It’s important to use plenty of great study materials when studying for that next Microsoft certification exam. There are many great paid resources available on the video course front. You can always read the official Microsoft documentation too. However, if you need some hands-on guides to step you through performing tasks, it’s great to use hands-on lab guides to speed up the learning process. There are some great paid resources available, but there are also some really great free resources as well.

The Microsoft documentation is a great resource that includes several “step-by-step” type guides on performing tasks and getting things done with various technologies. Also, the Microsoft Learn site has many great labs and other instructions that can be used. However, the Internet is ripe with a ton of really great hand-on lab content that is free, and even much of it is released as Open Source too!

FREE Microsoft Certification Hands-on Lab Guides

Below you’ll find a list of some really great FREE hands-on lab resources for helping you study for many of the different Microsoft certification exams!

Free labs from Microsoft Learning

Microsoft Learning builds lots of instructor-led training courses and even the Microsoft Learn content. A somewhat obscure fact (at least until this article was published) is that they release TONS of hands-on lab guides free and open source over on Github under the “MicrosoftLearning” organization account.

Here are several of the Free and Open Source projects available in the MicrosoftLearning organization on Github:

• AI-100 Design Implement Azure AI Solutions Exam Labs
• AZ-103 Microsoft Azure Administrator Exam Labs
• AZ-120 Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads Exam Labs
• AZ-203 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure Exam Labs
• AZ-220 Microsoft Azure IoT Developer Exam Labs
• AZ-300 Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies Exam Labs
• AZ-301 Microsoft Azure Architect Design Exam Labs
• AZ-500 Azure Security Exam Labs
• AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Labs
• DP-100 Designing and Implementing Data Science Solutions on Microsoft Azure Exam Labs
• DP-200 Implementing an Azure Data Solution Exam Labs
• DP-201 Designing an Azure Data Solution Exam Labs
• MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams Exam Labs
• 70-480 Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Exam Labs
• 70-483 Programing in C Sharp Exam Labs
• 70-486 Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications Exam Labs
• 70-537 Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack Exam Labs
• EdX DAT101x Introduction to Data Science Course Labs
• EdX DAT220x Delivering a Data Warehouse in the Cloud Course Labs
• EdX DEV212x Intro to DevOps Course Labs

Microsoft Cloud Workshops

The Microsoft Cloud Workshops have a ton of really great hands-on labs for various technology and business scenarios. There are also design session guides that can be used as well. All the Microsoft Cloud Workshops can be found at https://microsoftcloudworkshop.com and they are hosted on Github as well!

You can also find a few of the older MCW’s reshared here on Build5Nines.com as well under the “mcw” tag. These can be found here: https://build5nines.com/tag/mcw/

Other Labs

There are many other Free and Open Source hands-on lab resources available across the Internet. Many are hosted on Github and others are hosted elsewhere.

Here’s a list of some more lab resources to look into:

• Microsoft/TechnicalCommunityContent repo on Github includes labs for PowerBI, Big Data and Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data, DevOps, IoT, HoloLens, Mobile Development, Windows 10, and more.
• Azure IoT Labs to build end to end IoT solutions from azure-samples/azureiotlabs on GitHub

Wrap Up

There are a lot of really great hands-on lab guides available online for free. Remember, Microsoft Learn is a really great resource, but so are many of the free lab resources available too. Another great aspect to things is there are many that are released, not just for free, but also as Open Source!

Happy studying and learning!

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