Top 4 Essentials to Become a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator
Microsoft Azure has emerged as a leading cloud service provider, with AWS and Google Cloud Platform being its top competitors. More than 95% of Fortune 500 companies prefer Microsoft Azure for their cloud services. Data suggest an increasing demand for Azure-specific job roles, the most prominent one being the Azure administrator.
What is Azure Administrator?
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing software that allows users to avail numerous cloud services and resources. These cloud services and resources offered by Microsoft include storing and transforming data.
An Azure Administrator is responsible for executing, tracking, and managing Azure solutions and operating identity, storage, governance, compute, and virtual network within a cloud environment.
Roles and responsibilities of an Azure Administrator
Looking at the future of the Azure platform, IT professionals might be interested in becoming Azure administrators. However, to succeed as an Azure admin, it is necessary to understand the essential technologies and enhance the relevant skills.
The following are some fundamental skills that an aspiring Azure admin must have:
- Absolute grasp of the key Azure services, such as networking, databases, software, and cloud servers. Past experience in AWS or Google cloud is an added advantage.
- Expertise in Office 365, PowerShell, and other Microsoft products.
- Although open-source frameworks such as ASP.NET and programming languages such as JavaScript, SQL Server, and HTML5 are desirable, basic knowledge of any programming language is acceptable.
Top 4 essentials for becoming a Microsoft Azure Administrator
Once you gain familiarity with cloud computing and decide to focus on Azure, it is recommended that you consider the following for becoming an Azure administrator:
1- Utilize and manage storage: The Azure admin has access to enormous storage for storing user data, application data, database files, and VHDs or VM virtual hard disks. Following cloud computing’s shared responsibility model, the admin is provided with the required tools and the duty of properly utilizing and managing the storage. Some of the responsibilities are:
- Ensuring data security against unauthorized access
- Obeying corporate rules and regulations by configuring long-term archival storage
- Efficiently backing up data to restore it as and when required
Azure Blob is one of the storage options available for Administrators in the cloud. Checkout our blog on Azure Blob storage to learn how it is created.
2- Compute: The admin is often associated with IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) or operating virtual machines in a cloud. To succeed, an Azure Administrator must have a fundamental knowledge of either or both of the following hypervisors:
- VMware vSphere
- Microsoft Hyper-V
The following are a few of the managerial tasks associated with VMs:
- Configuring virtual machines to ensure optimum security, performance, and cost
- Offering failover recovery and backing up VMs
- Deploying virtual machines within virtual networks
Properly understanding the deployment, tracking, and management of independent containers alongside orchestrator-managed containers such as Kubernetes will help you better assist developers.
3- Configure networks: The unseeable hardware behind the Azure networking stack further complicates the vast and extensive concept of transmission control protocol/internet protocol internetworking. To succeed as an Azure admin, you must be familiar with the following networking tasks:
- Configuring and deploying virtual networks
- Orchestrating routing paths, especially in a hybrid cloud
- Monitoring and administering public and private addresses for VMs and selected Azure resources
4- Implement and manage security controls: A responsible and successful Azure administrator must efficiently utilize the varied security measures offered by Microsoft to perform the following tasks:
- Ensuring proper encryption of data in use, transit, at rest
- Avoiding any compromise on Azure Active Directory accounts
- Minimizing attacks on Azure resources
To get an in-depth understanding of the goals and assignments of Administrators, read our Azure Administrator guide blog.
Preparing for the Microsoft Azure Administrator exam
You must acquire the Microsoft Azure Administrator certification by clearing the AZ-104 exam. The exam costs US$ 165 and is available in English and 12 other languages.
It assesses your abilities to perform the following tasks:
- Managing Azure identities and governance
- Implementing and managing storage
- Deploying and managing Azure compute resources
- Configuring and managing virtual networking
- Monitoring and backing up Azure resources
Becoming an Azure Administrator with NetCom Learning
If you are an aspiring Azure administrator who wishes to implement, track, and manage Azure solutions efficiently, then the AZ-104T00: Microsoft Azure Administrator course offered by NetCom Learning can help you get closer to your goal. The four-day (32 hours) course, priced at US$ 2,395, will help you clear the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam and earn the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification.
