Core services, by category
| Category | Azure service | AWS equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Virtual Machines | EC2 |
| App Service (web apps) | Elastic Beanstalk | |
| Azure Functions (serverless) | Lambda | |
| Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | EKS | |
| Storage | Blob Storage | S3 |
| Azure Files / Disk Storage | EFS / EBS | |
| Networking | Virtual Network (VNet) | VPC |
| Load Balancer / App Gateway | ELB / ALB | |
| Databases | Azure SQL Database | RDS |
| Cosmos DB (NoSQL) | DynamoDB |
Concepts AZ-900 tests
- Regions & Availability Zones for resilience.
- Resource groups — logical containers for related resources.
- Shared responsibility model — cloud vs customer security duties.
- Cost tools — Pricing Calculator, Cost Management, total cost of ownership.
Exam traps
- App Service vs VMs. App Service is PaaS (managed); VMs are IaaS (you manage the OS).
- Resource group = region-bound. A resource group has a region for metadata but can hold resources from many regions.
- Cosmos DB as relational. It's a multi-model NoSQL service.
Test yourself
4 quick questions — tap an answer to check it instantly. Nothing is sent anywhere.
1. Azure's equivalent of AWS Lambda is…
Answer: B. Azure Functions is the serverless compute service, like AWS Lambda.
2. Azure Blob Storage maps to which AWS service?
Answer: B. Blob Storage is object storage, like Amazon S3.
3. Azure Virtual Network (VNet) is equivalent to…
Answer: A. VNet is Azure's isolated virtual network, like an AWS VPC.
4. App Service is which cloud model?
Answer: B. App Service is a managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Sources
- Microsoft — Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900).
Reference summary only. "Azure" and "AWS" are trademarks of their owners. Confirm details in official docs.