Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Exam Guide

Everything you need to know about the 1Z0-1085-24 certification exam, from preparation strategies to exam day tips.

Exam Information

90 minutes

Duration

40 questions

Questions

65%

Passing Score

Often free via Oracle promotions; otherwise ~$95 USD

Exam Cost

Recommended Study Plan

Week 1

OCI Introduction & Cloud Concepts

Discuss the benefits and architecture of OCI

4-6 hours

Cloud service models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
Benefits of cloud: elasticity, pay-as-you-go, faster time to market
OCI architecture: regions, availability domains, fault domains
High availability vs disaster recovery (ADs vs regions)
Shared responsibility model in OCI
Realms and region selection (latency and data residency)

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Documentation

1Z0-1085-24 Study Notes

Week 2

Core OCI Services

Describe OCI networking, compute, storage, and database services

10-12 hours

VCN, subnets (public/private), and route tables
Gateways: Internet, NAT, Service, Dynamic Routing (DRG), Local Peering
Security Lists vs Network Security Groups (NSGs)
Load Balancer, FastConnect, and Site-to-Site VPN
Compute: VM vs bare metal, flexible shapes, instance pools, autoscaling
OKE, Container Instances, and Functions (serverless)
Storage: Object, Block, File, Archive tiers and lifecycle management
Database: Autonomous Database (ATP/ADW), Base DB, Exadata, MySQL HeatWave, NoSQL

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Documentation

CertStud Practice Questions

Week 3

OCI Security

Describe OCI identity, access management, and cloud-native security

6-8 hours

IAM: tenancy, compartments (nesting), users, groups, dynamic groups
Policy syntax and verbs: inspect, read, use, manage
Default-deny authorization model
Identity domains, federation (SAML/OIDC), and MFA
Cloud Guard: detector and responder recipes
Security Zones, Vault (KMS), and WAF
Bastion service and DDoS protection
Encryption at rest by default; customer-managed keys

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Security Docs

CertStud Practice Questions

Week 4

Pricing, Billing, Cost Management + Review

Describe OCI pricing, billing, and support

6-8 hours

Pricing models: PAYG, Annual Universal Credits, BYOL
Always Free vs Free Trial resources
Consistent global pricing and no inbound data transfer charges
Cost Analysis, Budgets, and Usage Reports
Compartment quotas and cost-tracking tags
SLAs (availability, manageability, performance) vs SLOs
Support tiers and My Oracle Support
Full-length practice exam and weak area review

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Pricing Docs

CertStud Practice Exams

Exam Tips & Strategies

Focus on Service Identification

1Z0-1085-24 heavily tests which OCI service fits a given scenario. Know the difference between gateways (NAT vs Service vs DRG), storage tiers (Standard vs Archive), and database options (Autonomous vs Base vs Exadata).

Time Management

You have about 90 minutes for 40 questions — roughly 2 minutes each. Flag uncertain questions and return to them; the foundational level means most questions are scenario-based but straightforward.

Use Free Oracle Resources

Oracle frequently offers free training and exam attempts for OCI Foundations through Oracle University and promotional events. Pair the official learning path with CertStud practice questions.

Read Scenarios Carefully

Keywords matter: 'private outbound internet' → NAT Gateway, 'private access to Oracle services' → Service Gateway, 'self-managing database' → Autonomous Database, 'misconfiguration detection' → Cloud Guard, 'spending alerts' → Budgets.

Key Topics to Master

Regions, availability domains, and fault domains — what each protects against

Cloud service models (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS) and the shared responsibility model

VCN gateways: Internet, NAT, Service, DRG, Local Peering

Security Lists vs Network Security Groups

Compute shapes: VM, bare metal, flexible shapes; autoscaling and instance pools

Storage services and Object Storage tiers (Standard, Infrequent Access, Archive)

Database services: Autonomous (ATP/ADW), Base, Exadata, MySQL HeatWave, NoSQL

IAM: compartments, policies, verbs (inspect/read/use/manage), default-deny

Cloud-native security: Cloud Guard, Vault, WAF, Bastion, Security Zones

Pricing models, Always Free, cost management tools, and SLAs

Recommended Study Plan

Week 1

OCI Introduction & Cloud Concepts

Discuss the benefits and architecture of OCI

4-6 hours

Cloud service models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
Benefits of cloud: elasticity, pay-as-you-go, faster time to market
OCI architecture: regions, availability domains, fault domains
High availability vs disaster recovery (ADs vs regions)
Shared responsibility model in OCI
Realms and region selection (latency and data residency)

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Documentation

1Z0-1085-24 Study Notes

Week 2

Core OCI Services

Describe OCI networking, compute, storage, and database services

10-12 hours

VCN, subnets (public/private), and route tables
Gateways: Internet, NAT, Service, Dynamic Routing (DRG), Local Peering
Security Lists vs Network Security Groups (NSGs)
Load Balancer, FastConnect, and Site-to-Site VPN
Compute: VM vs bare metal, flexible shapes, instance pools, autoscaling
OKE, Container Instances, and Functions (serverless)
Storage: Object, Block, File, Archive tiers and lifecycle management
Database: Autonomous Database (ATP/ADW), Base DB, Exadata, MySQL HeatWave, NoSQL

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Documentation

CertStud Practice Questions

Week 3

OCI Security

Describe OCI identity, access management, and cloud-native security

6-8 hours

IAM: tenancy, compartments (nesting), users, groups, dynamic groups
Policy syntax and verbs: inspect, read, use, manage
Default-deny authorization model
Identity domains, federation (SAML/OIDC), and MFA
Cloud Guard: detector and responder recipes
Security Zones, Vault (KMS), and WAF
Bastion service and DDoS protection
Encryption at rest by default; customer-managed keys

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Security Docs

CertStud Practice Questions

Week 4

Pricing, Billing, Cost Management + Review

Describe OCI pricing, billing, and support

6-8 hours

Pricing models: PAYG, Annual Universal Credits, BYOL
Always Free vs Free Trial resources
Consistent global pricing and no inbound data transfer charges
Cost Analysis, Budgets, and Usage Reports
Compartment quotas and cost-tracking tags
SLAs (availability, manageability, performance) vs SLOs
Support tiers and My Oracle Support
Full-length practice exam and weak area review

Recommended Resources:

Oracle OCI Pricing Docs

CertStud Practice Exams

Exam Tips & Strategies

Focus on Service Identification

Time Management

You have about 90 minutes for 40 questions — roughly 2 minutes each. Flag uncertain questions and return to them; the foundational level means most questions are scenario-based but straightforward.

Use Free Oracle Resources

Oracle frequently offers free training and exam attempts for OCI Foundations through Oracle University and promotional events. Pair the official learning path with CertStud practice questions.

Read Scenarios Carefully

Key Topics to Master

Regions, availability domains, and fault domains — what each protects against

Cloud service models (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS) and the shared responsibility model

VCN gateways: Internet, NAT, Service, DRG, Local Peering

Security Lists vs Network Security Groups

Compute shapes: VM, bare metal, flexible shapes; autoscaling and instance pools

Storage services and Object Storage tiers (Standard, Infrequent Access, Archive)

Database services: Autonomous (ATP/ADW), Base, Exadata, MySQL HeatWave, NoSQL

IAM: compartments, policies, verbs (inspect/read/use/manage), default-deny

Cloud-native security: Cloud Guard, Vault, WAF, Bastion, Security Zones

Pricing models, Always Free, cost management tools, and SLAs

Quick Feedback

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Exam Guide

Exam Information

Recommended Study Plan

Exam Tips & Strategies

Focus on Service Identification

Time Management

Use Free Oracle Resources

Read Scenarios Carefully

Key Topics to Master

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Exam Guide

Exam Information

Recommended Study Plan

Exam Tips & Strategies

Focus on Service Identification

Time Management

Use Free Oracle Resources

Read Scenarios Carefully

Key Topics to Master