Well, it's time for a challenge. I've been thinking about signing up for the new Azure certifications with the AZ codes and I believe I sat on it for too long. There's no need to fear that the water is too cold, so I'll just jump in it. I'll be challenging myself to be an Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert by taking two exams in a matter of weeks: Exam AZ-300: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies and Exam AZ-301: Microsoft Azure Architect Design.
The first step of that journey is Exam AZ-300 at the end of the month. It has five main categories:
- Deploy and configure infrastructure
- Implement workloads and security
- Create and deploy apps
- Implement authentication and secure data
- Develop for the cloud and for Azure storage
Personally, I have the coverage of more than 80% of these subjects. My main gap lies around VM migrations/site recovery and alerts (and maybe a little bit of Kubernetes, which is relatively new on Azure). I'll be trying to fill these holes in my knowledge until the day of the test and I'm confident that I will pass with flying colours.
There are some sample tests available online and I took the free one from Whizlabs and failed spectacularly. The test has 15 questions but oddly more than 10 are about VM migrations, which probably doesn't reflect the reality of the test.
I've managed to touch most of the Azure services available for the last few years but sometimes it feels like swimming against a strong current. Maybe it won't be that difficult to get this certification but it's certainly going to be so to keep to the same level.
Will be posting the outcome. Wish me luck.