Here’s some brand new content from the SoftwareArchitect.ca YouTube channel that you might find interesting.
Which Azure Certification Should I Take?
This is such a common question, and I’ve addressed the answer to this a few different ways. In this video, I should you the real difference between the three Azure certifications you can go for. 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions, 70-533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, and 70-535 Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions.
What topics are on each exam? What’s the real difference between the three exam? Which exam should I take? By seeing the topics that each exam covers, maybe the answer becomes clearer to you.
Quickstart Series: Windows Web App in Azure
In this video, I show you how to create a Windows Web App in Microsoft Azure. Windows Web App. We go through the Azure Portal, and see how form fields get filled in. If you can’t afford to create resources in Azure, but want to see how it’s done in 2018, this is the video for you.
Or you can see the video directly on YouTube.
Transcript:
Well, hi there. This is Scott Duffy from softwarearchitect.ca. Today I thought I would do something a little different. I’m going to compare the three core Azure certifications which are, 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions, 70-533, which is Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, and 70-535 Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions.
Now, you can do this yourself, going to your search engine of choice and entering the exam code. You’ll find the Microsoft official webpage is one of the top results. Now, on this page, Microsoft lists a number of topic areas, a number of objectives and underneath that you’ll see sort of sub-objectives. Now, today I reviewed this, Microsoft recently changed it as of March 22nd 2018, you can see on all three of these pages that the date updated is at the end of March, March 29th, March 22nd, March 22nd. So I went to each of those pages and I listed the major topics of Microsoft Azure. So as somebody who works with Azure on a day to day basis, you’re going to be working in one of these areas or multiples of these areas.
You can see here, I put together this comparison of these examples across these various major areas. Now the 70-532 exam, which is the developer exam, doesn’t really touch on networks. It used to but they removed a lot of that content, or really deep security questions. It does talk about storage, of course app services and server list is huge. Virtual machines, 20 to 25% and a little bit about setting up applications that use Azure Active Directory, not for security, but for authentication and authorization, okay? So you can see the breakdowns are pretty straightforward.
When we move into the 70-533 exam, the 70-533 exam touches a little bit of almost everything. You get lot more networking topics, security topics, virtual machines and infrastructure as a service, of course that’s major and things such as ARM templates, being able to create resources using ARM templates. There are little bits about reporting and automation management and monitoring, Azure Active Directory, less so than a 532 exam in that particular case. So you’ll see there there’s some big focus areas, there’s also some minor focus areas.
When we move to the architecture test, it’s a little bit of everything. Every single requirement that I’ve listed along the left side, from networking all the way down to ARM templates, has around 10% on this the test. So really Microsoft’s going to ask you, out of 40 questions, three or four questions on each of these so it requires some very broad knowledge of the Azure environment, but not necessarily extremely deep knowledge. In the developer exam, you’re going to be asked programming questions, you’re going to be shown code. In the 533 infrastructure exam, you’re going to be asked about PowerShell and the perimeters that get passed in PowerShell. You’re going to be asked to construct ARM templates, or to be able to read an ARM template and say what it’s doing.
In the architecture test, the 535 test, you shouldn’t expect any code. You shouldn’t expect to have to go into a simulation of the interface and do any particular work, but you need to understand the entire Azure environment, how things fit together, why you would choose one over another. Why would you choose an Azure SQL Database instead of an Azure SQL Warehouse or a Cosmos DB, what are the benefits of doing that? The architecture test is very much about being able to make the right choice given all of the options that Microsoft Azure has and believe me, they have hundreds of services to offer, whereas the 532 and 533 tests are more about selective application of those skills in terms of being able to go off and do something that’s specifically to that particular job role.
So the Microsoft exams, you might think 533 and 535 have a lot in common, to me they are more about focus, where this is really security and infrastructure as a service as the two big focuses. 50% of the test have to do with security and infrastructure as a service, whereas in the 535 test, it’s a little bit shallower but across everything. So those are the major differences between the three exams. If you want to join, we have a amazing Facebook group that contains a lot of people and a lot of questions and a lot of knowledge is being shared, we’d love to have you in there. The link is in the description below. Otherwise, I hope this helps you decide which of the following tests would be right for you, based on your job role, based on your level of knowledge or level of interest, where you should start to go and pursue certification within Microsoft Azure.
Of course, I have training on all of these, so come to softwarearchitect.ca and you’ll be able to see some courses that are available. The courses are really affordable, you get lifetime access, unlike some other people that give you very selective access. So come and check it out but if you’re looking to know where do I start on my Microsoft Azure certification journey? Here’s a good graph that you can start with. Thanks a lot and talk to you again.