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Book review : Cloud Essentials – CompTIA Authorized Courseware for Exam CLO-001

15 Jul

9781118408735 cover.indd

Introduction

For those who haven’t read my previous blog posts, here’s a short summary. About 1,5 – 2 years ago I decided that I wanted to know more about cloud computing and get certified as well. I used freely available resources to attain these certifications:

In short, my conclusion was that the quality of the freely available resources were not sufficient. ITpreneurs were kind enough to provide me with access to their e-learning course and Train Signal (now Pluralsight) provided me with their video training. Reviews for both can be found here:

Even though both resources are good, I personally prefer a book over eLearning and video training. As such I picked up a copy of “Cloud Essentials : CompTIA Authorized Courseware for Exam CLO-001”

Review

Number of pages: 268
ISBN: 978-1-118-40873-5
Released: June 2013

My opinion:

The book is well written and knows to provide a very good basis of cloud computing both technical and non-technical. Even though the number of pages is limited, the most important aspects are covered in my opinion, which should be enough to provide insight and to pass the Exin and Comptia cloud exams.

What I disliked are some of the questions at the end of the book, because they are sometimes a bit strange. But as far as I can remember, this was also the case in the official exams … so better get used to it if you are going to get certified.

All in all, this is a very good book to get started with cloud computing.

 

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Posted by on July 15, 2014 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Private cloud, Public Cloud

 

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Cloud – ITpreneurs CCC Professional Cloud Solutions Architect course

27 Sep

At the beginning of September I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Cloud Credential Council (CCC) Professional Cloud Solutions Architect (PCSA) course from ITpreneurs. The trainer was Mark Skilton and I really loved the training. But before telling you more about my experience, I’ll first first explain both the certification and the course in a bit more detail.

What is the CCC Professional Cloud Solutions Architect (PCSA) certification and who is it for ?

The PCSA certification is a globally recognized certification for technology architects. Solution Architects need to understand the impact that cloud is having on business and information architecture, application design, data management and security architecture and be very familiar with the topology and ecosystems that are being created as a result of increasing adoption of cloud technologies and operating models The certification is designed for senior technology professionals who are architecting and designing the future generation of technology solutions. Being PCSA-certified showcases your cloud architecting experience, skills and knowledge, and demonstrates you are capable to manage the various stakeholders within the enterprise. For more information, please take a look at the website: http://www.cloudcredential.org/en/certifications/professional-level/cloud-solutions-architect

What is the ITpreneurs CCC Professional Cloud Solutions Architect (PCSA) course ?

The ITpreneurs CCC PCSA course is a 3-day instructor led course that provides attendees with the required knowledge and skills for the CCC Professional Cloud Solutions Architect (PCSA) certification. The course material was created by lead author Mark Skilton and peer reviewers Vladimir Baranek and RajaGopalan Varadan. For more information, contact ITpreneurs and/or take a look at the course description: http://www.itpreneurs.com/cloud/CCC-courses/cloud-solutions-architect-VCC1310-itpreneurs.pdf

My experiences with and opinion about the ITpreneurs CCC PCSA course

Like I said at the beginning, I really loved the CCC PCSA course because:

  • It covers an important current topic that I believe will become even more important in the future.
  • The course materials are very complete and of great quality.
  • There’s a good balance between theoretical and practical knowledge.
  • The cases are mini workshops that force you to apply your knowledge, which provides more insight. They are also consistent with cases from previous cloud courses from ITpreneurs.
  • There is a lot of interaction between the trainer and the students.
  • Mark Skilton presented the course with a lot of enthusiasm and modified the course content on the go to focus more on the interests of the audience. 

One of the difficult parts of cloud computing is that it’s a very broad definition. As such, different interpretations and explanations are used for the same word/technology by different people and companies. So during the course there were some discussions. I thought this was good, because this will happen in real-life as well. It also stresses the importance of clear definitions and verifying correct understanding of all involved parties.

The special version of the course I attended was only two days, while the regular course will be three days. Since there was so much information to take in and because there were many discussions, the two days unfortunately weren’t enough to cover everything. ITpreneurs and Mark Skilton modified the course on the fly to cover the most important things, but I would have loved to go into more detail during the course if there had been time. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case, but since the course materials are of great quality I’ll be reading them at home instead.

As always there’s room for improvement. Our class provided a lot of feedback that Mark Skilton and ITpreneurs took to heart. They seemed to be really committed to improving the course so I expect the course to become even better since the course materials are currently being reassessed and restructured.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my course experience. For those interested in it, I added some more information about ITpreneurs and the Cloud Credential Council at the end of this blog post.

Thanks

I’d like to thank Corjan Bast and ITpreneurs for providing me with the opportunity to attend this course free of charge. I also want to thank Mark Skilton and all other great people involved in this course for their participation, valuable input and hard work.

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Posted by on September 27, 2013 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Private cloud, Public Cloud, Security

 

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My opinion about the TrainSignal CompTIA Cloud Essentials training videos

14 Nov

Introduction

For those who haven’t read my previous blog posts, here’s a short summary. A couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to know more about cloud computing and get certified as well. I used freely available resources to attain these certifications:

In short, my conclusion was that the quality of the freely available resources were not sufficient. ITpreneurs responded to this by giving me access to their own paid ITpreneurs Cloud Essentials eLearning Course which I reviewed here.

I also contacted TrainSignal to get access to their training videos for CompTIA Cloud Essentials because their previous training videos on different subjects have always been great. They were kind enough to grant me access to the training videos which made this review possible.

Review

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Posted by on November 14, 2012 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Private cloud, Public Cloud, Security

 

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My opinion about the ITpreneurs Cloud Essentials eLearning Course

24 Oct

Introduction

For those who haven’t read my previous blog posts, here’s a short summary. A couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to know more about cloud computing and get certified as well. I used freely available resources to attain these certifications:

In short, my conclusion was that the quality of the freely available resources were not sufficient. ITpreneurs responded to this by giving me access to their own paid ITpreneurs Cloud Essentials eLearning Course.

First of all, thanks to ITpreneurs for this opportunity. Also even though they provided me with access to this course, nothing was expected in return. They just wanted to share their knowledge with me. Because of my personality, I felt however that that the very least I could do was to:

  1. Provide constructive feedback on the course
  2. Write about how I experienced the eLearning course

And this blog post is the result.

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Posted by on October 24, 2012 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Private cloud, Public Cloud, Security

 

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The power of passion (and how I got access to commercial cloud learning materials)

21 Oct

People who know me personally, know that I’m very passionate about ICT. Some of you might also have read about my previous blog post regarding cloud certifications. In this post I described how I prepared for the cloud certifications CompTIA Cloud Essentials (CLO-001) and Exin Cloud Computing Foundation (CLOUDF). In this post I also said that I felt that the quality of the freely available materials was lacking and suggested people would check out other (paid) learning resources like by example the TrainSignal CompTIA Cloud Essentials training videos because they have a good reputation regarding training videos.

Because I was still curious about the quality of the paid training materials, I decided to contact TrainSignal to see if they were willing to provide me with a review copy. I hoped they would agree, but didn’t have high expectations. To my surprise however, they provided me with a review copy.

In the meanwhile, ITpreneurs contacted me to check out their IT Preneurs Cloud Essentials Course. I really liked that they contacted me, because to me this feels like they’re very passionate too and are continuously trying to improve.

I’ve already completed the IT Preneurs Cloud Essentials Course and will be posting my opinion on this blog very soon. I still have to start reviewing the TrainSignal CompTIA Cloud Essentials training videos, but I’ll try to do this as soon as possible as well.

If you have specific questions regarding one of both learning materials, please leave a comment so I can include it in my reviews.

 
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Posted by on October 21, 2012 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Private cloud, Public Cloud, Security

 

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Cloud essentials/foundations training and certification

27 Sep

Cloud computing is getting increasingly important nowadays and I expect it to keep on growing substantially. As most ICT professionals I’ve read a lot about cloud computing and I know some parts of it. To increase (and test) my knowledge about cloud computing, I decided to try and get these certifications:

These exams don’t just focus on the technical aspects of the cloud, but also on the business aspects and what cloud computing could mean for your ITIL processes.

I passed both exams todat with scores of respectively 86% and 80%. But I have to say that I did not like the exams very much. I feel this way because cloud computing is such a broad concept and the “best” solution often depends on many factors, which of course are not provided in the exam. I think these exams would both benefit greatly from using cases/scenarios. It’s a pity I did not see any option to comment on the exam questions either.

If I’d have to choose which certification I found most valueable, I’d go with the Comptia Cloud Essentials certification.

Free study materials I used:

I thought the quality of these study materials were mediocre at best and I have my doubts about the correctness of some of the statements. Especially because cloud computing is defined in many different ways and because the “best” answer often depends on the situation which is not described. But as with everything, you can learn a lot from it by being critical and looking up everything you don’t know YET and/or have doubts about. You will learn more this way, which is far more important than just getting certified. I personally learned a lot especially about specific cloud services. Unfortunately I did not have access to paid materials, otherwise I would have loved to check out the Train Signal CompTIA Cloud Essentials training videos seeing as they have a reputation to provide high quality material.

I will now close with some wise words I read on Seth Godin’s blog post called “Curiosity was framed“:

Curiosity was framed

  • Avoid it at your peril. The cat’s not even sick. (HT to C. J. Cherryh)
  • If you don’t know how it works, find out.
  • If you’re not sure if it will work, try it.
  • If it doesn’t make sense, play with it until it does.
  • If it’s not broken, break it.
  • If it might not be true, find out.
  • And most of all, if someone says it is none of your business, prove them wrong.

There are many more great posts on Seth Godin’s blog so be sure to check it out.

 
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Posted by on September 27, 2012 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Private cloud, Public Cloud, Security

 

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