AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure Certification Exam

The AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam tests and validates your expertise as an Azure Developer. This exam tests your expertise across all phases of the Microsoft Azure development process; from solution design, to development and deployment, to testing and maintenance.

AZ-204 Certification Target Audience

The AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam is geared towards Azure Developers who participate in all phases of the development process; from requirements definition and design, to development and deployment, and maintenance. Candidates should be proficient in the Azure SDKs, data storage options, data connections, APIs, app authentication and authorization, compute and container deployment, debugging, performance tuning, and monitoring.

Candidates are expected to have between 1 and 2 years professional development experience and experience with Microsoft Azure. They will be expected to be able to write code using an Azure supported language; such as C#, Java, or others.

AZ-204 Exam Objective Domains

Here’s a very high level list of the skills and objective domains measured on the AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam. The percentages next to each objective area represents the number of questions in that objective area on the exam.

• Develop Azure compute solutions (25-30%)
• Develop for Azure storage (15-20%)
• Implement Azure security (15-20%)
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions (5-10%)
• Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services (20-25%)

To view the full list of exam objectives, please reference the official AZ-204 exam page from Microsoft. Currently, it’s released in the same document as the AZ-203 objectives, until the official release of the AZ-204 exam expected in February 2020.

AZ-204 Azure Developer Training Courses

With the AZ-204 Azure Developer exam objectives just recently being announced, and the exam not yet being available, there aren’t any specific video courses that target this new exam just yet. Although, with this exam being a replacement for the similar AZ-203 Azure Developer certification exam, you could begin studying for this exam now by utilizing existing AZ-204 training courses and comparing them to the AZ-203 exam objectives as your guided study path.

NOTE: The AZ-204 exam was released on February 24, 2020, as a replacement for the AZ-203 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam. Instead of a straight replacement, Microsoft has a 90-day phased release schedule where both exams will be available until AZ-203 is finally retired on or around August 31, 2020.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate

Once a candidate passes either the AZ-203 or AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam they will earn the Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certification.

The Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate is part of a job-role based restructuring of the Microsoft certifications that began back in late 2018. This particular certification is geared towards candidates who are Azure Developers in their normal job in designing and building cloud-based software solutions utilizing the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Take Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 Exam First

The AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam does not have any prerequisites to take. However, if candidates are new to Microsoft Azure development, then they may want to take the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification exam first. This will validate their knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of Microsoft Azure.

If candidates are new to the cloud, or to Microsoft Azure, then the AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals could be a good place to start.

What’s Next? The Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert!

Once a candidate has already earned the Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certification (by passing either AZ-203 or AZ-204) they can take an additional exam to earn the full Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert certification. The DevOps Engineer Expert certification is earned on top of the Azure Developer Associate by taking and passing the additional AZ-400 Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions certification exam.

Happy studying!

Original Article Source: AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure Certification Exam written by Chris Pietschmann (If you're reading this somewhere other than Build5Nines.com, it was republished without permission.)