When a person is not confident then the mind forces us to stay away from the thing. I got trapped in a similar mindset for Azure certification. I had been thinking of doing it for the last one or two years but was delayed for no reason. I started many times but did persist enough to go to the next level due to the vast nature of the cloud.

Last year, I pushed my mind to pursue this path. I started late Oct 2019 with Az-300 training from Edureka. It was weekend classes for 6 weeks. I learned a lot from that training but didn’t get the confidence to attempt for the exam though. During the training period, I was learning and trying Azure services. So, the whole thing lasted 3 months and In Feb 2020 I got my Azure Expert certificate.

Tips: Never rely on a single resource when preparing for the exam. I found different ways to achieve the same thing in Azure videos. That’s useful and improved my overall understanding of the topic.

Disclaimer: my personal website and other works I did before starting on this path.

This is how I started.

Az-303 and Az-304

Let’s talk about the exam format. The number of questions varies for each student. I got 45 questions in Az-300 and 61 questions in Az-301. You see the details at the beginning of the exam, don’t forget to read them.

Lab Questions:

Both exams had lab questions, Az-300 had on lab consist of 8 tasks that I had to perform on Azure portal. I got two labs in Az-301 and questions were on the resources that were already there. e.g. how to optimize the cost of the storage account.

They spin Azure environment where you need to perform the given tasks. You don’t need to wait for the resource deployment you can do another task. Since Azure captures all the activities so they can measure the result based on the activity logs.

Case Study:

I got one case study for each exam. There were about 6 questions on the case study.

I had captured notes of key findings and useful links in the document on Google drive to read them later or whenever I had difficulty recalling them. I would recommend keeping the notes for reference.

Exam Preparation

Instructor-Led Training:

As I mentioned earlier; it started with training. I would recommend finding an instructor-led online training so that you can ask questions. Sometimes, we get questions in our head that might seem stupid to an expert but those are legitimate to build up good knowledge. So, the training will help you to clear your understanding of the cloud and Azure.

Microsoft Documentation:

Microsoft has rich documentation and covers almost everything it offers through Azure. They have built consistencies in the document layout and structures. As you can see in the below VPN Gateway documentation. A single place to learn Azure VPN Gateway. It has links to other related topics.

Learn about Azure architecture from the Architecture Center. I found it very useful and learned most of the Azure architecture from this. They have created reference architecture for most of the services that help to understand the architecture.

Microsoft Learn:

In Microsoft Learn, you can find how-to training materials. They are useful I tried them whenever I need more clarity on a topic/service.

For example, Core Cloud Services — Azure data storage options

LinkedIn Learn and Udemy

I bought a couple of training on Udemy. However, most of them only touch the surface. So, I would highly recommend don’t rely on any Udemy training. You can use them for additional learning.

LinkedIn also has a similar level of training material.

You will keep hearing from the author that please do not rely only on this training because they know how much they have covered and what’s the level required to pass the exam.

I also bought practice tests on Udemy, but they have a very low level of difficulty level compared to the actual exam. So, use them to improve your knowledge, and don’t assume you will see similar questions in the exam.

If you are already familiar with Azure and its exams then you can skip the next section.

First time attempting Azure exam?

First, you need to decide where you want to start. If you don’t have any knowledge then start with Az-900. Azure has role-based certifications to evaluate different skill sets e.g. Security, Administration, DevOps, Development, Architect, IoT, Data. You can find more about other certifications here.

I hope this helps you to at least start on this if you have been thinking and delaying it…

You may like to check the sample questions.