Getting Certified In IoT - Part 1

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When I look back, I feel we haven't been helping very much on how to ramp up on IoT technologies.

Main reason is we needed to first educate ourselves.‍

Trust me, where to start with IoT is tough.  The content is overwhelming & not structured.

When our favorite cloud provider, Microsoft,released an IoT certification alongside with free learning paths: it felt as if they designed it especially for us.

The certification is named "Microsoft Azure IoT Developer - AZ220". TAZ220 means two things:

- "AZ" is an abbreviation for Azure cloud technology;

- The 200 series is related to the Microsoft "Data & AI" series of educational content.

Anyway, let's have a look at the learning paths offered on Microsoft Learn.

The training is divided down into 4 parts. Each is a learning path compiling different modules.The total length of the training materials is around 12h and is mostly lab.

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What to expect from this certification?

First, it's important to acknowledge that it's Azure IoT specific. Meaning that if you're interested in other cloud providers such as AWS or GCP: it won't be relevant for you. To us, Microsoft is the most interesting cloud provider. In case you're wondering we explained why we're thinking: here.‍

Ok, so what do you learn in this certification?‍

In IoT there are two main components: the software & hardware. This certification intends to cover both notions.

- On the software side: Azure has two main PaaS services to know about in IoT. They are IoT Central & IoT Hub. Although, they have the same purpose they differ in the level of complexity & control you have over the application you're building.

IoT central provides a friendly user interface that allows quick setup for a ready to go app. To do so, some templates are available. Only downfall would be that it's not providing granular control that IoT Hub is providing.

You get it: IoT Hub will be less intuitive but will offer more features. Both are covered in the training materials; you even have some hands-on.

- On the devices side: another service is under consideration call IoT Edge to extend IoT Hub Features to the device. It's super useful in case you found yourself in a non-feasible cloud scenario (networking issues or regulatory concerns).

However, the main part is all about connecting devices to the cloud with a strong emphasis on security. This is the longest part of the course as it's about 5h20 length.‍

Would you advise to go for this certification?‍

Being frank: Yes. The content is aggregated for you to learn in an easy way with practical tutorials.

My favorite thing of this course is the top bottom approach. It is really structured in a "Why?-How?-What?" format with a high-level information which is gradually drilled

down to technical details and labs‍

Did you get certified?‍

Not yet but I will keep you posted on how the exam went & my tips. I'll be transparent on how it goes &

Who do you think from Paul-Arthur, Juan or me is going to be certified first?

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