Microsoft Certification Challenges – Planning

My Notes from 5/25

The Microsoft website that is being used has provided us the opportunity to learn and get certified with Microsoft for free. After completing one of the challenges by going through the learn portal, we will get one test voucher that can be used on the tests that were listed.

As shown in the above screenshot, the challenge ends on June 20th, 2023, so whatever challenge is decided to be completed needs to be completed before then.

I had initially signed up for the .NET Challenge to get the test voucher as quickly as possible as I am currently trying to pursue my AZ-500 certification. After looking at the rules, the AZ-500 was not a course that could be taken from the free test voucher. I have decided to start to pursue the AZ-400. This will give me major foundational knowledge that can help me in my day-to-day tasks as a Cyber Security Engineer.

Some of the notes I have are the following.

• Beyond the Idea: How to Execute Innovation (book that was noted in the training)
• Greenfield (undeveloped) vs Brownfield (prior use) projects

Just from the brief overview of DevOps, it makes me wonder how it things can be implemented in my day-to-day going forward.

My Overall Thoughts going forward for this certification

The AZ-400 will be a great certification to go after since it is targeting the utilization of CI / CD pipelines. In its current state, there is a need for some sort of DevOps practices in my current work environment and this would definitely make me more informed through the process of implementing DevOps with security tools like the Azure stack (Microsoft Defender / Azure Active Directory / Microsoft Sentinel).

The main pathway I am thinking is to the do the following:

1. Go through the Microsoft Learn DevOps Challenge first. This will give me access to the free test voucher that can be used to take the AZ-400.
2. Through the above course, it will take me through using Azure DevOps / GitHub. While I don’t have a personal Azure Subscription, I am hoping to utilize work and help improve their area while I learn.
3. After this is all complete, I should have been able to setup a lot of items and get a greater understanding of DevOps. I am planning to utilize an Udemy AZ-400 course to provide a to refresh and reinforce key concepts.
4. After doing this training, I should be prepared for the exam which I will use the test voucher on.

Once I complete this, I can go back and take the AZ-500 / MS-200 courses that I have been training for to begin with. These courses should be relatively easy to take but will just need to take them to complete them.