For those of you studying towards the AZ220 Azure IoT Developer Certification, Pluralsight have begun publishing a series of videos targeting individual sections of the Objective Domain.
Why become certified?
Becoming certified in any subject is a fantastic idea for a number of reasons. The primary goal for me when deciding to become certified is to give myself a measure of how well I know the whole subject.
In the case of AZ220 of course, I was involved in writing questions for the exam itself. However the process is actually quite similar, in that as authors, we're tasked with writing a question on a given topic. In order to write a good question you need a clear understanding of the topic and the areas of learning required. This is the same when preparing for the exam.
There are some other great benefits to becoming certified too. An obvious benefit is the credibility you add to your skill set when either applying for jobs or tendering for contracts depending on your mode of working. This can mean the difference between landing that dream job or not, or perhaps achieving a payrise or promotion, or grabbing a new client.
Of course, having well trained staff working for your company has a heap of benefits in itself, meaning the work they produce will be of a higher quality. Also, staff who are offered training as part of their position tend to be happier in their role.
Finally, certifications often form part of a wider set of exams leading to a achieving an Associate or Expert level certification. This then demonstrates your overall mastery of a far wider topic area.
Where do I start?
When studying for Microsoft Certifications, the first place I start is on the Certification Page;
This is where you'll find information on the audience that Microsoft are pitching the exam to and a roundup of the responsibilities and skills of the person taking the exam.
There's then a more in depth list of Exam Topics which is called the Skills Outline, this is often referred to as the exam Objective Domain or OD. You'll often find this as a downloadable document in the Skills Outline Section;
What are Pluralsight doing?
There are a growing number of courses published so far, with the complete path being released very soon!
- Create and Configure an IoT Hub - Pete Gallagher
- Build Device Messaging and Communication - Pete Gallagher
- Configure Physical IoT Devices- Pete Gallagher
- Exam Alert: Implement the IoT Solution Infrastructure in Microsoft Azure - Pete Gallagher
- Configure Routing in Azure IoT Hub - Jurgen Kevelaers
- Configure Stream Processing - Jurgen Kevelaers
- Implement the Device Provisioning Service (DPS) - Jurgen Kevelaers
- Configure Solutions for Time Series Insights (TSI) - Jurgen Kevelaers
As a bit of explanation, each section of the Exam Skills Outline or Objective Domain document, is broken down into different categories and sections.
"Create and Configure an IoT Hub" forms the first section of the AZ220 Objective Domain Document which is part of the Implement the IoT Solution Infrastructure category;
As such, I've formatted my course to map to these domain objectives exactly;
Along with some fabulous fellow authors, I was actually involved in the creation of the AZ220 certification. This has gifted me a unique perspective from which to create valuable content. This I hope will help make these videos very useful in your journey to passing the AZ220 Azure IoT Developer Certification.
You can find all of the courses on pluralsight here; https://www.bit.ly/pluralsight-az220
What other sources of learning material are there?
Alongside this series of videos, there is also a wealth of information to study on the Microsoft Docs site, as well as curated Learning Paths as part of Microsoft Learn.
Further, the excellent Paul DeCarlo has created an invaluable Study guide for the AZ220 Certification, with links to the relevant MS Docs pages for each section of the Objective Domain.
There's also an Event Learning Path available. This is a set of curated content created by members of the Azure IoT Advocacy team and is a solution based set of Videos tailored towards the topics in the exam.
Are there any events planned?
At the time of writing, we're excited to announce a special IoT Event named All Around Azure IoT!
On January 19th 2021, across three different time zones, this awesome event will feature speakers both from the Azure IoT Advocacy team as well as Microsoft MVPs like myself. Once again, this content will be targeted at attendees looking to learn more about the Azure IoT platform with a view to becoming certified. I highly recommend looking at the event, it'll be awesome!
Final takeaways...
Azure IoT Developers looking to pass the AZ220 Azure IoT Developer have never had so many excellent resources to call upon to help in their journey.
The Azure IoT platform is, in my opinion, the most fully featured platform for IoT Developers, the range of services available on any platform, the learning materials are second to none and the community is fantastic.
Becoming certified will offer you a great range of opportunities in your career as an IoT Developer and is a great way to verify your achievements.
I hope you have fun, enjoy your journey and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions at all!