Study guide for Exam AZ-120: Planning and Administering Azure for SAP Workloads
Purpose of this document
This study guide should help you understand what to expect on the exam and includes a summary of the topics the exam might cover and links to additional resources. The information and materials in this document should help you focus your studies as you prepare for the exam.
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Updates to the exam
Our exams are updated periodically to reflect skills that are required to perform a role. We have included two versions of the Skills Measured objectives depending on when you are taking the exam.
We always update the English language version of the exam first. Some exams are localized into other languages, and those are updated approximately eight weeks after the English version is updated. While Microsoft makes every effort to update localized versions as noted, there may be times when the localized versions of this exam are not updated on this schedule. Other available languages are listed in the Schedule Exam section of the Exam Details webpage. If the exam isn't available in your preferred language, you can request an additional 30 minutes to complete the exam.
Note
The bullets that follow each of the skills measured are intended to illustrate how we are assessing that skill. Related topics may be covered in the exam.
Note
Most questions cover features that are general availability (GA). The exam may contain questions on Preview features if those features are commonly used.
Skills measured as of October 11, 2024
Audience profile
As a candidate for this exam, you’re an architect or engineer who designs and manages the SAP landscape on Azure. Your responsibilities include:
Implementing industry-specific standards for migrations and integrations.
Ensuring the sustained operation of an SAP solution within the Azure environment.
You recommend services and adjust resources as appropriate for optimal:
Resiliency
Performance
Scale
Provision
Size
Monitoring
You partner with cloud administrators, cloud database administrators, and clients to implement solutions, including RISE with SAP. You manage SAP infrastructure by using:
The Azure portal
Azure Marketplace
Azure Resource Manager templates
You should have extensive experience and knowledge of the SAP applications and databases including:
SAP high-performance Analytic Appliance (HANA)
SAP Business Suite
SAP NetWeaver
You should also have experience with virtualization, cloud infrastructure, storage structures, high availability, backup, disaster recovery, data protection, and networking.
For this exam, we strongly recommend that candidates have an Azure Administrator Associate certification.
Skills at a glance
Migrate SAP workloads to Azure (25–30%)
Design and implement an infrastructure to support SAP workloads on Azure (25–30%)
Design and implement high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) (20–25%)
Maintain SAP workloads on Azure (20–25%)
Migrate SAP workloads to Azure (25–30%)
Identify requirements for target infrastructure
Estimate target sizing for SAP workloads
Identify supported scenarios for SAP deployments on Azure
Identify compute, storage, and network requirements for SAP workloads
Assess constraints imposed by subscription models and quota limits
Identify software licensing requirements for target workloads
Identify cost implications for target workloads
Specify an Azure support plan for the target infrastructure
Choose between lift and shift, lift-shift-migrate, and lift-shift-migrate to HANA
Choose an appropriate SAP workload migration strategy and tools
Design and implement an Azure environment to support SAP workloads
Design and implement authorization and access control for SAP workloads
Design and implement governance and compliance by using Azure Policy
Design and implement authentication for SAP workloads
Design and implement authentication for SAP software as a service (SaaS) applications
Design and implement a management hierarchy, including management groups, subscriptions, and resource groups
Design Azure landing zones for SAP
Design and implement integration with SAP RISE
Design networking for SAP RISE
Implement networking for SAP RISE
Design and implement Azure compute, network, and storage services with SAP RISE
Design and implement integration of data management services such as data archiving
Design and implement integration of identity and security services with SAP RISE
Design and implement an infrastructure to support SAP workloads on Azure (25–30%)
Design and implement a compute solution for SAP workloads
Choose an SAP-certified Azure virtual machine for a given SAP workload
Configure the Azure VM extension for SAP solutions
Deploy an operating system by using an Azure Marketplace image
Create a custom image and deploy it to an Azure virtual machine
Automate a deployment of Azure virtual machines by using IaC, including Bicep and Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
Automate a deployment by using the SAP on Azure Deployment Automation Framework
Automate a deployment by using Azure Center for SAP solutions
Design and implement networking for SAP on Azure virtual machines
Design and implement virtual networks and subnets
Implement Accelerated Networking for Azure virtual machines
Design and configure proximity placement groups
Design networking to meet SAP workload latency requirements
Design and implement network flow control
Design and implement network security
Design and implement service endpoints and private endpoints for Azure Storage
Design name resolution for integration with Azure DNS
Design and configure ExpressRoute for hybrid connectivity
Design and implement a storage solution for SAP on Azure virtual machines
Choose a storage type
Specify when to use disk striping and simple volumes
Design for storage security considerations
Design and implement data protection
Design and implement caching for disks
Configure Write Accelerator
Configure encryption for storage, disks, and data
Design and implement volumes by using Azure NetApp Files
Design and implement volumes by using Azure Files
Design and implement high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) (20–25%)
Design and implement a high availability solution for SAP on Azure virtual machines
Design for service-level agreement (SLA) considerations
Design and deploy SAP workloads into availability sets and availability zones
Design and implement load balancing for high availability
Configure clustering for HANA and SAP Central Services (SCS)
Configure clustering for SQL
Configure Pacemaker and STONITH
Configure an Azure fence agent or STONITH Block Device (SBD)
Design and configure storage-level replication for SAP workloads
Configure restart of SAP systems, instances, and HANA databases
Design and implement a disaster recovery solution for SAP on Azure virtual machines
Design and implement an Azure Site Recovery strategy for an SAP infrastructure
Design a disaster recovery solution with regional considerations
Specify network configurations for disaster recovery
Design a backup strategy to meet SLA requirements
Implement policies for backups and snapshots
Configure and validate snapshots and backups for SAP workloads
Perform backup and restore
Test disaster recovery
Maintain SAP workloads on Azure (20–25%)
Optimize performance and costs
Optimize performance and costs for an SAP workload by using Azure Advisor recommendations
Analyze and optimize network performance
Optimize costs by configuring snoozing and deploying reserved instances
Optimize performance and costs by resizing Azure virtual machines
Optimize storage costs
Optimize data performance by using archiving
Optimize performance and costs of SAP application servers and databases
Monitor and maintain SAP on Azure
Monitor Azure virtual machines by using Azure Monitor
Monitor high availability by using Azure Monitor
Monitor storage by using Azure Monitor
Monitor networking by using Azure Monitor and Azure Network Watcher
Configure Azure Monitor for SAP solutions
Manage backups by using Azure Backup
Start and stop SAP systems by using Azure Center for SAP solutions
Manage virtual instances by using Azure Center for SAP solutions
Implement the SAP Landscape Management (LaMa) connector for Azure
Study resources
We recommend that you train and get hands-on experience before you take the exam. We offer self-study options and classroom training as well as links to documentation, community sites, and videos.
| Study resources | Links to learning and documentation |
|---|---|
| Get trained | Choose from self-paced learning paths and modules or take an instructor-led course |
| Find documentation | SAP on Azure Development and test environments for SAP workloads on Azure SAP on Azure architecture center |
| Ask a question | Microsoft Q&A | Microsoft Docs |
| Get community support | Azure Community Support |
| Follow Microsoft Learn | Microsoft Learn - Microsoft Tech Community |
| Find a video | Exam Readiness Zone Azure Fridays Browse other Microsoft Learn shows |
Change log
The table below summarizes the changes between the current and previous version of the skills measured. The functional groups are in bold typeface followed by the objectives within each group. The table is a comparison between the previous and current version of the exam skills measured and the third column describes the extent of the changes.
| Skill area prior to October 11, 2024 | Skill area as of October 11, 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Audience profile | Major | |
| Migrate SAP workloads to Azure | Migrate SAP workloads to Azure | No change |
| Design and implement integration with SAP RISE | New | |
| Design and implement an infrastructure to support SAP workloads on Azure | Design and implement an infrastructure to support SAP workloads on Azure | % of the exam decreased |
| Design and implement high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) | Design and implement high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) | % of the exam increased |
| Maintain SAP workloads on Azure | Maintain SAP workloads on Azure | % of the exam increased |
| Optimize performance and costs | Optimize performance and costs | Minor |