Renew Solutions Architect Certificate

Time flies quickly, I have gotten my SA certificate for nearly 1.5 years. I received an email from Microsoft that I am eligible to extend my certificate for another year at no cost to the end of next July. That’s a perfect news that I don’t have to upgrade my certificate by taking the latest exams (AZ 303 and 304).

To help me pass the online test, Microsoft grouped all the relevant courses in Microsoft Learn to fill the knowledge gap that introduced in the recent 2 years. Instead of attending a “formal” exam, the renew test is in easy mode - without being monitored, without time counting down and you can retest multiple times. As long as you can correctly answer more than 65% of questions, Microsoft will give you another year to the current expiry date.

I thought my knowledge should be broad enough to cover most of the new Azure features, but I was wrong. I got 61% at my first attempt, in “Protect your virtual machine by using Azure Backup” section, I failed to answer any of those questions. In this test, there is no way to reverse back to review your answer, which I found is as challenging as “Yes / No” section in the formal exam.

Fortunately, I managed to pass this test at my 2nd attempt.