Tuesday, 8 April 2025

Microsoft AI Skills Fest

 



The Microsoft AI Skills Fest is an initiative by Microsoft aimed at helping individuals and professionals develop skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technologies. It typically includes a series of free workshops, training sessions, webinars, and hands-on labs designed to empower participants with AI knowledge and practical experience using Microsoft's AI tools like Azure AI, Copilot, and other AI services.


How do I join a Challenge?

Select the Challenge you want to participate in and register by selecting "Join the Challenge" once it starts. You will use your Microsoft Learn profile to register.

If you don't have a Microsoft Learn profile, that's okay. You can create one when you register.


Registration: https://aiskillsfest.event.microsoft.com/ 

How to Enter


Select one of the qualifying certification exams below.

Topic

Exam(s)

AI

AI-900: Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals
AI-102: Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate

Azure

AZ-900: Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
AZ-204: Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate

Data Platform

DP-900: Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals
DP-700: Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate
DP-600: Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
DP-420: Microsoft Certified: Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty
DP-300: Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate
DP-203: Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
DP-100: Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate

Microsoft 365

MS-102: Microsoft 365 Administrator

Power Platform

PL-300: Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate

Security

SC-401: Administering Information Security in Microsoft 365
SC-200: Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate


To collect your free Microsoft Certification exam vouchers, Click here.



Friday, 4 April 2025

DevOps



What is DevOps?

DevOps is a combination of two words:
  • Dev = Development (writing code)
  • Ops = Operations (running and managing that code on servers)

DevOps is a culture which improves the organisation's ability to deliver applications.
It's a way of working where software developers and IT operations teams collaborate closely to build, test, and release software faster and more reliably.


What is the purpose of using DevOps?
Before DevOps, delivering software was slow, manual, and error-prone.

Problems Before DevOps:
  • Developers and operations teams worked in separate silos.
  • Manual processes took a lot of time.
  • Bugs and miscommunications happened often.
  • Releasing updates was risky and was done only a few times a year.

How Developers Deployed Code Before DevOps
  1. The developer writes code on their local computer.
  2. The developer sends code to the QA (Quality Assurance) team.
  3. QA manually tests the code.
  4. If all is fine, the QA passes it to a release manager.
  5. The release manager schedules a deployment time (usually late nights or weekends).
  6. The system admin manually copies the code to the production server.
  7. If something breaks, everyone scrambles to fix it.

How DevOps Can Help
  • Developers, testers, and ops work together.
  • Code is automatically tested and deployed.
  • Mistakes are caught early.
  • Software can be released in minutes or hours instead of weeks.
 
DevOps Flow
  1. The developer pushes code to GitHub.
  2. CI tools run automated tests.
  3. CD tools deploy the code.
  4. Monitoring tools check for issues.

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
SDLC is a step-by-step process to build software. It helps ensure the software is high quality, cost-effective, and delivered on time.


DevOps improves SDLC
  • Automating testing and deployment
  • Reducing manual errors
  • Providing faster feedback
  • Ensuring better collaboration
  • Making releases more