I am a security professional wanting to get in to securing the cloud, and was wondering if there is value in me getting this certification without first getting the associate Solutions Architect certification. Does it make sense?
I am specifically interested in securing the cloud, not building out an infrastructure. I understand that means I need to have a grasp on the various AWS services, but would this course suffice for the content I need to pass this exam? It seems like there is a bunch of hands-on content for me to learn the ins and outs of services without taking the architect exam.
NOTE – I am going to obtain the CCP before I plan on taking this exam, and will work through the labs in that course.
1 Answers
I’d strongly recommend the Solutions Architect associate first. I would think that it’s kind of hard to secure something that you don’t understand.
AWS used to require an Associate certification before attempting a Specialty or Professional level cert. They dropped that requirement about a year ago, which seems to give students the assumption that they can just go for the bigger cert without sufficient background in AWS. While I haven’t examined ACG’s current Security course, if the next course update were assigned to me to produce, I would very explicitly presume that students already had that background AWS knowledge.
It doesn’t make sense to me, I think you need to spend the time to understand the services and architectural concepts beyond the level of CCP in order to make sense of the security cert. I’m preparing for security exam and can’t imagine trying to absorb all the material cold, even with a security background. You don’t necessarily have to sit for the SAA exam, but you should be comfortable with all the concepts related to setting, securing, and scaling up VPC’s.