I'm a cloud engineer who's been working with Azure for about 3 years and I'm targeting the AZ-700 to formalize my networking knowledge. I hold the AZ-104 already, so I'm not new to Azure, but the AZ-700 goes much deeper into network design than what I've needed day-to-day.
Private Link, ExpressRoute design, and hybrid connectivity are where I'm spending most of my study time. I've deployed basic VNets and NSGs constantly, but the design tradeoffs between different connectivity options at scale are new territory.
Is the exam more scenario-based design questions or more technical implementation details?
Heavily scenario-based. They give you a business requirement and ask which connectivity solution meets it, often with constraints like latency thresholds or compliance requirements. You need to understand the tradeoffs, not just the feature names.
ExpressRoute vs VPN Gateway vs Private Link decision logic is tested constantly. Build a mental decision tree for when you'd choose each option — that's more useful than memorizing bandwidth specs.
Having AZ-104 means your foundations are solid. The gap to fill is design-level thinking. Microsoft Learn has an AZ-700 learning path that's genuinely good — I went through it twice and it structured my thinking about network architecture better than any third-party resource.
The BGP and routing sections surprised me — went deeper than I expected. If you've never worked with BGP in Azure environments, give that topic dedicated attention. It's not just conceptual — they ask specific configuration questions.
Honestly, I almost bailed around week three. ExpressRoute just wasn't clicking and I felt like I was going in circles with the BGP stuff. What helped me was going back to basics and drilling specific topics instead of trying to review everything at once. I found these free az 700 networking services practice questions that actually matched the real exam style pretty well, way better than just rereading docs.
If you've already got the AZ-104 you're not starting from zero, but don't underestimate how much deeper the network design questions get. Private Link especially will show up in ways that aren't obvious until you've seen a few tricky scenarios. Keep pushing through the rough patches, it's worth it when everything finally connects.
Honestly I almost bailed on this one about two weeks out. The ExpressRoute and Virtual WAN stuff wasn't clicking and I kept second-guessing whether my day-to-day Azure experience was actually helping or just giving me bad habits. What got me through was slowing down on the design scenarios instead of just memorizing features -- understanding *why* you'd pick a hub-spoke topology over Virtual WAN for certain use cases made the questions feel a lot less like gotchas.
You've got the AZ-104 foundation which helps more than you'd think, but don't assume that means the networking concepts will come easy. Private Link and DNS integration tripped me up more than ExpressRoute did, weirdly. Just keep going when it feels impossible. I passed with a score I'm actually proud of and I'm glad I didn't quit when I wanted to.