Azure, Cloud Computing

6 Mins Read

Preparing for Azure 70-532 Exam: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions

I’ve completed my MCSD: Azure Solutions Architect and I would like to share the experience with all of you. To become MCSD, you have to clear all three certifications offered by the Azure i.e. 70-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions, 70-533: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions and 70-534: Architecting Microsoft Solutions.

In this article, I’m sharing information about 70-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions exam, which rewarded me Microsoft Specialist: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification. This certification is developer oriented where developers validate their knowledge on Cloud by clearing this certification.

Before discussing about 70-532, I would like to explain about the entire Azure certification track.

As per the below illustration, you will get fair idea about which certification track is suitable as per your job role.

Types of Azure Certification

Microsoft Azure Certification Track

About Certification Exam

This 70-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions exam is targeted towards a Developer audience. In my experience, it was a very comprehensive and advanced exam with a lot of real-time use cases being converted to exam questions. To clear this certification, developer must have working experience on real-life projects, which involves developing applications on Azure. By having that experience, you will be able to  answer questions better.

Below, we break down the exam topics and the kind of questions that you can expect from this certification exam.

Pre-requisites

The pre-requisite for appearing for this certification exam is that:

Exam Overview

  1. The exam has about 65 multiple choice, multiple answer questions. There is no hands-on or writing needed as part of the exam. The duration of the exam is 120 minutes. It’s a long exam so go properly rested as you will be sitting there for two hours.
  2. The passing percentage of this exam is 70%.
  3. The results are obtained immediately after the exam.
  4. In case you fail, the retake policy mentions that you can take the exam again after 24 hours. If a candidate does not achieve a passing score the second time, the candidate must wait at least 14 days before retaking the exam for a third time. You cannot appear exam more than five times per year (12 months).
  5. The cost for the certification varies as per the country you select.

Exam Contents

This is a very comprehensive exam and it covers almost all services like VMs, VNet, Blob Storage, Table Storage, Queue Storage, Azure Web Apps, Cloud Services, Traffic Manager, Azure SQL Database as a Service, Azure Active Directory, etc. although a lot of the questions were based on popular services like Storage, Web Apps and Cloud Services, you can expect questions from all the services. The questions were designed in way where having hands-on knowledge is required.

The exam is divided into five sections with different percentage representation:

1.0 Design and Implement websites (15 – 20%)

This section covers various concepts of designing and implementing websites on Azure. A lot of questions were simulations of what an architect would have to figure out when he designs an application on top of Azure.

For example: configuring deployment slots, app settings, connection strings, handlers and virtual directories; configure certificates and custom domains; configure SSL bindings and runtime configurations; manage websites by using the API, Windows PowerShell and Xplat-CLI. It also covers, configure web app diagnostics, monitoring and analytics of website resources. Module covers how to implement web jobs and perform recurring task based on schedule. Configure auto-scale using built-in and custom schedules, configure by metric, change the size of an instance and configure Traffic Manager for domain level routing to your website endpoints. Basically, you will need a lot of hands-on practice with Web Apps.

2.0 Create and manage virtual machines (20-25%)

This section includes how to deploy various kind of workloads on Azure Virtual Machines. Create specialized and reusable images, prepare images using SysPrep and Windows Agent (Linux), copy images between storage accounts and subscriptions, upload VMs etc. to deploy different kind of workloads. Topic covers: how to automate VMs configuration, PowerShell DSC (Desired State Configuration) usage, chef or puppet implementation, remote debugging for your applications. You will also get questions on how to configure, reserved IP addresses, access control list (ACL), DNS at the cloud service level, load balancing endpoints, HTTP and TCP health probes, public IPs, firewall rules, direct server return and keep-alive.

Exam question also covers how you can scale up and scale down VM sizes, configure auto-scale and availability sets, configure disk caching, plan for storage capacity, configure shared storage using Azure File service, configure geo-replication. Enable endpoint monitoring, configure alerts, diagnostic and monitoring storage location on Azure.

3.0 Design and implement Cloud Services (20-25%)

This section focus on design and develop a Cloud Services. It includes setting up local environment with Installing SDKs, install emulators, develop a web role or worker role, design and implement resiliency including transient fault handling, develop startup tasks. Configure HTTPS endpoint and upload an SSL certificate, instance count and size; configure network access rules, local storage, multiple websites, custom domains and dedicated and co-located caching; scale up and scale down role sizes; configure auto-scale. Module also covers, how to deploy/upgrade Cloud Services, define the application deployment pipeline, configure continuous deployment from source control, configure diagnostic on cloud services using the SDK or configuration file. Enable remote debugging and establish Remote Desktop connection on web roles and worker roles. Enable debugging using IntelliTrace or the emulator. So, in a nutshell, you should be well verse with Cloud Services.

4.0 Design and implement a Storage Strategy (20-25%)

This section covers, how to design and implement appropriate storage options is critical for your application. Azure provides various storage services, which you can provision and design effective solution. Azure storage allows you to provision different storage options like Blob, Table and Queue to access specific type of data. Topic also includes:  how to configure Content Delivery Network (CDN), design blob hierarchies, configure custom domains, scale blob storage. Configure Azure Table storage for No-SQL type of data and perform CRUD types of transactions, design and manage partitions, query using OData; scale tables and partitions easily. Various questions on how to develop loosely coupled application by using Azure storage queues, how to add and process messages, retrieve a batch of messages, scale queues are also covered.

Azure storage security by defining various kinds of security policies, generate shared access signatures, including client renewal and data validation; create stored access policies; regenerate storage account keys; configure and use Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), define retention policies and logging levels, analyse logs. So far we have talked about unstructured data, here exam covers Azure SQL databases as a service. You will get questions on database tier and performance level, configure and perform point-in-time recovery, enable geo-replication, import and export data and schema, scale SQL databases.

5.0 Manage application and network services (15-20%)

This section deals with various different services like: application security by integrating an app with Azure Active Directory, use WS-federation, OAuth and SAML-P endpoints; query the directory using graph API. Topic also covers, addition security by configuring a virtual network, deploy VM inside that VNet or deploy cloud service in VNet and secures resources. Develop applications using a messaging solution, which includes service bus queues, topics, relays and notification hubs; create service bus namespaces and choose a tier; scale service bus. Monitor communication between service bus queues, topics, relays and notification hubs. You can expect questions on Caching; Azure supports Redis cach as a service, to store various types of data.

In addition, there could be use cases about migrating in-house application to cloud while minimizing the downtime using strategies like replicating your in-house database to the cloud using data-pipeline or other third party tools before the scheduled time window to perform switchover etc.

How to take the 70-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions exam

If you have not already cleared Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions exam, do it now. To sign up, go to the Microsoft official page and schedule your exam.

Please share your views in comments below if you also took the certification exam, or if you have specific questions.

How to Prepare for 70-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions exam

Overall the exam is comprehensive and hand-on experience with Microsoft Azure services is a must. I will also be conducting a bootcamp for this certification. If you are interested to join, please click here and fill out the form.

Good luck!! If you have any questions, please mention them below and will try to answer them. Also if you like the article please share it with others.

 

WRITTEN BY CloudThat

SHARE

Comments

  1. Pratik Mistry

    Aug 7, 2018

    Reply

    What is the validity of the certification for Exam 70-532? Is it 2 years or it never expires?

  2. mazid

    Jul 7, 2018

    Reply

    Hi Jigar, if i fail the exam and wanted to retake it, do i have to pay any extra fee for that or will it be free

  3. Mani

    Apr 11, 2018

    Reply

    Hi,
    how to cover 70-532 concept within 2weeks?? how to proceed it.. what to follow?? either dumps or microsoft official website ????

  4. Sreekanth

    Dec 9, 2017

    Reply

    Hi, Thanks for providing this information. I am about to prepare 70-532 assuming I should start from the lowest exam code but its confirmed that its for developers and not for non-developers like me from your post. Your post saved a lot of my time 🙂

  5. Kevin

    Sep 20, 2017

    Reply

    How much time would you allocate to studying for the exam?

    • Jigar

      Sep 25, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Kevin,

      You can spend around 15 days of learning along with practice test. Let me know if you need any further details.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  6. Atul Singh

    Aug 27, 2017

    Reply

    Hi,
    I have total 5+ years experience in asp.net,mvc,sql server. which azure certification will be beneficial to me 70-532 or 70-533. suppose i have cleared 70-532 then is it recommended that i have to clear 70-533 ?? i have total coding background i don’t have any idea about networking stuff.
    if i have only 70-532 certificate then will it beneficial to me ??

    • Jigar Pathak

      Sep 1, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Atul,

      For detail information on certification track and what specialization you can target in Azure, please read my another blog which helps you to understand Azure certification track.
      How to become a MCSA / MCSE in Microsoft Azure

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  7. Surendiran

    Aug 14, 2017

    Reply

    Hi,
    I have totally 10 yrs of experience in .NET (web application + Windows). I just started learing about Cloud basics and I have not idea about which Microsoft Azure Certification to do? Please suggest me and also provide the details of the training you are providing

    • Jigar Pathak

      Sep 1, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Surendiran,

      As per your background, you can target 70-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions certification. Also you can refer my next blog article for more specialization on Azure certification, please check this link:
      How to become a MCSA / MCSE in Microsoft Azure

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  8. Janardhan

    Aug 4, 2017

    Reply

    Hi,
    I have experience in Java, and basics of Networking but dint have any experience in .Net or visual studio. Can I take 70-532 exam

    • Jigar

      Aug 10, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Janardhan,

      Yes sure you can take this exam, as this certification is target for developer from any stream.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  9. ankit kumar

    Jul 24, 2017

    Reply

    sir,i m not having coding ideas of c# or asp stuff,,i m from ECE background but i have learnet abut azure portal and differnt implementation techniques of it through the process of preparation of exm of 70-532. can i be able to clear exam without any those programming stuff?

    • Jigar Pathak

      Jul 24, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Ankit,

      For 70-532, majorly questions from Cloud API and developing solutions. Exam questions aligned with code, they give you some code as in question with some blanks, you have to fill them with correct code. Not all the questions are based on coding, but yeah you have to be prepare for that. So if you have idea about Object oriented programming knowledge then it’s fine. Also please go through with exam objectives, that really helps you to prepare with topics.

      Let me know if you need any further information.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

      • Moshahid khan

        Aug 6, 2017

        Reply

        Hi Jigar,
        I’m VCP certified and have been working as storage admin with no knowledge of developing tools, which course is best as per my job profile

  10. ankit kumar

    Jul 24, 2017

    Reply

    sir,i m not having coding ideas of c# or asp stuff,,i m from ECE background but i have learnet abut azure portal and differnt implementation techniques of it through the process of preparation of exm of 70-532. can i be able to clear exam without any thouse programming stuff?

  11. Dipen Shah

    Jul 17, 2017

    Reply

    Any tips how to read the case study, I have seen in practice test, I took lot of time in reading the case studies only. And what is the total time of exam? 2 hours or 3 hours? And do we get plain paper, just to write down points from Case study?

    • Jigar Pathak

      Jul 18, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Dipen,

      I hope you must have gone through case study with measureup? In that case, I use to view question first and then go back to case study scenario to refer problem statement. This way you can save time and focus on question related problem statement. Reading entire case study is quite challenging, because you may get around 3 to 5 case study during exam. So you have to scan through them. Also you will get marker and sheet for rough work during exam, so no need to worry.

      Let me know if you need any further information.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  12. Dipen Shah

    Jul 16, 2017

    Reply

    Hi Jigar, I read your blog, and it’s really helpful. I have scheduled the exam this week, I have prepared for this exam using MeasureUp test, Pluralsight videos, Microsoft Press book for 70-532 and dumps.
    Is that enough? and after changing the format last year, do you know any questions are coming from MeasureUp and dumps?

    • Jigar Pathak

      Jul 16, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Dipen,

      Thanks for writing, I think the material you have used for preparation is enough. Make sure you have visited MS site with latest exam objectives,that will really help you to prepare.

      Questions from dumps I’m not sure, and measureup is more on practice side. You will get similar questions not the same one :).

      So I suggest that go through with hands-on with portal developing services, because various questions comes on how to implement or write code with API calls.

      Let me know if you need any further information.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

      • Dipen Shah

        Jul 16, 2017

        Reply

        Thanks Jigar, just want to confirm one more thing, I have read on some websites and people are saying that you cannot navigate back to the previous question in exam, generally I have given many Microsoft certification exams, and it is always allows you to go back to modify the answers, so is it true in the new format?

        Regards,
        Dipen Shah

        • Jigar

          Jul 17, 2017

          Reply

          Hi Dipen,

          That is true when you are attempting Case Study. In case study, it’s mandatory that you finish one case study then only you are allowed to go for next individual question or case study. So question pattern is, you will get around 3 to 5 case study. Each case study consist of 4 to 9 questions and other questions are individual. So those generic questions you can flag them for review.

          Let me know if you need any further information.

          Thanks,
          Jigar Pathak

  13. prasad

    Jul 2, 2017

    Reply

    Hi,
    I have 8+ experince in c#,asp.net,mvc,sql.
    Have a hands on giving deployments in cloud services.
    I want to prepare 70-532,70-533,can you suggest any best internet source for prepare exam.Any dumps available ?.

  14. Tushar soni

    Jun 24, 2017

    Reply

    I love your blog post, It’s informative and providing excellent knowledge about azure development.

    Thanks for sharing!!

  15. Yash

    May 18, 2017

    Reply

    Hi, I am a Software Developer and this is begininning of my career as I have only 3 years of experience with technologies like JAVA,C/C++,MySQL, IAM and some other. I aim to clear Exam 70-532 and thus started my search for the same. Can you please give some more details as where can I get the study material or trainings as I really want to clear all the tests ie 532,533,534. You help with appreciated! Thanks mch

    • Yash

      May 18, 2017

      Reply

      *your help will be highly appreciated!!

    • Jigar Pathak

      Jul 2, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Yash,

      Good to know about your interest in Azure Certification. Please visit this blog where I have mentioned about preparing for certification. This article also includes practice test link details as well. Let me know if you need any further information.

      https://blog.cloudthat.com/how-to-become-a-mcsa-mcse-in-microsoft-azure/

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  16. Ayon Mukherjee

    Apr 11, 2017

    Reply

    Hello Jigar , Do we need any programming experience for this track , I am admin with basic powershell knowledge and core windows and vritualization experience . and What is the track i should follow

    • Jigar

      Jul 6, 2017

      Reply

      Based on your job role you should target Azure 70-533:Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions.

      Let me know if you need more information.

      Regards,
      Jigar Pathak

  17. kiran

    Apr 3, 2017

    Reply

    i have really no good knowledge of networking. I am .net developer but really bad at networking. I really struggle with understanding section create and manage virtual machines which is part of exam 70-532. do u know where can i find course for people with poor networking knowledge

    • Jigar Pathak

      Apr 3, 2017

      Reply

      Hi Kiran,

      As per my knowledge, you have to understand networking fundamentals like IP range, VNet, Subnet etc. No need to go in-depth of networking concepts like networking topology etc. I suggest you to enquire course at CloudThat where we provide detail training on Azure 70-532 course with all relative concepts covered. Please refer link here https://cloudthat.in/course/azure-certification-boot-camp-for-exam-70-532/

      Let me know if you need any further information.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  18. Raja R

    Dec 27, 2016

    Reply

    Hi Jigar, did you took any training

    • Jigar

      Feb 16, 2017

      Reply

      First of all sorry for the last response.

      Yes Raja we do provide training for all the Azure certifications. Please let me know how you want to proceed.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

  19. goldy

    Sep 7, 2016

    Reply

    Hi , I have 8.5 yr core development experience in C/C++ ,Unix but highly interested in Azure .Please suggest me should I move to Azure while having no exp. in C# and networking.If yes then from which certification I should start ?

    • Jigar Pathak

      Sep 9, 2016

      Reply

      Hi Goldy,

      You should learn Azure, that will help you to validate your development knowledge with cloud based application development. Apart from networking and C#, Azure supports various open source frameworks and technologies. So you can use your existing knowledge and focus on cloud based app development.

      Let me know if you need further information.

      Thanks,
      Jigar Pathak

      • Rami

        Feb 12, 2020

        Reply

        How to prepare Azure certification. Can we prepare from udemy or course era? Are these sites enough to prepare for certification? Let me know if you havea ny other? thank in advance

        thanks
        Rami

    Click to Comment

Get The Most Out Of Us

Our support doesn't end here. We have monthly newsletters, study guides, practice questions, and more to assist you in upgrading your cloud career. Subscribe to get them all!