Sunday, June 29, 2025

StackoverflowTips: Event Grid, Storage Queue, or Service Bus? A Pract...

 I was getting confused about the difference in Azure between:
1. Storage Queue
2. Service Bus
3. Event Grid

This article helps:

StackoverflowTips: Event Grid, Storage Queue, or Service Bus? A Pract...:   Azure offers several messaging services, each tailored for specific scenarios. Here's a breakdown of the differences between Azure Sto...

Saturday, April 19, 2025

2 exams; 1 certificate

 2 exams: 1 certificate

Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate

Saturday, February 15, 2020

A Puzzle

Any idea what quotation is this?


Thursday, January 9, 2020

I just sat and passed AZ-900

I just sat and passed AZ-900 with 858/1000.
I used my company's Udemy Academy subscription. This gave me access to:
  1. Scott Duffy's online course AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Prep - 2020 Edition
  2. Scott Duffy's online course Azure Serverless Functions and Logic Apps
  3. Thomas Mitchell's online course AZ-900 Azure Exam Prep: Security Privacy Compliance & Trust
I studied 3.5 days then sat and passed the exam.
I've discovered I can sit the exam from my home office. Most convenient. Although I had to rearrange my entire office to make it "sparse". And I wasn't allowed to cover my mouth. And I wasn't allowed to mumble the questions and/or answers. But it was jolly convenient none-the-less.
It helps that I was previously a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (.NET).
I really liked Scott's approach. Broke up "Death by PowerPoint" with useful demos and hands on labs.
Next steps:
  1. AZ-103 Admin
  2. AZ-203 Developer
  3. AZ-300 Architect
  4. AZ-301 Architect
I'm thinking that even though I'm a developer, I want to do 103 before 203, because it will give me a broader understanding leading up to 300 and 301. Is this sound thinking?

Sunday, January 5, 2020

My new training plan

I just created a new training plan for myself.  What do you think?


Level
Title
Role
Exam
Novice
Azure Fundamentals
Fundamentals
AZ-900
Intermediate
Azure Developer
Associate
AZ-203
Intermediate
Azure Administrator
Associate
AZ-103
Expert
Azure Architect Technologies
Expert
AZ-300
Expert
Azure Architect Design
Expert
AZ-301

 AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
  • Understand cloud concepts (15-20%)
  • Understand core Azure services (30-35%)
  • Understand security, privacy, compliance, and trust (25-30%)
  • Understand Azure pricing and support (20-25%)

AZ-103 Azure Administrator
  • Manage Azure subscriptions and resources (15-20%)
  • Implement and manage storage (15-20%)
  • Deploy and manage virtual machines (VMs) (15-20%)
  • Configure and manage virtual networks (30-35%)
  • Manage identities (15-20%)

AZ-203 Azure Developer Associate
  • Develop Azure Infrastructure as a Service compute solution (10-15%)
  • Develop Azure Platform as a Service compute solution (20-25%)
  • Develop for Azure storage (15-20%)
  • Implement Azure security (10-15%)
  • Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize solutions (10-15%)
  • Connect to and consume Azure and third-party services (20-25%)

AZ-300 Azure Architecture Technologies 
  • Deploy and configure infrastructure (25-30%)
  • Implement workloads and security (20-25%)
  • Create and deploy apps (5-10%)
  • Implement authentication and secure data (5-10%)
  • Develop for the cloud and for Azure storage (20-25%)

AZ-301 Azure Architect Design
  • Determine workload requirements (10-15%)
  • Design for identity and security (20-25%)
  • Design a data platform solution (15-20%)
  • Design a business continuity strategy (15-20%)
  • Design for deployment, migration, and integration (10-15%)
  • Design an infrastructure strategy (15-20%)


Wednesday, October 26, 2016

MS IGNITE NZ 2016

Microsoft Ignite (formerly Microsoft Tech-Ed) conference is nearly over.  It's been 3 years since I last posted to this blog.  What have a learned this year?
  • You don't need permission to improve the business.  - Dona Sarkar
  • DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.  - Donovan Brown
  • I got promoted from Lead Developer to Development Consultant (effectively a Solution Architect).
  • I've been at Spark (formerly Telecom NZ) now for over 11 years.
  • Infrastructure as Code: I can create a project in Microsoft Visual Studio which, when deployed, will stand up a VM in Azure.  Then my code project will be deployed onto it.
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (and SSRS 2016) integrates directly with Power BI.
  • Power BI is awesome.  It does Mobile Charts as well as KPI's and legacy tabular reports.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Teach Yourself Azure in 4 Hours

Learning to use Azure:
  1. Create Web Site - Check
    https://manage.windowsazure.com/?whr=live.com#Workspaces/All/dashboard
  2. Create Database – Check
    https://manage.windowsazure.com/?whr=live.com#Workspaces/SqlAzureExtension/Databases
  3. Upload Project to TFS – Check
    http://tfs.visualstudio.com/
  4. Link TFS to Azure Web Site – Check
    http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/common-tasks/publishing-with-tfs/
  5. Download Azure SDK for Visual Studio 2010 – Check
    http://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/download/details.aspx?id=15658
  6. Download Web Site publication connection settings – Check
    http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/deployment/cse-curated-view-deploy-to-waws
  7. Publish Web Site to Azure – Check
    (see above)
  8. Create Visual Studio VM – Check
    https://manage.windowsazure.com/?whr=live.com#Workspaces/VirtualMachineExtension/vms
  9. Synchronise Local Database Schema to Azure Database - Check.
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee730904.aspx
  10. Synchronise Local Database Data to Azure - Check.
    http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/sql-databases/getting-started-w-sql-data-sync/
Not easy, but worth it.
Got inspired by Scott Guthrie’s session on Azure yesterday at Tech Ed 2013, Auckland, NZ.