An additional common area within the Microsoft Learn site is the exam pages. There is an exam page for every Microsoft exam and a certification page. These pages deliver an overview of the exam certification, the objectives of the exam, the roles of individuals that may be interested in the exam, scheduling the exam, and the learning path to prepare for the exam. These pages are very helpful when you are planning for a specific exam, rather than just gaining general tech knowledge. The following screenshot shows an SC-400 exam search:

Figure 1.7 – Browsing for the SC-400 exam

The following screenshot shows the SC-400 exam page:

Figure 1.8 – SC-400 exam page

It is recommended that you use this exam page for reference when preparing for the SC-400 certification. At this stage of the chapter, you should have access to Microsoft Learn to log in and browse for content. In the following section, we will provide advice on creating a trial subscription to Microsoft 365 services.

Creating a Microsoft 365 trial account

For those people who are new to Microsoft cloud services such as Azure and Microsoft 365, it is important to get hands-on experience, not only for the exam you are taking but also for professional development. You must understand the admin portals and how they work if you are looking to get certified. In this book, we will provide exercises that will get you familiar with how to work within the Microsoft 365 and Azure portals and how to navigate when in them. In order to follow along with the steps, we recommend you get a subscription to both Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory Premium P2. We will detail the steps required to obtain a 30-day trial in the next section.

Microsoft 365 or Office 365 trial subscription

The features and abilities discussed within the SC-400 exam objectives need a Microsoft 365 enterprise-level license, which E3 and E5 licenses are classed as. Microsoft offers a 30-day trial license for both. Therefore, as you prepare for the exam, you can create these subscriptions and follow the exercises.

You can navigate to the following link to get started, and select Try for free, as shown in Figure 1.9 under the Office 365 E5 plan: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/compare-office-365-plans:

Figure 1.9 – Office 365 E5 trial subscription

To create an account, follow the process as shown in Figure 1.10. If you have created an account before, you will need to use a different email address to obtain a free trial again:

Figure 1.10 – Office 365 trial sign-up process

Once you have completed the process and created the Microsoft 365 tenant, you will have access to the full Microsoft 365 suite of services as well as all the different admin panels. In the next section, we will walk you through the process of setting up an additional service that will be required to follow along with the exercises within this book and complete the hands-on labs to prepare you for the exam.