Exam Study Resources for AZ-120 Planning and Admin...

clthe · ‎2019 Dec 30

[Update]: Author's Note: 29-Feb-2020: I finally got my results after waiting 3 months for it. Woohoo!

[Update]: Author's Note: 30-Dec-2020:

Change of Certification Expiry

Basically from June 2021, newly earned certifications will have a 1-year certification validity that will require renewal a below.

Renewal of Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Learning has announced a renewal schedule for role based and speciality certtifications. By Early Feb 2021, Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty, you will receive notification via email to renew via an online assessment without going through the exams that we had to go through.

Goto the links above to read further details

[Update]: Author's Note: 21-Feb-2020: Exam AZ-120 is now officially Generally Available and out of beta]

I thought it would be useful to post this for the benefit of SAP Technical Architects/Basis Administrators as written in my earlier article SAP Expert Role Guide to Microsoft Azure Skills and Certification.

First, lets understand the criteria of the exam as released by Microsoft on 21-Feb-20.

It is pretty self-explanatory, and it is recommended for people to undertake AZ-103: Azure Administrator or AZ-300: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies or AZ-301: Microsoft Azure Architect Design. You have to pass both AZ-300 and AZ-301 to achieve the credential Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. For example, I took both AZ-300 and AZ-301 but did not take the AZ-103. I will not provide any information on these exams as there are already plenty of articles online.

Likewise, by passing AZ-120: Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads (beta), you will get the credential Microsoft Certified: Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty.

Skills measured for AZ-120 exam can be downloaded here.

Migrate SAP Workloads to Azure (10-15%)

Design an Azure Solution to Support SAP Workloads (20-25%)

Build and Deploy Azure SAP Workloads (35-40%)

Validate Azure Infrastructure for SAP Workloads (10-15%)

Operationalize Azure SAP Architecture (10-15%)

For those who are new to SAP on Azure, Microsoft Learning released these Level 100-200 Beginner resources where it is a good starting point where there are two learning pathways.

Microsoft Learn

Explore Azure for SAP workloads - Learn | Microsoft Docs

If you fairly well-advanced up to Level 300-400, there is still a need to able to understand and absorb the content (which are distributed across Microsoft Docs). Most people will find it hard to locate the documentation. I recommend starting here:

SAP on Azure - Getting Started on Microsoft Docs

[Authors Note: 25-Jan-2020]

My colleagues Nick Morgan and Bartosz Jarkowski had recently released a new SAP on Azure Implementation Guide which encapsulates most if not all the documentation in Microsoft Docs. Go to the link above to download it. Its a hefty volume of 221 pages but I find it is very comprehensive and up-to-date.

Other useful content includes blogs from my colleagues from Microsoft Global SAP Deployment Engineering Team:

SAP on Azure–Designing for availability and recoverability

SAP on Azure Architecture - Designing for performance and scalability

SAP on Azure Architecture - Designing for security

SAP on Azure–Designing for Efficiency and Operations

Other blogs by other Microsoft folks including Cameron Gardiner has very detailed Level 400 information.

New technical community site (since May 2019)

Running SAP Applications on the Microsoft Technical Community

Legacy MSDN community site (up to May 2019)

Running SAP Applications on MSDN

Microsoft, all the necessary content are structured according to the AZ-120 exam criteria above. As Azure technologies change very frequently throughout the year, some of the Microsoft Docs actually outpace the exam criteria so it might be best to follow a structure.

Last, but not least it is also important to do practical labs. In beta exams, there are no labs but I reckon this will come when it is made generally available. Take time out here to do some of the exercises.