Cloud technologies are evolving rapidly, so the Cloud professionals must always keep up with them (if they want to be relevant). For this purpose, they may consider taking the appropriate tests and obtaining the related certifications. By using this option, these specialists can demonstrate that they have important competence in a particular area. Today we will focus on three certificates (and their exams) that might be of interest to the Cloud experts. They are CompTIA Cloud+, Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, and Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. Let’s look at these sought-after certifications in more detail.
- CompTIA Cloud+
This certification evaluates the proficiency of the specialists in deploying and automating secure Cloud environments, which support high availability of business systems and data. Besides that, it takes a look at managing and maintaining servers (including OS configurations, access control, and virtualization), troubleshooting security, connectivity, capacity, and automation issues related to Cloud implementations, and analyzing different Cloud models to design the best solution to support the business requirements. In addition, this CompTIA certificate covers maintaining and optimizing the Cloud environments and analyzing the system requirements to successfully execute workload migrations to Cloud.
CompTIA CV0-003
This qualifying exam leads to the CompTIA Cloud+ certificate. Its details are as follows:
- Number of questions: 90
- Types of questions: performance-based and multiple choice
- Time frame: 90 minutes
- Passing score: 750 on a scale of 100-900
- Available language: English
- Price: $338
If you want to complete this certification exam on the first try, you should have from 2 to 3 years of experience in networking or systems administration and hold the valid CompTIA Server+ and CompTIA Network+ certificates.
- Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
This certification concentrates on designing distributed applications and systems on the AWS platform. Furthermore, it gives attention to selecting the appropriate AWS services to design and deploy the applications based on given requirements, implementing cost-control strategies, and migrating multi-tier, complex applications on AWS. Moreover, this certificate is about designing and deploying highly available, dynamically scalable, reliable, and fault-tolerant applications on AWS and designing and deploying enterprise-wide scalable operations on AWS. Besides that, the applicants for this certification need to have a comprehension of five pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework as well as possess the relevant skills in mapping the business objectives to the application/architecture requirements, architecting a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) process, and designing hybrid architecture utilizing main AWS technologies.
Amazon SAP-C01
This qualification exam is associated with the Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification. It comes with the following details:
- Number of questions: 75 (65 scored as well as 10 unscored questions)
- Types of questions: multiple response and multiple choice
- Time frame: 180 minutes
- Passing score: 750 on a scale of 100-1000
- Available languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), and English
- Price: $300
To excel in this certification exam, you should possess about 2 years of experience designing and deploying Cloud architecture of AWS. As a potential candidate, you need to be familiar with one scripting language and understand the following: AWS APIs, AWS CLI, AWS Billing Console, as well as AWS Management Console.
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
This certification is revolved around designing and implementing solutions (solutions for apps and management and security solutions) that run on Microsoft Azure, implementing and monitoring Azure infrastructure, and implementing and managing data platforms. Moreover, it covers designing infrastructure, business continuity, data storage, identity and security, and monitoring. Furthermore, the individuals should possess competence in Azure development and DevOps processes and translating the business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable Cloud solutions. In addition, they need to have a comprehension of IT operations. It includes virtualization, identity, security, governance, networking, data platform, budgeting, business continuity, and disaster recovery.
Microsoft AZ-303 and Microsoft AZ-304
These qualifying exams are necessary for earning the Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certificate. Here are some details of them:
- Number of questions: from 40 to 60
- Types of questions: multiple choice, drag and drop, case study, and hot area
- Time frame: each test lasts 150 minutes
- Passing score: 700 on a scale of 1-1000
- Available languages: Japanese, Korean, French, German, English, Russian, Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), and Italian
- Price: each exam costs $165
The students for these certification exams should know about IT operations and administration of Azure. They need to possess the intermediate-level skills in understanding the processes associated with the deployment of DevOps and Azure.
Preparation Options
Those individuals who are interested in one of these certificates may consider some preparation. For example, CompTIA proposes the following tools: study guides, online training, instructor-led training courses, exam practice, and virtual labs. The preparation resources for Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (sample questions, digital training, practice tests, classroom training, study guide, webinars, FAQs, and whitepapers) can be found on the official website. Microsoft, in its turn, offers its learning paths for self-preparation as well as instructor-led training courses for those who prefer to study with a tutor. In addition, the candidates may take a look at the materials that are available on third-party platforms. The students may explore them to find an option that will suit their learning style and goals. At the same time, it is important to know that the quality of third-party resources is an open question. Therefore, it is crucially that you only use the ones from trusted websites.
The Bottom Line
These were the main details of three Cloud certifications: CompTIA Cloud+, Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, and Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. It is hard to say what option is the best one. It all depends on one’s background, experience, goals, and so on. If you are interested in one of these certificates, be sure to take a closer look at it (you can start your preparation process with an exam blueprint). On the other hand, you can explore the Internet and find more Cloud certifications. And probably, you may even find an option that suits you better than certificates from this article.
