The list of Microsoft Azure certification exams and Microsoft Specialist certifications that can be earned is slowly growing. The first certifications were the Developer, Infrastructure, Architecture, and bigger MCSD Azure Solutions Architect certifications. As Azure grows, so does the need to fill out the Microsoft Certification lineup with additional certification credentials for professionals to prove their expertise. The latest in the bunch are the 2 new “Cloud Data Platform Solutions” and “Big Data Analytics Solutions” exams and associated Microsoft Specialist certifications.

Microsoft Specialist: Cloud Data Platform Solutions

Passing the newly introduced 70-473 Designing and implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions exam will earn the Microsoft Specialist: Cloud Data Platforms Solutions certification. This certification covers both Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Databases from design and implementation to security, high availability, disaster recovery and scalability.

Here’s a break down of the overall exam objectives:

Design and Implement database solutions for Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Database (20-25%)

Design a hybrid SQL Server solutions; Implement SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine (VMs); Design a SQL Database solution; Implement SQL Database; Design and implement data warehousing on Azure

Manage database management systems (DBMS) security (25-30%)

Design and implement SQL Server Database security; Implement Azure SQL Database security

Design for high availability, disaster recovery, and scalability (25-30%)

Design and implement high availability solutions; Design and implement scalable solutions; Design and implement SQL Database data recovery

Monitor and manage database implementations on Azure (25-30%)

Monitor and troubleshoot SQL Server VMs on Azure; Monitor and troubleshoot SQL Database; Automate and manage database implementations on Azure

Microsoft Specialist: Big Data Analytics Solutions

Passing the newly introduced 70-475 Designing and Implementing Big Data Analytics Solutions exam will earn the Microsoft Specialist: Big Data Analytics Solutions certification. This certification covers a range of topics surrounding Big Data including real-time processing, machine-learning, batch processing, and end-to-end cloud analytics.

Here’s a break down of the overall exam objectives:

Design big data branch processing and interactive solutions (20-25%)

Ingest data for batch and interactive processing, design and provision compute clusters, design for data security, design for batch processing, design interactive queries for big data

Design big data real-time processing solutions (25-30%)

Ingest data for real-time processing, design and provision compute resources, design for lambda architecture, design for real-time processing

Design machine-learning solutions (25-30%)

Create and manage experiments, determine when to pre-process or train inside Machine Learning Studio, select input/output types, apply custom processing steps with R and Python, publish web services

Operationalize end-to-end cloud analytics solutions (25-30%)

Create a data factory, orchestrate data processing activities in a data-driven workflow, monitor and manage the data factory, move, transform, and analyze data

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