Microsoft 70-487: Developing Microsoft Azure and Web Services

Microsoft® 70-487: Developing Microsoft® Azure™ and Web Services is the course I would give a developer who needs to stop treating web services, data access, and cloud deployment as separate skills and start building them as one working system. This certification-focused training walks you through the practical side of service development: reading and writing data, building WCF services, working with Entity Framework, creating and consuming Web API endpoints, and deploying applications into Microsoft® Azure™. If you have ever built something that worked perfectly on your machine but fell apart the moment it needed to talk to a database, a client app, or a cloud service, this course is aimed squarely at that problem.

I built this course around the way real software gets assembled in a business environment. You do not just learn definitions. You learn how data flows from SQL Server into an application, how a service exposes that data safely, how clients consume it, and how Azure fits into the deployment and storage picture. That is the actual job. The exam may frame this as objective-driven certification preparation, but the real value is that you come out understanding how to design, implement, and troubleshoot the service layer that modern applications depend on.

What this course teaches you

This course teaches you how to build server-side application components that move data cleanly and reliably across web and cloud boundaries. The early modules focus on foundational data access: ADO.NET, XML handling, Azure SQL Database, Azure Storage, Azure PowerShell, and WCF Data Services. From there, you move into service construction with WCF, then into Entity Framework and LINQ so you can query and manipulate data without writing everything by hand. The Web API sections then bring those ideas into a REST-oriented model that most developers will recognize immediately from modern application development.

What matters here is not memorizing every API call. It is understanding why one approach fits a scenario better than another. If you need a fast, low-level data connection, you should know when ADO.NET makes sense. If you need object-relational mapping and maintainability, Entity Framework becomes the better choice. If you need a service consumed by browsers, mobile apps, or external systems, Web API gives you a cleaner and more flexible route than older service models. That judgment is a major part of passing the exam and a bigger part of being useful on a team.

• Access and manipulate relational data with ADO.NET
• Read, write, and structure XML data
• Work with Azure SQL Database and Azure Storage
• Create WCF services and configure clients
• Use Entity Framework, LINQ, lambda expressions, and Entity SQL
• Build REST-style Web API services and consume them from clients
• Deploy applications and services using Azure-oriented strategies

Why this exam matters for working developers

Microsoft® designed the 70-487 skill set for developers who are not just writing user interfaces; they are building the plumbing underneath them. That is where a lot of projects succeed or fail. Anyone can sketch a form and make a button click. The hard part is making sure the service layer is stable, testable, secure, and deployable. This course focuses on those exact concerns. You learn how to expose data through services, how to consume those services from clients, and how to deploy the result without creating a maintenance nightmare.

The exam-oriented side matters because it forces you to be precise. If you understand WCF configuration, you understand binding choices, endpoint setup, and how services behave under different transport and contract arrangements. If you understand Web API standards, you understand HTTP verbs, status codes, routing, and how to design endpoints that other systems can actually use. If you understand Azure storage and Azure SQL Database, you stop thinking of “the cloud” as a vague destination and start treating it as a set of concrete services with different strengths.

The developers who do best with this material are the ones who like building the thing behind the thing: the service, the data path, the contract, the deployment plan. That is where durable skill lives.

How the course handles data access and persistence

Before a service can be useful, it has to retrieve and store data correctly. That is why the first module goes deep into data access and persistence. You will work with ADO.NET directly so you understand the mechanics of connecting to data sources, executing commands, reading result sets, and pushing changes back to storage. That is foundational knowledge. Even if you later rely more heavily on Entity Framework, you need to understand what is happening under the hood or you will have no idea how to troubleshoot a broken connection or an inefficient query.

The course also covers XML data, which still shows up in enterprise integrations, configuration, legacy systems, and message exchange. You will see how to read and write XML data and why that matters when applications need a structured, portable format for passing information around. Then the course moves into Azure SQL Database and Azure Storage, which are essential if you want to place your data tier in Microsoft® Azure™ instead of keeping everything on a local server. That includes knowing what belongs in a relational database and what belongs in blob, table, or queue-style storage.

This section is especially useful if you have ever had a project where the storage decision was made too late. That is usually when systems become messy. By the time you are done here, you should be able to talk about data storage with the kind of confidence that keeps a project from drifting into bad architectural habits.

Building services with WCF the right way

WCF is not the newest tool in the box, but it remains important in many enterprise environments and on exams that expect you to understand service contracts, bindings, endpoints, and configuration. I do not teach WCF as theory. I teach it as a working service model that helps you understand how services are built, configured, and consumed. You create a WCF service and client from scratch, then you work through configuration settings, Azure SQL integration, and service review so the whole pattern makes sense.

This is where a lot of developers finally understand the difference between “I can make a service run” and “I can design a service someone else can safely consume.” Those are not the same skill. WCF forces you to think about contracts, transport choices, and how client applications interact with the service layer. That discipline transfers well, even if you later spend most of your time in Web API or other service technologies.

You will also see how WCF fits into an Azure-backed solution. That matters because service hosting is not just about code; it is about where the service lives, what database it uses, and how configuration changes when you move from a local environment into a cloud deployment. If you work in a company with older .NET services, this section is worth its weight in saved debugging time.

Entity Framework and LINQ: the practical data layer

The Entity Framework portion of the course is where data access becomes more expressive and maintainable. Instead of writing every query manually, you learn how to use an ORM to map objects to tables, navigate relationships, and manipulate data through code that is easier to read and maintain. I spend real time on design choices here, starting with designing and implementing an ERD. That step matters more than many students expect. If the data model is weak, the ORM is just a prettier way to build something fragile.

You will work through LINQ, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities, lambda expressions, and Entity SQL. That mix is important because you need to recognize different query styles and know what each one is good for. You also look at query projections, navigation properties, and profiling Entity Framework-generated queries. That last part is not glamorous, but it is where good developers separate themselves from careless ones. If you do not understand the query your ORM generates, you do not truly understand the performance cost of your code.

The course brings these pieces together with full examples, including building from scratch. That means you are not just reading about Entity Framework; you are watching how a real data layer is shaped, queried, and refined. If your current work involves CRUD-heavy applications, business systems, or internal tools, this material is directly relevant.

Creating and consuming Web API services

Web API is the part of this course that feels closest to the way many teams build services today. You start with the basics, build a first Web API app, enhance it, extend it, and then tighten it up with standard conventions and debugging. That progression is deliberate. A lot of developers can make an endpoint return data. Fewer can organize it properly, follow REST-minded conventions, handle errors cleanly, and structure the code so the API remains usable six months later.

This module gets into the important details: getting data from the database, following Web API standards, building CRUD functionality, and working through a deeper example. That is exactly what you need if you are building endpoints for a client application, a JavaScript front end, another internal service, or a mobile app. You have to understand resource design, request handling, response behavior, and how to keep the API predictable for consumers.

There is also a strong emphasis on debugging and standards because those are the places where real projects slow down. If an API returns the right data but in the wrong shape, or if an endpoint works until a specific payload comes in, the problem is not academic. It is operational. This course helps you build the habits that prevent those mistakes.

• Design REST-style endpoints that are easy to consume
• Implement create, read, update, and delete operations
• Connect Web API endpoints to database-backed data sources
• Apply conventions that make your code easier to maintain
• Debug service behavior instead of guessing at it

Deploying applications and services to Azure

Deployment is where many good development efforts become messy. The code may be fine, but the release process exposes every weak assumption about configuration, hosting, and service dependencies. This course includes deployment strategy content so you can think beyond local development. You will look at how applications and services are prepared for deployment and how Microsoft® Azure™ changes the way you package, host, and manage them.

I like this section because it forces students to confront the difference between a project and a production system. A project runs on a developer machine. A production system has to survive configuration changes, connectivity issues, environment differences, and uptime expectations. Azure gives you options, but options are only valuable if you understand how to use them intelligently. That includes knowing where Azure SQL Database fits, how storage services support application behavior, and how PowerShell can help you manage resources or automate repeatable tasks.

Once you start thinking in those terms, deployment stops being an afterthought. It becomes part of design. That is a much better place to be if you want to work on real service-based solutions.

Who should take this course

This course is for developers who already know some .NET fundamentals and want to get serious about service development, data access, and cloud-backed applications. It is especially useful if you are preparing for the Microsoft 70-487 exam, moving into a back-end developer role, or working in an environment where older WCF services and newer Web API services both appear in the same codebase. If that sounds like your day job, this course will feel immediately relevant.

It also fits developers who have touched these tools individually but never assembled them into a coherent workflow. Maybe you have used Entity Framework, but not profiled generated queries. Maybe you have built a Web API, but never tied it into Azure SQL Database. Maybe you have heard of WCF, but never understood how contracts and bindings affect service behavior. That is the gap this course closes.

• Software developers preparing for exam 70-487
• .NET developers moving into service-oriented work
• Application developers working with Azure-backed systems
• Engineers supporting existing WCF or Web API solutions
• Professionals who need stronger data-access and integration skills

Prerequisites and how to get the most from it

You do not need to be an expert before starting, but you should be comfortable with basic programming concepts and have some exposure to C# and the .NET environment. If you understand classes, methods, object-oriented design, and the basics of database concepts, you are in good shape. If those pieces are shaky, I would recommend reviewing them first because this course assumes you can follow implementation-level development work without hand-holding.

The best way to use this course is to follow along actively. Do not just watch. Pause, recreate examples, and pay attention to why a particular pattern is used. When you see a query projection, ask yourself why it is better than returning the entire entity. When you see a service contract, ask what the client needs and what it should never be allowed to know. When you see Azure storage or Azure SQL Database, think in terms of performance, maintenance, and separation of concerns.

That is how you turn video training into retained skill. The people who benefit most from this course are the ones who are willing to slow down long enough to understand the architecture behind the code.

Career impact and the jobs this skill set supports

This course supports the kind of work done by .NET developers, backend developers, application developers, and integration engineers. It also has value for developers moving toward cloud-focused roles where data services and application services must be designed together. Employers may not advertise this exact mix every day, but when they need someone who can create a Web API, connect it to a database, move it into Azure, and explain why the service is built that way, they are describing this skill set.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics continues to show strong demand for software developers and related roles, with median pay for software developers well above the national average. I would not chase the certification for salary alone, but the combination of service design, cloud deployment, and data access is the kind of practical capability that supports better opportunities, especially in organizations that still run a mix of legacy and modern systems. That mix is common, and people who can bridge it are useful.

More importantly, this course helps you speak the language of production work. You learn how to explain data access choices, service boundaries, API conventions, and deployment implications. That makes you more credible in code reviews, design discussions, and support conversations. In my experience, that credibility matters as much as raw coding ability.

What you should expect by the end

By the time you finish this course, you should be able to build and reason about a service-backed application from the database upward. You will know how to access data with ADO.NET, handle XML, work with Azure SQL Database and Azure Storage, create and consume WCF services, use Entity Framework and LINQ to query and shape data, and design Web API services that are structured for real consumers. You will also understand enough about deployment strategies to avoid treating the cloud like a mystery box.

That is the real outcome here: not just exam readiness, but practical confidence. You should be able to look at a service request and decide how to represent the data, which access pattern to use, how the client will consume it, and what needs to change when the solution moves into Azure. That is the point where a developer stops merely using frameworks and starts building systems.

If you want a course that respects the fact that service development is a chain of decisions, not a collection of buzzwords, this is the one.

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