The Microsoft AZ-120 certification exam, officially titled Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads, is a specialized credential designed for architects and engineers who implement and manage SAP solutions on the Azure cloud platform. Unlike broader Azure certifications that cover general cloud infrastructure, AZ-120 sits at a very specific intersection of two complex technical domains: the SAP application ecosystem and the Microsoft Azure infrastructure platform. Candidates must demonstrate competency across both domains simultaneously, which is what makes this certification genuinely challenging and genuinely valuable in the professional marketplace.
The exam tests practical knowledge across a range of skill areas including the planning and deployment of SAP workloads on Azure, the design of Azure solutions to support SAP HANA and other SAP applications, the implementation of high availability and disaster recovery architectures for SAP environments, and the operational management of running SAP workloads on Azure infrastructure. Microsoft updates the skills measured document periodically, and candidates must review the most current version from the official certification page before beginning preparation because the specific weightings and topic inclusions change as Azure services evolve and SAP integration capabilities expand.
Prerequisites Every Candidate Needs
AZ-120 carries meaningful prerequisites that candidates who attempt the exam without meeting tend to find the experience very difficult regardless of how much they studied. Microsoft recommends that candidates have at least one year of experience with SAP solutions and long-term knowledge of SAP HANA database operations, SAP NetWeaver deployment, and the broader SAP application landscape including S/4HANA, BW/4HANA, and related components. This SAP-specific experience requirement is not a suggestion but a practical necessity because the exam tests implementation decisions that only make sense to someone who already understands what SAP applications require from their underlying infrastructure.
On the Azure side, candidates should ideally hold an associate-level Azure certification such as AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate or AZ-305 Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or possess equivalent hands-on experience with core Azure services including virtual machines, virtual networking, storage accounts, identity and access management, and monitoring. The combination of SAP application knowledge and Azure infrastructure expertise is rare in the technical workforce, which is precisely why the certification commands significant professional respect and compensation premium. Candidates who are strong in one domain but weak in the other must invest preparation time in closing that gap before they can perform at the level the exam demands.
SAP On Azure Architecture Fundamentals
The architectural foundation for running SAP workloads on Azure involves a set of design principles and infrastructure patterns that differ meaningfully from general-purpose Azure workload deployment. SAP applications have highly specific requirements for compute resources, memory capacity, network latency, storage throughput, and operating system configuration that must be satisfied for the applications to function correctly and perform adequately under production workloads. Azure provides a specific set of virtual machine series that are certified for SAP workloads, and selecting the correct VM type for a given SAP application tier is a fundamental architectural decision that the exam tests in detail.
The Azure infrastructure for SAP workloads typically follows a layered architecture that separates the SAP application servers, the SAP central services components including ASCS and ERS instances, the database tier running SAP HANA or other supported databases, and the shared file system infrastructure. Each layer has distinct availability, performance, and connectivity requirements that must be addressed through appropriate Azure service selection and configuration. Candidates must understand how these layers interact, how data flows between them, and how the overall architecture must be designed to satisfy SAP’s requirements for performance, availability, and supportability within the Azure environment.
Virtual Machine Sizing For SAP
Selecting the correct virtual machine size for SAP workloads on Azure is one of the most technically specific skill areas in the AZ-120 exam, and it requires knowledge of both SAP sizing methodology and the characteristics of Azure VM families certified for SAP use. SAP publishes sizing guidelines that translate application workload characteristics into requirements for compute resources measured in SAPS, which is the SAP Application Performance Standard unit used to compare processing capacity across different hardware platforms. Translating a given SAPS requirement into an appropriate Azure VM selection requires knowing which VM families are certified for which SAP applications and what resource capacities they provide.
Microsoft maintains a published list of Azure VM types certified for SAP HANA specifically, which is more restrictive than the list certified for other SAP applications because HANA’s in-memory architecture demands very large memory configurations that not all VM families support. The M-series and Mv2-series virtual machines are among the primary Azure VM families used for production SAP HANA deployments because they provide the very large memory configurations that HANA databases require. Candidates must know not just which VM families are certified but also understand the constraints and considerations associated with each, including the specific storage configurations required to achieve the IOPS and throughput performance that SAP HANA mandates for its data and log volumes.
Storage Configuration For HANA
SAP HANA has among the most demanding storage performance requirements of any enterprise application, and configuring Azure storage correctly for HANA deployments is a critical skill area in AZ-120. HANA requires specific minimum IOPS and throughput values for its data volumes and log volumes, and the storage configuration must be validated against SAP’s published storage requirements to ensure the deployment will receive support from SAP. Azure provides multiple storage options for HANA workloads including Azure Premium SSD, Azure Ultra Disk, and Azure NetApp Files, each offering different performance characteristics, cost profiles, and configuration complexity.
Azure NetApp Files has emerged as a particularly important storage option for SAP HANA deployments because it provides the NFS-based shared storage required for certain HANA scale-out configurations and delivers consistent high-performance characteristics at large capacities. Candidates must understand the specific scenarios in which each storage option is appropriate, how to configure storage volumes to meet HANA’s performance requirements, how to use Azure Write Accelerator for log volumes on M-series virtual machines where it is required, and how to validate that a storage configuration meets SAP’s documented minimum requirements before considering it production-ready. The storage configuration domain rewards candidates who have worked through actual HANA storage setup rather than simply read about it.
High Availability Design Patterns
High availability for SAP workloads on Azure requires implementing redundancy at multiple layers of the architecture simultaneously because a failure at any single layer can disrupt the entire SAP system. The exam tests candidates’ knowledge of the high availability patterns applicable to each component of an SAP landscape including the database tier, the central services tier, and the application server tier. Each tier has different availability mechanisms appropriate to its function and failure characteristics, and a complete high availability architecture must address all of them coherently.
For SAP HANA, high availability is typically implemented using HANA System Replication, which replicates data synchronously or asynchronously between a primary HANA instance and one or more secondary instances on separate Azure virtual machines in different availability zones or availability sets. Azure Load Balancer with floating IP configuration is used to redirect client connections to the current primary instance automatically when a failover occurs. The SAP central services components, ASCS and ERS, require a separate clustering mechanism typically implemented using Pacemaker on Linux with Azure Shared Disk or Azure NetApp Files as the shared storage resource. Candidates must understand how these different clustering and replication mechanisms interact and how to configure each correctly for a fully redundant SAP environment.
Disaster Recovery Implementation Approaches
Disaster recovery for SAP workloads on Azure extends the availability conversation beyond local redundancy to address the scenario of an entire Azure region becoming unavailable due to a catastrophic event. The exam tests candidates’ ability to design and implement disaster recovery solutions that meet specific recovery time objective and recovery point objective requirements for SAP landscapes of varying criticality. The appropriate disaster recovery architecture depends on the RPO and RTO requirements, the size of the SAP database being protected, the available network bandwidth between the primary and secondary Azure regions, and the budget allocated for the disaster recovery infrastructure.
Azure Site Recovery is a key service for SAP disaster recovery that provides automated replication of virtual machine disk contents to a secondary Azure region and supports orchestrated failover that brings up the entire SAP environment in the correct sequence in the secondary region. For SAP HANA specifically, HANA System Replication configured in asynchronous mode can extend across Azure regions to provide database-level disaster recovery with potentially lower RPO than Azure Site Recovery alone can achieve. Candidates must understand how to combine these approaches appropriately, how to configure and test failover procedures, and how to document and maintain disaster recovery runbooks that enable reliable execution of failover procedures during actual disaster scenarios.
Networking Requirements And Configuration
The networking architecture for SAP workloads on Azure must satisfy both Azure-level connectivity requirements and SAP-specific network performance requirements that differ from typical enterprise application deployments. SAP applications are highly sensitive to network latency between application servers and database servers, and placing these components in different network segments or different Azure regions without adequate attention to latency characteristics can produce unacceptable application performance. Azure provides proximity placement groups as a mechanism to ensure that virtual machines that need to communicate with minimal latency are placed in close physical proximity within an Azure datacenter.
Beyond internal network latency, SAP on Azure deployments typically require connectivity back to on-premises SAP systems, to SAP landscape management infrastructure, and potentially to SAP cloud services. Azure ExpressRoute is the preferred connectivity mechanism for production SAP on Azure deployments because it provides dedicated private connectivity with predictable bandwidth and latency characteristics superior to internet-based VPN connections. Candidates must understand how to design hub-and-spoke network topologies appropriate for SAP workloads, how to configure network security groups and Azure Firewall rules that satisfy SAP’s connectivity requirements without compromising security, and how to use Azure network monitoring tools to diagnose latency and connectivity issues that affect SAP application performance.
SAP HANA Large Instances Overview
SAP HANA Large Instances, often abbreviated as HLI, represent a specialized deployment option for very large SAP HANA databases that exceed the memory capacity available in standard Azure virtual machines. HLI provides bare-metal server infrastructure in Microsoft datacenters that is directly connected to Azure virtual networks, allowing HANA Large Instance servers to integrate with Azure-hosted SAP application servers while providing the very large memory configurations required by the largest SAP HANA databases. The exam tests candidates’ knowledge of when HLI is appropriate, how it is connected to Azure infrastructure, and what operational considerations it introduces compared to standard Azure VM-based HANA deployments.
The HLI platform has its own storage architecture, backup mechanisms, and high availability options that differ from the Azure VM-based approaches used for standard HANA deployments. Candidates must understand the HLI storage layout including the volumes provided for HANA data, logs, shared storage, and backups, as well as the HANA System Replication configurations supported on HLI for high availability and disaster recovery. The operational integration of HLI with Azure monitoring services, Azure Backup, and the Azure management plane is also an exam topic because organizations managing hybrid landscapes that include both HLI and Azure VM-based components need a coherent operational approach that spans both infrastructure types.
Backup And Recovery Strategies
Protecting SAP workloads on Azure from data loss requires a backup strategy that addresses the specific backup requirements of SAP HANA and other SAP application components in ways that are consistent with both SAP’s backup documentation and Azure’s backup service capabilities. Azure Backup provides native integration with SAP HANA through the Backint interface, which is SAP’s standard API for connecting HANA database backup operations to external backup solutions. This integration allows HANA backups to be executed through standard HANA backup mechanisms while the actual backup data is stored in Azure Recovery Services vaults, providing centralized backup management and retention policy enforcement.
The exam tests candidates’ ability to configure HANA database backups using Azure Backup, including the setup of the Backint configuration, the definition of backup policies that satisfy recovery point objective requirements, and the execution and verification of backup and restore procedures. Beyond database backups, candidates must also understand how to protect other SAP components including the shared file systems used by SAP central services, the operating system configurations of SAP virtual machines, and the Azure infrastructure configuration itself. A comprehensive backup strategy for SAP on Azure requires layered protection that combines database-level backups, virtual machine snapshots, and infrastructure-as-code practices that enable rapid reconstruction of the Azure environment in recovery scenarios.
Monitoring SAP Azure Environments
Effective operational monitoring of SAP workloads on Azure requires visibility into both the Azure infrastructure layer and the SAP application layer simultaneously, because performance issues and availability problems can originate at either level and manifest as symptoms at both. Azure Monitor provides the infrastructure-level monitoring foundation including metrics collection, log analytics, and alerting capabilities that cover virtual machine performance, storage throughput, network connectivity, and Azure service health. Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions is a purpose-built monitoring capability that extends this infrastructure visibility with SAP-specific metrics and health indicators for SAP HANA, SAP NetWeaver, and other SAP components.
Candidates must understand how to configure Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions, including the deployment of the monitoring infrastructure components and the configuration of data providers that collect metrics from SAP HANA, the operating system layer, and the Azure infrastructure. The exam also tests knowledge of how to create alert rules that notify operations teams when SAP-relevant thresholds are breached, how to use Azure Monitor workbooks to visualize SAP system health across multiple components, and how to integrate SAP monitoring data with broader organizational IT monitoring platforms. The operational monitoring domain rewards candidates who have actually configured monitoring for SAP on Azure rather than simply read about the available services.
Migration Planning And Execution
Moving existing SAP landscapes to Azure from on-premises data centers or other cloud platforms is a significant undertaking that requires careful planning, rigorous testing, and disciplined execution to avoid disruption to business-critical SAP systems. The exam tests candidates’ knowledge of the migration methodologies and Azure tools available for SAP migration, including both homogeneous migrations where the SAP system moves without a database change and heterogeneous migrations where the opportunity is taken to convert the database to SAP HANA during the migration process. Each migration type has different tooling, testing requirements, and risk profiles that the architect must account for in the migration plan.
Azure Migrate provides assessment and migration capabilities relevant to SAP workloads, and the Azure Database Migration Service supports certain database migration scenarios. The SAP Database Migration Option and the SAP Software Provisioning Manager are SAP-native tools used for heterogeneous migrations that candidates must be familiar with at a conceptual level even if they have not personally executed every type of migration. The exam may present scenarios involving the selection of an appropriate migration approach given specific constraints around downtime tolerance, database size, timeline, and budget. Candidates who have participated in actual SAP to Azure migration projects bring an advantage in these scenario questions because the decision-making logic is grounded in practical experience rather than theoretical frameworks.
Security And Compliance Considerations
Securing SAP workloads on Azure requires addressing security at every layer of the architecture from the Azure subscription and identity management layer through the network layer to the operating system and SAP application configuration layer. Azure Active Directory integration with SAP applications provides centralized identity management and enables single sign-on capabilities that improve both security and user experience. Role-based access control policies at the Azure resource level must be carefully designed to ensure that only authorized personnel can manage the Azure infrastructure supporting SAP systems while SAP application-level authorization remains under SAP’s own authorization framework.
The exam tests candidates’ knowledge of security baseline configurations appropriate for SAP on Azure including operating system hardening, network security group configuration, Azure Disk Encryption for data at rest protection, and SAP transport layer security configuration for data in transit. Compliance requirements for SAP data, which frequently includes sensitive financial, personnel, and business operations information, may impose specific requirements around data residency, encryption standards, audit logging, and access controls that the Azure architecture must satisfy. Candidates must understand how Azure Policy, Azure Security Center, and Azure compliance certifications can be leveraged to demonstrate and maintain compliance posture for SAP workloads subject to regulatory requirements.
Cost Optimization For SAP Workloads
The financial dimension of running SAP workloads on Azure is a significant operational concern for organizations that have moved or are planning to move from on-premises infrastructure with known fixed costs to cloud infrastructure with variable costs that must be actively managed. Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances provide substantial cost savings compared to pay-as-you-go pricing for SAP virtual machines that run continuously, and the one-year or three-year reservation commitment periods align naturally with the stable long-term usage patterns typical of production SAP systems. Candidates must understand how to evaluate the trade-off between reservation commitment and flexibility for different components of an SAP landscape.
Azure Hybrid Benefit allows organizations that hold existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance to apply those licenses to Azure virtual machines and Azure SQL services, reducing the Azure compute and licensing costs for SAP landscapes that include Windows-based components. Cost management practices including the use of Azure Cost Management and Billing to analyze spending patterns, identify optimization opportunities, and enforce budget controls are also exam-relevant topics because SAP landscapes tend to be among the most expensive workloads in an organization’s Azure environment. Right-sizing virtual machines based on actual utilization data, stopping non-production systems during off-hours, and using Azure Spot Instances for non-critical batch processing workloads are practical optimization strategies that the exam may present in scenario-based questions.
Exam Preparation Resource Guide
Preparing for AZ-120 requires a carefully curated set of resources that addresses both the SAP knowledge domain and the Azure infrastructure domain comprehensively. Microsoft Learn provides official learning paths specifically aligned with AZ-120 that cover Azure infrastructure for SAP, HANA deployment and management, high availability and disaster recovery architectures, and operational management topics. These learning paths are the authoritative starting point because they are maintained by Microsoft and reflect the current exam objectives. Supplementing them with the official SAP on Azure documentation available through both Microsoft’s documentation portal and SAP’s own Help Portal provides the depth of technical detail that scenario-based exam questions require.
Hands-on practice is particularly important for AZ-120 because so many of the exam questions test practical judgment that only develops through direct experience with SAP and Azure together. Candidates who have access to SAP development systems through their employer or through SAP’s own developer access programs can practice deploying HANA on Azure virtual machines, configuring high availability clusters, and implementing monitoring solutions in a real environment. Microsoft provides free Azure credits through various programs that can support hands-on practice. Community resources including the SAP on Azure Tech Community blog, recorded sessions from Microsoft Ignite and SAP TechEd conferences, and study groups organized through LinkedIn or Reddit provide additional perspectives and exam experience insights that complement the official preparation materials.
Conclusion
The AZ-120 certification is one of the most demanding and most specialized credentials in the Microsoft certification portfolio, and earning it requires a genuine command of two complex technical disciplines that most professionals spend careers developing expertise in separately. The combination of SAP application knowledge and Azure infrastructure expertise that the exam demands is rare, and that rarity is precisely what makes the certification so valuable to organizations that need professionals capable of designing, implementing, and managing enterprise SAP landscapes on Azure with the confidence and competence that business-critical workloads demand.
The preparation journey for AZ-120 is substantial but navigable for candidates who approach it with a structured strategy and realistic expectations about the effort required. Beginning with an honest assessment of existing knowledge across both the SAP and Azure domains identifies the gaps that need the most attention. Building a study plan that allocates time proportionally across all exam skill areas, with additional emphasis on areas of relative weakness, ensures that preparation is balanced rather than concentrated in comfortable but already-strong areas. Combining official Microsoft Learn content with hands-on practice, SAP documentation, and community resources creates a preparation ecosystem that addresses the multiple dimensions the exam measures.
Candidates who earn AZ-120 position themselves for career opportunities that are genuinely scarce and genuinely sought after. Organizations that run SAP as their core business system, which includes a very large proportion of the world’s largest enterprises, are actively migrating or planning to migrate those systems to Azure, and they need professionals who can guide and execute those migrations competently. The operational management of SAP on Azure in steady state requires the same combination of skills, and demand for qualified practitioners in this role shows no sign of declining as the installed base of SAP on Azure continues to grow.
Beyond the career benefits, the process of preparing for and earning AZ-120 produces a professional who is genuinely more capable of delivering successful SAP on Azure implementations. The structured engagement with high availability design, disaster recovery planning, storage configuration, security architecture, and cost optimization that exam preparation requires builds a comprehensive mental framework for approaching real-world SAP on Azure challenges. This framework, grounded in Microsoft’s recommended practices and SAP’s technical requirements, guides better decisions at every stage of the SAP on Azure lifecycle from initial architecture through operational management to eventual evolution of the platform. The certification is both a credential and a genuine indicator of the capability it certifies.
