Updates to the Microsoft 365 Certification Portfolio

With job roles and technologies constantly changing, Microsoft regularly reviews its certification and exam offerings for relevance, and retires those that don’t make the cut.

The tech giant recently announced that it will no longer offer the Microsoft 365 Certified: Security Administrator Associate certification and the associated MS-500: Microsoft 365 Security Administration exam. Both are scheduled to retire on June 30, 2023.

As an alternative, they recommend that learners interested in obtaining skills for security administrators consider the following certifications instead:

• Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate (SC-200)
• Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate (SC-300)
• Microsoft Certified: Information Protection Administrator Associate (SC-400)

In response, Cloud Academy has developed a line of objective-driven learning experiences that align with each new Microsoft certification. Below I’ve provided a brief overview of the associated learning paths currently available via our content library.

Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate (SC-200)

The Security Operations Analyst Associate certification measures your ability to identify, investigate, and respond to security incidents and threats using a variety of security tools. The courses in this learning path will help to prepare you for the SC-200 exam, and familiarize you with the concepts you need to know to effectively mitigate threats, using Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, and Microsoft Sentinel.

Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate (SC-300)

The Identity and Access Administrator Associate certification focuses on managing identity and access solutions to ensure the security of an organization’s IT environment. As you work through the course, you’ll learn the skills needed for implementing both identity management and authentication and access management solutions. You’ll also learn how to implement access management for apps and how to plan and execute an identity governance strategy.  

Microsoft Certified: Information Protection Administrator Associate (SC-400)

The Information Protection Administrator Associate certification measures your ability to implement information protection policies and manage data loss prevention in Microsoft 365 environments. As you work through the course, you’ll learn the skills needed for implementing information protection, data loss prevention, and information governance. The SC-400 exam will test your knowledge of three key subject areas, and that’s how we’ve structured this Learning Path.

Some Words of advice…

If you’ve been prepping for the MS-500 exam, you should continue, but keep in mind that you need to pass before it retires on June 30, 2023. If you earn the Microsoft 365 Certified: Security Administrator Associate certification before it’s retired, it will stay on your transcript. 

Learners with an active certification can renew it for up to six months after its final retirement date of June 30, 2023. If you do opt to take the MS-500 exam, be sure to check out our MS-500 Learning Path first.

For more on our Microsoft Learning Paths you can click here, or if you have any questions, feel free to reach out, I’m happy to help.

Tom