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Learning Azure skills will play an integral part in your career growth. Not only do Azure certifications get you higher salaries but you can enter a recognised field and enjoy a good job title.
Azure, Microsoft Azure or Windows Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft released on 1st February 2010. It works best on the operating system, including Linux and Microsoft Windows. It supports building, testing, deploying and managing applications and services of various types with the help of Microsoft managed data centres.
It also offers additional support for Saas (Software as a service), PaaS (Platform as a service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) and is effective in managing various programming languages along with their specific tools and frameworks.
Microsoft Azure Certification is ideal for IT professionals, Cloud solution architects, Experienced Azure administrators and developers and DevOps professionals. The prerequisites to pursue this course will include prior hands-on experience in various IT operations, covering networking, virtualisation, security, compute, storage, billing and budgeting and governance; along with the proficiency in at least Azure administration, Azure development or DevOps.
The cloud computing business almost doubled from $229 billion in the year 2019, which clearly shows its wide-scale usage. Amazon Web Service (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud and now Microsoft Azure are the new age cloud computing technology that is high in demand and offers a promising future to the students with the knowledge of this software and system process.
Why Azure?
A candidate’s chances of getting hired in the cloud computing domain is a certification in Microsoft Azure. The opportunities for Microsoft Azure certified aspirants is growing rapidly and below are the reasons how this certification is used by millions of people across the globe.
- According to Microsoft, over 1,000 new customers sign up to Azure daily which means 365,000 new companies adopting MS Azure every year.
- Azure is being used by over 57% of Fortune 500 companies.
- With the help of Azure, Microsoft’s commercial cloud revenue has increased by 104%, with an annual run rate of $6.3 billion in revenue.
Cloud computing has a vast network and is utilised in various sectors in today’s life like Education, Healthcare, Banking and many more. Which makes this certification important and a step ahead in the future of technology.
Why we need Microsoft Azure Certification?
This Certification is important to get hold over the fastest growing and high in demand technology known as cloud computing. Through this Certification, a person can learn to use various cloud-based services and manage to secure a good job position in a tech company at a respectable pay scale. Different types of Microsoft Azure Role-Based Certifications to choose from based on their interest, experience and calibre and gain the knowledge of the new age cloud computing system introduced by Microsoft.
Below are the nine Microsoft Azure certifications which are organised into three levels: Fundamental, Associate and Expert.
- Azure – Fundamentals Exam AZ-900: This certification validates the foundational level of knowledge of Azure cloud services. It also helps non-tech candidates to understand cloud services who are offering services such as sales, purchasing, and marketing Azure cloud services.
- Azure Administrator – Associate Exam AZ-103: This new certification validates the knowledge and skills of implementing, monitoring and maintaining Microsoft Azure services which include computing, storage, networking and security.
- Azure Developer – Associate Exam AZ-203: This certification is for developers to design, build, and maintain cloud applications and services with the coordination of cloud database administrators (DBAs), cloud solution architects, cloud administrators and clients. Certified Azure developers can participate in all phases of development like solution design, deployment, testing, and maintenance with coordination of cloud DBAs, cloud solution architects and cloud administrators.
Candidates must be skilled in at least one cloud platform supporting programming language and should have at least one-year experience in software development for scalable solutions. - Azure Security Engineer – Associate Exam AZ-500: This certification is for candidates who implement and manage security controls, identity and access management and are responsible for securing cloud data, apps and networks. As a Microsoft Azure security engineer, candidates are responsible for managing and securing cloud-based solutions and may also secure hybrid cloud solutions as part of an end-to-end infrastructure.
- Azure AI Engineer – Associate Exam AI-100: This associate-level certification is designed for candidates who implement Microsoft AI solutions involving natural language processing, speech, computer vision, bots, and agents using Cognitive Services, Machine Learning and Knowledge Mining.
- Azure Data Scientist – Associate Exam DP-100: This certification is designed to learn about designing and implementing a Data Science Solution on Azure. It will help you learn to apply the Azure machine learning approaches in training, evaluation and deployment of models that are used to solve business problems.
- Azure Data Engineer – Associate Exams DP-200 and DP-201: This is designed to implement data solutions that include provisioning of data storage services, batch data processing, develop streaming, implement security requirements, implement data retention policies and accessing external data sources.
- Solutions Architect – Expert Exams AZ-300 and AZ-301: This exam helps engineers to design data storage, data processing and data security and compliance solutions for Azure services. Candidates must have the ability to design Azure SQL Databases, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Stream Analytics, and Blob storage services.
- Azure DevOps Engineer – Expert Exam AZ-400: This expert-level exam is designed for candidates who are the advocate for businesses and translate business needs into reliable, secure and scalable Azure cloud solutions. The prerequisites include advanced knowledge and expertise in various IT operations including virtualisation, identity management, virtual networking, security, business continuity, data management, disaster recovery, budgeting and governance.
How will the Azure certification help you?
The Microsoft Azure Certification will prepare you for a career as a certified Azure Cloud Solutions Architect. It will cover advanced activities for working with the Azure platform including managing Azure resources, configuring and deploying virtual machines and networks and mastering Azure Cognitive Services solutions.
To read more about other important certifications that are important for your career, click here.
