This chapter covers Azure Dedicated Hosts, a compute option for workloads with specific compliance or licensing requirements. AZ-900 tests this under objective 2.2, as a specialized compute offering.
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A simple way to picture Azure Dedicated Hosts
A hotel room is shared infrastructure — you're using the same building with many other guests. A private bedroom in your own house is yours exclusively. Azure Dedicated Hosts work similarly: instead of VMs running on shared physical servers (the default), Dedicated Hosts provide a physical server dedicated to your VMs alone, giving you exclusive use of that hardware.
What Dedicated Hosts are
Azure Dedicated Hosts provision a physical server exclusively for your VMs — no other customers' VMs run on that same server. This provides isolation and can be important for compliance requirements, licensing concerns, or specific performance needs.
Why they matter
Some organizations have regulatory requirements or licensing agreements that mandate running on non-shared, dedicated infrastructure. Some software licenses are based on physical core count (not virtual cores), making Dedicated Hosts relevant for license optimization.
Cost implications
Dedicated Hosts are significantly more expensive than standard VMs on shared infrastructure, since you're paying for the entire physical server regardless of how many VMs you actually run on it. They're cost-efficient only if you have multiple VMs per host, spreading the cost across them.
Not for general use
Most workloads don't need Dedicated Hosts — the benefits of shared, efficient infrastructure typically outweigh the isolation benefits. They're a specialized option for specific compliance or licensing scenarios.
Identify compliance or licensing requirements
Determine whether your workload has specific requirements mandating non-shared, dedicated infrastructure.
Assess cost implications
Calculate whether dedicating an entire physical server is cost-effective — it only makes sense if you run multiple VMs per host.
Provision a Dedicated Host
If requirements justify it, provision a Dedicated Host in the desired region.
Deploy VMs to the Dedicated Host
VMs deployed to the Dedicated Host run exclusively on that hardware.
A company with software licenses based on physical core counts uses Dedicated Hosts for those applications, allowing the license count to match the actual physical hardware rather than the virtual cores running on it.
Objective 2.2 expects candidates to understand Dedicated Hosts as a specialized option for specific compliance or licensing scenarios, not a general-purpose compute choice.
A common wrong answer is assuming Dedicated Hosts are always more secure or better-performing than shared infrastructure — in most cases, the additional cost isn't justified by those benefits unless specific compliance or licensing requirements demand it.
Stable terms: Dedicated Host, physical server. Memory trick: Dedicated Hosts = exclusive physical server, high cost, useful only for specific compliance/licensing scenarios, not general workloads.
Azure Dedicated Hosts provision a physical server exclusively for your VMs, with no other customers' workloads on that hardware.
They're useful for specific compliance requirements or software licenses based on physical core counts.
They're significantly more expensive than shared infrastructure and only cost-effective if you run multiple VMs per host.
They're a specialized option, not suitable for most general-purpose workloads.
These come up on the exam all the time. Here's how to tell them apart.
Shared Infrastructure (Standard VMs)
Shared physical servers with other customers
Cost-effective for most workloads
Generally sufficient security and isolation
Dedicated Hosts
Physical server dedicated to your VMs alone
High cost per host
Needed for specific compliance/licensing requirements
Mistake
Dedicated Hosts are always more secure than shared infrastructure.
Correct
Dedicated Hosts provide isolation, but most workloads' security needs are met adequately by Azure's multi-tenant shared infrastructure — they're more relevant to compliance or licensing requirements.
Mistake
Dedicated Hosts are cost-effective for any workload.
Correct
They're cost-effective only if you run multiple VMs per host, spreading the high per-host cost across them — single-VM scenarios are very expensive compared to shared infrastructure.
A physical server provisioned exclusively for your VMs, with no other customers' workloads running on that same hardware — providing isolation useful for specific compliance or licensing requirements.
They provide isolation, but most workloads' security needs are met adequately by Azure's multi-tenant shared infrastructure. They're more relevant to specific compliance or licensing requirements than general security concerns.
Only if you run multiple VMs per host, spreading the high per-host cost across them. Single-VM scenarios are very expensive compared to running on shared infrastructure.
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