Quest update: 4 out of 12 done. 1/3 of the way done - Azure Solutions Architect Expert

November has been quite a month for me. As mentioned earlier, I attended Microsoft Ignite in Seattle, and just before that, I also attended SQL Saturday Oregon & SW Washington 2023 in Vancouver, Washington.
I met a bunch of nice and interesting people and learned quite a bit.
The NeurodiversIT stickers worked as I had hoped with some people, leading to many enriching conversations about Neurodiversity and hearing about others’ experiences. I’m very grateful for these experiences and look forward to more in the future.

However, during this time, I had little opportunity to study for my November certification. I didn’t announce which one I chose, but with just 2 1/2 days left in November, I passed the AZ-305 exam. So now, I’m proud to say I’m a Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert.

Additionally, I can call myself a Dual Cloud Solutions Architect, because of my certification for AWS.

How I Prepared for This Exam

For this exam, I followed the same steps as with my previous exams. I used the free practice assessment, went through various Learn resources, and studied pricing models and product names, as usual for architect exams.
This time, I also listened to AZ-305 videos on YouTube, like this one by John Savill, which provided a good system overview. I used it like an audiobook, listening while doing chores or walking to work. Although he draws a lot on the screen, understanding the technology makes it unnecessary to see it.

My Thoughts About the Exam

In some ways, this exam was easier than the prerequisite AZ-104. It might be because it was more theoretical about the entire Azure platform, or maybe because I found it easy to compare Azure products with their AWS counterparts.
For example, every time a question about NoSQL in Azure arose, the answer was Cosmos DB, and the similar AWS product would be DynamoDB. The same goes for Azure Front Door and AWS Cloudfront, and several others. If you’ve done the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, studying for AZ-305 shouldn’t be too hard.
The main difference is that Azure is also tied to Azure AD/Entra ID, while AWS IAM just isn’t an equivalent to that in my view.

Knowing the products and their pricing levels is key for passing this exam.

What Next?

I’m not entirely sure yet. December is somewhat short due to the holidays, making it harder to study.
So, I might opt for an easier exam next month or perhaps something completely different, like Terraform or Kubernetes.

I’ll provide an update soon enough.