Overview

At their 2018 Ignite conference Microsoft released detailed information about the sweeping changes they are making in the Azure and MS 365 curriculums. The news wasn’t limited to the announcement of new courses, but also revealed there will be new learning paths that will be mapped to job roles (using their own business skills analysis) and courses aligned directly with the new exams. To further embolden their new learning pathway Microsoft also announced the retirement of parts of the existing Azure curriculum and their associated certifications, as well as a route for 'transitioning' to the new qualifications.

What does the future look like?

There are new learning paths for Azure Certification

Microsoft have embraced a more free-form workshop model of delivery to give a far more agile feel to their Azure courses. Each learning path is made up of single-day courses that focus on a single technology.

Each course can be taken individually but can also be combined into a 5-day block of learning, allowing learners to have more control of their Azure education.

There are new exams with a much narrower focus, which should make them easier to prepare for and show more role-specific qualifications as a result.

The new job roles and their certifications are the following:

Azure Solutions Architect
Azure Administrator
Azure Developer
Azure DevOps Engineer
Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator
Microsoft 365 Modern Desktop Administrator

The exams for the Azure Administrator path have been live since July 2018 and the Azure Developer and Azure Solutions Architect certification exams were released in beta at the end of September 2018. The remaining paths (Azure DevOps Engineer, Microsoft 365 Modern Desktop Administrator, and Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator) should be launched by the end of the year.

What about my current Azure qualifications?

Recertification is necessary to maintain your qualifications

If you already hold any of the old Azure certifications (70-532, 70-533, 70-535) you will be eligible to take a 'transition' exam and migrate your certifications over to the new paths.

The following transition exams are being offered for a limited period of time only (they are slated to be retired after June 30th 2019):

What's in the pipeline?

The sweeping changes are not just limited to the Azure curriculum

News of the Microsoft 365 Certified: Modern Desktop Administrator Associate and Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert certifications recently surfaced.

These are rumoured to also require two exams to be passed in order to earn each full qualification. Although full details of these paths have not yet been publicised, they are expected to be made available by the end of 2018.

Sounds great, now what?

We want your feedback

At QA we are looking to engage with our customers as much as possible as the landscape of training changes and so would love to hear your thoughts on what Microsoft have done.

Please follow this link to a brief survey where you can tell us exactly what this change means to you and how we could help you embrace these new skills.

As a thank you for completing the survey, you'll be entered in to our prize draw to win a free Microsoft Azure course with QA, worth up to £3,000. *Terms and conditions apply.

We will be offering these new learning paths in the very near future, so for more details please watch this space.

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Mark Crump

Head of Cloud Solutions

As the Head of Cloud Solutions, Mark architects the adoption, creation and delivery of our public cloud courses. As well as heading up this sector Mark also delivers training on Microsoft and Google public clouds as well as System Center Virtual Machine Manager/Hyper-V Private Cloud and Server 2012R2 on-premise infrastructure.

Attend our free webinar to learn more

Azure Certification Updates Webinar 14/11/18

This FREE webinar outlines the changes to the Azure and M365 curriculum.

Send us your feedback and enter our prize draw

At QA we are looking to engage with our customers as much as possible as the landscape of training changes and so would love to hear your thoughts on what Microsoft have done. Please follow the link below to a brief survey where you can tell us exactly what this change means to you and how we could help you embrace these new skills. As a thank you for completing the survey, you’ll be entered in to our prize draw to win a free Microsoft Azure course with QA, worth up to £3,000. *Terms and conditions apply.

Survey Prize Draw Terms and Conditions

Open to UK residents, aged 18 and over, excluding employees of QA Ltd or Microsoft
No purchase necessary, for those who have completed the survey only. To enter the prize draw, entrants must fully complete the survey by 1st November 2018.
The prize is a free of charge Microsoft Azure course with QA up to a value of £3,000. The course must be booked and attended by 31st March 2019.
No cash or other alternative to the stated prizes are available.
Once courses have been booked and confirmed, any changes will be subject to QA's General Terms & Conditions of Business and so may be subject to cancellation or rescheduling fees.
If the winners have an existing booking for any Azure course they cannot cancel without penalty, in accordance with QA's General Terms & Conditions of Business.
For the name and county of the winner(s), please send a SAE to AZURE SURVEY PRIZE DRAW c/o Marketing, QA Ltd, Rath House, 55-65 Uxbridge Road, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 1SG.
Winners will be notified by phone or email within 7 working days of the draw date, all reasonable endeavours will be made to contact winners but if they are not contactable within 30 days the prize will be forfeited and a new winner selected.
By entering entrants agree to participate in reasonable publicity in the event that they are a winner. This may include; use of their name and image in online publicity, in emails and through any other print or social media, as well as releasing their name and country as part of a list of winner(s).
Entrants agree that by entering the prize draw their personal details may be stored and otherwise processed by QA Ltd for the purposes of administering the prize draw and for the marketing and sending of other special offers. Entrant's information will also be passed to Microsoft.

Microsoft re-future Azure learning