Azure

Tips on Becoming MCSA – Cloud Platform

Manjunath

This is my first blog on Azure. I would like to share my experience on the Microsoft exam azure. Before starting will would give background of my achievement. “I’ve cleared 70-532 and 70-534 in single day”. Yes, you heard it right! Trust me this isn’t that difficult

Exam Pattern in Pearson (In general):

There will two parts to exam
1) Survey section :

I felt this survey is not important. This will contain set of survey questions about your proficiency level in each section of that particular exam.

Initially, I felt it some junk thing and marked my self as proficient (highest second) in survey for 70-532 exam. After survey, the question which appeared  in exam looked little difficult to answer.

For the second exam, I realized this and marked my proficiency level as least second for exam 70-534. The questions which appear in exam weren’t that difficult.

I’m not sure if survey really matters in determining exam question difficultly level, but this is my observation. (This sounds like machine learning to some extent!)

2) Question

There are two type of questions.

Do or Die (I just call like this)

  • Yes, these questions can be answered only once and it gets freeze.  you can’t be looked back or mark them for “Review later” options.
  • This will be mostly yes or no like of questions OR MCQ
  • This will be appear in the start like 4-5 questions and at the end 4-5 questions.

Review enabled questions

  • These will some where 40+ questions
  • Contains
    • Case studies
      • There will be 3 or 4 case studies will be there. The questions will be asked based on the case study. This questions are tricky as the answer lies in the case study it self. if you
      • are confused on two options, then you will have to skim case studies multiple times. I’m pretty sure answer will be present in the question it self.
      • some times, answer what you think may not be correct when you think it as general scenario and as you think with case study scenario perspective. Think answer only with respect to case study perspective.
    • Direct MCQ
      • There will not be any case study for this. Real the question and answer best suited. There will minute differences within options. identity those minute difference to get your answer right
    • Code related
      • There will section where you will have to fill the missing coding part (if you lucky, you may not get these).
      • Below are the practice code you should be familiar
        • Await, Async, key words in .net
        • Know what methods are used for creating service bus queues, storage accounts, blob and table storage clients.
        • For queues, you need know what is SAS token, Peek, Receive, Dequeue operations
    • Arrange them in order steps
      • There will be steps which will be given in the question. which needs to be arranged in order to achieve an objective.
      • Arranging these in the correct order is the most difficult questions (as per me).
      • Again, in few question there will be answers within in the questions. I remember a question where it was stated that “variable employee1 and employee2 are already declared”. so in my answer, I didn’t have to select steps for variable declaration.

Preparation – Technical:

  • Azure batch vs Web jobs vs Azure schedulers
  • Logic apps, service fabric –> This is not present in exam syllabus but you need know what it is. There was one question where this was present as one of the option.
  • Difference Azure queue and Azure Service bus queue.
  • Storage types, blob (page, append), file storage, Vdisk storage
  • what is VMimage,VDisk and VHDx files.
  • Memorize various tier present in azure for storage, VM size (D series, G series and others). there will be minimum 4 approx. question on this.
  • Worker roles, web roles and role instances.
  • Dev test labs
  • Json syntax
  • ARM template syntax – schemas, parameters, output etc.
  • Authentication – SML, OAuth, Kerberos
  • Azure active directory domain services and on-premise and active directory, federation identity providers. DirSync, password sync
  • Role base access control – contributor, owner, reader and few other types
  • Is it necessary to have hand on?
    • Actually, not necessary. If you are going through plural sight videos, there will be demo sections which shows code, azure portal usage,
    • But, you can still create 200$ credit subscription and explore. This will help you remember terminologies easier.
  • Coming to important part, do we need dumps?
    • Yes, it doesn’t matter weather the dumps are valid or not. this gives you practice and help you to understand various types of questions. What i have seen is these dumps are generally only 30 percent valid (if you are lucky may be more).

This article is consequence of two exams 70-532 and 70-534 (replaced by 535). This will be partially applicable for other cloud examination path.

Hope this help in your exams! Good luck.

 

Leave a comment