Cloud certification path

Munkin

Looking into all the Cloud certifications as I know that is where the industry is headed I have now chartered a path for myself. Based on job announcements and employer likes this is my Cloud certifications plan.

1. AWS Practioner = Gives me the basic knowledge of AWS terms and it is a simple start into AWS certifications.(90 Days)
2. CCSK = Being an InfoSec guy it gives me a Cert that aligns with my profession.(120 Days)
3. AWS Solution Architect = Next level AWS Cert in terms of knowledge and experience. (18 months)
4. AWS Security = What I really need to advance my career to the next level. (2 years)
5. CCSP= Hopefully by the time I am ready for this they have worked out the bugs in the test and it isn't primarily an application developer test anymore. (3 years, never, employer paid boot camp who knows?)

Potential replacements= Azure and Google Cloud certs, have not looked much into these as everything I come across is AWS.

Non-starter's= Cloud+, I can't find a single job posting for this so I will not waste my time. 

The above is based on my time on Active Duty in the Army and as a Defense Contractor. Overall in my world if the job announcements or 8570/8400 are not asking for a certification they are worthless to me. 

E Double U

I actually have a preference for vendor-agnostic credentials which is why I originally intended on only getting the CCSP which I passed in 2019 (https://community.infosecinstitute.com/discussion/135427/provisionally-passed-ccsp-10-may#latest). Honestly, I felt like I took an information security exam that just sprinkled the term 'cloud' throughout the test. 

Regarding the vendor-specific certifications, I don't think it matters too much which you choose as the knowledge is transferrable. I passed a few Azure exams before moving on to AWS and the main difference has been the service names. But when you have the foundational understanding then those vendor certs become easier. For example, if you understand firewalling then it doesn't matter if you are talking about an Azure firewall or AWS firewall because the functionality remains the same. 

Good luck on your cloud journey!

JDMurray

Munkin said:

Non-starter's= Cloud+, I can't find a single job posting for this so I will not waste my time. 

Consider that you need to search for this one in double-quotes ("Cloud+") because of the "+". There's a similar problem with EC-Council certs that have the "|" character which affects getting accurate search results.

Munkin

JDMurray said:

Munkin said:

Non-starter's= Cloud+, I can't find a single job posting for this so I will not waste my time. 

Consider that you need to search for this one in double-quotes ("Cloud+") because of the "+". There's a similar problem with EC-Council certs that have the "|" character which affects getting accurate search results.

I work as a DoD contractor and 95% of what I get asked about is AWS. Azure is the other 5% and noboby even knows what Google Cloud is.

Kevbrock12

thank you

colemic

Munkin said:

JDMurray said:

Munkin said:

Non-starter's= Cloud+, I can't find a single job posting for this so I will not waste my time. 

Consider that you need to search for this one in double-quotes ("Cloud+") because of the "+". There's a similar problem with EC-Council certs that have the "|" character which affects getting accurate search results.

I work as a DoD contractor and 95% of what I get asked about is AWS. Azure is the other 5% and noboby even knows what Google Cloud is.

Outside of DoD, in my experience (consulting), AWS tends to be environments for very specific, primarily external applications; Azure is used more for internal corporate apps. GCP: nobody's ever heard of it.  Not always the case, but that's been a generalized view of what I've seen, being a consultant since 2017.