Does anybody know of the equivalent certification path to study since the SQL Server MCSA/MCSE is retiring soon? Looking for on-premises type certification, not Azure (cloud based). I looked at the DA-100 but that's more of a Power BI cert than a basic DBA cert like the 70-461, 462 and 463.
Thanks.
As of 31st Jan 2021 there will be no "On-Prem" certifications available.
Microsoft have taken the decision to move from the "Product" focused learning, to "Role" focused learning on a "Cloud First" platform. So everything is Azure focused now.
As such anything in the 70- range is being retired. That being said the certification will still be on your transcript if you pass it. For 2 years after expiry it will be in the active portion of your transcript. After that it moves to the inactive.
If you want a DBA cert I would recommend pursuing 70-764 and 70-765 instead. This is the latest path to get the MCSA for administration.
If you want a SQL Dev cert, it would be 70-761 and 70-762.
If you want a BI cert it would be 70-767 and 70-768
Pass the pair in the same piece you get the MCSA, if you want a MCSE you need to do one of the latter exams in either path. So if you do 70-764/70-765 get the MCSA DBA, you need to do 70-762 or 70-768 to get the MCSE (other exams can be done just need to take a look at the details for the cert)
Further to this, the replacement Azure courses all start DP, there are 3 in generally availability and 1 in beta DP-100, DP-200, DP-201 are available to take in GA. DP-300 is the new DBA cert which is in Beta so you can still sit the exam you just wont know if you passed straight away.
There are other speciality exams in the DP series but the ones which map closely as can be to the 70 series are the ones above.
Thank you for your response.
While these DP-??? exams are all fine options for the Azure side of the world, they still offer no training/certification for an on premises DBA for things like creating stored-procedures, indexes, constraints, derived tables or manipulating data with JOIN, INTERSECT, UNION, MERGE and so on. Unless I missed something while reading the exam objectives.
It seems like Microsoft is no longer testing on or acknowledging this skill set, although it’s in great demand in a lot of industries.
What I did see in the DP-100 exam objectives was things like creating a compute instance, a training pipeline, a workspace and logging metrics, passing data in a pipeline, etc.
Unless I missed the mark completely, these DP exams seem to focus on BI (Business Intelligence) rather than the core role of a DBA.
Please, correct me if I wrong. I have never used Azure or any cloud so I am no expert on this subject.
I guess what I am looking for is something to replace the 70-461, 462 and 463 exams on a long-term basis. Or, just keep them going as they have done for so many years.
Thank you.
@anthony.green
Microsoft's vision, everything is Azure, nothing will be left on-prem.
If it was me I wouldn't be pursuing 461/462/463, these are the SQL 2012 versions of the exams, I would be going for the 761/762(dev, replaces 461), 764/765 (admin replaces 462), 767/768 (BI replaces 463) exams instead to get the SQL 2016 versions of the certifications.
The job of a data professional has changed extremely with the advancements in AI and ML which is where Azure is focusing with the current data platform exams. With DP-100 being focused to Data Science, DP-200&DP-201 being focused to more of a solution architecture.
If you want the DBA certification (not developer) then DP-300 is for you. Again it's in beta so content can and will change. This aligns more to the 462/764/765 exams
Will they release an updated more developer CREATE PROC Azure based role exam, is anyone's guess which align more to the 461/761/762 exams
It's not just the data side that is being affected by these changes, its everything they class as "none modern workplace" so server exams are retiring, web applications, SharePoint etc.
Basically if you want a MCSA/MCSD/MCSE you're out of luck, they are gone as of 31st Jan 2021.
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