What you should know

- So, the Azure Solution Architect certification is made up of two different exams: AZ-300 and AZ-301. This course will focus specifically on exam tips for AZ-300. AZ-300 includes five different functional groups which are: deploying and configuring infrastructure, implementing workloads and security, understanding cloud architect technology solutions, creating and deploying apps, and developing for the cloud. All of the questions that you would receive on the exam will come from one of these five functional groups. So who should take the AZ-300 exam or try to achieve the Azure Solution Architect credential? Candidates for this exam are existing solution architects who advise stakeholders and translate different business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable Azure solutions. These architects should also have advanced experience and existing knowledge across different aspects of IT including networking, virtualization, identity scenarios, H-A and D-R, data management, and more. Solution architects also need to know how different decisions affect different solutions. Architects must be able to be proficient in Azure administration, Azure development, automation with DevOps, and have expert level skills in at least one of these technology domains. So what are the recommended prerequisites for the AZ-300 exam or this certification? Officially there's nothing required and you can go take either of these exams in either order. However, my personal recommended path would be to first take the Azure Fundamentals exam AZ-900, to ensure that you have a level set knowledge across the different cloud pillars. And then go into either the Azure Administrator or the Azure Developer exams to achieve the foundational level knowledge that you need before going to solution architect. So the administrator exam is AZ-103 and the developer exam is AZ-203. So let's look at some exam basics that are on every Microsoft exam. Exams typically range between 40 to 60 questions, to where some questions are worth one point and some questions are worth more than one point. There's never any penalty for guessing so you should always answer a question before continuing on. You should also plan for about three hours total. You'll have about two-and-a-half hours to answer questions and finish any performance-based labs, as well as about 30 minutes for instructions at the beginning, providing comments at the end, and obtaining your score report. So the exam contains more than just multiple choice question types. There are also different question types that contain build lists, hot areas, active screens, drag and drops, and more. Exams also typically contain case studies where you're presented with a lot of business and technical details upfront and then receive questions that relate back to that case study. So you might have to swap back and forth between the case study and the question to try to identify the answer based on the defined requirements. The solution architect exam also includes performance-based testing. So during the exam, you might be presented with about half of the questions, maybe 20 to 25 questions, and then you'll be connected to a virtual machine where you can access a live Azure environment. In this Azure subscription you'll be given 7 to 9 tasks that you have to achieve. And it doesn't matter how you achieve these tasks. You can use the portal. You can use the Cloud Shell with Azure CLI, or PowerShell to complete these tasks. By completing these tasks, you'll demonstrate your skills using the technology more than just the multiple choice questions. Each exam has a score range from zero to 1000. The passing score on a Microsoft exam is always 700, but is not scaled to be 70%. The cut score is determined during the exam development and is updated as more people take the exam. There are no points for making the wrong answer or guessing on the exam. So you should always answer questions, as some questions can not be skipped. Each question is broken up into four parts. First, you're presented with a technical environment, or a scenario that might read that you're a developer, you're a solution architect, or you're an administrator. And then you're presented with a problem. So an application must be able to achieve x or must perform at x level. Then you'll see a goal statement which reads you need to achieve x or meet x requirements. And then you'll be presented with a question statement as to what should you do, what should you configure, or what should you design? So these are the basics for Microsoft exam to make you more comfortable and be prepared as you register for and take the AZ-300 exam.