All right. Welcome to another episode of Azure This Week.
And you might be confused as to why I am here yet again, but my buddy,
Brian here has some details on the Azure DP-200 and 201
certifications and their upcoming retirements.
So if you're studying for the certification,
or you're interested in these certifications, stay put,
cos Brian has some details for us. With all that being said, hi,
I'm Gwyn Peña-Siguenza and welcome to another episode of Azure This Week.
Now Brian, I've already introduced myself. Do you want to give us a quick intro?
.
Yeah sure. Hi,
I'm Brian a training architect here at A Cloud Guru and I'm the guy behind the
DP-201 and DP-200 ACG courses.
Awesome.
So I hear there are some big changes in the Data Engineer certification world.
Can you tell us anything about them?
Absolutely. Yeah.
There's always changes coming on with Microsoft when we talk about
certifications In regards to the Data Engineer Associate world
we have the DP-200 and the DP-201 retiring at the end
of June. And so those courses are going to go out.
And so the DP-203 is going to come in and take its place.
All right.
What happens to the people who currently hold these certifications once they get
retired?
So yeah, your certs don't expire.
Just like anything with Microsoft,
when you take an exam and you pass that exam and get a certification,
doesn't matter how you got it,
that certification is valid as long as you're following Microsoft's renewal
program. So no changes there.
All right. Say I'm a student currently studying for these certifications.
Should I stop, throw in the towel?
Or do you think there's still some value in continuing to study for them?
100% You should quit now. There's no hope. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.
Of course you should continue studying. Honestly, beyond the certifications,
there is a ton of value in learning this knowledge in your career as you
move forward, not just for today, but for years down the road.
As far as the certification is concerned, yes. Continue studying.
You have until June 30th to pass the 200 and 201,
which is a ton of time still. So don't abandon keep moving forward.
And even if you get to the place where you're on that edge,
and you're not sure if you're going to pass, keep going,
because that knowledge can be used for the new exam, if you need to.
All right.
I guess if you wanted to challenge yourself within the next two months,
you know, really dial in study and get those certifications,
doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.
No, absolutely not. And here's some amazing news. So at A Cloud Guru,
both the DP-200 and the 201 they're completely free in May.
So there is zero excuse for moving forward and pushing for those
certifications. And honestly, Gwyn, you should go all in as well.
You can do this. Learn all the things. There's,
there's valuable certifications the Data Engineer Associate certification,
you can add to your resume, fantastic certification.
Not only that A Cloud Guru is offering a 50% discount when you
complete one of the courses on your Microsoft exam as well.
So you just contact ACG support and they can hook you up. And Gwyn,
can you actually add a link below as well?
Yeah, of course.
I hear you have something special planned for the discord community.
Do you want to go ahead and tell us about that.
Absolutely.
So I'm on discord and coming May 14th at 11,
I've set up a special session where we're going to do a question and answer for
the course, for the exam.
So I'll be there if you want to do a live discussion with me to ask questions
and that will really help you as well to kind of move forward and get that
certification.
Awesome. I'll make sure to also add that to the resources of this episode.
I do have a question. What happens once the certifications retire?
Sure. So at the end of June 30th, the DP-200 and 201 retire,
and they're going to be replaced by the DP.
Okay. Let me start that question over again.
I'll repeat it.
And turn off my phone. Yeah. So at the end of June 30th,
the DP-200 and the DP-201 both retire and they're going to be replaced by a new
exam, the DP-203.
Now the DP-203 is going to be in beta as well at that point.
What exactly does it mean when a certification is in beta?
Right. So when a certification goes in beta,
basically what Microsoft is doing is they're saying we're going to gather data.
We're going to have a bunch of students take this exam.
We're going to gather data on the questions and we're going to see which
questions we think are valid and which questions we might need to do some
tweaking to. So typically at the end of beta,
which is normally two or three months,
you'll see some very large changes on an exam format. What topics are covered,
what topics aren't covered. Also of note, if you take a beta exam,
you're not going to get your score right away.
It can take sometimes a month or more to get your exam score,
sometimes as little as 10 days, all depends on the beta.
All right.
So if you wanted to nail down a certification that has the solid structure that
isn't in beta,
your best bet is to get it done in the two months before these retire right?
Absolutely. Yeah. For right now I would 100% go for the 200 and 201,
get those courses knocked out and get the certification.
That way you have an exam that's already proven and you have plenty of time to
do it.
Awesome. Well, before we wrap up Brian,
is there anything else you wanted to chat about?
Nah, that's what I have for today,
but I'm looking forward to seeing your shiny new certification along with the
students before June 30th.
We'll see about that one,
but thank you Brian for joining us and to everyone else.
If you're interested in taking these, go and head on over to ACG,
sign up for a free account and just remember that these courses are available
until the 31st of May. And once you complete one of them,
you're eligible for a 50% off discount voucher.
All you have to do is contact ACG support once you're ready for that discount.
And they'll get that over to you. If you do sit one of these exams,
make sure to let Brian and myself know on Twitter, Discord, LinkedIn, forums.
There's so many ways to really filling us in all those details because we love
to celebrate all the accomplishments of our students. Anyway,
if you liked this episode,
make sure to leave us a thumbs up and let me know what you think about this
format. That's it for this one, keep being awesome Cloud Gurus,
and I'll see you in the next one.