This How To Get Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certified (AZ-900) describes how i made my certification in a very short period of time. The way i have chosen only required me to invest a couple of hours on a couple of days to be successful.
Index:
Background
The first question you should ask yourself is why you like to get Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certified (AZ-900). With this consideration you help yourself to be self-motivated and put the right spirit during your learning and examination journey. Considerations to accept the challenge could be:
- Increase your value on the market. It’s needless to say that being Azure Fundamentals certified and being in a position to write this in your CV helps you to potentially increase your market value, hence your salary
- An examination is for most of the people a challenge, accepting challenges and be successful with these challenges can give you back a lot, including additional self-confidence and being proud about yourself
- Cloud is the near future, so are Artificial Intelligence, Smart Security solutions, Big Data and so on. Azure Fundamentals greatly help you to learn and understand how Microsoft is approaching these near future domains, but also what Microsoft is offering in these domains
- Having a good knowledge about Azure helps you to help the company you are working for. You potentially can help to do better and more effective business, be more innovative or save costs. Most likely there is no reason, why you should not have this knowledge
- Of course…. there are many other reasons
There are dozens if not hundreds of ways for how to get certified most effectively and i wanted to find an effective way for myself. Since I think i found quite a good and smart way for me, I am happy to share it with you for your considerations. My way does not mean its the best way for you, but it maybe helps you to get inspired. Before looking into my how to, I suggest you consider a couple of facts as these possibly had impact for me to be most effective:
- I am in ICT roles since more 20 years, hence basic concepts, fundamentals, etc. are nothing new to me. What with the Azure Fundamentals is new to me are some Microsoft specifics, offerings and options
- I understood cloud services, security, networking, applications, etc. before starting with my journey to get Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certified, hence these domains in its basics were nothing new to me
- Some people learn faster by watching videos or sitting in class rooms. For me its the complete opposite. I am fast if i read about a particular topic / domain and then try & error, hence learning by doing
How To Get Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certified (AZ-900)
My way to get certified has taken me one weekend. I used a rainy weather weekend to accept the challenge and started on Friday after business hours. This is what i did:
- I registered for the certification examination on the same weekend. I needed this short timeline to keep myself motivated and under pressure to learn effectively. On Friday evening, I registered myself for the online examination taking place already on Sunday lunchtime. This way, I created a big challenge for me and there was no time to even think i could be relaxed.
- I started to explore the Azure content. Of course there are many ways, incl. specific books, specific trainings, specific how to’s in the internet. In my case i have selected the official material available on the Microsoft Learn website and the Microsoft Azure documentation
- After I went thru the material available, i moved to try & error to allow learning by doing. Basically, i registered with IT Exams and went thru exam questions. Whenever i responded wrongly to a question I read the relevant Microsoft Material. Yes, i did not have enough time to go thru all questions, but when ever i answered wrongly to a question, i learned.
- Of course, point 3 has taken a lot of my time and faster than I would have liked I arrived at the point in time in which i had to login for the online examination. Before this, I have taken a 20 minutes break of which i used 15 minutes for doing nothing. Out of the possible 1000 points, I scored 865 points. Since 700 points are the minimum, I was successful.
- I opened a bottle of nice wine to celebrate together with friends 🙂
Additional Information
There is plenty of free knowledge about Microsoft Azure made available. For this you like to check out the Microsoft Azure documentation.
The above is adjusted to my learning style. Yours maybe different. There are plenty of sources in the internet that help you to find out your best learning style. A friend of mine mentioned this website as a good source.