How I passed AZ-204 in 30 Days!

This article was originally published at https://parveensingh.com/how-i-passed-az-204-in-30-days/

AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure** is an exam that’s focused on developing scalable solutions from definition and design to development, deployment, and maintenance. performance tuning, and monitoring all those resources. This is one of the prerequisites if you are going for AZ-400.

This exam really covers all the aspects of developing the resource using C# or your language of choice however, Microsoft is more inclined towards using C#. The exam requires the ability to program in a language supported by Azure and be proficient in Azure SDKs, Azure PowerShell, and Azure CLI. No joke!

In order to sit for this exam, you should be familiar with the following key resources or at least be ready to learn them during your process of preparing for the exam.

Azure ARM Templates
Azure Container Registry
“Docker” knowledge is also helpful
Azure Web Apps (Tiers, Auto-scaling, Logs), Application Insights
Azure Monitor
Azure Functions (Connectors,)
Azure Logic Apps (Connectors)
Azure Cosmo DB
Azure Storage Account
Azure Vault
Azure Cache for Redis
Azure Event Grid, Event Notification Hub, Event Hub
Azure Service Bus, Queue Storage queues

The Core skills covered by Exam as outlined by Microsoft are:

Develop Azure compute solutions (25–30%)
Develop for Azure storage (10–15%)
Implement Azure security (15–20%)
Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions (10–15%)
Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services (25–30%)

My Experience

I’m not a .Net developer but I’ve worked with some C# code during my college times which definitely helped me to tackle the exam. If you are willing to put in the time, you can still learn the basics that are required for this examination. I started preparing for this exam about 20–25 days ago and schedule the exam beforehand so that I can set myself to prepare before the exam day.

What to expect in the exam?

Unlike AZ-104 which is based on the Administration of the Azure environment, the developer exam is more focused on building and planning the solutions to facilitate developers and incorporate Azure services in legacy and modern application. Whether the app is written in Python, Java, C#, or any similar language supported by Microsoft SDK, you should be familiar with the most used modules for a similar language.

You should be prepared to brainstorm the solutions based on the requirements in the exam questions. I honestly saw more case studies than expected. Also, don’t forget to actually deploy the resources and have a hands-on experience by testing and exploring the service features using Azure Portal.

Here are a few tips to be conscious of before sitting for this exam.

Be sure to read Microsoft Office Docs Website for details information about the services included in the exam.
Don’t miss out on Microsoft Learn modules as they cover a wide range of exercises and hands-on content.
Practice the sample exam questions as many times as you can to get yourself familiar with the kind of questions you may see in the exam.

Resources

Microsoft Learn

Microsoft has rich content on the Learning website which includes theoretical and lab content which is worth practicing.

Exam AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure — Learn

Thomas’s Blog

Thomas Maurer has a descriptive list of Microsoft link for each exam section and subtopics. A lot of these links take you to the Learn website mentioned in the last point, so make sure you are logged in with your Microsoft account to track your progress on the modules.

AZ-204 Study Guide: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure — Thomas Maurer

Whizlabs Exam Questions

Whizlabs provide some great practice content for preparation and exam readiness. I’d recommend taking the practice exams only from here. Be sure to take SiteWide 50% Discount (Code — WHIZSITE50) which is almost always running.

Microsoft Azure Exam AZ-204 Certification — Whizlabs

CloudAcademy

I should put this on top, but unfortunately, I came across this one week before my exam. Cloud Academy has great content on a lot of different industry certifications. I’d highly recommend purchasing their subscription. I used their practice exam and they were super descriptive and deep in terms of content coverage.

CloudAcademy AZ-204 Exam Prep

Pluralsight (Optional)

If you have an active subscription with Pluralsight, I’d recommend going through their AZ-203 module. Although AZ-203 is upgraded to AZ-204, it should still be relevant in terms of the services and covers a lot of sections.

Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure (AZ-203)