June 5, 2023

Microsoft is keeping evolving its learning programs to help you and your career keep pace with today’s demanding IT environments. Microsoft announced new role-based certifications to help you and your career keep pace with today’s business requirements. They are evolving their learning program to better offer what you need to skill up, prove your expertise to employers and peers, and get the recognition—and opportunities—you’ve earned. .

Exam Prerequisites

If you are planning to attempt the Azure Security Technologies exam, be sure to complete one of the following exams beforehand, as it will give you enough exposure to Azure services and offerings:

AZ-500 Exam for Who ?

On a high-level note, take the exam:

  • If you are looking to learn more about Security, Identity, and Encryption in Azure cloud services.
  • If you are working on Administration, Software development and looking for a chance to move into the Security domain.
  • If you are looking to build security skills and learn more about security cloud workloads effectively.
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What to Expect in the Exam?

The Security Technologies Exam is 210 minutes, including about 30 minutes for the surveys and the assessments, which gives you roughly 180 minutes for the exam. You can expect around 40-60 questions in the exam.

The structure of the exam can vary and range between:

  • Case study with multiple questions including two choices and drag-and-drop items.
  • Single-choice questions which may not be skipped or reviewed. You only get to answer these questions ONCE.
  • Single-choice questions (True/False or Yes/No)
  • Multiple-choice questions
  • Arrange in the correct sequence questions.

Since it’s an associate-level exam, it is relatively challenging as it covers many different topics and best practices. Therefore, I recommend you have at least one year of hands-on experience with Azure Cloud Administration and Security practices in general before you consider booking the exam.

Exam Preparation Recommendations

There’s definitely a lot to cover in this exam, and giving you any list of services or things to learn would be unfair as the expectations for this exam are high. However, below are some topics to consider and focus attention on while preparing for the exam.

  • Azure Service Endpoints vs. Private Links
  • Azure Policy
  • Azure PIM
  • Azure Conditional Access and MFA
  • Azure AD Connect and Hybrid Configuration
  • Managed and User assigned Identity
  • Azure Security Center
  • Azure Sentinel and Logic App Designer for alerts
  • RBAC and Custom Roles

Some of the reference URLs to articles on the internet has been gathered and placed that will help you cover most of the exam objectives. The headings link to Microsoft Learn modules, and the individual items in each category point to relevant reading articles or MS learn courses.

Manage identity and access (30-35%)

Manage Azure Active Directory identities

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Configure secure access by using Azure AD

Manage application access

Manage access control

Implement platform protection (15-20%)

Implement advanced network security

Configure advanced security for compute

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Manage security operations (25-30%)

Monitor security by using Azure Monitor

Monitor security by using Azure Security Center

Monitor security by using Azure Sentinel

Configure security policies

Secure data and applications (20-25%)

Configure security for storage

Configure security for databases

Configure and manage Key Vault

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Learning Resources

Microsoft Learn Modules

Microsoft Learn offers a wide range of training and preparation material for most of the Azure exams. Below is a list of relevant modules to prepare for this exam:

Pluralsight AZ-500 Training

Pluralsight also has an AZ-500 training course prepared heavily by Tim Warner and other awesome folks breathing Azure all the time. The course should get you started by checking a lot of boxes on the exam outline.

Practice Exams

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