[Music] hello everyone and welcome to our ask the experts session on microsoft certification my name is allison cracker and i'm going to be your host today we have a wonderful panel of experts here to answer all your questions before we get started i just want to do a little reminder for how to engage with our experts so we have the q a chat so feel free to ask your questions in the q a chat you can either post anonymously or you can use your name now we ask that you upvote some of your favorite questions and those questions are going to be some of the questions that we get asked of our moderators we have experts that are answering uh both verbally and in the chat and so we're going to do our best to get to as many questions as time allows but please do ask your questions and again engage with us as as a reminder we do ask that you adhere to the microsoft code of conduct we'll have it here and then we're also going to be placing it in the chat so you can review that but we asked that that you take a take a quick look at that with that let me introduce our experts we have just a fantastic group of folks that are available um here to answer your questions we have sudarshan uh krishnamurthy who is our director of microsoft certification program and then we've got liberty munson who is the director of psychometrics here um for microsoft certification and then we have eric k moore who is an azure technical trainer and spends most of his days uh uh training customers and then we also have uh sarah mashvich and she is also an azure technical trainer and spends most of her day uh training customers both uh sarah and eric were actually uh in technical trainings today so we are we are very excited to have them join us um with that we're gonna go ahead and get started and my first question is going to go to sudarshan so sudarshan could you talk through how microsoft is closing the security skills gap thank you for that question security is really is at an inflection point if you think about all the surface of attacks that are constantly increasing because of remote work and everybody being connected remotely the surface of attacks is really increasing on the digital spectrum plus we are also seeing very sophisticated attacks from uh nation state attacks that even recently happened right so from a security standpoint it's really it is at an inflection standpoint and so we need to really make sure we have the right solution so microsoft security solutions are really built to address some of these uh emerging trends in security however we are seeing a significant amount of skills gaps in the security space uh today we have about 3.5 million people shot in the industry for specific security roles so with that in mind we are actually uh releasing a new set of security specific certifications and training so we've announced four new security uh certifications and training today at ignite and these are at different levels so there's a fundamental certification and there are three associate level certifications so no matter where you are in your security journey you can actually take these certifications in training and enhance your skills and help address those 3.5 million skills gap that i just talked about earlier so that's microsoft strategy and security uh specifically on security skilling if you are interested in these certifications in training you can go visit the microsoft learn website and learn more about those certifications and training that we just announced perfect thank you sudarshan um this next question is actually going to be for liberty on the subject of announcements we also made another recent announcement could you talk through the certification renewal announcement that was recently made oh i i would love to talk about this i'm super passionate about this this is something we've been working on for uh a little while and we're super excited to finally launch it but the idea is to create a more continuous learning experience related to a certification so once you get certified how do we make sure you keep up to up to date and keep your skills um relevant in the workforce as the tech as the pace of technology changes and requiring somebody to go and sit an exam every year or every two years is is really burdensome so how could we make this a simple a simpler process friction free that would entice people to want to keep their skills up to date and that's what the new cert renewal program is all about it's really about focusing on how do you maintain those skills how do you keep up to date in those job roles that are critical to supporting organizations in their digital transformations perfect so another follow-up question on that than liberty do all certifications have the option to renew all of our role-based and specialty certifications have an option to renew right now fundamentals is not part of that conversation so it's really just focusing on those job role certifications that we have perfect and then um if someone has multiple certifications expiring around the same time this is a question that we've been getting uh actually a lot today uh what should you do so if you've got multiple certifications expiring around the same time what what do you think someone should do what i would say is don't panic we've tried to make this a a very frictionless simple process so that if you just take a you know a couple hours to go through the learning path and maybe about 45 minutes to take the assessment that's the kind of time investment we're expecting and for many of you who are doing these uh jobs every day you probably don't even need the learning path you can just go take the assessment in 45 minutes and you're you know you passed your assessment your certification is renewed for another year go do the next one maybe not right away because it is a lot uh just from a you know a mental perspective but uh you know maybe the next day i i don't my piece of advice is don't panic we've tried to make this as frictionless as possible so that we can make sure you still have the skills that you stay engaged but that if you have multiple certifications it's not overly burdensome in the same way that taking multiple exams would be that's great advice um for our our certified community don't panic you know kind of approach them each each individually that's really great advice okay switching topics a little bit um our next question is for sarah sarah could you talk through uh the difference between our fundamentals our role base and our specialty certifications and sudarshan had mentioned um you know that we've got different types of certifications so if you could kind of explain um what the difference is between those yeah that's a great question and we definitely get this question a lot from our learners essentially fundamentals uh sentiment fundamental certifications are kind of the entryway into the world of microsoft certification so it does span across different areas whether it's azure microsoft 365 or power platform and essentially it gives a chance for those individuals who want to build on their foundational learning and validate their foundational learning across those technologies as well uh so fundamentals is optional however we do recommend it a lot especially when um when we when those individuals are also looking to go to the role-based certifications as well which brings me to the next one uh that sudarshan mentioned which is also the role-based certifications and as the name suggests this those are mainly focused on specific job roles so here they cover all of the technologies that are specific to the job role specifications within a specific um industry that works on a specific domain as well okay and then lastly you have the specialty certifications and those are a lot more advanced than the role-based certifications as well as the fundamentals ones and those are specialized in a very specific niche technology and they could span microsoft technologies or they could also span third-party technologies that interact with microsoft technologies or are hosted within microsoft technologies as well perfect thank you so much uh it's it's it's a new area for us as we've we've launched these relatively recently so um it's exciting to know that the differences between them i think that that's very helpful um this next question is gonna be for eric eric um you know we've got this this question that that gets asked often is you know i'm a i'm a developer or i'm not necessarily an it pro why should i care about microsoft certifications oh yeah that's a good one that does come up quite a bit developers usually just write code they don't think about what they're interfacing with and how things are changing we think about we talk about the speed of cloud and you look at how much the technology that developers need to interact with interface with has evolved just over the past five to ten years right so skills really have a much shorter life cycle than they might have had in the past so continuing to learn to continuing to build your abilities and understand how to securely efficiently and reliably connect to these highly distributed services and build enterprise solutions is absolutely important so no matter where you are on your developer career entry level or highly experienced getting certified being able to click stake that claim to fame of i've achieved that i have the badge i have the certification i've proved my knowledge not only helps you continue to expand but gives you something to look forward to as you go forward so whether you move into the world of devops cognitive services and ai data science or things related to iot development right all of that area continues to grow and the industry is very clear as to how much demand there is for those skills perfect that was a great answer thank you for that um as we've been talking about um you know role based certifications sudarshan this question is for you could you talk through why microsoft made the shift to role-based certifications and kind of the um both the vision behind it and and where we're going moving forward yeah that's a great question and we also get that a lot ever since we made that transition from the previous mcsadne portfolio to our role-based certifications so if you think about the id professional and the job role of an iit professional in the past these id professionals and uh as yourselves some of you uh in the in the room here in the virtual room here you probably were working on point solutions point products um and then uh your role has evolved over time where it's more around focus on solutions now and not on point products so when you think about the job role of an id professional and the different products that they work on it's all solution focused and therefore when we made the switch from product based certifications to role-based certification that was one of the key principles that we wanted to adopt to make sure we are looking at the industry trends and how the role of the it professional is evolving and based on that we've made the transition to role-based certifications where it's not just focused on my product but it's around building the entire solution so as you think about uh you know some examples uh in that space if you think about security for example it's not about just working on firewalls or web protection or endpoint protection like a microsoft atp defender those are all point products but now the skill set that's needed for the it professional specifically in the security space is end to end right where you understand firewalls you understand the concept of endpoint protection and then you can also work on azure sentinel as a stock analyst so that's why it's becoming very very specific to job roles instead of the point products that used to be there before that's the reason why we made the switch and we'll continue to and these are all these role-based certifications are all built uh with subject matter experts actually providing feedback uh as a day in the life of uh the professional who's actually involved in building these solutions together so we're taking their input and building these role-based certifications and we'll continue to monitor all the new job roles that are coming in the industry and then we'll add more certifications aligned to those job roles and that's where we are going uh in the future as well so i hope uh alison that helps answers the question that does answer the question thank you sudharshan so um as you know sudarsha mentioned we've been talking about kind of the shift shift to role based uh and this next question is for liberty as we've made this shift um we've been seeing a lot of changes happening in our in our certification program um and i know that some some people are having maybe a hard time keeping up so could you talk through why some of the changes happen um and what is some of the intent behind them and then the best way um for folks to kind of stay up to date well the short answer is it's the cloud and it's constantly changing and so it is kind it is this interesting balancing hack that we have in that the technology is constantly evolving so how do we keep our exams up to date and keep the learning content up to date and make that uh an experience that is uh reasonable for to keep candidates um interested in wanting to be certified and giving them the ability to get the skills that they need if they need to go through learning and still have them aligned to the exam so what we're trying to find is the right cadence where we're keeping up to date with the technology and still giving candidates enough notice about upcoming changes that would impact their certification and their exam experience so that they can be prepared so uh we do look at each of our role-based and specialty exams every two months and we update them based on any changes in the technology and so it is a pretty frequent cadence but we do try to let our candidates know that exams are going to be updated and by telling exactly when they're going to be updated in the exam details pages we show not only what is going to be updated but what it's going to become so you can clearly see where the changes are so the best way to stay up to date is to know when you're going to take the exam and then make sure you're constantly checking the exam details pages for when the next time we're going to update the exam is but it is about every two months so if you see something is going to update on march 26th the next time we'll update it is march april may 26 ish so that's kind of the a way to think about it is um for the role based and specialty exams we do try to keep up with the pace of change in the technology by updating our exams but still trying to provide that level of um insight for our candidates as they prepare so they know when they should take it if they should wait uh to take it because you know i'm i'm scheduled to take it this day you're gonna update it i'm gonna i'm scheduled to take it on may 25th you're updating it on may 26th so good um you're updating it on may 26th i'm scheduled to take it on may 27th maybe i want to pause so that i can uh and reschedule it for you know june 5th to give yourself a little time to pick up on any changes that we're making to the exam and liberty a follow-up question from the change's perspective so when we think about getting ready to take your exam or even keeping up to date with the technology we know that it's hard to keep everything up to date including the training so how do um you know and how should our audience think about staying up to date with with the technology to prepare for that exam if maybe the training isn't always up to date or there's lots of changes do you have other tips and tricks for staying up to date the well here's the the thing is that we do recognize that that is a challenge in this cloud-based world where things are changing so fast that we do try to make sure that the learning content is aligned to the exam content so we won't release updates to the exam until we know when the learning content is going to be in market to support those changes so that that's kind of the i i know it sometimes feels like the learning content is out of date um i saw that in some of the comments but that we're moving as fast as we can to keep up with the pace of change and we're trying to keep all of this in alignment so that people can leverage the learning if they need to in support of the exam but i think we all need to recognize that we are talking about something that is changing some it's so rapidly that it's very hard to have uh um to ensure everything is in lockstep but we do the best that we can to make sure that that learning and the exam content are kind of updated at the same cadence and at the same time perfect thank you um so speaking of learning and preparation uh sarah this next question is for you um how do um or what should our audience think about when it comes to preparation resources so what type of training is available um and then where do they discover that training so there are a lot of training resources available like for those who definitely for those who want to go through classroom training there is a lot of those available as well but for those who just want to basically get started on a specific certification path there's always a number of microsoft learn paths that they can go on and to just learn more about those technologies one thing like i recommend a lot for my learners if they are interested in a specific certification path then if you just search for that certification path on really any search engine you're able to see more details around the certification path so that's definitely a great way to get started to just look at what are the objectives are for that specific path and then underneath that you'll see like a number of microsoft learn learn modules that you can go in to learn more about those technologies so that is always a really great place to start which is uh the microsoft learn resources also if you go directly to the site you'll be able to browse by a specific job role and then go into the different modules that are offered there then another thing i always recommend to just get started with a technology or a certification path and prepare for that as always go through the online learning resources the azure documentation always has the most up-to-date information about a certain technology so definitely when you see there are some outdated contents and inconsistencies um always go there always microsoft learn will also pull a lot of the information from the online documentation uh then as far as classroom learning uh the asi program that we are in uh we basically offer role-based certifications and fundamental certifications across uh different technologies and different paths so if you do work within an organization just check that this our this program is also offered for your organization and then you can basically just go through the path of just registering for a classroom based on the certification path that you're also looking to following and going on and learning more about perfect thank you and um just just to make mention um we do have uh instructor training available as well as as sarah mentioned and so uh um like she was saying classroom training or instructor-led training that's available um for all of our certification uh that we have um in that's in market this next question um is for eric um and we get this question a lot eric um and i've seen it asked uh in the chat here today but um you know for someone who's interested in the cloud but maybe has traditionally worked or been focused on the on-premise space what should they do to get started what's kind of the best path that you would recommend oh that's a that's a good one because uh there are so many options it's really what what interests you what interests you and what do you focus on from an on-prem world that you learn is it around security is it around networking is it around uh infrastructure and architecture but as we're going to the cloud you don't even have to jump all the way to the cloud as a on-prem focused person you could be looking at azure stack as an edge-based appliance and managing the cloud in your data center on-prem hybrid is so prevalent that you don't have to make the full jump to the cloud you could just be stepping your way there a little bit at a time now if you are going to make that full jump i would say you probably want to look and say either fundamentals as a place to start to make sure you have the terminology and the the basic understanding and foundational elements of that and then look at the admin or developer or data science if if those are the particular areas of interest and expertise that you currently have in an on-prem world perfect thank you so much we we definitely get that question a lot from books so i appreciate that um sudarshan um there is a question this next one is going to be for you um we know that that covetous has had a huge impact um on on people around the world as we think about the investment that microsoft has made in skilling what what avail what is available to people who are maybe um furloughed or have been laid off our job seekers as a result to covet do we have anything that's available um that microsoft has in the market yeah absolutely first of all from a learning perspective there is a lot of learning resources available on microsoft learn so you can go to microsoft learn and look at specific areas that you know is of interest to you whether it's in the security space or azure or any of the other technology areas there's training content available so that's where you get started um with and these are all very small bite-sized learning so you can complete them at your own pace it's all free so that's something that you should leverage in addition to that we also have a certification offer a certification exam offer that we are offering to people that are out of jobs uh it's a special discount uh especially for people that are furloughed and they're looking for opportunities to skill up so that they can get jobs so i would encourage all of you to go to microsoft learn to learn more about that offer it's a 15 exam offer that we are specifically making available for those impacted by uh kovit and so these are all the opportunities that you can leverage and then skill up so that you can get connected to jobs and because of the certification and the learning there is also a connection to linkedin so the the top jobs that are relevant to that specific skill set we'll also make that available through this experience that that i just mentioned on microsoft learn so i would encourage all of you to who are impacted to leverage those opportunities so for learning for certification exams as well as those connections to jobs that we are providing through this experience perfect and then a follow-up question for you sudarshan um for those that you know can't actually get into a testing center physically because either they're closed or it's it's not safe do we have another option for people to test yes absolutely and this option is getting really popular uh so in the past before there is pre-covered we used to have a lot of people going into test centers to take their exams but now they can do it at the convenience of their home or their office or i mean i guess home in the code world and that option is is called remote proctoring it's online proctoring where you can sign up to take an exam at your own time there is a schedule available where you can go schedule the exam and there is some system checks that you need to do prior to taking the exam so that you make sure your computer your network and your camera is all working and once you do that system check then you can dial into the exam experience on the day of your exam and then go through that online at the convenience of your home so you don't have to go to a test center and that's available uh through online proctoring with our partnership with psnu so you can leverage that perfect thank you um definitely some innovation in this space and we're excited that we're able to support uh folks being able to take exams remotely um if if going into a test center is uh is not uh safe for you at this point in time this next question is for liberty and liberty i know you get this question a lot but when we think about um we think about preparing for certification is it enough to just complete say the learning paths on microsoft learn and does that um does that qualify you and prepare you for certification so my mantra is get trained get experience get certified so the training is really a good first step but our certification exams quite honestly are hard and so this should make you when you pass one when you earn one of our certifications you should be incredibly proud of what you've accomplished because we really want to make sure that you are truly qualified to uh be an azure administrator an azure developer or a microsoft 3 365 enterprise administrator whatever it is you're interested in so the the learning path will be a really great first step it covers all of the content that we'll have on the exam it gives you the basic skills to get ready for it but you really do have to have experience in that technology to be able to pass our exams because we're not asking you simple questions about what you know where do you go to do x y and z what we're saying is here's a problem you have to solve and unless you really understand the technology you're not going to be able to answer the question so get trained get experience get certified i love that get trained get experience get certified that's wonderful um another question liberty that um has come up in the chat that i know uh is is for you is can you walk through um because you know you had talked about cert renewal before and things like that could you actually walk through when a certification expires what happens to it um and then uh you know when someone actually renews their certification what happens to it can you walk through the the logistics of that a little bit yep so about six months before your certification will expire you will get a notification from microsoft saying your it's time to renew your certification and when you do when you go through that and you take action you will be sent to the learning path um and you can choose to do the learning path or not and then you will be uh get an option to start the assessment and you just need to pass the assessment before your certification expires if you're for whatever reason you missed the the four different emails that we will send you over the course of that six months to remind you of this great opportunity uh your certification will expire um as it says as on the day that it says in your transcript so uh when that happens um if your certification expires and you still want to be whatever it was you were and as your administrator let's just say you will have to retake the exam that's associated with that certification so don't let your certification expire go through cert renewal it will increase the expiration date or add 12 months to the expiration date on your certification so if it was going to expire on june 12th your june 12 2021 uh your certification will be extended to june 12 2022 and then six months before that you'll be asked to do the renewal again so it's it should be a very uh a predictable cadence on when you're going to be told to uh renew your certification and it will be just frequent enough so that there will be some changes in the technology and then you will keep your skills up to date and it will be great so you don't ever have to take an exam again until you want a new certification perfect thank you um this next question is for sarah sarah could you um kind of talk through uh some of your favorite uh courses that you teach yeah of course uh so i primarily teach courses within the data nai domain so i focus a lot on those uh i focus on role-based certifications so based on what i mentioned before those are those that are specified to a specific job role so uh the the courses that i teach are a dp200 201 which is now actually transitioning to a new course called dp203 so for those uh looking to uh to get certified uh look at the new certification path because it's a a lot different than the older one um and then i also talked teach um a lot on the ai as well as the data science certification paths so uh my favorite ones definitely is the data engineering path just because i love working with data and i love our data technologies and um i feel like um the the role the the path that we have for certification and data engineering just gives you a lot of information a lot of the skill sets that's required uh for the day-to-day on the job engineering role uh so those are the ones that i cover essentially but basically on the data engineering path is my favorite perfect that was great i always like asking that question um so with that we are actually out of time for questions thank you so much for everyone for attending this session for asking all of your questions our moderators are going to still remain on uh to make sure that we're getting some of the last minute chat questions and and cover off any of the questions but just as a reminder here are a few resources for you um for you know kind of to continue your journey so we have a curated experience on microsoft learn that has pulled together all of the resources from microsoft ignite so if you want to check that out we would definitely recommend that make sure that you bookmark our certification a page on microsoft learn we also have our microsoft learn community which is a great place to ask questions um get your questions answered stay up to date with all those changes that liberty had been talking about within the tech community and so we've uh got the microsoft learn community and blog we also have microsoft certified trainers who are answering questions in that space so that's a great place to get your questions answered if you have any more questions following up from today and then if you haven't heard about it which i hope you certainly have is the microsoft ignite cloud skills challenge which is a curated challenge experience for a microsoft attendee so go check that out in the learning zone with that thank you very much for your time and we look forward to seeing you soon
2021-03-13