Interesting trio of data certifications from Microsoft

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Today I finally achieved a personal target of mine to gain an interesting trio of data certifications from Microsoft. I completed this mission by passing the PL-300 exam today and gaining the Power BI Data Analyst Associate certification.

Which means I have now gained the below trio of data certifications from Microsoft:

• Azure Data Engineer
• Azure Database Administrator
• Power BI Data Analyst

In reality, I have wanted to get this trio for some time for various reasons.

First of all, because I work with all three in one way or another. Even though I work with other offerings I still help with SQL Server issues now and again. With this in mind, I wanted to formalize my knowledge and fill in some blank spots by doing these exams.

Secondly, because a lot of people who work with Azure Synapse Analytics tend to work with Power BI so there is a crossover between the Azure Data Engineer and the Power BI Data Analyst certifications. I mentioned this in my post about the DP-500 exam.

Finally, I wanted to do the Power BI exam due to encouragement from other people in the Data Platform community. Especially Lex Smeets and Nikola Ilic, who have both been encouraging me to do more with Power BI. Mostly due to the fact that they both found out I had worked with Power View before Power BI became a thing.

Technique to gain interesting trio of data certifications

I used my own personal technique to pass each exam, which is as follows:

1. I went through the official Microsoft Learn modules. Which I covered in a blog post that shows how to make the most out of certification pages for Azure exams.
2. I then watched the related Pluralsight videos.
3. Finally, I purchased the official practice tests from MeasureUp and went through them.

Now, this is just my way of doing them. Everybody has a way of studying that works for them. For example, some learn better by attending paid courses. You must work out which method works best for you.

After gaining this interesting trio

I was thinking about having a short break after gaining this interesting trio of data certifications from Microsoft.

However, it would have to be a very short break as presenting a couple of times over the next two weeks. Plus, I have already registered to do the DP-500 exam. There is a first-come, first-served offer by Microsoft at the moment to get a discount for this exam.

You can read more about that in detail in a blog post called ‘Exam DP-500 (beta): Prove your skills as an Azure enterprise data analyst‘.

Final words

I am really glad that I finally gained this interesting trio of data certifications from Microsoft. In addition, I hope it inspires some of you to set your own targets.

Of course, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.