To be honest, I didn’t have a website in November 2025, but since I am mainly speaking about my experiences in November, I changed the date.
This also gives me the chance to provide a bit more detail on things I learned later on.

At the beginning of November, I decided to pursue some Azure certifications. Initially, I wanted to take AZ‑104 (Administrator). Then I realized I was more curious than that.
My next plan was to also take AZ‑305 (Solutions Architect) and AZ‑400 (DevOps). I soon realized that I had mistakenly associated Azure DevOps with a general DevOps certification rather than the product Azure DevOps. Later, I also learned that I am not a big fan of Azure DevOps. Although it has some benefits, it felt to me like just another toolchain without any real “wow effect.” Furthermore, it is designed specifically for Azure, which deepens vendor lock‑in. Last but not least, I quickly realized that the course I took on it was not good at all. So finally, I decided against taking the AZ‑400 certification.

Microsoft charges different prices depending on the country. While exams cost $165 in the United States and 126 Euros in Germany (around $150), they are only $58 in Ukraine. This makes them highly attractive for documenting and extending your knowledge — at least if you are not in the US or Western Europe ;)

Anyway, I had my Udemy subscription and was highly motivated, so I took the first course.

AZ‑104

I prepared with Udemy and followed the entire course, as usual, at 2x speed.
In general, John Christopher seems to be the go‑to instructor on Udemy when it comes to Azure courses. I also looked for more practice exams on Udemy and, of course, completed the practice assessments, which are usually linked on the Exam Overview page on learn.microsoft.com for all exams.
Since I already had a lot of experience with Azure, this was enough to pass the AZ‑104 exam.

AZ‑305

Again, I chose a course by John Christopher for my preparation on Udemy. Unfortunately, I really didn’t feel that this was sufficient.

When should you use Azure SQL, when a managed instance, or should you deploy a self‑managed VM? Which product do you need for which amount of data, failover time, and so on? I had the strong impression that there are many small details to know, rather than just painting the big picture.
I checked more practice exams on Udemy, but I wasn’t sure if all the answers were correct. Of course, I also took the official practice assessment Exam Overview provided by Microsoft.

With all those small details, I tried another approach: what if you ask an AI to create practice exams for you? You can even ask for more specific questions on certain subjects, such as differentiating between database types. And it worked!

Specifically, I asked Copilot to prepare some test exams. After noticing that some questions weren’t as good as I expected, I asked for more questions on specific topics. I also started discussing subjects with Copilot and reading further explanations. In some cases, I was certain Copilot was wrong, so I opened a tab with ChatGPT and asked the same question. Sometimes, it turned out that two AIs can have three different opinions on a subject — for example, what is required to migrate secrets from one Key Vault to another.

In any case, it also helps to ask them for documentation links and references to get detailed answers. One problem remained: AIs are trained to keep you entertained and happy! So you have to remind them frequently that you need exam‑level questions, that they should not ask easy ones, and if you notice the questions becoming easier again, you have to repeat the instruction.

If you want statistics, make sure you receive them regularly and take your own notes. At some point, you get the feeling that discussing with the AI doesn’t get you any further — either you agree, or the AI is wrong, or at least it’s hard to determine if it’s right. That’s the moment when you’re ready to take the exam.

AZ‑500

During my preparation for AZ‑400 (which was actually the exam I wanted to take after AZ‑104), I decided it would make sense to gain more knowledge about security in Azure. I basically followed the same approach as for AZ‑305.

For me, this exam was easier than AZ‑305, as it was less focused on product‑specific details. So again, I used Udemy — fortunately with another course by John Christopher — plus the assessment test on Microsoft Learn, and a few chats with my AI companions.

Further recommendations

By now, I know that KodeKloud also offers courses for all three (and more) of the mentioned Microsoft certifications. I haven’t tried them yet, but if I ever re‑certify, I would definitely give them a try, as they usually provide very good courses.

For those who don’t have a KodeKloud subscription and are also looking for AWS certifications, I can strongly recommend Stephane Maarek. For me personally, Udemy has become less interesting, as course quality varies and higher‑level material is not included in the subscription.