New Role-based Azure Certification & Training Tracks from Microsoft

At the recent #MSInspire, Microsoft introduced a revamp to its Azure Certification tracks. Existing Azure exams were becoming very broad in scope with the increasing number of services being added to Azure portfolio that required candidates to know all of it which becomes practically impossible at some point. For example, in my training for 70-533 exam preparation I have had participants telling me that the “syllabus is just too much” and many of these services are not a part for their job description or role, but they have to learn about it only for the exam.

Why this change?

Here is an excerpt from the post of Liberty Munson (Microsoft) at Microsoft Learning blog:

“First, we have gotten consistent feedback that our current Azure exams are too broad, covering a range of skills that very few individuals, even experts in that area, would have. At the same time, Azure’s features continue to expand and so does the work that Azure Administrators are being asked to do. So, we’re fixing that—we’re removing the stuff that is out of scope for most Azure Administrators and ensuring that certification assesses more of the skills that you actually need to be successful.

Second, we’ve been conducting research related to the value of certification and have found that people get certified not only to build or update skills on a specific technology but to distinguish themselves from other professionals, improve job opportunities, and to have more influence and impact in their current or future job role.”

What does the new certification stack look like?

Introducing Role-based Certification & Training approach. Here’s a slide from the #MSInspire 2018 that sums it up.

Broadly there will be three tracks:

1. Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator
2. Microsoft Certified Azure Developer
3. Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect

The first track to see the (beta) light is the Azure Administrator track. This track is for:

• Azure Administrators who manage services around storage, security, networking and compute
  • Their current/future work includes provisioning the above services, sizing and monitoring them
  • They provide recommendations around performance and scalability
• Candidates should be familiar with using Azure Portal, ARM templates, PowerShell and CLI
• They should be knowledgeable on general concepts such as Operating Systems, Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Storage Structures and Networking

There are three exams currently being offered (in beta) for this track:

• AZ-100: Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and Deployment
• AZ-101: Microsoft Azure Integration and Security
• AZ-102: Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Transition (upgrade)
  • Covers delta topics between the new certification and exam 70-533

So, which one’s for you?

Microsoft plans to roll out exams for other Azure tracks soon. They may also introduce this model for other Microsoft technologies.

CloudThat will be introducing Certification BootCamps for these exams soon.

Stay tuned to https://blog.cloudthat.com/ for more updates on these new and upcoming Certification Tracks as well as our #ExamExperiences on these newly released tracks.