Exam 70-473 – Designing and Implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions

I spent around 2-3 weeks studying for the Microsoft Exam 70-473 (Designing and Implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions) and I decided to write this post to help anyone in the same journey.

This exam will test your knowledge on Microsoft Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL Data Warehouse and SQL Server in IaaS. You also need to know some DMVs and Azure Power Shell functions.

Exam

I bought my test through http://www.mindhub.com which included:

• Exam Voucher (70-473)
• One (1) exam retake, if necessary
• One (1) Microsoft Official Practice Test, powered by MeasureUp

Before start studying for the exam, I took the Microsoft Official Practice Test, which helped me to understand areas that I should be focusing on my studies. This way is only recommended if you already have experience with Microsoft Cloud Data Platform.

Studying

If you don’t have experience with MS Cloud Data Platform I suggested you start from reading about Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL DW and SQL Server on IaaS (Azure VM). It is also important some hands-on development and setup of Azure SQL DB, SQL Data Warehouse and SQL Server on IaaS. Try to setup using Power Shell and Portal as this will help you to remember the commands during the exam.

I started my journey watching the Ignite video from James Herring and also taking the Microsoft Official Practice Test.

After that, I read a couple of documents about Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse and SQL Server in Azure IaaS.

I suggest you to setup a trial Azure account on https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/ and you will be able to use it for 30 days.

There is an Azure Database training available on Microsoft Learning website. I haven’t done this training, but Microsoft training is always a good start.

Azure SQL Database

In Azure SQL Database, you need to study the following:  (It looks a lot to read, but some of these links are very short)

1. Database Overview
   • Service Tiers
   • Elastic Pools
   • DTUs & eDTUs
   • Resource Limits
   • PaaS vs IaaS
   • Features
2. Security
   • Access Control
   • Firewall
   • Azure AD
   • Users & Logins
   • Multi-Factor Authentication
   • Auditing
   • Threat Detection
   • TDE
   • Always Encrypted
   • Data Masking
3. Business Continuity
   • Database Backups
   • Backup Retention
   • Database Recovery
   • Failover Groups
   • App Design & Recovery
   • App Design & Pools
   • App Design & App Upgrade
   • Recovery from Outage
   • Recovery from drill
4. Load & Move data
   • Migrate SQL Server DB
   • T-SQL changes
   • Copy a database
   • Import a database
   • Export a database
5. Monitor and Tune
   • Perf Monitoring
   • Perf Recommendation
   • Manual Tunning
   • Extended Events
   • Monitor in Memory
6. Scale out app
   • SaaS Design Partner
   • SaaS App Security
   • Shared Database
   • Shared maps
   • Elastic Tools
   • Elastic Queries
   • Horizontal Data
   • Vertical Data
   • Transactions
   • Elastic Jobs
7. How-to guides
   • Elastic Pool PowerShell
   • Elastic Pool T-SQL
   • Always Encrypted cert store
   • Always Encrypted key vault
   • Data Masking
   • Configure Vault Backups
   • Geo-Replicate – Portal
   • Geo-Replicate – TSQL
   • Geo-Replicate – Failover – TSQL
   • Restore a single table
   • Load Data with BCP
   • Sync Data
   • Monitor & Improve Performance
   • User Query Performance Insight
   • Use DMVs to monitor perf
   • Create alerts
   • Extended Events – Event File
   • Diagnostic Logging
   • Create Horizontal Data

Azure SQL Data Warehouse

This section was very light in the exam and I believe it is important to understand what is Azure SQL DW and also the following areas:

1. Overview
2. Data Types
3. Backup
4. Restore
5. Connect
6. Tables

Extra Reading

Azure SQL Service Management Cmdlets

Microsoft SQL Server provides the following types of replication for use in distributed applications

This section contains the dynamic management views and functions that are related to Always On availability groups.

Execution Related Dynamic Management Views and Functions

Azure PowerShell Samples for Azure SQL Database

Hope this gives you some guidance on what you need to study for the exam.

Good luck!