With all the changes in Azure, it is sometimes hard to keep track, that's why I thought I would give you a quick update on two exciting things I learned this week. In this update, I want to share a couple of things like a great article on Azure Databox for Migration, exam study guides for the new Azure certification exams, the release of PowerShell 7, a free 6-month Office 365 E1 trial, and more.

Azure Data Box for Migration

This is not something new, but this week we had Sarah Lean with a great article on how you can use Azure Data Box for Migrations. Data Box devices easily move data to Azure when busy networks aren’t an option. Move large amounts of data to Azure when you're limited by time, network availability, or costs, using common copy tools such as Robocopy. All data is AES-encrypted, and the devices are wiped clean after upload.

Azure Data Box FamilyYou can read more about how you can use the Azure Data Box family for migrations, check out Sarah Lean's blog post on ITOpsTalk.com.

Azure Data Box Diagram

Exam Study Guides for new Azure Certification Exams

As you may new, the Microsoft Learning team announced updated exams for some of the Azure certification, like Azure Administrator, Azure Developer, and Azure Solutions Architect. You can find more information on the changes in the official blog post. In short, the following exams will change:

AZ-103 becomes AZ-104 (this update will be published in March)

AZ-203 becomes AZ-204 (this update will be published in late February)

AZ-300 becomes AZ-303 (this update will be published in April)

AZ-301 becomes AZ-304 (this update will be published in April)

"We are currently finalizing the updates related to Azure Administrator, Developer, Architect, and AI Engineer. We will be publishing the updated exams in the next few months, but we will leave the old exam in the market for 90 days after the new version becomes available. We are doing this to give you time to transition to the new exam. If you have been preparing for the current version of the exam, you can still take it during this transition period if you want; however, these versions of the exam will retire at the end of that 90-day window—no extensions and no exceptions."

To help you prepare for the new exams, I made my study guides available for everyone:

PowerShell 7 is GA

PowerShell 7

This week the PowerShell team announced the general availability (GA) of PowerShell 7. PowerShell 7 brings a lot of new features and improvements compare to PowerShell Core 6. One of the overall investment areas is to bring better Windows PowerShell compatibility. Many new cmdlets, which have dependencies on graphical UI parts like Out-GridView, are now back in PowerShell 7. If you are on Windows, you can now also easily import Windows PowerShell modules using Import-Module and -UseWindowsPowerShell. There are many more new features, and if you want to learn more about what's new in PowerShell 7 or if you want to install and update to PowerShell 7, check out my blog posts.

Azure Stack Hub Foundation Core - video series

Since Azure Stack Hub launched two years ago, Microsoft together with Intel created a program to enable and accelerate our customers and partners around the world in their adoption of Azure Stack Hub. The main drivers of the program have been the Microsoft Enterprise Services teams (both Microsoft Consulting Services, as well as Microsoft Premier) and through the Consultants, Premier Field Engineers, and Architects, have delivered a large number of projects – ranging from smaller workshops, all the way to full-blown production deliveries.

The Azure Stack Hub Foundation Core is a series of videos covering the whole range of technical topics that Azure Stack operators and administrators might be interested in. You can find more information here.

Free 6-month Office 365 E1 Trial in response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak

As many of us need to work from home because of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak, Microsoft created a free 6-month Office 365 E1 trial license. Office 365 E1 includes great tools for remote work!

"New in March 2020, a free 6-month Office 365 E1 Trial, including Microsoft Teams, is now available. Microsoft is making this special E1 Trial license available in response to the increased need for employees to work from home (WFH) in response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak."

If you want to know more about the offer and how you can apply for it, check out the following Microsoft Docs article.

I hope this short blog post provided you with some exciting news from this week. I know there is much more than just the things I listed here. I recommend that you follow the Azure announcements blog. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Also, check out last week's Az Update here.