Hey, what's up gurus. Welcome to Azure This Week. I'm Brian Roehm and I'll be taking
you through what's been happening in the world of Azure...Or not happening because,
well it's kind of a desert out there right now. There is still good news for you,
however, in that I've decided not to bore you to death with extremely minor updates and instead
focus on certifications. So for this week, let's dive into what's new, what's changing, and how do
you find all of this amazing information out? So what are you waiting for? Let's get started.
And speaking of getting started, let's start with the foundation,
or foundation-level certifications. And at this level, there are no new certifications. So when
you're looking at the foundation level, you should come up with three. Azure Fundamentals, Azure
Data Fundamentals, and Azure AI Fundamentals, or AZ-900, DP-900, and AI-900 respectively.
Oh, and just a note, you'll find a link to all of the courses mentioned in the description
below the video. The AZ-900 was updated on May 5th, 2022.
Luckily it was only a minor change. The AI-900 is very similar with a minor change at the end
of April. And the DP-900 will update on August 4th with minor changes as well. The key takeaway from
this level is that there's nothing to worry about if you're in the process of studying hooray!
Next up is our associate-level certifications. Now there are a whole bunch of associate-level
certifications, 12 to be exact. Rather than go through all of them,
I'm gonna focus on the major updates. First up and maybe one of the most popular certs,
the AZ-104 or Azure Administrator. This is getting an update on July 28th. It is unfortunately
a major revision with major updates to almost every section, including the audience profile.
So if you're in the process, either speed up and take it before the 28th, or make sure to add a
few weeks and include the updates in your study routine. The DP-300 or Administering Relational
Databases is next. This is an interesting one in that about 30% of the current exam is getting
removed. This will obviously place a much greater focus on the remaining topics. This exam will be
updated on August 4th. So not a lot of time here either if you're in the process of preparing.
The AZ-600 or Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack Hub,
say that five times fast. Well, it's also getting a pretty
major update on July 29th. So keep that in mind. That's it for the major updates,
but almost every associate-level exam will either have recently had, or very soon will have
updates, although mostly minor coming your way. So keep a watch out for that.
Every month A Cloud Guru has a number of totally free courses, which change over time.
This month is security month. So perhaps you could try out the Introduction to Azure Security.
We've also got a few other Azure courses available too,
such as Intro to Serverless on Azure, and Azure Storage Deep Dive.
A free account is genuinely free as well. No credit card needed, just content delivered.
Finally, we have two expert-level certifications, the Solutions Architect and the DevOps Engineer.
The Solutions Architect, or AZ-305 had an update in the last couple of months, including
changes to how the certification was earned. It now requires a prerequisite certification.
The good news is that there are no pending updates. The DevOps Engineer certification also
had similar changes. Unfortunately, the AZ-400, or the main exam for this certification, just had
major revisions to almost every sections as well on July 13th. Hey, wait. That's this week. Oh.
So if you're preparing for that certification, make sure you catch up on all the updates.
So that brings me to, how do you find out all this amazing or not so amazing information, out? The
best way to find out about updates is to go to the certification exam. Make sure it's the exam
though, and not the certification. Once you get there, scroll down and look for either a 'download
exam skills' button or look for a tip box with a 'download study guide'. It looks like Microsoft
is in the process of changing the exam page. So all of them will eventually have the tip box
and a download study guide. Once you get there, scroll all the way down to
the bottom for the updates. You can see that when you move all the way down, you will see
a detailed "Skills measured" section, as well as a quick breakdown of the changes to each section.
My strong advice to you is to review this as you start preparing for an exam
and then review it again just before scheduling. Hey, wait. Doesn't A Cloud Guru take care of that?
Well, of course we do. However, Microsoft doesn't tell us before pushing updates. So we have teams
dedicated to reviewing these documents and figuring out the impacts on your exam and our
training materials. As you can guess, something major like the AZ-400 will take some time as
we have to review all the changes and create more amazing content to set things right.
This process works great, unless you're planning on taking the exam next week. So do yourself a
favor and be prepared. If you're looking to start a new certification and want to know
the best path, make sure to take a look at the resources below like our Azure Certification Guide
to learn more about the certifications available and which one is right for you. My suggestion will
be to take a look at the resources, go online and search jobs to see which ones hold your interest.
Reach out to us on Discord (links below), and ask questions and maybe go for an entry
level certification or two to test the waters and learn a little bit more. As you can see, even if
there's not a lot going on in the news, there's still a lot going on in the world of Azure.
Unfortunately that's all the time we have for this Azure This Week. Sad to say goodbye,
but I do have some good news. We'll be back next week with hopefully some new updates.
It will definitely be a show you won't wanna miss. Until then, keeping awesome Cloud Gurus.