Well, it has certainly been awhile since I posted anything of any real value. I’ve been a bit busy with certifications, opening a second office at Impact Family Wellness, work, tech stuff (more on this to come), and most importantly… life. All of those things are interesting (to me), but what I’d like to focus on are the two certifications I recently completed.

First, let me provide some background on me. My formal job roles have always been in sales and/or business development. Although, I tend to be technical, my jobs have never required me to be deeply technical, nor achieve certifications. So this is a bit of uncharted territory. I would say some of this actually started a number of years ago. I wanted to break into cybersecurity and thought it would be beneficial to learn more and also have some artifact to show that I had cybersecurity knowledge for future roles I aspired to. Since learning and the university system has always been something I enjoy, I enrolled at Harvard Extension School where I ultimately got a Graduate Certificate in Cybersecurity. And the journey began….

Nearly two years ago, I decided that I needed to learn more about the cloud. My main impression was that it was simply VMs on someone else’s infrastructure. (I was wrong) I knew AWS was the leader in the space so I studied for and passed their AWS Cloud Practitioner test. For anyone that is looking to learn about the cloud, the content is free online and the test is passable. I’m not going to say it was easy, because many of the terms and concepts were new to me. This also greased the skids for my eventual interview and hiring at AWS. The Cloud Practitioner is required for all of my colleagues in their first six months.

Ok, that brings you up to speed. During my yearly review, I shared an aspiration to learn and become more technical. My manager found a program we were trying out to make people in my role more technical by working through the content for the AWS SA Associate test. I said, “what the heck” and jumped in. Let me simply say that I had no idea what I got myself in for. The content of this cert is far reaching and gets into technologies I don’t work with much or at all. Of course the security section was super easy for me, but the rest was tough. I used acloudguru.com for my training, which was very helpful, and took a ton of practice tests. However, I was humbled after my first test sitting. I missed passing by one question! (aaarrrggghhh!). Honestly, I contemplated calling the whole thing a win, as I really just wanted to learn. The cert was secondary. Alas, I pushed on. I took lots of practice tests, studied and, two weeks later passed the test!

For those of you considering the AWS SA Associate cert, I truly recommend it. It gave me a true appreciation for the decisions cloud architects make. It also reaffirmed my appreciation for the knowledge and effort my fellow SAs show on a daily basis.

So I have my AWS cert… I am happy! What to do next? Bask in the glow of my accomplishment? Try to convince my wife that a cert is the equivalent of a college degree? (it isn’t) No, I chose to try another one. This time I wanted to broaden my knowledge about the cloud. I want to learn what others are doing in this space, so I chose Azure. I followed essentially the same plan with acloudguru and Azure’s Foundation cert. It was really fun to play in a different cloud environment, learn what is different and similar to AWS. Ultimately, I set out to learn more about customers that are in multi-cloud and I did that. Long story short, I sat for the test and passed it. Again, I recommend this test for anyone looking to get introduced to Azure.

So what is next for me? Well, I think I am going to study for the CIPT certification. It looks like a lot of reading so I expect this one to take me some time. The ultimate theme that I wish to convey to you all is; keep learning! It is fun and there are so many free or cheap resources out there to broaden your technical skills! Also, that I continue to broaden my skills to help our clients. If you need technical or business expertise, contact me!