— career, azure, cloud, microsoft, beginners — 2 min read
🌱 This post is a part of my digital garden. It's a place where ideas grow. It's not a polished article, but more of a living breathing breathing document. 🌱
A little info about the exam. Useful for anyone that works somewhere that uses Azure, even if you don't write code. At my current job, we have client service reps who would benefit from knowing these things. You don't need to know how to write code. You don't need to have any familiarity with cloud computing. The materials I talk about here will teach you everything you need to know to pass.
The exam costs $99, but if you can prove you've lost your job or been furloughed because of COVID-19, Microsoft is allowing you to take several of their certification exams for 15$ until...
I started watching Andrew Brown's video. I have a very young son, and our life is extrememly busy, so I really took my time with it. I watched each section and took notes about the services I hadn't used, or the terms I wasn't really familiar with.
I actually had a voucher someone had given me for an exam with the ability to retake the tet a second time if you don't pass on the first go-round. I figured I would take the exam after watching through the video without much study beforehand.
I came so close. I scored a 688, and needed a 700. When I went to study the next day, I realized that they changed the sylabus a week before I took the test, so the information in the video didn't cover everything I was tested on. Microsoft does this with all of their tests as time goes by, so it's always a good idea to check the skills measured when you're getting ready to schedule the test. The video is still useful, but you need to cross-reference the information in the sylabus with the video and fill in the gaps.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-900
When I saw the updated skills measured, I noticed that Microsoft has created an entire suite of hands on courses called Microsoft Learn. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/
There is an entire learning path devoted to preparing for the AZ-900 exam. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/az-900-describe-cloud-concepts/
I worked my way through all 6 of the modules that week, and took the exam again that Friday. I passed with flying colors.
Next up, studying for the AZ-204 exam and completing some articles and open source work that I started.