Category: Certification

What is new in Teams Administrator and Power BI Data Analyst exam materials?

Greetings to all #CloudMarathoner members!

I had a chance to renew my lates two Microsoft exams and I would like to take an opportunity to share it with you. So, in this post, I would like to share my experience with the renewal process and as well as two Microsoft exams that I had a chance to renew.

What is the Microsoft exam renewal?

Renewing your Microsoft certification is a straightforward and stress-free process designed to keep your skills up-to-date with the latest technology changes. Here’s a simple breakdown:

1. Eligibility and Timing

Eligibility: You can renew your associate, expert, or specialty certification for free.
Timing: You have a six-month window before your certification expires to complete the renewal assessment.

2. Renewal Assessment

Format: The renewal assessment is shorter than the original exam and focuses on recent technological updates.
Convenience: It’s an open-book assessment that you can take online. Flexibility: You can retake the assessment as many times as needed within the six-month window.

3. Steps to Renew

Connect Profiles: Link your Microsoft Learn profile with your certification profile and look for the renew button.
Prepare: Use free, self-paced learning modules available on your certification renewal page to refresh your skills.
Pass the Assessment: Complete the online assessment before your certification expires

Benefits you get

Career Advancement: Validates your expertise and helps advance your career. Free: There’s no cost to renew your certification.
Up-to-date Skills: Ensures your skills remain current with evolving technology.

What are the changes in the Teams Administrator exam?

Let’s look into the list of renewal exam objectives that you are going to be measured on. I liked the fact that all the modules and materials are presented to learners to study before taking the renewal exam. Moreover, you have a chance to take your renewal exam 6 month before your renewal date expires

✔ Implement compliance for Microsoft Teams
✔ Implement lifecycle management and governance for Microsoft Teams
✔ Manage access for external users
✔ Configure, deploy, and manage Teams devices
✔ Manage collaboration experiences for chat and channels
✔ Manage apps for Microsoft Teams
✔ Plan for Teams Phone
✔ Configure auto attendants and call queues

What are the changes in the Power BI Data Analyst exam?

Same rules on renewal exam do apply to the Power BI Data Analyst Associate exam, PL-300. I would strongly recommend checking the modules on the following renewal exam objectives:

✔ Clean, transform, and load data in Power BI
✔ Design a semantic model in Power BI
✔ Add measures to Power BI Desktop models
✔ Optimize a model for performance in Power BI
✔ Design Power BI reports
✔ Enhance Power BI report designs for the user experience
✔ Perform analytics in Power BI
✔ Create and manage workspaces in Power BI
✔ Implement row-level security

Call to Action

How did your last exam renewal go ❓

Please, share in the comments 💬 of this post or in my LinkedIn post 👉
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elkhanyusubov_sharingiscaring-cloudmarathoner-tag-activity-7272641560964485120-UgCQ

Microsoft DevOps 🚀 Engineer Expert certification renewal

Hello, my dear friends!

I am very glad to renew the Microsoft DevOps 🚀 Engineer Expert certification for another year 👍

The #cloudjourney and learning never stops ⛅❗🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️

What is included in the annual assessment?

This exam assesses the following DevOps skills:
✔ Configure processes and communications
✔ Design and implement source control
✔ Design and implement build and release pipelines
✔ Develop a security and compliance plan
✔ Implement an instrumentation strategy

Your Support is Appreciated!

Thank you 🙏 T-Rex Solutions, LLC for a strong and relentless learning culture and for supporting my Microsoft #MVP journey 👏

In Summary

What is your next #certification#renewal ⁉ 🤔
Please, share in the comments 💬 below or on my LinkedIn post page.

Starting 2023 as a Google Cloud Digitial Leader cert

Hello #cloudmarathoners,

As I always say and post about this slogan: The #cloudjourney and learning never stops ⛅❗🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️ – I try to stay true to that spirit as well.

New 2023 exam is a pass!

I have officially got certified in @Google Cloud and am happy to share that with you. Yay!

This cert focuses on teaching you how to articulate the capabilities of Google Cloud core products and services and how they benefit organizations. The candidate for this cert exam should be able to describe common business use cases and how Google Cloud solutions support an enterprise.

Google Cloud Certified Cloud Digitial Leader

Why this cert?

This certification is for individuals who wish to demonstrate their knowledge of cloud computing basics and how Google Cloud products and services can be used to achieve an organization’s goals. 

The Cloud Digital Leader exam assesses your knowledge in the following areas:

  • Digital transformation with Google Cloud
  • Infrastructure and application modernization
  • Innovating with data and Google Cloud
  • Google Cloud security and operations

Huge Thanks for your Support

Many Thanks 🙏 to #cloudfamily, #cloudmarathoner, and my co-workers at T-Rex Solutions, LLC for a strong and relentless learning culture and continued support.

End of year celebration with a pass on Microsoft SOC exam

Hello, my friends!

I am sincerely wishing you all a Happy New Year!

As I always say this motto: The #cloudjourney and learning never stops ⛅❗🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️

What is the Microsoft SOC exam?

I am happy to share that I was able to pass an Azure security certificate before the end of 2022!!!

As you might know, this certification belongs to an important Microsoft Security operations space. I am very glad to finish this year with this achievement. 

Thank you my dear #cloudfamily, #cloudmarathoner, and my co-workers at T-Rex Solutions, LLC for a strong and relentless learning culture and continued support!

Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate

What skills did I learn?

Studying for this certification helped me gain the skills and knowledge required to reduce my organization’s risk by rapidly remediating active attacks on the environment, advising on improvements to threat protection practices, and referring violations of organizational policies to appropriate people and teams.

As an important part of the exam preparation, I did labs that investigate, respond to, and hunt for threats using Microsoft products, such as Azure Defender, Azure Sentinel, Microsoft 365 Defender, and other related security products.

Summary

Please, let me know if you are targeting this certification.
I would be more than glad to provide additional guidance for your preparations!

Thank you everyone for your greetings and wishes on social media.
I do really appreciate your continued support!!!

Post Build Table Topics: Your Cloud Certification Journey

Hello friends,

I hope you all enjoyed the Microsoft Build 2022 and had a chance to look into the Learning Zone and join the Cloud Skills Challenge.

If you did miss most of the Build then no worries, as it has recorded sessions that you can watch on your schedule.

Please, join me and Marcos today, if you missed certification and learning announcements during the Build event. We will address a very important topic: Cloud Certification Journey, and share tips & bits on getting yours started.

Post Build Table Topics: Your Cloud Certification Journey
Post Build Table Topics: Your Cloud Certification Journey

📌 Register for #free on meetup 👉 https://www.meetup.com/Microsoft-Reactor-Redmond/events/285992985/

What is the Digital Advertising Fundamentals & how to pass?

Hello Cloud Marathoners,

Two weeks ago, I have earned and shared a Microsoft Advertising badge. I got several request to provide information about the training material and my expereince with the exam.

What is the digital advertising?

Well, if you are you new to digital advertising, then these Microsoft courses will provide you an introduction to the digital marketing industry. You could start learning the foundations and then looking at search, shopping, and display advertising.

Digital Advertising Fundamentals

Earn the Badge

  • By complete the 4 courses in the Learning Path (in any order) you could earn a digital Badge. As you know, it can be shared and verified on LinkedIn or other social media platforms to demonstrate your new knowledge.
  • Keep in mind that each chapter has assessment questions
  • Finally, review all the material and get ready to pass the final assessment

Where you can start?

Checkout the Digital Advertising Fundamentals Learning Path 👉
https://lnkd.in/eu4ciw67 #sharingiscaring ❤

There are several more Learning paths that you can check below:
Choose a Learning Path or event to get started!

I hope you can get all the resources you need to start your own learning journey in Advert space. Good Luck and keep me posted on your progress!

Getting you ready for Azure Architect AZ-305 exam!

Hello Cloud Marathoners,

Thank you everyone who took a time from their busy schedule and attended my Global Azure 2022 session – Getting you ready for Azure Architect exam!

It was great pleasure to interact with each of you, and Thank You for great questions that you brought during the session.

Getting you ready for Azure Architect AZ-305 exam

In this session, I focused on a number of changes in Microsoft Azure Architect exam, as it might be troublesome to get ready for it with all the digital distractions around us.

However, in this lightning talk, I shared bits and tips on how to focus on the AZ-305 Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam objectives and help you to prepare for a big day.

A screenshot from the participants comments

As part of this presentation, I have shared free, official and community learning resources that will boost your knowledge, and hopefully help you pass this important exam with confidence.

A screenshot of an official practice exam reference

If you missed this session, no worries, you are covered, as this session was recorded. It is freely availiable on the #cloudmarathoner ⏯ 🖐 YouTube channel here.

The slides and as well as links to the recommended resources are posted on my 🖐 👨‍💻 GitHub repo here.

Please, feel free to check up this GitHub repo, share & fork it as you like 👍

Study Guide for AZ-305: Part 3 –Design a solution to log and monitor Azure resources

Hello friends!

This is the continuation (Part 3/12) of blog post series to help you get ready for the latest AZ-305 exam.

Feel free to check the previous posts listed below, if you did not look into them yet 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is the Monitoring ?

The monitoring is a skill and not a full-time job. In today’s world of cloud-based architectures that are implemented through DevOps projects, developers, SREs, and operations staff must collectively define an effective cloud monitoring and logging strategy. This strategy should focus on identifying when service-level objectives (SLOs) and service-level agreements (SLAs) are not being met, likely negatively affecting the user experience.

Cloud monitoring is a method of reviewing, observing, and managing the operational workflow in a cloud-based IT infrastructure. Manual or automated management techniques confirm the availability and performance of websites, servers, applications, and other cloud infrastructure.

Azure Monitor overview
Azure Monitor Overview

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH logging and monitoring?

Azure Monitor helps you maximize the availability and performance of your applications and services. It delivers a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. This information helps you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identify issues affecting them and the resources they depend on.

Microsoft docs

The Azure Monitor collects the following sets of data:

  • ✔️ Application Monitoring data
  • ✔️ Guest OS monitoring data
  • ✔️ Azure resource monitoring data
  • ✔️ Azure subscription monitoring data
  • ✔️ Azure tenant monitoring data
Measuring Metrics: Log Analytics vs Azure Metrics - Part 1 Introduction - AdinErmie.com
Azure Monitoring and Log Analytics Overview

Part 3: Design a solution to log and monitor Azure resources

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing logging and monitoring Azure solutions.

This collection of links are gathered with a focus toward the exam objectives of AZ-305 certification exam.

Analyze your Azure infrastructure by using Azure Monitor logs
Best practices for monitoring cloud applications
Cost Management tools in Azure
What are Azure Active Directory reports?

Overview of Log Analytics in Azure Monitor
Tutorial: Log Analytics
Monitor performance of virtual machines by using Azure Monitor VM Insights
Designing your Azure Monitor Logs deployment
Overview of Azure Monitor agents

Azure Monitor Frequently Asked Questions
Azure Monitor Workbooks
Application Insights overview
Azure Data Explorer

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 3 – Design a solution to log and monitor Azure resources.

The next blog post will cover the Part 4: Design a compute solution.

Study Guide for AZ-305: Part 2 – Design Authentication and Authorization Solutions

Hi Cloud Marathoners!

This is the continuation (Part 2/12) of blog post series to help you get ready for the latest AZ-305 exam. As title says – our focus will be on understanding and designing Authentication and Authorization Solutions in Microsoft Azure.

Feel free to check the previous post (Part 1/12) if you did not look into it yet 🙂

Table of content (blog series)

What is the Authentication and Authorization?

To put it in plain English language, authentication is the process of verifying who someone is, where as authorization is the process of verifying what specific applications, files, and data a user has access to.

To relate these concepts to a real-world scenarious, you may think about your airport access and on-boarding to the plane experience. Thus, when you go through the security in an airport, you are required to show your ID to authenticate your identity. Then, you proceed and arrive at the gate, you present your boarding pass to the flight attendant, so they can authorize you to board your flight and allow access to your assigned seat.

Authentication vs Authorization. Authentication vs. Authorization— These… | by Frank D'Amico | Medium

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH Authentication and Authorization?

The authentication and authorization services are part of the Microsoft’s identity platform.

The Authentication sometimes shortened to ‘AuthN’.
The Microsoft identity platform uses the OpenID Connect protocol for handling authentication. On the other hand, Authorization sometimes shortened to ‘AuthZ‘. The Microsoft identity platform uses the OAuth 2.0 protocol for handling authorization.

In Microsoft Azure your authentication and authorization is delegated to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). By using this centralized identity provider you can enable following secure workflows for your business:

  • Conditional Access policies – that require a user to be in a specific location.
  • The use of multi-factor authentication, which is sometimes called two-factor authentication or 2FA.
  • Enabling a user to sign in once and then be automatically signed in to all of the web apps that share the same centralized directory. This capability is called single sign-on (SSO).
From AD to Azure AD – Your Hybrid Identity Journey - New Signature

Part 2: Designing Authentication and Authorization solutions

The references below are taken from official Microsoft docs and focused on designing Azure Authentication and Authorization solutions. You could also find it helpful to check the Microsoft docs and learning paths with [Tutorials] below 🙂

This collection of links is gathered with a focus on the exam objectives of the AZ-305 certification exam.

Azure identity management security overview
Azure Identity Management and access control security best practices
Five steps to securing your identity infrastructure
What is Azure Active Directory?
Compare Active Directory to Azure Active Directory
Azure Active Directory B2B best practices
Overview: Cross-tenant access with Azure AD External Identities (Preview)
Identity Providers for External Identities
Authentication and Conditional Access for External Identities
What is Azure Active Directory B2C?
Technical and feature overview of Azure Active Directory B2C
What is Conditional Access?
Plan a Conditional Access deployment

[Tutorial]: Secure user sign-in events with Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication
[Tutorial]: Enable users to unlock their account or reset passwords using Azure AD self-service password reset (SSPR)
[Tutorial]: Enable Azure Active Directory self-service password reset writeback to an on-premises environment

What is Identity Protection?
What is risk?
Azure Active Directory Identity Protection – Security overview
Identity Protection policies
What are Azure AD access reviews?
What are managed identities for Azure resources?
What is identity lifecycle management?

Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework – Security
Authenticate apps to Azure services by using service principals and managed identities for Azure resources
Application and service principal objects in Azure AD
Azure Key Vault basic concepts

Best practices for using Azure Key Vault
Azure Key Vault logging
Virtual network service endpoints for Azure Key Vault
Monitoring Key Vault with Azure Event Grid

SUMMARY

Thank you for visiting the AZ-305 Study Guide and checking the Part 2 – Designing Authentication and Authorization Solutions.

The next blog will cover the Part 3: Design a solution to log and monitor Azure resources.