The Microsoft Azure IoT Developer AZ-220 exam is accountable for the implementation and the coding required to build and manage the cloud and the edge portion of an IoT solution. In addition to configuring and maintaining the devices by utilizing cloud services, the IoT Developer also sets up the physical devices. Also, the Microsoft Azure IoT Developer is liable for maintaining the devices throughout the life cycle. The certifications offered by Microsoft bestow current and potential employers with the core technical skills they require as per the prescribed standards. Moreover, this exam is definitely a boost to your career and keeps you ahead of the competition.
Skills Acquired
After qualifying the AZ-220 certification exam, As an IoT Developer, you will be responsible to perform the following tasks-
- To begin with, Execute designs for IoT solutions, including device topology, connectivity, debugging, and security.
- Secondly, Deploy compute/containers and configures device networking.
- Then, Implement designs for solutions to manage data pipelines, including monitoring and data transformation as it relates to IoT.
- Moreover, Works with data engineers and other stakeholders to ensure successful business integration.
- Also, Responsible for implementation of Azure services, including data storage options, data analysis, data processing, and platform-as-a-service options.
- Lastly, Recognize Azure IoT service configuration settings within the code portion of an IoT solution and perform specific IoT coding tasks in at least one Azure-supported language, including C#, Node, C, or Python.
Microsoft Exam AZ-220 Exam Prerequisites
The prerequisites for AZ-220 Azure certification exam are,
- Firstly, a thorough knowledge of the implementation of Azure services for developing an IoT solution.
- Secondly, the ability to recognize Azure IoT service configuration settings in the code part of an IoT solution.
- Also, the skills for performing particular IoT coding tasks in at least one programming language supported by Azure such as Python, C#, C or Node.
Study Guide : Microsoft Azure IoT Developer Exam AZ-220
The key to prepare for Microsoft Azure IoT Developer exams is to get the right study tools and materials essential for your learning style. It also benefits to go through a practice test of some kind to help prepare and really drill in the memorization of the technical knowledge required.
Step 1- Review Exam Topics
Microsoft certification exams are highly detailed examinations. So much so that even deeply skilled professionals have failed. So, try not to take it lightly. Each and every question is designed to challenge the candidate’s knowledge. Therefore, it’s not advisable to just guess and hope for the best.
While you can’t comprehend and understand everything. However, you can get a head start with studying if you know the objectives and sub-objectives of each exam. All these are covered in the AZ-220 course outline mentioned above. Microsoft advertises the exam descriptions for all exams and lists their objectives. Nonetheless, each sub-objective will also have a set of skills that one will be tested on. So review this Official page as much as possible until you’re satisfied.
Microsoft AZ-220 Exam has updates in the course outline as on July 28, 2022.
The updated Microsoft Azure IoT Developer AZ-220 exam course outline includes the following topics:
Set up the IoT Solution Infrastructure (10-15%)
Creating and configuring an IoT Hub
- Creating an IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Create an IoT hub using the Azure portal)
- Registering a device (Microsoft Documentation: Register a new device in the IoT hub)
- Configuring a device twin (Microsoft Documentation: Get started with device twins (.NET) )
- Configuring IoT Hub tier and scaling (Microsoft Documentation: Choose the right IoT Hub tier for your solution)
Building device messaging and communication
- Building messaging solutions by using SDKs (device and service) (Microsoft Documentation: Understand and use Azure IoT Hub SDKs)
- Implementing device-to-cloud communication (Microsoft Documentation: Use IoT Hub message routing to send device-to-cloud messages to different endpoints)
- Implementing cloud-to-device communication (Microsoft Documentation: Send messages from the cloud to your device with IoT Hub (.NET))
- Configuring file upload for devices (Microsoft Documentation: Upload files from your device to the cloud with IoT Hub (.NET) )
- Optimize message size and scaling for IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Choose the right IoT Hub tier for your solution)
- Connect to IoT Hub by using Transport Layer Security (TLS) server certificates (Microsoft Documentation: Transport Layer Security (TLS) support in IoT Hub)
Configuring physical IoT devices
- Recommend an appropriate protocol or gateway based on device specifications (Microsoft Documentation: Reference – choose a communication protocol)
- Configuring device networking, topology, and connectivity (Microsoft Documentation: IoT Hub support for virtual networks with Private Link and Managed Identity)
- Add IoT Plug and Play capabilities to a device in a model-driven solution (Microsoft Documentation: IoT Plug and Play)
Provision and manage devices (15-20%)
Set up Device Provisioning Service
- Creating a Device Provisioning Service (Microsoft Documentation: Set up the IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service with the Azure portal)
- Creating a new enrollment in Device Provisioning Service (Microsoft Documentation: Enroll TPM device to IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service using C# service SDK)
- Linking an IoT Hub to the Device Provisioning Service (Microsoft Documentation: az iot dps linked-hub)
Managing the device lifecycle
- Provisioning a device by using Device Provisioning Service (Microsoft Documentation: Set up a device to provision using the Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service)
- Deprovisioning an autoenrollment (Microsoft Documentation: How to deprovision devices that were previously auto-provisioned)
- Decommissioning (disenroll) a device (Microsoft Documentation: How to disenroll a device from Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service)
Managing IoT devices by using IoT Hub
- Managing devices list in the IoT Hub device registry (Microsoft Documentation: Understand the identity registry in your IoT hub)
- Modifying device twin tags and properties (Microsoft Documentation: Understand and use device twins in IoT Hub)
- Configure a set of devices by using IoT Hub Automatic Device Management (Microsoft Documentation: Automatic IoT device and module management using the Azure portal)
- Implement and manage configuration on a set of devices by using IoT Hub Automatic Device Management
- Control access to device functionality by using module identities and module twins (Microsoft Documentation: Understand and use module twins in IoT Hub)
Manage IoT devices by using Azure IoT Central
- Create and manage device templates by using Azure IoT Central and Digital Twins Definition Language (DTDL) (Microsoft Documentation: device templates)
- Configuring rules, actions, and commands in Azure IoT Central (Microsoft Documentation: Configure rules and actions for your device in Azure IoT Central)
- Add, enroll, and manage devices by using Azure IoT Central (Microsoft Documentation: Manage individual devices in your Azure IoT Central application)
- Manage Azure IoT Central applications, including security, tenants, customization, and visualizations (Microsoft Documentation: Create and manage an Azure IoT Central application from the CSP portal)
- Manage data integration, including data ingress, data export, and data transformation (Microsoft Documentation: IoT Central data integration guide)
- Configure and manage Azure IoT Central jobs (Microsoft Documentation: Manage devices in bulk in your Azure IoT Central application)
- Manage Azure IoT Central by using APIs (Microsoft Documentation: Azure IoT Central REST API reference)
Implement IoT Edge (15-20%)
Setting up an IoT Edge device
- Creating a device identity in IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: az iot hub device-identity)
- Set up an IoT device for IoT Edge (Microsoft Documentation: Deploy your first IoT Edge module to a Windows device)
- Install container runtime on IoT devices (Microsoft Documentation: Use the Windows ML container Insider Preview with Azure IoT Edge Runtime)
- Configure container startup options to interact with the host system (Microsoft Documentation: Container Tools launch settings)
- Update IoT Edge runtime (Microsoft Documentation: Update IoT Edge)
- Provision IoT Edge devices by using device provisioning service (Microsoft Documentation: Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service)
Deploy an IoT Edge device
- Create and implement a deployment manifest (Microsoft Documentation: deploy modules and establish routes in IoT Edge)
- Create a deployment for a single IoT Edge device (Microsoft Documentation: Understand IoT Edge automatic deployments for single devices or at scale)
- Creating a deployment to target multiple devices
- Create a continuous deployment by using Azure DevOps (Microsoft Documentation: Use continuous integration)
Develop IoT Edge modules
- Create and customize an Edge module (Microsoft Documentation: Create and deploy custom IoT Edge modules)
- Deploy a custom IoT Edge module to an IoT Edge device (Microsoft Documentation: Develop your own IoT Edge modules)
- Publish an IoT Edge module to an Azure Container Registry (Microsoft Documentation: Prepare to deploy your IoT Edge solution in production)
- Define module configuration
- Configure IoT Edge module routing (Microsoft Documentation: Learn how to deploy modules and establish routes in IoT Edge)
- Configure an environment for IoT Edge development (Microsoft Documentation: Prepare your development and test environment for IoT Edge)
Configure an IoT Edge device
- Select an appropriate gateway pattern (Microsoft Documentation: How an IoT Edge device can be used as a gateway)
- Deploy an IoT gateway by using IoT Hub and IoT Edge (Microsoft Documentation: Azure IoT Edge)
- Configure IoT Edge certificates (Microsoft Documentation: Understand how Azure IoT Edge uses certificates)
- Implement and configure offline support (including local storage) (Microsoft Documentation: Give modules access to a device’s local storage)
- Create a layered hierarchy of IoT Edge devices (Microsoft Documentation: Create a hierarchy of IoT Edge devices)
- Interact with the IoT Edge security manager (Microsoft Documentation: Azure IoT Edge security manager)
Implement Business Integration (5-10%)
Integrate with upstream and downstream systems
- Set up input and output connections to support native Azure services and to enable third-party services (Microsoft Documentation: Configure Azure services for use with Configuration Manager)
- Set up IoT Hub routing to support downstream Azure resources (Microsoft Documentation: Set up IoT Hub routing to support downstream Azure resources)
Develop an IoT solution that uses Azure Digital Twins
- Create models and digital twins (Microsoft Documentation: Learn about twin models and how to define them in Azure Digital Twins)
- Map IoT device data to digital twin models and relationships (Microsoft Documentation: Use Azure Digital Twins to update an Azure Maps indoor map)
- Ingest IoT device messages and translate messages to digital twins (Microsoft Documentation: Ingest IoT Hub telemetry into Azure Digital Twins)
- Configure routes and endpoints to trigger business logic and data processing (Microsoft Documentation: Manage endpoints and routes in Azure Digital Twins)
- Manage and query the Azure Digital Twins graph (Microsoft Documentation: Query the Azure Digital Twins twin graph)
- Update properties on Azure Digital Twins entities in the graph (Microsoft Documentation: Manage digital twins)
- Monitor and troubleshoot Azure Digital Twins (Microsoft Documentation: Monitor Azure Digital Twins with diagnostics logs)
Process and manage data (15-20%)
Configuring message routing in Azure IoT Hub
- Implementing message enrichment in IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Use Azure IoT Hub message enrichments)
- Implement routing of IoT Device telemetry to endpoints (Microsoft Documentation: Use IoT Hub message routing to send device-to-cloud messages to different endpoints)
- Implement routing of IoT Hub non-telemetry to endpoints
- Defining and testing routing queries (Microsoft Documentation: IoT Hub message routing query syntax)
- Configure IoT Hub as an Azure Event Grid source (Microsoft Documentation: Azure IoT Hub as an Event Grid source)
- Reconfigure the default Azure Event Hubs endpoint when there are multiple endpoints (Microsoft Documentation: Allow access to Azure Event Hubs namespaces from specific virtual networks)
Configuring stream processing of IoT data
- Creating Azure Stream Analytics for data and stream processing by using the Azure portal (Microsoft Documentation: Process real-time IoT data streams with Azure Stream Analytics)
- Processing and filter IoT data by using Azure Functions (Microsoft Documentation: Processing data from IoT Hub with Azure Functions)
- Write user-defined functions and aggregations in Stream Analytics (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Stream Analytics JavaScript user-defined aggregates)
- Consume Azure Machine Learning functions in Stream Analytics (Microsoft Documentation: Integrate Azure Stream Analytics with Azure Machine Learning)
- Configure Stream Analytics outputs (Microsoft Documentation: Outputs from Azure Stream Analytics)
Create Azure Stream Analytics queries
- Write a Stream Analytics query that runs in the IoT Edge (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Stream Analytics on IoT Edge)
- Write a Stream Analytics query that runs in the cloud (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Stream Analytics)
Process real-time data by using Time Series Insights
- Create a Time Series Insights environment (Microsoft Documentation: Create a new Azure Time Series Insights)
- Connect the IoT Hub and the Time Series Insights environment (Microsoft Documentation: Add an IoT hub event source to your Azure Time Series Insight environment)
- Create a reference data set for a Time Series Insights environment by using the Azure portal (Microsoft Documentation: Create a reference data set for your Azure Time Series Insights)
- Implement Time Series model hierarchies, types, and instance fields (Microsoft Documentation: Time Series Model in Azure Time Series Insights Gen2)
- Consume data by using Time Series Expression syntax (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Time Series Insights Gen2 Time Series Expression syntax)
Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize IoT solutions (5-10%)
Configuring health monitoring
- Configure rules and alerts based on IoT Hub metrics (Microsoft Documentation: Set up and use metrics and logs with an IoT hub)
- Setting up diagnostics logs for Azure IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Enable the diagnostic logs)
- Apply Azure Policy definitions for IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Policy built-in definitions for Azure IoT Hub)
- Gather IoT Edge metrics (Microsoft Documentation: Collect and transport metrics)
- Retrieve diagnostics from Azure IoT Edge (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot your IoT Edge device)
Troubleshooting device communication
- Verifying device telemetry is received by IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Send telemetry from a device to an IoT hub and read it with a back-end application )
- Validating device twin properties, tags, and direct methods (Microsoft Documentation: Understand and use device twins in IoT Hub, Understand and invoke direct methods from IoT Hub)
- Troubleshooting device disconnects and connects (Microsoft Documentation: Monitor, diagnose, and troubleshoot disconnects with Azure IoT Hub)
- Troubleshoot IoT Edge modules and devices (Microsoft Documentation: Troubleshoot your IoT Edge device)
- Troubleshoot message loss
- Evaluate and test IoT Hub failover (Microsoft Documentation: Perform manual failover for an IoT hub)
Implement security (5-10%)
Implement security for IoT devices and services
- Implement device and gateway security, including shared access keys, key rotation, managed identities, Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), and Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) (Microsoft Documentation: Trusted Platform Module Technology Overview, Security practices for Azure IoT device manufacturers)
- Implement secure connections, including access control, authentication, shared access policies, and TLS (Microsoft Documentation: Control access to IoT Hub using Shared Access Signatures)
Implement Microsoft Defender for IoT
- Configure a Defender for IoT agent-based solution (Microsoft Documentation: Configure Microsoft Defender for IoT agent-based solution)
- Install and configure Defender-IoT-micro-agents (security agents) (Microsoft Documentation: Install the Defender for IoT micro agent)
- Configure built-in and custom alerts for IoT Hub (Microsoft Documentation: Defender for IoT Hub custom security alerts, Defender for IoT Hub security alerts)
Step 2- Gather all Learning Resources
Always remember to get study materials from legitimate sources that are sanctioned by Microsoft. Microsoft issues its companion content online, and you can seek out online resources and forums from people who have previously taken the exam.
Also, many certified training companies have access to official Microsoft courseware. Further, this is aligned directly with the objectives of the exams. Role-based certification training courses, such as Azure training, will definitely help you dive deeper into a specific role while preparing for your exam.
Online study guides
There are various sources when it comes to online study guides. These are best suitable for certification exams. These are often one of the cheapest options for study. The product documentation also falls under this section. But, using the Microsoft AZ-220 study guide is one of the least structured methods to follow when studying.
Online Reference Courses
There are many online, on-demand video services and courses that can be viewed. Obviously, the cost can vary depending on the source. These offer a great self-paced learning path to follow using audio and video rather instead of written books. These sources can be more natural to consume while multi-tasking.
Books are your Best Friends
Books are always a good learning resource to gain knowledge. Moreover, Microsoft has its own press store. So, never try to limit your knowledge. Therefore, we suggest going through the following AZ-220 books-
- Internet of Things for Architects: Architecting IoT solutions by implementing sensors, communication infrastructure, edge computing, analytics, and security by Perry Lea
- AI, IoT & the Intelligent Edge: Building Your Enterprise Tech Strategy by Daniel Sexton
Instructor-led Training (in-person or virtual)
Obviously, the most expensive study pathway to take is to attend in-person, instructor-led training. This Microsoft AZ-220 training will provide you with a classroom full of students to attend along-side and a dedicated trainer for the duration of the class. Certainly, this is the most powerful training method if you can dedicate the time, but it will cost the most amount of money.
These classes will pool many students from many different clients together so that individuals and/or small teams can afford instructor-led training.On the other hand, virtual delivery of instructor-led classes. These do not require the trainer to travel, and the class can accommodate more than 20 students.
Join Online Forums/Study Groups
Online forums and study groups are a great way to prepare for the AZ-220 exam. Therefore, feel free to get in touch with other candidates through study forums or online groups to ask a question related to the topic you’re having difficulty with. However, it’s not something you have to join. It’s just something very subjective. Not to mention, these online groups help you stay equated with the other people who are also walking through the same path as yours. Moreover, you can also ask a question related to the topic you’re having difficulty with.
Step 3 – Take Practice Exams
Finally, it’s time to analyze your preparations. Practice tests are necessary for self-evaluation. They assess your performance and help you identify your weaker domains. Devoting more attention and strengthening your weaker sections will definitely improve your knowledge. Also, the Microsoft Azure AZ-220 practice tests provide you the real exam environment. You get to practice your speed and accuracy Moreover attempting multiple tests will boost your confidence. Try to outperform yourself with each consequent practice test and be ready to excel the exam. Let’s Start Preparing for the exam!
