Earlier this year, Microsoft released a new certification that combines AI and SQL Server knowledge: the DP-800: Developing AI-Enabled Database Solutions.
As I still deeply care about SQL Server and am convinced it has a very central place in any data architecture (cloud or on-premises), this one sparked a lot of interest.
Today, I took the exam, and now it’s time to share my experience. As always, I will not share confidential content, such as questions.
Learning
As mentioned in an earlier blog post, I began my learning journey with Microsoft Learn resources. These provide a broad overview of all the topics covered in the exam, offer some hands-on experience, and provide good questions to verify knowledge.
In my first pass, I skipped the exercises and went for a good read of the content. The results from the questions showed that there were gaps in my knowledge, not surprisingly, in new functionality such as regular expressions, graph queries, and everything related to AI.
The second pass was more focused, trying to close these gaps. This meant reading more carefully, making notes (writing by hand still works best for me), and trying out the exercises. The thing with the Microsoft exercises is that they offer a step-by-step manual of what to do. And that just works. Which is good, as you keep getting the positive reinforcement of success, but it lacks the challenges you get when, for instance, you try to do an applied skill assessment.
Preparing
Next, I had to try to prepare for the exam. This time, I used Certiace, a website created by fellow MVP Aleksi Partanen. This offered a large number of questions, scenarios, and funny-worded questions that align with the way Microsoft tends to phrase its questions.
This also helped me identify the last missing pieces in my preparation. When you answer a number of questions, you get a nice overview of the results, and every answer has a link to the documentation. This saves you time trying to find the correct page and also provides all the input you need to dig deeper. I can highly recommend this one!
Taking the exam
As usual, I opted to take the exam at the local test centre (Startel), because finding a room in my house that passes the scrutiny for home exams is next to impossible.
The intake process is quick, and before you know it, you’re sitting at a desk with a nasty exam timer in the corner of your eye. Do not forget to check the timer’s progress; you cannot run over. When the clock reaches 0, it’s done. But do not let it haunt you either. With experience, you will learn what works for you, and how to pace the exam to make sure you answer every question to the best of your abilities.
As always, the first questions are the hardest because I have to get into the right mindset. Still, getting through all the questions was time-consuming, especially when the questions and answers were ambiguous.
My main advice for any exam is, and will always be, to take your time to read the question. One word can eliminate many options. Sometimes they don’t; in that case, you have to try to find the best fit.
Nowadays, Microsoft gives you the option to use Microsoft Learn. This can help verify an answer or look up something that won’t pop into your mind. As tempting as it may seem, do not rely on it. Not only are the search result sets very large, but you will also end up at the top of pages where you may need to scroll a lot. Using the pages may make it seem like you need to learn less; that certainly is not the case.
When I’m reviewing questions I’ve marked because I’m not entirely sure, I do not use the Learn pages on the first pass. Only on the second pass, when the number of questions I’m unsure about is under 10, I will try to find something in the Learn pages to verify my chosen answer. Again, do not fall into the rabbit hole that is Learn when completing an exam.
In the end, I had 15 minutes left after answering all the questions. There was a use case, a few yes/no questions you cannot review, and mostly multiple-choice questions or questions where you have to complete code fragments by selecting answers from drag-and-drop menus or dropdowns.
Result
The result? I passed. With flying colours. The result clearly showed that I need to work more on the AI capabilities in databases. That’s as expected, as it’s relatively new, very much in motion, and also very interesting!
Did you take this exam? If so, share your experiences and takeaways!
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