Microsoft 365 and the MS-900 exam
A couple of weeks ago I got my first cert from Microsoft in 7 years so thought I’d keep up my new found momentum and have a go at the MS-900 exam. In my day job I focus around SDDC but recently I’ve started to manage a team of architects so I’m more aware of what they are working on, and one area that’s seen a massive amount of growth is Microsoft 365 (M365). As with Azure I was looking for a good way to get started and Microsoft offer a fundamentals level certification called MS-900: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals
The exam covers 4 sections with the skill measured blueprint found here
- Understand cloud concepts
- Understand core Microsoft 365 services and concepts
- Understand security, compliance, privacy and trust in Microsoft 365
- Understand Microsoft 365 pricing and support
With a lot of the Azure content still fresh in my mind there was a fair bit of overlap on some of the sections but I found a lot of the content familiar from discussions in the office and projects I’ve been involved with. I still wanted to complete some form of training to ensure I’d covered all the points I could be tested on. There are those questions that come up in exams that you would google in the real world that tend to catch you out!
Microsoft offer a learning path for M365 fundamentals which has 9 modules which is mix of short video clips and text. After going through this is still felt I could do with some further content so a quick search of my favourite e-learning platform PluralSight revealed a 3 module learning path for the MS-900 certification so I spent a few hours jotting down some additional notes to help with my prep. Finally I also purchased the official exam guide from Amazon. I was kind of lucky as it had only been released a couple of weeks prior.
In total I probably spent around 15-20 hours preparing for the exam using the material above but I’m also in the fortunate position to work with a lot of technical specialists in M365 so they could quickly answer any questions I had. I managed to get an exam slot at quite short notice so was able to sit the exam first thing on a Monday morning. I did manage to pass so it ended up being a great start to the week. Again I received an email from Acclaim a few later and accepted another badge for my profile.
For now I’ll likely park my studies on 365 and Azure as I’ve a busy few months coming up with new versions of vSphere and vSAN expected soon. I’ve really enjoyed learning about something completely different to what I normally do and found it quite refreshing.
