Recently I found out that I passed the BETA exam for Azure Database Administrator Associate qualification. I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the exam and if you would like to take the test, how best to prepare. Candidate profile for this exam is as follows:

“Candidates for this exam are database administrators and data management specialists that manage on-premises and cloud relational databases built on top of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure data services.”

So, it makes sense to say that this was the BETA exam ( now live ) meaning there was not much to go on in terms of a thorough topic list or formal courses / books to read through. Some questions actually threw me off and some questions I guessed because I couldn’t even read the graphics attached to the question! (Beta mode right). Now that the exam is live my first tip is study the topic list.

TIP 1 – Read the syllabus please. You can find the details here – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/certifications/exams/dp-300

You definitely need to do this because there will be a section you will need to “brush up” on such as, the following which caught me out:

Configure DR by using platform and database tools section –  configure Azure Site Recovery for a database offering.

And yes you will need to know about SQL VMs, Managed Instances, not just Azure SQL DB. Another important point is that this is an ever changing technology and I am sure that this topic list gets updated. I know that if I was writing this exam I would be asking you about private links vs VNET endpoints etc.

TIP 2 – If you look at the above link, Microsoft offers a learning path now. This is the content related to a post I did earlier about formal hands on Azure SQL training Microsoft have developed. I am not saying that if you go through all of this you will pass the exam but it will form a good solid base and you will stand a very high chance of a pass rate.

TIP 3 – You have to get a free Azure subscription as a minimum. This is not only to set things up like failover groups , alerts, auditing etc but I used my subscription to dispel myths and confirm things, for example, how many read replicas can you have in a business critical tier vs a standard DTU tier?

TIP 4 – I say this one because I mean it, go through my blog. There are things which will definitely help. Yes I ramble a lot but they have a purpose.

Good luck. Any questions, let me know.