October 2019. I hadn't sat a technical exam since I passed the MCTS Database Administration one for SQL Server 2005, that feels a long time ago. That said, for a long time I just didn't have the need to take any further exams, I was still learning day in day out (and still am) but certification wasn't really that important.
I've blogged about IT certification before whether it's useful or not is a very common and sometimes divisive question. My view has definitely changed over time and in these days of rapidly evolving platforms and solutions I've certainly found certification paths to be extremely beneficial.
In preparation for this exam I used a number of different resources. Microsoft Learn was a fantastic starting point and I liked the structure of the course because it is quite broad in content, especially if you're new to cloud concepts. I coupled that with Learn Azure in Month of Lunches, a free PDF that you can download from Microsoft here.
As with any technical course there's layers of detail. Microsoft Learn is great but I also dove into the technical documentation of each subject area to gain a better understanding. Of course there's no substitution for practical learning and actually doing it, so a free Azure trial subscription comes in very handy (although that is limited to a month).
Then there's practice tests. We used a couple of providers for these because I felt one was fairly limited (btw I'm happy to recommend materials/providers). I try to avoid going over the practice exams too often, it's easy to memorise the questions so I get to a point where I'm fairly happy, hit a test exam and then work on any weaker areas.
Although the exam is on the fundamentals don't be fooled in thinking that it's super easy. It does require study and preparation but at the same time I didn't find any nasty surprises in the exam so full marks to the revision materials. I'd say that by sticking to the guidelines you can't go far wrong but take the time to go a level deeper, and definitely practice and get used to the environment.
And that was that, exam done and dusted, certification gained and on to the next one, which I'll cover in a future post.
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