Azure 70-533 Exam Tips - March 2016

Yesterday (Saturday 20-03-2016) I passed the Azure 70-533 (Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions) exam. This was the second time that I did the exam and I passed with 747 points. So that’s a close call. Here are some tips for passing the exam:

• Practice every exam objective in your (Azure) lab. This is very important because you will get some questions in the exam where you need to tell step by step which step you took to install or configure a service. If you don’t have a subscription, you could sign up for the free one-month trial.
• Do the online proctored exam. I absolutely recommend this new way of doing exams. During workdays, It’s annoying to leave a project for a couple of hours to do an exam. Pro’s: - Study from home, in your trusted environment. No travel time needed and it took away some stress during the exam. - Book the exam 10/15 minutes before start time. The first time I did the exam, I postponed it 2 times because at the end of the day, I wasn’t quite ready or fit. Now it’s possible to book the exam when you are ready. - Book the exam on Saturday. - You are allowed to have a glass of water on your desk when doing the exam. In the exam conditions, they said that it’s not allowed but my proctor told me that it’s fine. Cons: - Bye privacy! The recordings of your webcam session with audio and video footage, are in the hands of Microsoft. During your exam, you don’t have any privacy rights. - You need to install additional software. I heard some horror stories about the Pearson Vue exam software, but it worked very good on my Dell Latitude E6540 work notebook with Windows 10. - Taking notes is not allowed during the exam.
• Study from multiple resources. As far as I know, there isn’t a course or book that will tell you everything about this exam. I found out that it wasn’t easy to say when you are ready for the exam, because of all those different study resources. That’s why I failed the first time. When I was studying for the exam, I’ve used the following resources:
  • Microsoft Virtual Academy
    • Azure Fundamentals
    • Azure Fundamentals - Websites
    • Azure Fundamentals - Storage and Data
    • Azure IaaS Technical Fundamentals
  • PluralSight
    • Implementing Cloud Services for Azure Infrastructure (70-533) [Course]
    • Implementing Websites for Azure Infrastructure 70-533 [Course]
    • Preparing to Pass the Microsoft Azure 70-533 Exam [Course]
  • Microsoft Press Books
    • If you are an MCP, don’t forget to use your MCP Voucher: Exam Ref 70-533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
  • CloudThat
    • Azure Certification Boot Camp for Exam 70-533
  • MeasureUp
    • My employer has a contract with MeasureUp. We can use the MeasureUp Practice Exams to check if we are ready to take the exam.
  • Exam changes as of March 10, 2016
    • BuildAzure - overview of all the changes.
    • The official Microsoft document with changes.
  • Other study resources
    • AzureMan (Blog post of Bert Wolters)
    • BuildAzure

Good luck! Let me know what you think of the exam in the comments section.