The Ultimate AZ-303 Azure Architect Technologies Study Guide
The NEW AZ-303 exam was released on June 30th 2020 (beta), and this guide now reflects those updates to the new improved curriculum. The previous version of this exam (AZ-300) is still available but expected to be retired at the end of September. This guide focuses on all the specific information you need to know to pass your AZ-303 exam. It also covers links to training courses, books and other content you can use to perfect your study approach. Lastly, we also include links to practice exams and cover typical questions Azure students have as they embark upon their first adventures into Microsoft Azure.
If you are completely unsure where to begin in your certification journey, make sure to check out our post on certification paths.
If you like this guide, be sure to check out our other Azure Study Guides
What is the Azure Solutions Architect Expert Certification?
The Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification is the most desired certification by many Cloud professionals. It is a difficult certification to attain and requires significant study, as well as experience in IT. Experienced IT experts with knowledge of cloud infrastructure and services: networking, storage, compute, governance, identity, security, data management, DevOps etc are the targets for this certification.
In order to take and pass these exams, you must be able to not only administer the Azure environment but advise your customers on direction based on their specific objectives and business environments. Achieving this certification implies that you are able to take customer requirements and translate them into solutions based on best practices and experience.
Which exams do I need to take? AZ300 vs 301 vs 303 vs 304?
With all the changes recently, it may be a bit complicated to determine which exams you need to take. The old exams were AZ-300 and AZ-301, and the new exams are AZ-303 and AZ-304. The exams were and are still broken out into 2 major stages. You need 1 exam completed from each stage to attain the certification.
Stage 1: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies:
Exams Options:
AZ-300 (OLD)
AZ-303 (NEW)
This stage of the certification focuses on making sure you have all the hands-on engineering experience to work in an Azure environment. This will then help you to make intelligent design decisions in the next stage since you will have deep knowledge of how the various Azure services work.
Stage 2: Microsoft Azure Architect Design
Exams Options:
AZ-301 (OLD)
AZ-304 (NEW)
This stage of the certification now shifts towards key design decisions you will need to make in the real world as you architect solutions with your application teams. The questions here are less around hands on configuration and more around real world scenarios.
Taking and passing an exam from stage 1 and stage 2 will earn you the certification badge. Note that it is currently possible to mix and match the new exams with the old. For example, you can take AZ-300 and AZ-304, or AZ-303 plus AZ-301. It may seem a bit confusing, but Microsoft did this to allow people who have already passed one of the old exams to combine it with the new.
If you are just starting out today, then your best route is to likely go for the AZ-303 and AZ-304 combination.
This remainder of this study guide will focus on the AZ-303 exam.
AZ-303 Exam Description
Before we begin, let’s look at the exam description as indicated by Microsoft on their AZ-303 site.
" Candidates for this exam should have subject matter expertise in designing and implementing solutions that run on Microsoft Azure, including aspects like compute, network, storage, and security.
Responsibilities for an Azure Solution Architect include advising stakeholders and translating business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable cloud solutions.
An Azure Solution Architect partners with cloud administrators, cloud DBAs, and clients to implement solutions.
A candidate for this exam should have advanced experience and knowledge of IT operations, including networking, virtualization, identity, security, business continuity, disaster recovery, data platform, budgeting, and governance–this role should manage how decisions in each area affect an overall solution. In addition, this role should have expert-level skills in Azure administration and have experience with Azure development and DevOps processes.”
FAQ
How long does it take to study for the AZ-303 exam?
The AZ-303, is an EXPERT level certification. The curriculum has grown considerably from its early days, and you should be prepared to put some time in to your preparation. Before we discuss timing, think about how the exam is broken out. The AZ-303 test as of June 2020, covers 4 major areas as follows:
Implement and monitor an Azure infrastructure (50-55%)
Implement management and security solutions (25-30%)
Implement solutions for apps (10-15%)
Implement and manage data platforms (10-15%)
The percentages indicated above give you an indication on how the test is broken out. This means, you should expect around 50-55% of your questions to focus on describing core Azure services. Take note of sections 1 and 2. Those sections alone can account for upwards of 80% of the entire exam curriculum.
Is the AZ-303 Azure exam worth taking?
Absolutely! Ideally you will go on to take your AZ-304 exam as well to attain your certification badge and prove your skills to the world. Even if certification is not your goal, you will gain an incredible amount of experience learning Azure at a deep level that will help you in your current job, or perhaps the next move in your career.
How hard is the AZ-303 exam?
The AZ-303 exam is a very difficult exam! You should go into the exam expecting multiple types of questions. Multiple choice, scenarios, labs etc. One key is not to be overwhelmed as you get into the exam. You will have lots of questions to go through and you can often come back to questions you didn’t fully grasp at first. Make extra sure to get hands on experience by following along with the demos and trying things out for yourself in your own lab. If you are looking for ways to keep your costs down while learning Azure, check out this article
What is the pass mark for the AZ-303 test?
Microsoft certification exams are scored out of 1000. You need a 700 or higher to pass the AZ-303 exam and gain your Azure Expert Badge.
How do I take the AZ-303 test?
Once you have completed your preparation, you will need to schedule your test online. Under normal circumstances you would take your test at a test center or online, but currently with the Covid-19 situation, only online testing is available. You can find details about the online test centers at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-303
Does the AZ-303 exam expire?
The AZ-303 and AZ-304 exams will typically need to be renewed every 18 months. Microsoft will from time to time retire certifications however, and you may also find exam numbers evolve over time (this is what happened with the previous exam numbers now becoming 303/304) when Microsoft changes the curriculum substantially for the certification.
AZ-303 Study Material
AZ-303 Certification Course
The Refactored AZ-303 training course released in June 2020 now has hours of video content which focuses on the exam curriculum. The course is broken out into the following sections to match up with the Microsoft curriculum.
Understand Azure Active Directory (AD) and Subscriptions
Implement Virtual Networking
Implement Virtual Machines for Windows and Linux
Create and Manage Storage Accounts
Deploy Automation and Configure Resources
Implement Azure AD
Implement and Manage Hybrid Identities
Configure Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring
Implement and Manage Governance Solutions
Implement Load Balancing and Network Security
Manage Security for Applications
Implement an Application Infrastructure
Deploy Container-based Applications
Implement and Manage Data Platforms
This is the most structured way to work through the curriculum as it combines lectures with walkthrough demos so you can learn about the topic before seeing how it is implemented.
In addition to the training videos, lab guides and practice questions (coming end of July), as well as the PowerShell and Azure CLI Administrators Guides will help solidify your knowledge.
Study links and documents
Now for the major pieces of reading material. Below you will find all the links to relevant Refactored blog posts and Microsoft documentation to cover the key topics. Consider all the links below essential reading for the exam unless they are marked as optional. Even if they are marked as optional, consider reading them to further clarify the subject matter and help you continue your learning path beyond the architect certification.
Implement and monitor an Azure infrastructure (50-55%)
Microsoft Docs AZ-303 study guide resources
One thing I always used to prepare for my Microsoft exams is Microsoft Docs. Here are the relevant Microsoft Docs which I used to prepare and study for the AZ-303 exam.
Implement and Monitor an Azure Infrastructure (50-55%)
Implement cloud infrastructure monitoring
monitor security
monitor performance
monitor health and availability
monitor cost
configure advanced logging
configure logging for workloads
initiate automated responses by using Action Groups
configure and manage advanced alerts
Implement storage accounts
select storage account options based on a use case
configure Azure Files and blob storage
configure network access to the storage account
implement Shared Access Signatures and access policies
implement Azure AD authentication for storage
manage access keys
implement Azure storage replication
implement Azure storage account failover
Implement VMs for Windows and Linux
configure High Availability
configure storage for VMs
select virtual machine size
implement Azure Dedicated Hosts
deploy and configure scale sets
configure Azure Disk Encryption
Automate deployment and configuration of resources
save a deployment as an Azure Resource Manager template
modify Azure Resource Manager template
evaluate location of new resources
configure a virtual disk template
deploy from a template
manage a template library
create and execute an automation runbook
Implement virtual networking
implement VNet to VNet connections
implement VNet peering
Implement Azure Active Directory
add custom domains
configure Azure AD Identity Protection
implement self-service password reset
implement Conditional Access including MFA
configure user accounts for MFA
Tutorial: Secure user sign-in events with Azure Multi-Factor Authentication
Enable per-user Azure Multi-Factor Authentication to secure sign-in events
configure fraud alerts
configure bypass options
configure Trusted IPs
configure verification methods
implement and manage guest accounts
manage multiple directories
Implement and manage hybrid identities
install and configure Azure AD Connect
identity synchronization options
configure and manage password sync and password writeback
configure single sign-on
use Azure AD Connect Health
Implement management and security solutions (25-30%)
Manage workloads in Azure
migrate workloads using Azure Migrate
implement Azure Backup for VMs
implement disaster recovery
implement Azure Update Management
Implement load balancing and network security
implement Azure Load Balancer
implement an application gateway
implement a Web Application Firewall
implement Azure Firewall
implement the Azure Front Door Service
implement Azure Traffic Manager
implement Network Security Groups and Application Security Groups
implement Bastion
Implement and manage Azure governance solutions
create and manage hierarchical structure that contains management groups, subscriptions and resource groups
assign RBAC roles
create a custom RBAC role
configure access to Azure resources by assigning roles
configure management access to Azure
interpret effective permissions
set up and perform an access review
implement and configure an Azure Policy
implement and configure an Azure Blueprint
Manage security for applications
implement and configure KeyVault
implement and configure Azure AD Managed Identities
register and manage applications in Azure AD
Implement solutions for apps (10-15%)
Implement an application infrastructure
create and configure Azure App Service
create an App Service Web App for Containers
create and configure an App Service plan
configure an App Service
configure networking for an App Service
create and manage deployment slots
implement Logic Apps
implement Azure Functions
Implement container-based applications
create a container image
configure Azure Kubernetes Service
publish and automate image deployment to the Azure Container Registry
publish a solution on an Azure Container Instance
Implement and manage data platforms (10-15%)
Implement NoSQL databases
configure storage account tables
select appropriate CosmosDB APIs
set up replicas in CosmosDB
Implement Azure SQL databases
configure Azure SQL database settings
implement Azure SQL Database managed instances
configure HA for an Azure SQL database
publish an Azure SQL database
GETTING HELP?
Make sure to join the Azure Study Group on Facebook and ask questions if you get stuck at all. Thousands of people are preparing to take this exam and there’s nothing better than helping each other out?
Good luck!
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