IT Era: Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Help

Vire · Jan 18, 2019

Hi Era,

I'm looking to pursue the new certificate Microsoft has put forth with the Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate

It's my understanding that you need to pass:

1. AZ-100 exam Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and Deployment
2. AZ-101 exam Microsoft Azure Integration and Security

Does anyone have an experience with this? Where to study? Useful resources? Anything would be appreciated. Knowledge is power :)

FaceHugger · Jan 18, 2019

Shit I was just looking into the same. None of the books I can find on Amazon seem all that helpful - or focus on one very specific part of AZ-100, like just compute services or just data, etc. I may just buy 60 days access to the official test exam and start there, fill in the gaps in my knowledge using that and playing in our Azure lab env.

We had some vouchers from our MS account rep for training from some company, but all those got snatched up before I decided on what I wanted to pursue this year.

B4mv · Jan 18, 2019

While I have extremely little Azure experience, I do have AWS experience, and am following the certification class on Pluralsight. The class is well paced and easy to follow. I'd imagine that the Azure classes would be similar.

EDIT
I typed in Azure and they have like 4x as many courses than they do for AWS lol

Vire · Jan 18, 2019

FaceHugger said:
Shit I was just looking into the same. None of the books I can find on Amazon seem all that helpful - or focus on one very specific part of AZ-100, like just compute services or just data, etc. I may just buy 60 days access to the official test exam and start there, fill in the gaps in my knowledge using that and playing in our Azure lab env.

We had some vouchers from our MS account rep for training from some company, but all those got snatched up before I decided on what I wanted to pursue this year.

As someone not familiar with the MS cert process, where's the official test exam that I could purchase?

Vire · Jan 18, 2019

B4mv said:
While I have extremely little Azure experience, I do have AWS experience, and am following the certification class on Pluralsight. The class is well paced and easy to follow. I'd imagine that the Azure classes would be similar.

EDIT
I typed in Azure and they have like 4x as many courses than they do for AWS lol

Thank you, I appreciate it. I found a few on Udemy. This guy seems okay, but not sure:

https://www.udemy.com/az101-azure/

How does plural sight work exactly? I saw they have a "path" you can follow which includes videos from multiple authors. Is the idea that once I finish this path I would be prepared for this exam?

Rackham · Jan 18, 2019

B4mv said:
While I have extremely little Azure experience, I do have AWS experience, and am following the certification class on Pluralsight. The class is well paced and easy to follow. I'd imagine that the Azure classes would be similar.

Is this a good site to learn programming? I have next to no knowledge on programming and want to start learning in my free time. I also want to get certified. I figured I'd start with C.

FreezePeach · Jan 18, 2019

MS Cert exams are almost a scam, if not actually one, at least the one i have experience with in SQL development (after being an SQL dev for 4 years lmao). They can be stupid hard. A lot of people literally cheat by trying to find the current testing questions. They basically randomly give you questions out of a large pool so the tests are different, and they can be one or many answers, and some times even the answers arent actually clear, as in people actually debate if the answer was actually right or wrong, obviously inferring here that the questions can get to the point where there doesnt seem to be a consensus on what the actual list of answers should be. And of course, you have to pay to take the tests.

FaceHugger · Jan 18, 2019

Vire said:
As someone not familiar with the MS cert process, where's the official test exam that I could purchase?

It's from Pearson: https://us.mindhub.com/az-100-micro...-microsoft-official-practice-test/p/MU-AZ-100

I just signed up for Pluralsight, seems cool, thanks B4mv

10 day free trial doesn't hurt, and only $35/month after that, not bad (about the cost of an actual physical tech guide/book once a month).

Meatfist · Jan 18, 2019

I'm not MS certified, but I can certainly attest to the quality of Pluralsight - their VMware VCP and Citrix stuff is excellent. From what I've heard about Microsoft exams they're powershell heavy, it's nearly impossible to find good practice questions/exams due to them cracking down on question leaks after a TON of people braindumped their MCSE in the 2000/2003 days, and you're gonna want to know the "Microsoft" solution compared to the "best practice" solution (seriously, who the fuck uses Windows Server for routing?)

Vire · Jan 18, 2019

FaceHugger said:
It's from Pearson: https://us.mindhub.com/az-100-micro...-microsoft-official-practice-test/p/MU-AZ-100

I just signed up for Pluralsight, seems cool, thanks B4mv

10 day free trial doesn't hurt, and only $35/month after that, not bad (about the cost of an actual physical tech guide/book once a month).

High five, let's go! I will be working through this with my wife, so feel free to post some updates in this thread on everyone's progress.

B4mv · Jan 18, 2019

Vire said:
Thank you, I appreciate it. I found a few on Udemy. This guy seems okay, but not sure:

https://www.udemy.com/az101-azure/

How does plural sight work exactly? I saw they have a "path" you can follow which includes videos from multiple authors. Is the idea that once I finish this path I would be prepared for this exam?

On Pluralsight you can watch any course on any specific thing you're looking to learn about. There are tons of courses on things that are not attached to a Path at all. The Paths just help to organize courses and give you an order to do them in if you're going toward something like a certification. If you're looking for a certification, I'd suggest following the path for it. Take the path, take a ton of notes and follow along with the work, and study and you'll be ready for the test. If you get the higher tier on Pluralsight, it also includes practice tests as well. I don't have that, so I can't speak to the quality.

Rackham said:
Is this a good site to learn programming? I have next to no knowledge on programming and want to start learning in my free time. I also want to get certified. I figured I'd start with C.

From what I understand, programming is a huge part of Pluralsight, there are entire sections devoted to programming. The closest things I've watched to programming are SQL and Powershell, so I'm not really sure how something like C++/Python/Java would be on there.

Vire · Jan 18, 2019

B4mv said:
On Pluralsight you can watch any course on any specific thing you're looking to learn about. There are tons of courses on things that are not attached to a Path at all. The Paths just help to organize courses and give you an order to do them in if you're going toward something like a certification. If you're looking for a certification, I'd suggest following the path for it. Take the path, take a ton of notes and follow along with the work, and study and you'll be ready for the test. If you get the higher tier on Pluralsight, it also includes practice tests as well. I don't have that, so I can't speak to the quality.

From what I understand, programming is a huge part of Pluralsight, there are entire sections devoted to programming. The closest things I've watched to programming are SQL and Powershell, so I'm not really sure how something like C++/Python/Java would be on there.

Excellent, thank you so much.

FaceHugger · Jan 18, 2019

FreezePeach said:
MS Cert exams are almost a scam, if not actually one, at least the one i have experience with in SQL development (after being an SQL dev for 4 years lmao). They can be stupid hard. A lot of people literally cheat by trying to find the current testing questions. They basically randomly give you questions out of a large pool so the tests are different, and they can be one or many answers, and some times even the answers arent actually clear, as in people actually debate if the answer was actually right or wrong, obviously inferring here that the questions can get to the point where there doesnt seem to be a consensus on what the actual list of answers should be. And of course, you have to pay to take the tests.

Meatfist said:
I'm not MS certified, but I can certainly attest to the quality of Pluralsight - their VMware VCP and Citrix stuff is excellent. From what I've heard about Microsoft exams they're powershell heavy, it's nearly impossible to find good practice questions/exams due to them cracking down on question leaks after a TON of people braindumped their MCSE in the 2000/2003 days, and you're gonna want to know the "Microsoft" solution compared to the "best practice" solution (seriously, who the fuck uses Windows Server for routing?)

It depends on the exam. I got a few because my employer used to require us to pick one a year, they'd pay for training and the cert. The Exchange 2016 was kind of easy, I don't recall any complex Exchange PowerShell modules or snap-in questions. Get just like get-mailbox queries and what not. I think the most sophisticated question involved restoring soft deleted mailboxes with PowerShell.

Before that it was the Active Directory cert that I don't think they even offer any longer. That one did have a lot of ambivalently-worded questions. Which I found odd because AD terminology and practices are straightforward because they have to be.

THEVOID · Jan 18, 2019

I get Pluralsight through work for free and it's such a fantastic resource. Use it all the time.

FaceHugger · Jan 19, 2019

Well I watched the first two modules of the Subscription videos, because I think that's what I know the least about / dealt with the least. It certainly seems very informative, especially if you're coming in blind or almost blind. It helps if you have an Azure account at work to walk through with - but I guess that goes without saying.

Looking forward to the rest. After I get the AZ-100 I'll probably use this to refresh on .NET or something.

IT Era: Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Help

Prophet of Regret