoft Learn courses. From my experience, this wasn’t sufficient to pass the exam unless you already know the topics well - this can be a challenging exam!


To give yourself the best chance of success, my recommendations are -

  • Lab and practice anything you’re not familiar with

  • There are many different topics covered in depth - read as many of the MS docs pages as you can using the links I’ve provided above

  • Understand how different SKUs and tiers for each service impact their features and performance

  • Understand how VNET peering, VPN and ER gateways, BGP etc. work together


I find deploying the relevant Azure resources and configuring their features to be hugely beneficial to my learning for any of the Azure certifications. You can grab a free Azure trial to receive 12 months of free popular services, $200 free credit, and 25+ always free services.


Microsoft is also offering “Exam Replay”, which gives you a second chance to pass the exam. If you’re not 100% sure you’re ready for the exam one approach is just to sit the exam. If you pass the first time, great! If not, at least you’ll have a good feel for the types of questions, etc., for your second attempt.


I hope you found this study guide helpful. Good luck! Please let me know of any other resources that you found useful for the exam.



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