Microsoft Azure Certification

[FN-GM]

I am looking at becoming a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate.

 

I am wondering if anyone else has been down this route, or other Azure certifications and have any feedback please? Was it worth doing? Are you keeping up the certification for every year?

 

Cheers.

[dmj]

I did AZ-103

Was it worth doing? Are you keeping up the certification for every year?

No and No.

 

No-one was interested in the qualifications when I was looking for work, all the interviews just wanted experience with either Azure/GCP/AWS with most preferring AWS. they will know from the interview questions whether you understand it (I'm now working on GCP full time). Some companies may use the qualifications to narrow down people for interview, but there are so many cloud based jobs around I wouldn't bother as long as you have either AWS/Azure/GCP experience and if you are going for any then do AWS as it is more thorough (Azure does a LOT of stuff behind your back).

[steve]

I've done AZ-104 and found it worth while for my role, wouldn't have paid personally for the exam, but I got that free. Next up is AZ-305 to get Solutions Architect, again free exam. Then recert AZ-104 later in the year. I found John Savills YouTube stuff great for Azure: https://www.youtube.com/c/NTFAQGuy

 

My employer does put on job vacancies that relevant certs are desirable - AZ-10 for cloud / server roles, so they do help shortlisting. And it shows you undertake professional development.

 

On the AWS v GCP v AWS, public sector tend to favour Azure, some other UK too. AWS much bigger in the USA I'm told.

 

I'd also look at Terraform, good cross platform infrastructure as code language.

[dmj]

I'd also look at Terraform, good cross platform infrastructure as code language.

 

Definitely agree there, my role is 90% terraform/Jenkins these days

[FN-GM]

Thanks for the replies and comments.

 

The purpose wasn’t to gain a qualification to help looking for a job. I was looking to learn something that can be used at work. When I did my Cisco stuff I found it externally useful and made life easier in the long run.

 

On the AWS vs Azure it does seem most use Azure here. Although I haven’t done any real research into that.

[dmj]

On the AWS vs Azure it does seem most use Azure here. Although I haven’t done any real research into that.

 

I think the point I was trying to make with Azure/AWS/GCP is that the AWS training is more valuable because you get a better understanding of what is actually happening, it is a more transferable skill. Azure (and GCP to a lesser extent) tends to obfuscate many of the things that are getting created in the background. It makes things harder when a bunch of resources have been created automatically, when terraform is doing this anyway. Another thing I found is that AWS uses very similar methods for configuring each feature whereas both GCP and Azure feel like they've been put together by different teams with different ways of interacting with each services, AWS is much more consistent.

[RobD]

I've done the AZ-104 course and exam and the AZ-305 course. I enjoyed both and they definatley made me feel a lot more comfortable in azure.

 

I didnt learn as much as I did doing the cisco qualifications because most people the concepts are pretty familar (networking, firewalls, VMS, storage etc).

 

I did go on a tour of the Azure data centre in Dublin a few years ago, was not as interesting as you'd inagine