Becoming an Azure Developer is the goal of many IT professionals, which is why the Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certificate is so popular among the potential candidates. This certification proves that you are able to participate in different phases of the Cloud development. It includes your knowledge of the requirements, definition, and various other processes, including design, development, deployment, performance tuning, monitoring, and maintenance. With the certificate, you can also show that you have the skills in developing Azure compute solutions, implementing Azure security, as well as developing for Azure storage. It is also important for a successful student to know how to connect to the third-party services and monitor, optimize, and troubleshoot Azure solutions.
This certification is intended for those developers who know how to design, build, maintain, and test Cloud services as well as applications on Microsoft Azure. To be eligible for the qualification exam, it is recommended that you have about 2 years of experience with Microsoft Azure and professional development experience. You should also prepare for the topics of the associated test and understand the concepts covered in them. Besides that, the potential candidates need to possess the skills in programing in a language supported by Azure. This means that they should also know about data storage options and data connections, Azure PowerShell, app authentication and authorization, Azure SDKs, and Azure CLI.
Exam Details
Microsoft AZ-204 is a qualification exam of this certification path that covers the details of the development of solutions for Microsoft Azure. It lasts for 100 minutes and contains about 60 multiple-choice questions that you need to deal with. To obtain the certificate, the individuals are required to get 700 points of the overall score. If you want to be sure in the outcome, you need to master the following topics:
- Develop Azure compute solutions – This objective covers the details of the Azure functions and IaaS solutions as well as the ways to implement them. It is also important to have the skills in creating Azure App Service Web Apps;
- Develop for Azure storage – To succeed in this domain, the potential candidates have to know about the development of the solutions that utilize Cosmos DB storage and blob storage. This means that you should know about the implementation of partitioning schemes and implementation of the storage policies;
- Implement Azure security – To answer the questions from this area, you need to have the skills in implementing secure Cloud solutions, user authentication, as well as user authorization;
- Monitor, optimize, and troubleshoot Azure solutions – If talking about the next section, the interested applicants have to know how to instrument solutions in order to support logging and monitoring. Besides that, it is vital to have the skills in integrating caching and content delivery within solutions;
- Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services – The last one is all about the message-based solutions, event-based solutions, and API Management. It evaluates your skills in developing and implementing.
Further Career Path
Those individuals who succeed in the qualification test of Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate will earn the associate-level certificate that proves their knowledge and skills required for the job role. With this certification, you will be able to get many benefits alongside, including the possibility to find a better position and ask for a higher salary. However, you should not forget about the recertification process. Usually, the Microsoft certificates are valid for a year, but it all depends on the requirements of each specific certification and its exam. To keep track of the possible changes, it is recommended that you check the information on your Microsoft account and search for the information about the status of your certificate.