The Microsoft Azure AZ-801 certification exam is intended for Azure solutions architects who have advanced experience and knowledge in designing and implementing Azure solutions. This certification exam is a great way to demonstrate your expertise in Azure architecture and design, and it can be a valuable credential to add to your resume.
However, whether or not the AZ-801 certification exam is worth it for you depends on your career goals and level of experience with Azure. If you are an experienced Azure solutions architect who wants to demonstrate your expertise and increase your earning potential, then the AZ-801 certification can be a valuable investment in your career.
On the other hand, if you are just starting with Azure and don’t have much experience, it may be more appropriate to start with a different certification, such as the Azure Administrator Associate or Azure Developer Associate certifications, before attempting the AZ-801 exam.
Ultimately, the decision to pursue the AZ-801 certification exam should be based on your career goals and your level of experience with Azure. If you believe that the certification can help you achieve your career objectives and you have the necessary skills and experience, then it may be worth pursuing.
About Microsoft Azure: AZ-801 Exam
Setting Up Windows Server Hybrid Advanced Services (AZ-801) The major target audience for certification is associate-level professionals, and it aids in validating abilities in server management and administration. To qualify for the AZ-801: Configuring Windows Server Hybrid Advanced Services Certification, a candidate must have a specific amount of expertise in the following positions: enterprise architects, network engineers, administrators of Azure, and Microsoft 365.
A Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate’s duties consist of:
- Management of the Windows server in an on-premises network and integration of the Windows server environment with the Azure services
- Windows server IaaS workloads should be managed and maintained.
- Workload deployment and migration to Azure
- The main focus is on providing effective disaster recovery services.
- solving active directory issues
Exam Format
The Microsoft AZ-801 exam is well renowned for evaluating your abilities to carry out tasks like:
- Protecting hybrid and on-premises Windows Server systems comes first.
- Furthermore, implementing and managing Windows Server’s high availability
- Disaster recovery is then implemented, and servers and workloads are moved.
- checking and diagnosing Windows Server environments is the last step.
However, there will only be 40–60 questions on the test, and a 700 minimum score is required to succeed. The exam can be taken in English and costs $165 USD.
Let us now look at the main point of the blog –
Value of AZ-801Certification exam
The Azure AZ-801 certification exam is an advanced-level exam that tests the knowledge and skills of experienced Azure solutions architects. The exam focuses on advanced topics such as Azure infrastructure design, data platform solution design, security, and identity management.
Achieving the AZ-801 certification can demonstrate to employers that you have the expertise to design and implement complex Azure solutions. It can also provide a competitive advantage in the job market and increase your earning potential.
However, preparing for and passing the AZ-801 exam requires significant time and effort, as well as a deep understanding of Azure services and solutions. You should have a solid understanding of Azure architecture, infrastructure, networking, storage, security, and identity, as well as experience working with Azure services.
If you’re interested in pursuing the AZ-801 certification exam, it’s recommended to start by reviewing the exam objectives and studying the relevant Azure documentation, tutorials, and courses. Additionally, you can consider taking an Azure solutions architect course or joining an Azure study group to help you prepare for the exam.
In summary, the AZ-801 certification exam can be a valuable investment in your career as an Azure solutions architect, but it requires significant preparation and experience with Azure. The decision to pursue the certification should be based on your career goals, level of experience, and commitment to investing the time and effort required to pass the exam.
Now that you know the benefits of passing the exam. You might be curious about what to study and how can you study for the exam. Let us have a look at these components.
Understanding the exam goals
This will help you prepare in a big way. Every exam includes certain material that is quite crucial. Additionally, in order to comprehend the topic better, it is essential to review each component. Each of the subjects covered on the Microsoft AZ-801 exam has its own set of sections and subsections. Let’s look at them now.
Topic 1: Secure Windows Server on-premises and hybrid infrastructures (25–30%)
Secure Windows Server operating system
- configure and manage exploit protection (Microsoft Documentation: Enable exploit protection)
- configure and manage Windows Defender Application Control (Microsoft Documentation: Windows Defender Application Control management with Configuration Manager)
- configuring and manage Windows Defender for Servers
- configure and manage Windows Defender Credential Guard (Microsoft Documentation: Manage Windows Defender Credential Guard)
- configure SmartScreen (Microsoft Documentation: Microsoft Defender SmartScreen)
- implement operating system security by using Group Policies (Microsoft Documentation: Security policy settings)
Secure a hybrid Active Directory infrastructure
- configure password policies (Microsoft Documentation: Password policy recommendations)
- enable password block lists (Microsoft Documentation: Configure custom banned passwords for Azure Active Directory password protection)
- manage protected users (Microsoft Documentation: Protected Users Security Group)
- manage account security on a RODC (Microsoft Documentation: Read-Only DCs and the Active Directory Schema)
- harden domain controllers
- configure authentication policies silos (Microsoft Documentation: Authentication Policies and Authentication Policy Silos)
- restrict access to domain controllers (Microsoft Documentation: Securing Domain Controllers Against Attack)
- configure account security (Microsoft Documentation: What are security defaults?)
- manage AD built-in administrative groups (Microsoft Documentation: Active Directory Security Groups)
- manage AD delegation (Microsoft Documentation: Delegating Administration by Using OU Objects)
- implement and manage Microsoft Defender for Identity (Microsoft Documentation: What is Microsoft Defender for Identity?)
Identify and remediate Windows Server security issues by using Azure services
- monitor on-premises servers and Azure IaaS VMs by using Sentinel
- identify and remediate security issues on-premises servers and Azure IaaS VMs by using Microsoft Defender for Cloud (Microsoft Documentation: Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Security best practices for IaaS workloads in Azure)
Secure Windows Server networking
- manage Windows Defender Firewall (Microsoft Documentation: Best practices for configuring Windows Defender Firewall)
- implement domain isolation(Microsoft Documentation: Domain Isolation Policy Design)
- implement connection security rules (Microsoft Documentation: Configure the Rules to Require Encryption)
Secure Windows Server storage
- manage Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption (BitLocker) (Microsoft Documentation: BitLocker)
- manage and recover encrypted volumes (Microsoft Documentation: Back up and restore encrypted Azure virtual machines)
- enable storage encryption by using Azure Disk Encryption (Microsoft Documentation: Overview of managed disk encryption options)
- manage disk encryption keys for IaaS virtual machines
Topic 2: Implement and manage Windows Server high availability (10–15%)
Implement a Windows Server failover cluster
- implement a failover cluster on-premises, hybrid, or cloud-only (Microsoft Documentation: Connecting Windows Server to Azure hybrid services)
- create a Windows failover cluster (Microsoft Documentation: Create a failover cluster)
- stretch cluster across datacenter or Azure regions (Microsoft Documentation: Stretched clusters overview)
- configure storage for failover clustering (Microsoft Documentation: Create a failover cluster)
- modify quorum options (Microsoft Documentation: Configure and manage quorum)
- configure network adapters for failover clustering (Microsoft Documentation: Create a failover cluster)
- configuring cluster workload options
- configure cluster sets (Microsoft Documentation: Deploy a cluster set)
- configure Scale-Out File Servers (Microsoft Documentation: Scale-Out File Server for application data overview)
- create an Azure witness (Microsoft Documentation: Deploy a Cloud Witness for a Failover Cluster)
- configure a floating IP address for the cluster (Microsoft Documentation: Guest clustering in a virtual network)
- implement load balancing for the failover cluster (Microsoft Documentation: Configure Azure Load Balancer for an FCI VNN)
Manage failover clustering
- implement cluster-aware updating (Microsoft Documentation: Cluster-Aware Updating overview)
- recover a failed cluster node (Microsoft Documentation: Recover from failover cluster instance failure)
- upgrade a node to Windows Server 2022 (Microsoft Documentation: Install, upgrade, or migrate to Windows Server)
- failover workloads between nodes (Microsoft Documentation: Use Cluster Shared Volumes in a failover cluster)
- install Windows updates on cluster nodes
- manage failover clusters using Windows Admin Center (Microsoft Documentation: Manage Failover Clusters with Windows Admin Center)
Implement and manage Storage Spaces Direct
- create a failover cluster using Storage Spaces Direct (Microsoft Documentation: Storage Spaces Direct overview)
- upgrade a Storage Spaces Direct node (Microsoft Documentation: Upgrade a Storage Spaces Direct cluster to Windows Server 2019)
- implement networking for Storage Spaces Direct (Microsoft Documentation: Deploy Storage Spaces Direct)
- configure Storage Spaces Direct (Microsoft Documentation: Deploy Storage Spaces Direct)
Topic 3: Implement disaster recovery (10–15%)
Manage backup and recovery for Windows Server
- back up and restore files and folders to Azure Recovery Services vault (Microsoft Documentation: Recover files from Azure virtual machine backup)
- install and manage Azure Backup Server (Microsoft Documentation: Install and upgrade Azure Backup Server)
- back up and recover using Azure Backup Server
- manage backups in Azure Recovery Services vault (Microsoft Documentation: Create and configure a Recovery Services vault)
- create a backup policy (Microsoft Documentation: Manage Azure VM backups with Azure Backup service)
- configure backup for Azure Virtual Machines using the built-in backup agent (Microsoft Documentation: Back up an Azure VM from the VM settings)
- recover a VM using temporary snapshots (Microsoft Documentation: How to restore Azure VM data in Azure portal)
- recover VMs to new Azure Virtual Machines
- restore a VM
Implement disaster recovery by using Azure Site Recovery
- configure Azure Site Recovery networking (Microsoft Documentation: About networking in Azure VM disaster recovery)
- configuring Site Recovery for on-premises VMs (Microsoft Documentation: Set up disaster recovery to Azure for on-premises VMware VMs – Classic)
- configure a recovery plan (Microsoft Documentation: Create and customize recovery plans)
- configure Site Recovery for Azure VMs (Microsoft Documentation: Set up disaster recovery to a secondary Azure region for an Azure VM)
- implement VM replication to a secondary datacenter or Azure region
- configure Azure Site Recovery policies (Microsoft Documentation: Set up disaster recovery for Azure VMs)
Protect virtual machines by using Hyper-V replicas
- configure Hyper-V hosts for replication
- manage Hyper-V replica servers (Microsoft Documentation: Set up Hyper-V Replica)
- configure VM replication (Microsoft Documentation: Set up Hyper-V Replica)
- perform a failover (Microsoft Documentation: Create a failover cluster)
Topic 4: Migrate servers and workloads (20–25%)
Migrate on-premises storage to on-premises servers or Azure
- transfer data and share
- cut over to a new server by using Storage Migration Service (Microsoft Documentation: Storage Migration Service overview)
- use Storage Migration Service to migrate to Azure VMs (Microsoft Documentation: Use Storage Migration Service to migrate a server)
- migrate to Azure file shares (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate to Azure file shares)
Migrate on-premises servers to Azure
- deploy and configure Azure Migrate appliance (Microsoft Documentation: Set up an appliance for servers in a VMware environment)
- migrate VM workloads to Azure IaaS (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate VMware VMs to Azure (agentless))
- migrate physical workloads to Azure IaaS (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate machines as physical servers to Azure)
- migrating by using Azure Migrate
Migrate workloads from previous versions to Windows Server 2022
- migrating IIS (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate a Web Site from IIS 6.0 to IIS 7 or above)
- migrate Hyper-V hosts (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate Hyper-V VMs to Azure)
- migrate RDS host servers (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate your Remote Desktop Services deployment to Windows Server 2016)
- migrating DHCP (Microsoft Documentation: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP))
- migrating print servers
Migrate IIS workloads to Azure
- migrate IIS workloads to Azure Web Apps (Microsoft Documentation: Migrate an on-premises web application to Azure App Service)
- migrating IIS workloads to containers
Migrate an AD DS infrastructure to Windows Server 2022 AD DS
- migrating AD DS objects, including users, groups and Group Policies, using AD Migration Tool (Microsoft Documentation: Administer Group Policy in an Azure Active Directory Domain Services managed domain)
- migrate to a new Active Directory forest (Microsoft Documentation: Support information for ADMT and PES)
- upgrade an existing forest (Microsoft Documentation: Upgrade Domain Controllers to Windows Server 2016)
Topic 5: Monitor and troubleshoot Windows Server environments (20–25%)
Monitor Windows Server by using Windows Server tools and Azure services
- monitor Windows Server by using Performance Monitor (Microsoft Documentation: Set up Performance Counters in Windows Performance Monitor)
- create and configure Data Collector Sets (Microsoft Documentation: Creating a Data Collector for Business Central Performance Counters)
- monitor servers and configure alerts by using Windows Admin Center (Microsoft Documentation: Monitor servers and configure alerts with Azure Monitor from Windows Admin Center)
- monitor by using System Insights (Microsoft Documentation: System Insights overview)
- manage event logs (Microsoft Documentation: Collect Windows event log data sources with Log Analytics agent)
- deploy Azure Monitor Agents
- collect performance counters to Azure (Microsoft Documentation: Collect Windows and Linux performance data sources with Log Analytics agent)
- create alerts (Microsoft Documentation: Overview of alerts in Microsoft Azure)
- monitor Azure VMs by using Azure diagnostics extension (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Diagnostics extension overview)
- monitor Azure VMs performance by using VM insights (Microsoft Documentation: Overview of VM insights)
Troubleshoot Windows Server on-premises and hybrid networking
- troubleshooting hybrid network connectivity (Microsoft Documentation: Azure App Service Hybrid Connections)
- troubleshooting on-premises connectivity (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot on-premises network connections)
Troubleshoot Windows Server virtual machines in Azure
- troubleshooting deployment failures (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot common Azure deployment errors with Azure Resource Manager)
- troubleshoot booting failures (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot Windows VM OS boot failure)
- troubleshooting VM performance issues (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot Azure virtual machine performance on Linux or Windows)
- troubleshoot VM extension issues (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot Azure Backup failure: Issues with the agent or extension)
- troubleshooting disk encryption issues (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Disk Encryption troubleshooting guide)
- troubleshoot storage (Microsoft Documentation: Monitor, diagnose, and troubleshoot Microsoft Azure Storage)
- troubleshooting VM connection issues
Troubleshoot Active Directory
- restore objects from AD recycle bin (Microsoft Documentation: Advanced AD DS Management Using Active Directory Administrative Center)
- recover Active Directory database using Directory Services Restore Mode (Microsoft Documentation: Restoring an Active Directory Server)
- recover SYSVOL (Microsoft Documentation: How to rebuild the SYSVOL tree and its content in a domain)
- troubleshoot Active Directory replication (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshooting Active Directory Replication Problems)
- troubleshooting hybrid authentication issues (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot hybrid Azure AD-joined devices)
- troubleshoot on-premises Active Directory (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot object synchronization with Azure AD Connect sync)
Let, now have a look at some resources that can help you prepare. Also, if you want to know more about the exam objectives you can visit TPT online tutorials.
Microsoft Learning Path
Microsoft provides unique ways to learn the subject. In other words, Microsoft offers a choice of study options for each exam, each of which includes modules that cover the exam’s themes. These provide all pertinent information and useful reference links for each topic. Using the portions that have a bonus quiz at the conclusion of each module to assist you study for the exam may also help you learn more about the test subjects.
Refer: Microsoft AZ-801 Learning Path
Microsoft Documentation
The Microsoft material is helpful in helping students comprehend and become familiar with exam subjects. You’ll get the opportunity to explore multiple approaches to administering fundamental Windows Server workloads using on-premises, hybrid, and cloud technologies in preparation for the Microsoft AZ-801 exam. Additionally, you will gain practical experience using and managing on-premises and hybrid systems, including duties related to security, migration, monitoring, high availability, troubleshooting, and disaster recovery. Azure Hybrid can also be learned more about by just reading the documentation.
Refer: Microsoft Documentation
Microsoft Instructor-led Training
Microsoft provides the training option of instructor-led training. This training offers brief courses that cover all the concepts, modules, information, and tests required to pass the test. The fundamental benefit of instructor-led training is that you can study whenever, wherever, and whatever you like; all you have to do is choose a standard classroom training scenario.
Refer: Microsoft Instructor-led Training
Using practice exams, evaluate your performance
Exam practice tests are crucial for strengthening your study skills. You can identify your areas of strength and weakness by putting your skills to the test with Microsoft AZ-801 practice exams. Additionally, by honing your response techniques, you will be able to reduce the amount of time it takes you to complete the test. On the other hand, it’s a good idea to take the AZ-801 exam practice tests when you’ve finished a certain topic. Additionally, this can aid in successful revision. So, go online and search for the top practice exam tests to help you study for the Microsoft AZ-801 certification exam.
On the basis of the Preparation Guide, take the time to build a study plan and comprehend exam patterns before beginning your step-by-step preparation.
