This week I did a first-time delivery of MOC AZ-305, Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, towards Microsoft Certified Azure Architect Expert Certification. The Exam is still in beta, I took it a week before delivering the training. Making the time investment count double, preparing for both my Exam, and delivering the training.
I consider this training and this exam (topics, depth, and breadth) one of the better ones out of the whole Curriculum. The real “Expert level” deal. The 4-day training can be delivered without Labs, the GoDeploy Labs have no direct link with the course content but offer some great deep dives in specific technologies should they fall out of the knowledge scope of the participants. Long Labs, up to 3-4 hours. Each Module ends with one or more Case Studies, plenty of room to discuss various options.
After my preparation I had some concerns for the knowledge level of the participants, it happens too often that people over-estimate themselves in which case they might get lost on day 2 or so. The course really covers a lot of Cloud in just 4 days, the more knowledge the participants already have, the higher the value of this course gets. I would suggest to Microsoft Learning that the prerequisites (also for Certification) should be not just the AZ-104 Azure Administrator. Add 1 or 2 “electives” (as in the old days of MCSE Certifications). Electives can be almost any “Associate level” Certification (AZ-500, AZ-700, SC-300, AZ-204, etc.).
Luckily, the 6 participants in this group selected the right course, they were all very seasoned senior Azure Admins/Engineers and there was plenty of expertise in the (virtual) room on specific technologies like SQL and Kubernetes. But anyhow, take care of the intake of participants for this course.
I started of with a whiteboard session of the “Well Architected Framework”, to give some context on how to approach the content. So, in the discussions on the Case Studies, we could discuss possible solutions based on these principles. For in the Exam as well, references are made to these principles. Maybe a module on this could be added to the course. On day 1 and 2 (and planned for day 3 and 4) I allocated some 2-3 hours for them to work on the Labs. On day 3 however a request was made to not use course time for Labs and rather spend it on discussing the topics and the case studies. The vote on that was unanimous, Wonderful! We ended up in vivid discussions and we all learned a lot form each other. I invited them to look at becoming MCT! And I think some of them will take that path . As we all agreed that the Knowledge and Skills Gaps are a big showstopper for leveraging Cloud technologies. Do something about it instead of complaining about it.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this course and I’m looking forward to delivering it again (scheduled for March).
Happy Learning!
