Microsoft MVP Summit 2024

This week was the MVP Summit for 2024. As with all previous events, all content is completely under NDA. That means this post isn’t going to disclose any of the information that was discussed, but I can mention some areas/ideas that I am excited about.

Most years, Microsoft runs several conferences. Some are more impactful than others, and this year is no different. I am really looking forward to Build and the developer focussed content that will accompany it. And not since 2019 am I looking forward to Ignite as much as I am this year. It appears to be almost back to its full strength, being run this year in Chicago across several days.

While we were at Summit, the GA of Copilot for Security was announced for April 1st, another major milestone for Microsoft’s Copilot products. It doesn’t take much foresight to guess that this pace and innovation of AI products will continue into 2024.

One non-technical item that was very important was my fellow MVPs. This year had an increased in-person turnout to last year, and everyone was in fantastic form for the week. As evidenced in the photo below which includes myself, and other Irish MVPs we could round up on short notice for a quick picture at Microsoft’s new building courtyard.

And for the first time ever, I was joined by a colleague! Alan Kinane is new into our team, and it was great to be able to chat on different levels about content.

And lastly, a massive thank you to those who organised, ran, and made sure everything went as planned for the week. I can only imagine how complex it all is. It’s very much appreciated!

New Azure Certifications

As many of you are probably aware, there is already a Microsoft certification path for those looking for Azure skill set recognition. Recently at the Microsoft Inspire partner conference, Microsoft announced that this would be replaced.

There will now be three roles defined with new qualification to earn.

  1. Azure Adminitstrator
  2. Azure Developer
  3. Azure Solutions Architect

new certs

These new roles and certifications are an attempt to better line-up with industry demands and standards.

overall certs

As with most current MCSA qualifications, it will take two exams to earn a certification. The Beta exams for Azure Administrator are live right now. AZ100 and AZ101 test a broad range of skills across the Azure sphere including, Compute, Networking, Identity, Storage among others.

If you already have the previous exam, 70-533, you can take a transition exam to earn an Azure Administrator certification – AZ102. Again, this is in Beta so places are limited.

timeline

The time frame for the remaining roles and certifications was also shown, so expect a follow-up post on this later this year.

Also, thanks to Microsoft MVP Thomas Maurer, here is a link to discount codes should you wish to book any of the Beta exams. The link is the Microsoft Learning blog, so I will paste it here in full in case anyone is worried about dodgy code pages! 🙂

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/community-blog-post.aspx?BlogId=8&Id=375147

If you would like to watch the announcement in full, you can do so here – https://myinspire.microsoft.com/videos/fb7c3db2-1c65-4a69-aceb-fd06c19bf971