Microsoft certifications are a good way to test and validate your skills on Azure.
I’ve been working with Azure for 3 years now, so I thought it was the right time at the end of 2022 to take the exam and validate my knowledge 😊
And I successfully passed it on December 28th 2022 ! certification-board

So here is a little post detailing how I prepared my self for the exam and what materials I used to train, so you can hopefully use those to help yourself.

Preparing myself

I was able to study with one of my co-workers, especially topics related to the exam during one week, and my company paid the exam for me (which is 165 euros in France, depending on your country the price can vary). certification-price

Improving the theory

During 5 days I followed the Andrew Brown AZ-204 youtube course which is pretty good and detailed considering the course is free on youtube. I also completed the whole AZ-204 Microsoft Learn Path , which covers every topics you need for the exam.

Putting theory into practice with Labs

After digesting lots and lots of theory materials, I practised myself using AZ-204 Microsoft Labs, which are also completely free and available on GitHub .
I strongly suggests you to complete each one of the labs, especially if it is your first time working with Azure, as there is a lot of pwsh commands, patterns and architectures covered that YOU WILL find for sure in the final exam.
Also it is a good way to apply your knowledge and manipulates real Azure ressources as you would do every day at work 😉

Passing practice tests, again and again…

After doing the labs, I decided to complete practice exams until I got a decent score of 90% +. If you didn’t know it yet, AZ-204 exam requires you to have 700 points out of 1000 minimum to pass and earn the certification. So passing practice exams with 90% + score will give you some room to make some mistakes during the real exam.

Note that even if practice tests questions are very close to the ones you’ll see in the real exam, they are not the same. So be sure to understand each questions and find the appropriate answer with the knowledge you earned, instead of memorizing answers without understanding them.

The practice exams I completed were from:

  • Whizlabs , which I bought for like 15 euros. (There are often discounts)
  • MeasureUp , which is 91 euros, much more expensive than Whizlabs but it is the official Microsoft practice test.

Do you really need to buy both Whizlabs and MeasureUp exams to train properly ?

The answer is… it depends 😋 The two practise exams are really different:

  • Whizlabs is much cheaper, and the questions inside their practise exams are much more up to date and better formulated. But the UI and UX is not close to what you will get when launching the real exam from Microsoft.
  • On the other hand, MeasureUp is way more expensive, questions are often out of date, but the UI and UX is much closer to what you’ll get during your real exam.

So if it ts your first time passing a Microsoft certification exam, I’ll suggest you to buy and complete the MeasureUp exam, as you will get used to the MS User Interface and you’ll not panic during the D-Day.
However, if you are familiar with Microsoft certification exams and you know the UI, stick with Whizlabs as their content is better and up to date.

The exam day

I passed the exam at home using Pearson Vue. If it is also your case, here are some tips:

  • During your exam day, you must register 30 mns in advance of the hour you booked on Microsoft Learn.
  • Be sure to clean your desk, and make sure to have only one screen/monitor and only one, as the proctor will not let you start the exam otherwise.
  • You’ll have to take photos of your room and the surroundings of your desk, and send them via Google Chrome with your phone. (They will ask you to scan a QR code that will redirects you to a web page where you can send photos.)
  • And of course… make sure you get a good night’s sleep before 😁

Summary of the training materials

I hope this post will help you train for the exam. 😊
As for me, I am already preparing for AZ-400 🔥

Happy learning 👨‍💻❤️