Cloud+ beta, CV1-004

FluffyBunny

If anyone wants to play, yesterday CompTIA opened up a new beta for their Cloud+ certification.

CV1-004 can be found in your PearsonVue CompTIA portal, for $50.

The detailed, draft exam objectives are here -> https://comptiacdn.azureedge.net/webcontent/docs/default-source/exam-objectives/under-development/draft-comptia-cloud-cv0-004-exam-objectives-(1-1).pdf

spiderjericho

Thank you. My old Cloud+ cert expired so I’ll try the beta to see if I can reobtain the cert.

JDMurray

I'm signed up for Mon, Feb 26th. Gotta get myself in the Cloud+ mindset once again.

xagreus

Just signed up for the 26th, also. This is how I got my CySA+ - looking forward to learning and passing!

Many thanks to FluffyBunny for the heads-up.

spiderjericho

Took the beta today. It was 165 minutes, 118-questions. I did zero preparation. I currently have the AZ104 certification, fundamentals and AWS CCP.

It started off with 3-4 simulations. Very basic not CLI. More like multiple choice multi question options for scenarios. The remainder of the questions were multiple choice. Very vendor neutral. There were a lot of generic cloud terms. There were a few I didn’t know (possible v4 updates).

I definitely was burnt out at the end. I definitely felt unsure on some of the questions like scripting, terraform, some weird deployment strategy, some container terms, etc.

JDMurray

Remember that betas include a bunch of experimental topics to see which ones are too easy or too difficult and therefore may not make it into the exam released into production. I'm guessing that I passed the previous Cloud+ beta (without studying) because one or more of the sims were not counted towards the score. They were interesting but confusing.

spiderjericho

If anyone else is taking the exam. Without looking at the exam outline, here’s general things I saw.

Brush up on the different services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS…)

Containers

CI/CD

Deployment Strategies (Rolling, Blue-Green, Canary, In Place, etc)

Terraform

Scripting

Familiar with ports and protocols and how to do basic firewalls

Basic subnetting

Lift and Shift, Refactor, Rehost, etc.

Cloud Deployment Models

Reading Logs

scaling methods (horizontal or vertical)

right sizing a VM

Identifying performance issues

General cybersecurity stuff like encryption (VPN, TLS, at rest), etc

Cant think about anything else.

The simulations aren’t “difficult” but definitely a little confusing. There’s no clicking or command line stuff. I do t think that breaks NDA.

JDMurray

I took the CV0-004 beta yesterday. I would say that the exam objectives aligned very well with what I saw on the exam. It's a long exam and seemed to have many redundant topics in its exam items as you would expect on a beta exam. I did a quick study by feeding the exam objectives into ChatGPT 4 preceded by the prompt "Within the context of the CompTIA Cloud+ certification,  explain in detail: ..." This gave me a nice study sheet to check what topics I needed to brush up on more. The above list from @spiderjericho is a great example of objective topics that you should know. I did like the sims, but one of them involving Layer 1 configurations was very confusing to me. (I'm much more experienced with layers 3-7.)

Overall I would say that the CV0-004 beta is a very good and practical test of somewhat-vendor-neutral Cloud knowledge and application of troubleshooting skills.

xagreus

I also took the v4 beta yesterday. It was much more difficult than the AZ-900 that I took and passed back on 2-10-24. Had 4 PBQs, 118 questions total. Took me 1 hour 50 minutes, including the post-exam survey.

The PearsonVue facility was an excellent setting for the exam. I do recommend arriving early - and don't forget your two forms of ID!

spiderjericho

It’s been a few years since I took AZ900. I did take AWS Cloud Practitioner in Dec. I’d definitely say they’re comparable if the Cloud+ v4 is 60 questions. Once is very vendor/platform specific. The other is vendor neutral. Cloud+ is definitely less difficult than the admin exams from Microsoft and AWS.

I also don’t like the CEU requirements. I took the last beta and got the cert. My cert lapsed last summer because they wall Linux+/Cloud+ behind different CEU requirement than CASP/SEC +/NET+. So keep that in mind if you PASS and want to maintain it.

xagreus

For me, AWS CP was more difficult that AZ-900, probably because the CP it was my introduction to cloud technology. The Cloud+ v4 beta was much more technical than the other two, in my case. YMMV.

The final v4 exam may not be as challenging, and will probably have 90 or fewer questions, if it's comparable to the v3. https://www.comptia.org/certifications/cloud#examdetails

snee

I took the Cloud+ beta end of February with pretty much no prep. Be interesting to see where I scored and more importantly where I didn't - I assume there will be some kind of indication?

Didn't leave me as drained as the CySA+ TBH.

xagreus

For the CySA+ exam, I was notified on May 10, 2023 about my exam results, so if this follows suit, we may get the news in the next few weeks.

I just checked the CompTIA website and it said, "You have a certification kit ready to be mailed. Click here to verify your address." That seems to be good news...

@snee, for the CySA+ exam, CompTIA did provide a score report on their website under "Manage your exams" -> "My Exams" -> "View score reports". After I received my pass/fail, it gave me a score out of 750, and then had this section: "You incorrectly answered one or more questions in the following objective areas"

HTH!

snee

@xagreus thanks for the info

JDMurray

When I took the previous Cloud+ beta exam in 2020, I barely passed with a 759. I suppose that's a pretty good with no studying.
Now I'm interested to see what the "no study" method gets me on the 2024 Cloud+ beta.

xagreus

@snee no problem!

@JDMurray agreed - it's a good learning experience in more ways than one.

spiderjericho

I didn’t study for this exam. Those Cloud migration strategies had me doing double takes. If I pass, I’ll be happy. It is definitely a legitimate exam with terraform, containers, etc. It just can’t get into the special sauce and special capabilities you can find in AWS or Azure.

xagreus

Looks like the exam's launch date was moved from July 16, 2024 to Sept. 10, 2024. I'm hoping that means we'll get our results this month. As of today, Pearson VUE still lists it as "Taken."

https://www.comptia.org/certifications/cloud#examdetails

JDMurray

Assuming I pass, I'll probably get a notification from Credly of an updated Cloud+ badge before I get a congratz email from CompTIA.

JDMurray

PASSED! I received an email from Credly three hours ago about my new Cloud+ badge. I just checked my CompTIA Active Certifications/Certificates page and my Cloud+ ce expiration date has been bumped out to Feb 2027.

Still waiting for my notification email from CompTIA...

spiderjericho

^^^Congrats

Same here. Got three badges from Credly Cloud+, Secure Cloud and Cloud Admin.

JDMurray

I completely forgot about the "Stackable Certifications" tab. Mine updated to Feb 2027 are:

• CompTIA Secure Cloud Professional – CSCP
• CompTIA Cloud Admin Professional – CCAP
• CompTIA Linux Network Professional - CLNP
• CompTIA Systems Support Specialist – CSSS

I wonder if these "side-certs" are helpful to any hiring managers. I don't include them on my resume and have never been asked about them.

spiderjericho

What’s the Systems Support Specialist for? Server+, Linux+ and Cloud+?

I’ll probably go down the Linux+ road to renew the Cloud+ since they seem picky with what they accept for CEUs.

Abiodun1991

Please I want  a certification on Linux + , cloud+ and saver +

JDMurray

Abiodun1991 said:

Please I want  a certification on Linux + , cloud+ and saver +

https://www.comptia.org/certifications

xagreus

Turns out that I passed the Cloud+ beta. Many thanks, @FluffyBunny, for the original post!

Congrats, @JDMurray and @spiderjericho, as well!