How Our DevOps Engineers Prepare for Cloud Certifications
My preparation process for three Azure certification exams
Before my son was born, I had a few weeks on the bench between projects and decided to take the opportunity to complete as many Azure exams as I could in that time. I achieved the Microsoft Azure Administrator (AZ-103), Microsoft Azure Architect Design (AZ-301) and Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect (AZ-302) certifications, all on my first attempt.
As I studied for each, I refined my preparation process. This made me wonder how others on my team prepared for the same certifications. I emailed a survey to our Cloud, DevOps and Security (CDS) team to gather more data from my peers, a group comprising of experienced software engineers and software architects. I will discuss what I learned in this post.
Survey Results
The survey included the four questions below with an eye towards understanding how engineers prepare for the various cloud platforms our teams use:
- Which training subscriptions do you have currently?
- How did you prepare for AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification
- How did you prepare for AZ-303/301 Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies Exam?
- How did you prepare for GCP — Associate Cloud Engineer?
At Slalom Build, we are given the choice to subscribe to our preferred training platforms. I used the data from the first question on the survey to determine which training platform is most popular among my peers. Based on the responses I received, Linux Academy — now a part of A Cloud Guru — had the highest number of subscriptions and a greater distribution among the rest. I was also amused to see “Pray” as a submitted response!
As I examined the answers to my additional questions, I learned more about our team members’ preparation habits for each certification (i.e. AWS, GCP and Azure). I believe the motivation (the why) behind successfully completing a certification defines how someone prepares.
For instance, my desire for achieving Azure certification was to prove to myself that my past experience with Azure was comprehensive enough to pass the certification. I prepared for the certification predominately on Whizlabs by completing practice exams for each certification exam. I found the practice exams to match the difficulty of the actual exam, making my preparation fairly straightforward.
It’s important to remember since all respondents are senior engineers or architects this certainly had an impact on the results.
Through conversations with my peers and my own personal journey with exams, I concluded we mainly use the training platforms to confirm what we already know, rather than identify gaps and areas of weakness. We largely depend on our hard-won knowledge from years of hands-on cloud experience.
On the other hand, if you are new to cloud development, your preparation will differ. You might aim to gain experience by performing labs, exercises, and watching the videos.
If your motivation is to collect as many certifications as possible, you could conceivably memorize your way through passing a certificate by performing practice exams over and over. However this approach is short-sighted as you will come out of the experience having learned few tangible skills. The number of certifications won’t mean much if you are unable to answer basic architectural questions for a stakeholder and provide real-world solutions.
A more ideal approach for those early in their careers is to use exams as a learning opportunity to confirm learnings and not just make passing the test the exclusive focus of preparation.
Personally, I find courses catered exclusively to passing a particular certification are lacking in core concepts. I cannot emphasize enough how important core concepts are for a DevOps engineer or cloud architect. If you spend time learning the basics it will help you easily switch from one cloud to another as the foundational principles are the same regardless of the product names. Here is a great resource that covers a list of basic core concepts. This is an extensive list of concepts and tooling so don’t feel discouraged by the breadth of what you need to learn, we all started knowing nothing and it’s never too late. Building a strong set of core concepts will help you significantly when it comes time to prepare for any of these exams.
Summary
So, there you have it. I believe experience and motivation (the why) are the two driving forces that shape how you prepare for a certification. You can leverage any of the training platforms to help you gain valuable working experience.
Take advantage of the free cloud tiers to gain firsthand knowledge by deploying a small project and work to expand it bit by bit. Play around with different tools and services, see how they work together and how they scale overtime. Focus on learning core concepts along the way and then understand how these concepts work in a cloud environment. At the end of the day, your approach should focus on the learning and be less about how well you perform in exam conditions. While I was taking my exams I had one thought in mind “what’s the worst that can happen, I’ll just retake it!” and that helped me calm my nerves. Be confident in what you know and do your best. Good luck!
