Cloud infrastructure is becoming a big deal nowadays even though we're still in an early adoption phase in some places. Companies are recognizing the fact that moving their infrastructures to the cloud helps them shift more focus on the business side of things. As a result of that we've seen cloud adoption rate improve recently, no thanks to the pandemic also. We've also seen the number of cloud providers increase.

Image Source:Flexera

With this development, knowledge of cloud services, cloud infrastructures and the various cloud vendors is essential. Personally decided to get on the cloud track recently and Microsoft Azure was the entry point for me. Being a software engineer also involves having some knowledge of the cloud. The reason i chose azure was because of the fact that there's a lot of official resources related to their services/offerings and there seems to be a growing customer base with them. So this post would be about the azure exam, specifically the AZ-900 exam and how one can plan to scale it.

The Microsoft Azure AZ-900 exam aims to give you an intro into cloud computing, azure and it's services it offers. It is recommended but not required that one goes through the AZ-900 before going further down the certificate paths. The diagram below shows the various role based path in the Microsoft certification, notice many of the path starts with the AZ-900 exam:

Image credit: Whizlabs

Like any other endeavor preparation and planning is an important factor to get maximum results, it's what you put in that you get out. Part of my preparations included:

• Skimming through the resources and determining an amount of time needed to cover them three times over(in my case 3 weeks).

Before embarking on anything I took time out to skim through the official resource to determine how long it was going to take for me to read through it not just once but thrice.

• Choosing a particular date and booking the exam for that date.

After skimming the entirety of the official resource and calculating how much time i'll need to set aside to cover the material (which was 12hours 3mins). I calculated how much time i'll need to study daily(2hrs minimum) and factored in going over it at least thrice. Finally ended up picking a date for it. The essence of picking a date way ahead also served to make me disciplined in my study routine, time missed the previous day was added onto the next. It's extremely important to have a set date in order to avoid procrastination.

• Properly going through the official resource.

There's no better place to start your preparation than from Microsoft Learn itself. It's a great resource that contains all you need for all your exams. It was my main material, while others were supplementary.

• Searched for a cloud community to help and also provide assistance.

In order to get maximum benefit I came across a Discord cloud community filled with professionals of different skill level. Interaction with them also gave a bigger picture of the cloud environment.

• Documented what I was learning to make sure I understood concepts and facts.

It's known fact that the best way to remember things is to write them down. A lecture by Marty Lobdell also helped when studying. I documented things I learned along the way here.

• Did the labs provided and experimented with the azure portal.

Some sections in Microsoft Learn also contains hands-on labs to get a feel of what that particular topic is about. A sandbox would be provided for you to see in practice how to go about that particular service in azure portal or azure shell.

• Used other resources I could find in addition to the official one provided.

To solidify my knowledge I read other articles and watched Youtube tutorials on whatever topic I was currently tacking. One great channel I came across was that of Tim warner. He really did justice to the materials.

• Took practice tests and worked on my weak areas.

About 5 days before the exam I took Whizlabs practice test. The test in itself are great, they really do simulate the real exams. Went back to the topic of the few answers I got wrong and worked on them.

That's it folks. The above method worked for me and I intend using it for my other upcoming exams. Would be going next for the AZ-204 exam which is the developer's route. Really excited and looking forward to this journey. Hope to write more and also write on my experiences with the various cloud certs and vendors. Big shoutout to folks like Parveen, Jose, kage and the other members of the community for their contributions in one way or the other.

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