This certification falls under the Microsoft Associate Level Certification Path
The exam covers a wide range of topics related to risk and compliance within office 365 and azure. This exam is all about privacy and risk management, Data Management, Risk management data loss prevention and policy creation for data loss prevention.
If you’re preparing for this exam, you’re going to want to utilise multiple resources. Microsoft offers multiple aids in this department, they offer the SC-400 learn certification pathway, Study Guides and Practice exams, alongside being able to enrol in instructor led training. The SC-400 is one of those exams where when you study for it you find yourself delving down the road of implementing policies for preventing data leakage and compliance across legal and regulatory requirements for your organisation.
If you’re on route to taking this certification, be sure to check out the Microsoft certification page to keep up to date with this exam, this exam was updated on 22ND August 2023 so there is a good chance this may receive an update in February and or March of 2024.The skills measured for this exam can be found on the exam page but in short, your skills are measured over the following.
- Implement information protection (25–30%)
- Implement DLP (15–20%)
- Implement data lifecycle and records management (10–15%)
- Monitor and investigate data and activities by using Microsoft Purview (15–20%)
- Manage insider and privacy risk in Microsoft 365 (15–20%)
My Overall Experience in this Exam
My overall experience based on the examination result I received after taking this exam overall I scored 750+ as we can see sense ive taken the exam Microsoft has split this out now into 5 areas instead of 3 meaning the exam is more evenly distributed across multiple domains. When I originally took this exam, I did feal it was content heavy on information governance and dlp prevention, Microsoft has sense updated the domain and split them across 5 areas but don’t let that fool you the content is extremely similar and the shift from 3 areas now 5 rather resembles an approach by Microsoft to test candidates and provide a measured score against data lifecycle management , inside risk policy and investigating activities in Microsoft Purview , this essentially tells us Microsoft has updated the purview side of learning modules in this exam and it should be reflected in the learners certification study journey.
My two highest scoring areas were
- Implement Information Governance (30-35%)
- Implement Data Loss Prevention (30-35%)
My one lower scoring area was
Implement Information Protection (35-40%)
This led me to believe that the exam I received was heavy overall on governance and data loss prevention amounting to at least 60% of the overall exam with information protection being the remaining 40%. This has sense changed % wise and now Microsoft has adopted and updated the content across the exam to focus on purview and testing candidates aginst implementing dlp policies alongside insider risk.
My library for study consisted of
- Microsoft Learn SC-400 Certification Learning Path
- Microsoft SC-400 Practice assessment on Microsoft Learn
- Measure Up SC-400 practice assessment
- SC-400 Study Cram John Savill YouTube
Best of Luck in Your Studies
#always learning