Professional Cloud Solutions Architect… Is This Something for Your Clients?

With the Professional Cloud Solution Architect Certification from the Cloud Credential Council (CCC) now available, one of the common questions that I come across is, is this something for me?.

As a peer-reviewer and exam writer for this certification, let me give you an insider’s view on what we had in mind when we sat down to build this certification and course. One of the things that we agreed on is that the solutions architect course is not for cloud newbies. It certainly assumes prior cloud knowledge at an essentials/foundation level, in addition to a certain degree of professional experience in relevant fields.

Although there are a few certifications available around cloud architecture, this course brings in the much needed vendor-neutral standpoint and gives an overall view of the multiple solution architecture components—without restricting itself to one single layer of service/product. It’s difficult to point out a single professional experience/certification that can lead to the professional cloud solutions architect. However, the following guidelines can be used as a reference for interested learners.

A suitable solutions architect learner will have at least two of the following experience levels/certifications: (Note: the certifications mentioned are just for reference and a good equivalent of them is ok)

1. CompTIA Cloud Essentials/ Exin Cloud Foundation/ Rackspace Cloud U / CompTIA Cloud+ → Pertains to cloud basics, foundation level.
2. VMware Certified Professional/ Citrix Certified Professional/ Microsoft Virtualization Certification/ AWS Solution Architect Associate → Pertains to hands-on, virtualization/cloud experience.
3. ITIL Foundation and/or Intermediate / CCSK Cloud Security / TOGAF / COBIT / equivalent → CCSK is an outlier here, otherwise, general IT services management/ architecture understanding and exposure to standards.
4. Practical experience of developing, deploying, building solution architecture for highly available systems. Involvement in at least three projects where each has been running for a minimum of 6-9 months. Need to be coupled with item #1 to be more effective.
5. Highly experienced managers, architects, developers, administrators who would like to switch their careers to cloud. Or, veterans in their own IT domain who want to move to cloud. Possible only, if coupled with either item #1 or #2 or both.

Alternatively, learners can also take this course as the next step for after completing the Certified Cloud Developer or Administrator from the CCC. There’s a natural progression from a cloud developer/admin to a cloud solutions architect.

Your customers may also ask, What’s next, after the solutions architect?. I would then suggest taking up specialized cloud security courses like CCSK or CCC’s Cloud Security Certification.

So, is the solutions architect training something for your clients? I recommend that you leverage the points above when speaking to them about this subject. It’s also helpful to note that the certification training is designed to enable a practitioner-level understanding of cloud computing practices in roles such as cloud solutions architect. Training in the professional cloud series enables learners to maximize their technical skills with up-to-date knowledge and the experience to put cloud technologies into practice.

More information on the Cloud courses is available in the ITpreneurs Course Catalog.

Need more information? Please contact ITpreneurs.