Certification guideSC-900

Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals: the honest guide

Everything Microsoft Azure publishes about SC-900, in one place: what the exam asks, how the domains are weighted, and what it takes to be ready.

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Everything below comes from SCI Fundamentals’s published exam data, and every figure links to the vendor page it came from. The researched version, with study plans and the parts nobody publishes, is still being written. This page is not submitted to search engines until it is.

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What the exam actually asks you to do

Multiple choice and multiple response, plus drag-and-drop ordering and hot area items where you click a region of a screenshot.

  • Multiple choice
  • Multiple response
  • Drag and drop
  • Hot area

The highlighted formats are the ones you cannot answer from memory alone. Microsoft Learn, exam duration and question types

Domain breakdown and official weightings

From the official Microsoft Learn study guides. Describe capabilities of Microsoft security solutions is the heaviest domain at 38 percent, followed by Describe capabilities of Microsoft Entra at 28 percent.

  • Describe concepts of security, compliance, and identity12%
  • Describe capabilities of Microsoft Entra28%
  • Describe capabilities of Microsoft security solutions38%
  • Describe capabilities of Microsoft compliance solutions22%

Official SCI Fundamentals exam objectives ↗

What comes after passing

Fundamentals certifications do not expire, so there is no renewal cost at all.

Costs across the full renewal cycle are on the SCI Fundamentals cost page.

Frequently asked questions

Who should take SC-900?

Anyone starting in security or identity on the Microsoft stack, it maps out Entra ID, Defender XDR, Sentinel, and Purview without requiring hands-on depth. It's also a strong primer before SC-300.

Is SC-900 harder than AZ-900?

They're comparable in difficulty; SC-900 simply covers different territory. If you already work with identity (Entra ID, Conditional Access), SC-900 may actually feel easier.

What's on the SC-900 exam?

Four skill areas: security/compliance/identity concepts (~12%), Microsoft Entra capabilities (~28%), Microsoft security solutions (~38%), and Microsoft compliance solutions (~22%), per Microsoft's published ranges.

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Every guide and cost breakdown, by vendor

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