Azure Administrators are the individuals responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Microsoft Azure solutions, including major services related to compute, storage, network, and security for businesses and corporations.
Microsoft has created the Certified Azure Administrator Associate certification to verify the skills of these administrators and assign the credential to those that meet or exceed the measured criteria.
When this exam was first released, it was a two part exam, consisting of:
Exam AZ-100: Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and Deployment
Exam AZ-101: Microsoft Azure Integration and Security
Both of these exams formally retired on May 1, 2019
Exam AZ-102: Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Transition – this exam was offered in the same time period as the AZ-100 and AZ-101. It was intended only for candidates that had taken Exam 70-533: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions.
If learners had not taken Exam 533, they were not granted the certification by taking the AZ-102 exam.
While it was released, the transition exam was intended for people who had already demonstrated skills with respect to all the domain content. Basically, this exam covered the delta content between the 70-533 certification and what was covered under AZ-102.
All of the transition exams that Microsoft released over that time period (as there were titles available under other technology branches) covered net new content that wasn’t covered in enough depth prior, and content on aspects of the technology that had changed between the releases.
AZ-102 was formally retired June 30, 2019.
Just ahead of the June 30, 2019 retirement date for AZ-102, at the time when AZ-100 and AZ-101 retired in May 1, 2019, Exam AZ-103: Microsoft Azure Administrator was released. That new exam combines the skills covered in AZ-100 and AZ-101 with the majority of the new exam coming from AZ-100.
There was no prerequisite to pass 70-533 and there was only the one exam.
The domain topics for AZ-103 were:
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-103 is now being replaced with Exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator – it is now available (as of April 2, 2020).
AZ-104 has some changes to the domain topics as follows:
Manage Azure identities and governance (15-20%)
Implement and manage storage (10-15%)
Deploy and manage Azure compute resources (25-30%)
Configure and manage virtual networking (30-35%)
Monitor and back up Azure resources (10-15%)
AZ-103 is still available to test under as it is not expected to retire until August 31, 2020 (planned, at the time of this writing).
I have my Exam AZ-103: Microsoft Azure Administrator Study Guide available online right now and I am working to update it to the new domain topics for AZ-104
Stay tuned…