Current State
About a month ago, I passed the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. About a year has gone by since I passed the Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals exam. In the first post of this series, I stated that I’d like to complete the certified architecture paths for both Azure as well as AWS. Roughly one year later, here’s where I stand.
While I have completed the two initial exams, I really thought I’d be further along by now. I’m also not really surprised, either, since I’ve been focused on other cloud technologies over the past six to nine months as well – i.e. Salesforce.
A Third Cloud Provider?
Something I had not factored into my initial plan was that my employer would be requiring many of us to get certified on Salesforce (on various certifications). Because of this, I dedicated a certain amount of time to Salesforce’s Trailhead learning paths, known as Trailmixes.
My current status on Trailhead looks something like this:
From a pure learning standpoint, I have a lot more to learn before I’m ready to sit for any Salesforce certification exams! 😀
So, a question I have to answer is, do I really want to push for certifications on three separate cloud providers?
As I’ve been pondering on this question (for a few months now!), I am now at a turning point in my career where I will be taking on a new role and Salesforce won’t be as big of a part of it as it has been (more on this in a future post).
So, the short answer is that I’m back to focusing on AWS and Azure.
So, What’s Next?
Azure and AWS will both play a part in my new role. Right now, my understanding is that AWS will be playing a larger part, so I am going to continue focusing on the AWS certification path for the time being.
In the graphic above, my plan shows me taking the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam next, to be followed by the Azure AZ-303 exam. I will decide over the new couple of months if I want to continue on this track or modify my plan (again) so that I work through the remaining AWS certifications exams first before focusing on any additional Azure exams.
Also, I still want to share my personal learning path for preparing for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. My goals were pretty simple… make use of free, online-only resources to prepare without resorting to any “brain dump” sites. The entire journey took me right at two weeks from start to finish (i.e. passing the exam). I’ll share my path in my next post.
See you in the next update!
