With the advent of Covid 19, the world saw an instant shift to the internet. Everything ranging from Online classes to Office work saw a drastic shift online. It is the right time that we need to understand that the world has accepted the fact that skills for the upcoming future are much more required than degrees. One such skill in the world that is required is “cloud computing”. More than half of the organizations use multiple public clouds and the rest are expected to shift to the cloud soon. To bridge the Gap, Microsoft has come up with a certification Exam AZ-120: Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads. The certification has improved both the learnings by 70% and 84% of people have seen better job prospects after getting certified.
About Microsoft Exam AZ-120
If you’re thinking about taking this exam, it’s crucial to be really familiar with SAP applications like SAP HANA, S/4HANA, SAP NetWeaver, SAP BW/4HANA, OS servers for SAP applications, and databases. Having an Azure Administrator Associate or Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification can give you an extra edge for the AZ-120 exam. But remember, earning these certifications is no walk in the park.
Moreover, it is essential to know the skills and knowledge you will be gaining after this certification. The exam will help you to implement, manage, and monitor identity, governance, and virtual networks in a cloud environment, plus provision, size, monitor, and adjust resources when needed. Furthermore, it tests your knowledge across five different subject areas, and that’s how this learning path is structured.
Exam Format
The Microsoft Exam AZ-120: Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads consist of 40-60 questions that need to be completed within a time span of 90 minutes. You need to manage your time accordingly. Additionally, it’s recommended that since there are 40-60 questions in total, you shouldn’t use more than 1 minute for each question. If you manage to complete the exam in 60 minutes, you’ll still have 30 minutes left to review and double-check your answers on average.
Furthermore, there are different types of questions present during the exam including case studies, short answers, multiple-choice, mark review, etc. Because there are various question types, start with the case study questions first as they take the most time. After that, tackle the short answers and then the multiple-choice questions. Remember, you need at least 720 points to pass. The exam fee is $165 USD, and it’s available in English.
How to schedule the exam?
Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads AZ-120 has been built to tests and validates your expertise as an Azure Administrator. Furthermore, you should have should also have a strong understanding of core Azure services, workloads, security, and governance. You can schedule your examination with Pearson VUE.
For registering yourself for AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate examination you are required to follow the following steps:
- You can book your examination with Pearson VUE.
- Follow the instructions given on the site
- Select the available date and time slot and make the payment.
- For Non-Students interested in Technology
- For Students or Instructors
AZ-120 Course Outline
Topics and sections help you in getting a clear understanding of the exam. Undoubtedly, for the Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads AZ-120 exam, we will learn and understand the important areas that will be useful during exam preparation.
1. Migrate SAP workloads to Azure (25—30%)
Identify requirements for target infrastructure
- Estimate target sizing for SAP workloads (Microsoft Documentation: SAP workloads on Azure: planning and deployment checklist)
- Identify supported scenarios for SAP deployments on Azure
- Identify compute, storage, and network requirements for SAP workloads
- Assess constraints imposed by subscription models and quota limits (Microsoft Documentation: Azure subscription and service limits, quotas, and constraints)
- Identify software licensing requirements for target workloads
- Identify cost implications for target workloads
- Specify an Azure support plan for target infrastructure (Microsoft Documentation: Configure infrastructure)
- Choose between lift and shift, lift-shift-migrate, and lift-shift-migrate to HANA
- Choose an appropriate SAP workload migration strategy and tools
Design and implement an Azure environment to support SAP workloads
- Design and implement authorization and access control for SAP workloads (Microsoft Documentation: SAP workloads on Azure: planning and deployment checklist)
- Design and implement governance and compliance by using Azure Policy (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Policy)
- Design and implement authentication for SAP workloads
- Design and implement authentication for SAP software as a service–based (SaaS-based) applications (Microsoft Documentation: integrating SaaS applications with Azure Active Directory)
- Design and implement a management hierarchy, including management groups, subscriptions, and resource groups
- Design Azure landing zones for SAP
2. Design and implement an infrastructure to support SAP workloads on Azure (35—40%)
Design and implement a compute solution for SAP workloads
- Choose an SAP-certified Azure virtual machine for a given SAP workload (Microsoft Documentation: Use Azure to host and run SAP workload scenarios)
- Configure the Azure VM extension for SAP solutions (Microsoft Documentation: Implement the Azure VM extension for SAP solutions)
- Deploy an operating system by using an Azure Marketplace image (Microsoft Documentation: Find and use Azure Marketplace VM images with Azure PowerShell)
- Create a custom image and deploy it to an Azure virtual machine (Microsoft Documentation: Create a golden image in Azure)
- Automate the deployment of Azure virtual machines by using IaC, including Bicep and Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates (Microsoft Documentation: Use infrastructure automation tools with virtual machines in Azure)
- Automate deployment by using the SAP on Azure Deployment Automation Framework
- Automate deployment by using Azure Center for SAP solutions
Design and implement networking for SAP on Azure Virtual Machines
- Design and implement virtual networks and subnets (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Virtual Network)
- Implement Accelerated Networking for Azure Virtual Machines (Microsoft Documentation: Create a Linux virtual machine with Accelerated Networking using Azure CLI)
- Design and configure proximity placement groups (Microsoft Documentation: Proximity placement groups)
- Design networking to meet SAP workload latency requirements
- Design and implement network flow control (Microsoft Documentation: Traffic flow security in Azure)
- Design and implement network security (Microsoft Documentation: Design and implement network security)
- Design and implement service endpoints and private endpoints for Azure Storage (Microsoft Documentation: Use private endpoints for Azure Storage)
- Design name resolution for integration with Azure DNS (Microsoft Documentation: Name resolution for resources in Azure virtual networks)
- Design and configure Azure ExpressRoute for hybrid connectivity (Microsoft Documentation: Extend an on-premises network using ExpressRoute)
- Design and configure load balancing for a reverse proxy (Microsoft Documentation: Set up and configure reverse proxy in Azure Service Fabric)
Design and implement a storage solution for SAP on Azure Virtual Machines
- Choose a storage type
- Specify when to use disk striping and simple volumes (Microsoft Documentation: Volume Object)
- Design for storage security considerations (Microsoft Documentation: Security recommendations for Blob storage)
- Design and implement data protection (Microsoft Documentation: Data protection considerations)
- Design and implement caching for disks (Microsoft Documentation: Caching guidance)
- Configure Write Accelerator (Microsoft Documentation: Enable Write Accelerator)
- Configure encryption for storage, disks, and data (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Storage encryption for data at rest)
- Design and implement volumes by using Azure NetApp Files
- Design and implement volumes by using Azure Files
3. Design and implement high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) (15—20%)
Design and implement a high-availability solution for SAP on Azure Virtual Machines
- Design for service-level agreement (SLA) considerations (Microsoft Documentation: Using business metrics to design resilient Azure applications)
- Design and deploy SAP workloads into availability sets and availability zones (Microsoft Documentation: SAP workload configurations with Azure Availability Zones)
- Design and implement load balancing for high availability (Microsoft Documentation: High Availability and Disaster Recovery)
- Configure clustering for HANA and SAP Central Services (SCS) (Microsoft Documentation: Cluster an SAP ASCS/SCS instance on a Windows failover cluster)
- Configure clustering for SQL
- Configure Pacemaker and STONITH (Microsoft Documentation: Set up Pacemaker on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in Azure)
- Configure an Azure fence agent or STONITH Block Device (SBD)
- Design and configure storage-level replication for SAP workloads (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Storage types for SAP workload)
- Configure restart of SAP systems, instances, and HANA databases
Design and implement a disaster recovery solution for SAP on Azure Virtual Machines
- Design and implement an Azure Site Recovery strategy for SAP infrastructure (Microsoft Documentation: Set up disaster recovery for a multi-tier SAP NetWeaver app deployment)
- Design a disaster recovery solution with regional considerations (Microsoft Documentation: Create business continuity and disaster recovery solutions with Azure Data Explorer)
- Specify network configurations for disaster recovery (Microsoft Documentation: Set up disaster recovery for Azure VMs)
- Design a backup strategy to meet SLA requirements
- Implement policies for backups and snapshots (Microsoft Documentation: Backup cloud and on-premises workloads to cloud)
- Configure and validate snapshots and backups for SAP workloads (Microsoft Documentation: Perform backups and restores for SAP workloads on Azure)
- Perform backup and restore (Microsoft Documentation: Back up and restore environments)
- Test disaster recovery (Microsoft Documentation: Run a test failover (disaster recovery drill) to Azure)
4. Maintain SAP workloads on Azure (10—15%)
Optimize performance and costs
- Optimize performance and costs for an SAP workload by using Azure Advisor recommendations (Microsoft Documentation: Introduction to Azure Advisor)
- Analyze and optimize network performance (Microsoft Documentation: Plan and optimize network performance for Teams Phone)
- Optimize costs by configuring snoozing and deploying reserved instances
- Optimize performance and cost by resizing Azure Virtual Machines (Microsoft Documentation: Optimize costs from recommendations)
- Optimize storage costs (Microsoft Documentation: Optimize storage performance and costs using Blob storage tiers)
- Optimize performance and cost of SAP application servers and databases (Microsoft Documentation: SAP workloads on Azure: planning and deployment checklist)
Monitor and maintain SAP on Azure
- Monitor Azure virtual machines by using Azure Monitor (Microsoft Documentation: Monitor Azure virtual machines)
- Monitor high availability by using Azure Monitor (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Monitor overview)
- Monitor networking by using Azure Monitor and Azure Network Watcher
- Configure Azure Monitor for SAP solutions
- Manage backups by using Azure Backup
- Start and stop SAP systems by using Azure Center for SAP solutions
- Manage virtual instances by using Azure Center for SAP solutions
- Implement the SAP Landscape Management (LaMa) connector for Azure
Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads AZ-120 Study Guide
The most important step is preparation. Undoubtedly with the right study material and resources, you will definitely excel in the examination. But there comes the most difficult part of hunting down for the study material. There is a lot of books, guides, and other resources available on the internet. We all often tend to get confused to select the right one for us. Yet, to aid your preparation, we’ve gathered some resources for you to check out. Additionally, following this guide will assist you in grasping each exam objective. We’re offering the top learning materials to help you succeed in the exam. Furthermore, we’ll provide a detailed description to guide you in your preparation. Let’s begin:
Online Tutorials
Online Tutorials boost your knowledge and give you a thorough understanding of exam concepts. They not only cover exam details and policies but also provide in-depth information about the examination. This, in turn, helps you prepare thoroughly for the exam. So, learning with online tutorials will enhance and strengthen your preparation.
Expert Corner
When you begin your preparation journey, it becomes essential to review all exam objectives. Furthermore, by doing so it will provide you with a clear idea about all the different topics and skills that you need to be proficient in. Additionally, going over the exam objectives ensures clarity in your mind, allowing you to concentrate on your preparation. Exam objectives aid in reinforcing the modules and their respective subtopics. Moreover, there are several books available, and it’s advisable to join the Microsoft community, providing an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals.
The final step to success is to practice what you have learned. Moreover, incorporating a practice test into your study routine is an excellent way to vary your approach and maximize your chances of success in the actual exam. Additionally, carefully analyzing the practice test is crucial for thorough preparation. We offer complimentary sample papers to assist you in excelling in the examination. These free practice exam papers provide a real-time examination experience. Hence, commence your preparation now!
