Microsoft offers a wide range of services for businesses that require cloud solutions. The IT giant also provides a series of role-based certification courses that allow professionals to master each of these services. But we live in an ever-changing and ever-evolving market today. To keep up with changing business requirements, Microsoft regularly updates each of its courses to include course material that will help professionals master specific operations and functionalities that are fundamental for each service. Microsoft Azure Architect Design is one such course. 

The AZ-301 certification by Microsoft was recently updated. The Microsoft Azure Architect Design certification exam is now known as the AZ-304 exam, launched in 2020. When you earn this certification, it validates your skills and expertise, telling organisations and hiring managers that you are a valuable addition to their team. 

Some experts and candidates say that the AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design course is the hardest certification path that Microsoft offers. Microsoft offers only two certifications at the Expert level and the AZ-304 is one of them.

Candidates who are preparing for this certification exam become Azure Solutions Architects. Their primary roles include advising stakeholders and translating business needs into scalable, reliable and secure solutions. 

Before you start preparing for the AZ-304 Azure Architect Design certification, take a look at what this exam covers and what you should prepare for.

Topics Covered in the AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design Certification:

DOMAIN 1: Design Monitoring - 10 to 15%:

Design for cost optimization:

• Quickstart: Explore and analyze costs with cost analysis
• Tutorial: Optimise costs from recommendations

Design a solution for logging and monitoring:

• Azure Monitor Logs overview
• Azure security logging and auditing
• Overview of Azure platform logs
• What is the Azure Event Grid?
• Security Control: Logging and Monitoring

DOMAIN 2: Design Security and Identity - 25 to 30%:

Design authentication

• What is single sign-on (SSO)?
• What is Azure Active Directory authentication?
• What is Conditional Access?
• Using the location condition in a Conditional Access policy
• What is Azure AD Connect?
• Plan an Azure Active Directory self-service password reset deployment
• What is guest user access in Azure Active Directory B2B?

Design authorisation

• Authentication vs. authorisation
• Identity and access management
• Management group and subscription organisation

Design governance

• Develop your naming and tagging strategy for Azure resources
• Conduct a cloud policy review
• Deploy a CAF Foundation blueprint in Azure

Design security for applications

• Azure Key Vault keys, secrets and certificates overview
• Best practices to use Key Vault
• What are managed identities for Azure resources?
• Integrating Azure Active Directory with applications getting started guide

DOMAIN 3: Design Data Storage - 15 to 20%:

Design a solution for databases

• Azure data platform end-to-end
• Azure Data Architecture Guide
• Azure encryption overview

Design data integration

• Mapping data flows in Azure Data Factory
• What is Azure Data Factory?
• What is Azure Databricks?
• What is a dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW) in Azure Synapse Analytics?

Select an appropriate storage account

• Access tiers for Azure Blob Storage - hot, cool, and archive
• Authorising access to data in Azure Storage
• Optimise costs by automating Azure Blob Storage access tiers

You May Also Like: AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure – Is it worth it?

DOMAIN 4: Design Business Continuity - 10 to 15%:

Design a solution for backup and recovery

• About Site Recovery
• General questions about Azure Site Recovery
• Moving Azure VMs to another Azure region
• What is the Azure Backup service? vManage Azure VM backups with Azure Backup service
• Rehydrate blob data from the archive tier
• Disaster recovery and storage account failover
• Azure Storage compliance offerings

Design for High Availability

• Building solutions for high availability using Availability Zones
• Autoscaling
• High availability and disaster recovery scenarios for IaaS apps
• Use geo-redundancy to design highly available applications

DOMAIN 5: Design Infrastructure - 25 to 30%:

Design a compute solution

• Choose an Azure compute service for your application
• Choosing Azure compute platforms for container-based applications
• An introduction to Azure Automation

Design a network solution

• Azure networking services overview
• The virtual datacenter: A network perspective
• Plan virtual networks
• What is Azure Load Balancer?

Design an application architecture

• Building microservices on Azure
• Azure Container Instances and container orchestrators
• About API Management

Design migrations

• Build migration plan with Azure Migrate
• Add migration tools
• What is Azure Database Migration Service?

What You Will Learn from This Course:

Once you complete the AZ-304 certification training course from Koenig, you will be equipped for the following responsibilities and operations:

• Recommending cost minimisation solutions
• Recommending conditional access solutions, which includes MFA (multi-factor authentication
• Recommending hybrid identity solutions, such as Azure AD Connect.
• Recommending solutions through which businesses can use Azure Policy
• Recommending solutions that include KeyVault
• Recommending solutions that include Microsoft Azure AD Managed Identities
• Recommending storage access solutions
• Designing Azure Site Recovery solutions
• Recommending solutions to autoscale
• Recommending solutions for containers
• Recommending network security solutions
• Recommending solutions for database migration
• Recommending solutions for VM and application migration

Also Read: A Comprehensive Guide To Crack the Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate AZ-104 Certification Exam

Who All Can Benefit from the AZ-304 Certification:

Koenig’s training course for AZ-304 has been designed for professionals who have the expertise to design and implement solutions that run on Azure. This can include professionals from a wide range of fields. These candidates need to have broad overall IT operation knowledge, which includes virtualisation, networking, security, identity, business continuity, data platform, disaster recovery, governance and budgeting. As their expertise and fluency increase, Azure Solution Architects use the Microsoft Azure Portal and CLI (Command Line Interface). You need expert-level Azure administration skills and also need experience with the development processes in Azure as well as the DevOps processes. 

Prerequisites for the AZ-304 Certification:

A credible Microsoft Azure architect enters the domain with experience working with virtualisation, operating systems, storage structures, cloud infrastructure, databases, networking and applications. 

For greater success in the AZ-304 certification exam, you should:

• Understand on-premise virtualisation, virtual networking, virtual hard disks and virtual machines (VMs).
• Understand network configuration, which includes DNS (Domain Name System), TCP/IP, firewalls, encryption technologies and VPNs (virtual private networks)
• Understand concepts of Active Directory, which includes forests, domains, replication, domain controllers, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and Kerberos protocol
• Understand disaster recovery and resilience, which includes restore and backup operations
• Understand APIs and app development
• Understand all types of databases - SQL databases like MySQL and Postgres and non-SQL databases such as MongoDB
• Understand decoupling services and applications like tables, cache and queues
• Understand security concepts that can help in protecting your environments, such as encryption in transit, encryption at rest, TLS and SSL

According to Microsoft, you also need certain certifications before you can apply for the AZ-304 certification. These are:

• AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals: Instructor-led certification or equivalent
• Azure Administrators AZ-104 or AZ-303

Microsoft Instructions on the AZ-304 Azure Architect Design Certification:

Microsoft is constantly upgrading its certification courses and learning modules. The information on Microsoft’s official website shows that the AZ-304 certification exam will retire in March 2022. Microsoft is currently working on the framework for the AZ-305 certification, which is available as a beta version today. 

For the Microsoft Azure AZ-304 exam, you need to get a score of 700 or more out of 1000, the equivalent of 70%.

ALSO READ: Top Microsoft Technology Trends 2022

Why Should You Choose the Microsoft Azure Architect Design Course on Koenig:

There are several advantages of taking the AZ-304 certification training course offered by Koenig:

• MS Azure Architect Design course provided by a Microsoft Gold partner.
• Learners get practice tests to understand the AZ-304 certification exam format
• Expert trainers and certified official Microsoft resources help aspiring Microsoft Azure candidates to clear the exam faster.
• Candidates can choose from flexible time slots which include 8-hour sessions on weekends or 4-hour sessions on weekends. This allows you to prepare at your pace and better understand the core concepts.
• Candidates can also co-participate with other learners from different sectors and industries. This gives you a thorough understanding of the job role that you must perform in a company as an Azure Architect of Design.

Summing Up - Benefits of the AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architecture Design Certification:

• With an AZ-304 certification, you can demonstrate your skills and expertise in creating robust enterprise architecture across cloud, physical as well as hybrid environments.
• You have one of the most advanced Microsoft certifications to your name, which gives you an edge over the competition.
• Your earning potential increases significantly compared to your present situation. An Azure Architecture Design certified AZ-304 professional earns an average of $140,000 per annum in the United States.
• You get instant recognition in your team and organisation. Your skills are also highly relevant and work to future-proof your career.

Give your career the boost it deserves and enrol in an AZ-304 certification training course today.

 Enquire Now