AZ-300: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies

27 May 2019

• AZ-300: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies
• AZ-301: Microsoft Azure Architect Design

Fortunately I passed AZ-300 today, there were 5 sections including 2 labs on Azure portal. I spent almost 2.5 hours on the first 4 sections, when I started the last case study, less than 2 mins left, so I randomly picked the answers from dropdown.

A few dramas happened:

• I arrived at the test center 8AM for the 8:15AM test. However, nobody at the concierge until 8:15AM. About 5 people were waiting there, then the test was kicked off about 5 mins late.
• *One question appeared twice in the first section, I am sure I didn’t click “previous” button by accident.
• When submitting, the labs’ questions were counted as “not answered”.
• When submitting, an exception dialog prompted “no internet connection”.

I was very nervous about so many (19) “not answered” red cross icons, I thought I must fail the exam until I got me the “pass” paper.

I am still not sure how labs are calculated, I suppose they should be real time, but why they are marked as “not answered”?

In addition, there was a question exactly the same as my AZ203 test.

Useful resources to prepare the exam

1. Homepage of AZ 300 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-az-300.aspx

2. Microsoft Hands On Labs - https://handsonlabs.microsoft.com

3. Github
   • https://github.com/MicrosoftLearning/AZ-300-MicrosoftAzureArchitectTechnologies
   • https://github.com/shrasool/Azure-Solutions-Architect-Expert-Exam

4. Blog - https://pixelrobots.co.uk/2018/09/study-resources-for-the-az-300/

5. Log Analytics Query Demos - https://portal.loganalytics.io/demo#/discover/query/main

6. Videos

   • Pluralsight - https://app.pluralsight.com/paths/certificate/microsoft-azure-architect-technologies-az-300

     I found Tim Warner’s videos helped me a lot. When I viewed them, I couldn’t fully understand them. But after playing around in Azure and reviewed the videos again, I understood most of them.

   • Youtube - Azure Academy - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-MXgaFhsYU8PkqgKBdnusQ

   • Udemy - https://www.udemy.com/70534-azure/ I didn’t buy this course, as I found it’s quite similar to AZ-103 (70-533) which I bought earlier

Again practice, practice, practice……

Here are some labs that I’v done before the exam:

• VNET Peering
• S2S VPN
• Sync between AAD Premium V2 and AD on Windows 2016 Data Centre
• Azure Site Recovery to backup / migrate VMs

NOTE: I bought the Certify with Confidence with Practice Test, because it's a difficult exam and I didn't expect to pass it in the first attempt.