I passed the Azure Exam this week and thought I would share my preparation steps. Overall I thought it was a fair exam that emphasized product knowledge and analysis skills. There was no combing thru code or config files looking for minor syntax variation type questions. There were 55 questions and 700 was the passing score.
My preparation consisted of:
- set up a VM and download Windows Azure Training Kit. This will walk you thru the install of the sdk and its pre-reqs. The training kits has a good series of guided Labs and Demos that walk thru common azure development tasks. I did all of the labs in the training kit.
- read Programming Windows Azure: Programming the Microsoft Cloud from cover to cover. The book may be a bit dated but I thought it clear and liked the authors reading style.
- I read every link in this buck woody blog post
- This site had a free set of practice questions. The questions on the test where really not like the questions in this practice test but did get me into “test taking mode” (my last cert was over 2 years ago) and highlighted some areas that I hadn’t come across yet.
There is lots of debate about whether certification exams are worthwhile or prove anything. In this case, the exam itself provided a goal to help get up to speed on Azure and provided an outline to help me go “wide” in learning different aspects of the product. Looking forward to doing a real azure project!