The latest Microsoft certification news is that they are cutting another 3 exams, which are all Azure! Find out which certifications are getting cut and more!

Find out if you should close practice exam questions you’ve been using to study, in my latest video!

Video Highlights

– Microsoft Learn is in the process of doing its spring cleanup in its certification portfolio. We’re losing one associate-level certification and two different specialty-level certifications. If you’re looking at getting Microsoft 365 certified, make sure you watch that video as well.

– Microsoft has retired all its troubleshooting exams. Instead of taking the troubleshooting connectivity exam, Microsoft recommends that you focus on the associate-level exam called Azure Network Engineer Associate. This will also be available for renewal until January 31, 2024.

– Microsoft Certified Azure IoT Developer Specialty Certification. You can still take the exam until July 31, 2023. Even if the certification retires, it will still remain in your transcript. Azure is still the biggest and strongest certification portfolio by Microsoft Learn.

– What do you think about Microsoft retiring those three Azure certifications? Are they certifications you wanted to pass, or were you thinking, like, those serve no purpose? They should get canceled. Please let me know in the comments.

Video Transcript

In this video, we will learn to say goodbye to three Microsoft Azure certifications exams. Microsoft Learn is in the process of doing its spring cleanup in its certification portfolio.

And it’s not only about Azure. Two weeks ago, I did a video on how Microsoft cut half of the certification exams in their Modern Workplace portfolio. So if you’re looking at getting Microsoft 365 certified, make sure you watch that video as well at the end.

But today we are going to talk about what we’re losing in the Azure side. We’re actually losing one associate-level certification and two different specialty-level certifications. Let’s start talking about the exams.

The first exam we have to say goodbye to, and the first certification of course as well is the Microsoft Certify Azure Stack Hub Operator Associate. Their certification that we got after passing Exam AZ-600 exam. This certification exam and this certification will retire on July 31, 2023.

You can still take the exam before then, so it’s still available today and valid for another twelve months. Microsoft recommends that instead of trying to go for the AZ-600 instead, you will get those skills from the Azure Administrator Associate Certification exam. So the AZ-104 or the Microsoft certified Windows Server hybrid Admin associate certification path, which, of course, includes two different exams.

Remember that if you are a current certification holder, you will still have it, and you can still renew it. And in fact, the renewal window will stay open until January 31, 2024. So you can renew a certification six months before it expires.

So we will still see people have the certification until maybe even the end of 2024. The second certification that we have to say goodbye to is the Azure Support Engineer for Connectivity. This was a specialty-level certification, and it will retire on July 31, 2023, along with its associated exam, the Microsoft AZ-720 exam.

Many of you who have listened to my previous videos about the Modern Workplace exam retirements probably expected this one to be retired as well because Microsoft did completely retire the team’s troubleshooting and exchanged troubleshooting exams. This was the other troubleshooting exam in the certification portfolio by Microsoft. So the Azure one will bite the dust as well.

But you are more than welcome to take the exam anytime until July 31, 2023. And this one will also be valid for twelve months. Instead of taking the troubleshooting connectivity exam, Microsoft recommends that you focus on the associate-level exam called Azure Network Engineer Associate.

So the reason why Microsoft said they are retiring the troubleshooting exams is because so much more things are covered in how to configure tools rather than how to troubleshoot them. And in theory, if you understand how to configure and manage something, you should also be able to troubleshoot them. So that’s Microsoft’s reasoning behind retiring all their troubleshooting portfolio across different technologies similar to the previous exam.

This will also be available for renewal until January 31, 2024. So you could go take the exam today, renew it in January. Remember, you can do it six months before and have the certification still for an almost full two years or so.

You still have the opportunity to take it today. Last but not least, another specialty certification that I was not necessarily expecting. The Microsoft Certified Azure IoT Developer specialty Certification.

IoT stands for Internet of Things. Honestly, I really wasn’t expecting this certification to go away because the Internet of Things devices are still taking over the world, and using Azure as a back-end platform is a great skilling challenge for developers. So Microsoft, the way they explained it is that working with IoT is done by multiple roles.

You rarely have a dedicated role that only does IoT on top of Azure. Instead, both architects should know about IoT. Every developer should know about IoT.

So they found that the dedicated specialty certification exam did not have its place anymore. You can still take the exam until July 31, 2023. Again, it will be valid for twelve months.

And if you pass the certification before them or you have it today, you can still renew it until January 31, 2024. And after that it will remain on your transcript, but will just show up as retired. So if you’re thinking about getting those certifications, you’re probably asking yourself, what should you do? The first thing I want to talk about is remembering that at the end of the day, the skills you have, the demo projects, and the actual projects matter way more than a certification.

My tip for you, my recommendation, would be, if you’re already studying for the certification, you’re maybe halfway through 75% the way through. Don’t give up now. Finish your studies, go get certified.

And remember, even if the certification retires, it will still remain in your transcript, still something you’ll be able to talk about to potential employers, that you did that certification, that you have the skills to do those different tasks. Also, if you don’t want to go for that specific certification, remember you can focus on some of the recommended alternate certifications that we talked about. So instead of, for example, the troubleshooting networking in Azure, go for the configuring networking in Azure, and so on.

Even with those retirements, Azure is still the biggest and strongest certification portfolio by Microsoft Learn. I mean after retirements, for all of those, Azure will have 18 certifications. Dynamics 365 will have eleven.

Because they’re also losing a few certifications, Microsoft 365 or Modern Workplace is losing a lot of them. They will only have six. So Microsoft 365 will be the one with the lowest number of certifications.

And finally, both Security and Power Platform will have seven certifications each. So, as you can see, Azure is still the biggest by far. Now, everything I talked about here is also in an official announcement that Microsoft put out recently, the title of the blog is called Announcing Updates to Azure and Support Engineer Training and Certification Portfolios, and you will find it on the Microsoft Learn blog on the tech community.

You have a link here on the slides, and you will also have a link in the description of the video below. Now this is it for this short video. I wanted to keep it short and sweet.

I really hope you enjoyed and please let me know in the comments. What do you think about Microsoft retiring those three Azure certifications? Is it certifications you wanted to pass or certifications that maybe you were thinking, like, hey, those serve no purpose, they should get canceled, and you’re happy to see this? So make sure you let me know in the comments.

And remember, if you want to get the latest Microsoft certification news, click that subscribe button. This way, you’ll get notified as soon as there’s anything new and exciting in the Microsoft certification world. Thank you very much again for listening to this video and for making it this far.

I really hope you enjoyed it.

Interested in software development? Want to learn the backbone of all Microsoft 365 Online technology? Awesome! If you’re looking for a little help passing the AZ-900, take a look at my AZ-900 study guide.