>> Welcome to the Azure Enablement Show.
On today's episode, I have Thomas Maurer,
who's a Senior Cloud Advocate here at Microsoft.
Today we're going to talk about,
why and how to learn about the Azure certification path.
[MUSIC] Welcome to the Azure Enablement Show
and today I have a very special guest with me.
I have Thomas Maurer,
who's a Senior Cloud Advocate here at Microsoft.
Today we're going to be talking about how
and why you would want to earn a Microsoft certification exam.
Welcome, Thomas. Great to have you here.
>> Thank you, April. Thank you for having me. Going to be fun.
>> It is. Let's talk about Azure certification exams.
My experience with exams starts off many,
many years ago with Microsoft exams that follow the technology.
I was doing Microsoft Server 2008 exams
trying to get the MCSA or the MCITP certification,
or I was maybe taking Exchange Server exams.
I used a lot of books at the time because that was
what was available plus hands-on experience
to help me get through those exams.
But the exams have really been revolutionized
and really geared more towards the Cloud.
Please tell us everything you can about how
and why we want to learn about these exams.
>> Yes. This is actually a great point
and I was just thinking back when my first exam was
and I think it was a SharePoint exam in 2007
or something like that.
Yeah, back then it was really product-focused, as you said.
We had like for different products
we have different certifications.
Now with the Cloud
and obviously changing a little bit of our trope roles,
the team also thought about how can we actually
make certifications more useful.
Can we, for example, say,
instead of using a single product,
we actually look at a different trope role so that is why
we have these role-based certifications now out there.
These are actually great because what happens,
what I can see when we look at Cloud technologies and the Cloud,
in general, we can see that the role of IT professionals
and even developers are transforming.
It's going more into be a T-learner
or T-shaped learner if you will.
Where we actually need to have a bigger,
larger fundamental of knowledge
basically and then going deep in certain topics.
You can't be that silo anymore.
Like for example, I was back in the days
I was thinking, "What should I do?
Should I become an expert in virtualization,
should I be an expert in networking?"
The Cloud all of that brings that all a little bit more together.
That is why I think these role-based certifications make
a lot of sense is that you actually get this overview
about all the different things which we think
are important for that specific role.
When you, for example, look at the Azure Administrator,
you look at compute with virtualization,
you look at storage and networking,
and you bring all that together.
This is actually also a great part
why I take these certifications is to figure out
what is expected from a different Azure architect,
what is expected from Azure Developer?
This is absolutely what the team did.
>> Yeah, because when I started working in Azure,
many years ago now,
I wasn't just focusing on building a VM and setting out there,
but how it interacts with all the other systems.
These new role-based exams are focused on the technology stack
that you're going to be interacting within those roles.
That's great and I think also it
mirrors what's happening in the IT industry,
in the tech industry, you're
not just a developer focusing on code.
You're focusing on how your code
interacts with these other systems
and the same with the IT pro audience.
You have to know what your building
isn't just a virtual machine anymore,
but how it interacts with all those systems together.
>> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again,
as you just perfectly and people who said it's like
knowing the different Azure services
and actually knowing how they play together
and how they work together.
You can actually if you have in running any issues
or you need to build some automation,
or you need to write an app or build an architecture,
you actually have that knowledge
and how those things work together.
I think that is one of the most important things we are seeing.
We also offer what we call the fundamentals exams.
Those exams are really based on
like if you're getting started with
the technology and I basically I always recommend
if you get started with certification in general,
even though you're thinking you're probably
an Azure expert or an M365 expert,
start with the fundamental.
Take the fundamental exam because
it's not just focusing on the Microsoft technology,
but it also goes through Cloud
computing and other industry-wide
technologies to actually find like,
this is the set you need to know, which I find great.
Then, on the other hand,
we also have now the specialty certifications.
You probably have seen one like for example,
for SAP on Azure,
where it's not just like basically a role.
It's not like a role-based certification like SAP administrator.
But since a lot of people out there need, for example,
to focus on this scenario,
we also made a certification for that.
There are a ton of different options
out there that you can get certified.
>> There's all these certifications and that's fantastic.
As you mentioned, the Azure Fundamentals exam
is a great place to start because
it's a great springboard for you
to start learning the fundamentals
and then pick your next path of learning.
But how do you learn?
How do you learn to prepare for these exams?
Because it is massively different from the days of old.
I'm not just reading about a certain technology in a book anymore.
I need to be able to prepare for this role-based exam.
Tell us, tell the audience out there,
how are you learning about these exams? What's your pathway?
>> What I do and again,
I also used to have a lot
of books on the different certifications.
I still have them, but I use them mostly
for getting the fundamentals like
things which don't change that much.
However, what I realized if it then comes to technical details,
it's actually very difficult to actually go with a book
because sometimes we change things so fast
in different services that it's difficult.
What I use basically are online resources and,
the first thing I always use or do when I study for an exam,
I basically go out and check out the skills measured information.
Each of our exams has a list of skills
which are measured that even shows a little percentage of like,
how much do we talk about this?
Then there's an outline of different things
you need to be able to do or know about.
Then I go and basically check out the Microsoft Docs for this.
I go to the documentation, I read, for example,
if the question is how do I deploy an App Service?
I go and find the right article on Microsoft Docs
and I read about it.
What then also helps me is then actually
get some hands-on experience.
I actually go in,
we have a lot in the docs you find also
these tutorials where we actually
get like a step-by-step guide to,
for example, in this case,
deploy an App Service and actually deploy,
for example, a website on it.
That is great. That is one of the resources,
I definitely would highly recommend because,
again, Microsoft Docs are usually up-to-date
with the latest information on that specific service.
>> Absolutely.
>> The other thing I'm using is Microsoft Learn.
This is our free learning platform
and everyone can register for this.
You don't have to have an Azure subscription,
you don't need a credit card or anything,
the only thing you need is a Microsoft account.
Then you have these different learning paths, again,
you can select them for the different exams,
but you can also go and just learn
about different Microsoft technologies.
Doesn't necessarily need to be for an exam.
Then you get these guidance,
these learning paths with different modules
which you can quickly do during a lunch break,
for example, instead of studying for like two, three hours.
It's usually text, and a guide,
and pictures explaining everything and you get an assessment
and you have videos explaining the different technologies.
But the coolest thing really is the sandbox environment.
As you probably also,
I'm very good if I get that hands-on experience
and I understand things when I actually did them.
These sandboxes gives you a free Azure environment
for a couple of hours to actually
try out these different technologies.
You can outgo without even having a subscription or anything.
You can actually go and play around with Azure,
and I think that is pretty great.
>> That is absolutely awesome.
Because that's a big block of for people,
when people you say to put their credit card up front and go,
"Here's my credit card.
I'm going to spend some money in the Cloud."
But then you're really conscious about how you spend that money
and maybe it was not something you had budget for
or it wasn't funded by your organization.
Your organization maybe push you to get the certification
or maybe you're investing in career.
Having that sandbox environment,
having that learning path at Microsoft Learn sounds awesome.
I'm glad I learned about that site.
That's really cool, because putting out
your credit card to learn stuff in your environment
was really cost-prohibitive sometimes.
>> Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
there are great learning courses out there,
there are great documents out there.
But again, the hands-on experience
for many of us makes the difference.
There's so many great Azure services
but they often come with a cost.
We also give you free Azure services in your free subscriptions
which you can use to try out certain things.
But if you need to deploy something
really big and you just want to play around with it,
you probably don't want to spend those credits on this,
absolutely huge fan of our Microsoft Learn platform.
Again, I think we have a couple of 100 molecules
or more in Microsoft Learn about Azure,
Microsoft 365, and even all the products like Dynamics.
>> Yeah, the catalog of learning topics is absolutely growing,
which I think is awesome.
Cool. That's an awesome tidbit of information to know.
What other resources do you look
to learn from to prepare for these exams?
>> I'm absolutely looking at different things.
Obviously, I'm huge into videos as well.
I love to watch from our different learning partners.
They provide different video guidance
and video courses, for example.
I also have their free videos on many YouTube channels out there,
which I like and enjoy it usually
watching it next on a second screen or something like that.
I also obviously need to mention that,
for example, you look at our training centers.
I would training partners which are delivering
trainings with our Microsoft Certified Trainers, our MCTs.
Those are also great things,
especially, if you get started.
Sometimes it's great if you have a trainer
or a coach basically helping you to point out what is important.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
>> Then what I also think is very important is that,
depending on the learner you are,
you want to probably build study groups
or work together with your team on earning a certification.
It's not just to challenge each other on a certain degree,
but sometimes it can be really tough after spending eight hours
or nine hours at work and then in the evening go
and study again on technology.
I highly recommend that if you get that group power together,
then you can really focus on earning these certifications.
There are different ways, obviously,
for everyone is a little bit different,
but I also mentioned that this is a great way of learning.
>> One of the things I've really found a lot of use
for in the community are user groups,
so there are user groups taking place all across the globe.
They all advertise on different platforms.
You can see them on Twitter
and see who's hosting a session,
and what's great is they're free to join and free to view.
You get subject matter experts in there
and you have a group of people you can talk to,
bounce ideas off and like-minded individuals.
I think it's fantastic and it's free.
I think what's also great because everything is online these days.
There's so many offerings out there
in different parts of the world and a lot of it
is recorded so you can catch up later.
I think using the community involvement around you,
maybe you're in a role where
you're looking to move your career forward
and get some of the certifications,
but maybe the other people in your team aren't,
having that community whether if you can do it, it worked great.
If not, maybe, doing some user groups are fantastic.
I think those are all fantastic resources,
Thomas, I just want to give.
We could just recap them real quickly.
The ones you went through because
there's so much great information you throw at us.
Let's recap them. We have the docs portal,
which is kept up-to-date?
>> Yeah, absolutely. I said about Microsoft Docs,
we have Microsoft Learn,
we have online learning partners
or in-person learning partners, if you will,
video courses from our training providers or on YouTube,
and then as you mentioned, very importantly,
obviously the user groups,
which are also a very great resource
for learning and getting certification stuff.
>> Awesome. Thank you, Thomas.
Hopefully everyone here has learned how
and why we want to take Azure certifications,
but how we can learn.
Happy learning everyone. Thank you,
Thomas, for joining us today.
>> Thank you for having me.
[MUSIC]