February 1, 2021
In my pursuit of the Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) certification, I’ve taken the Red Hat Certified Specialist in Advanced automation: Ansible best practices exam (EX447).
As for the other Ansible Exams, you can always consult the Ansible documentation available offline in the exam system.
Different from the Red Hat Certified Engineer exam (EX294), this exam also includes Ansible Tower as a topic, so be sure to have good knowledge of it as well!
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December 28, 2020
At the beginning of this month, I took the EX294 exam, which allowed me to obtain the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification.
It was the first time I attempted the RHCE exam, but I prepared myself in the past for the EX300 exam, the exam that allowed you to obtain the RHCE certification in the RHEL7 time, but never got around to do the exam.
Compared to what I had to study for the EX300, I found the EX294 program way more sensible.
An aspect I’ve never liked about the EX300 was that you needed to learn many implementation details, such as the in-scope applications’ configuration format.
EX294 changed this aspect since it is based on Ansible, and Ansible abstracts the majority of implementation details of the various applications.
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October 1, 2020
A few years ago, I did pass this exam, but since then, the certification expired, so I had to re-take the exam.
While the first time I did the exam in a testing center, this time I had to do it at home since all test centers are closed.
The experience of doing the exam at home has been a very positive one since you can arrange the environment as it better fits you.
You can have as much light as you like (within sensible limits), you can use the chair you prefer and the desk orientation you prefer.
You will not be allowed to bring cheating sheets or similar things since the proctor will ask you to show the whole room using the webcam, as you might imagine.
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November 8, 2019
A couple of days ago, I did re-take the AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate exam.
This was my second time at this certification (I did it the first time in 2015), and I had to retake the exam since my certification expired in 2017.
The exam was fairly different this time from the previous time.
The first thing I noticed is that the certification itself is no longer expiring after 2 years since the validity got extended to 3 years.
I think this is very interesting, since shows that AWS now has far more confidence in the stability of their platform.
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October 10, 2019
As part of my AWS re-certification path, I decided to start from the very begin, with the AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials.
I was sure to pass the exam, but since in the company I work for other people will be required to become AWS certified, I wanted to check out the exam beforehand, to be able to suggest to the people the right certification for them.
The exam is fairly straight forward and is mainly focused on the advantages of AWS and cloud in general.
There is a high amount of questions around the advantages of cloud in scaling, reliability and costs profile.
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August 30, 2019
After less than a week from achieving the Google Associate Cloud Engineer certification, I took the Google Professional Cloud Architect exam.
Preparing this exam, I found odd the fact that Google provides three case studies to bring to the exam.
I was even more impressed by the number of questions around those cases.
It felt odd since it felt like you could prepare very well those three case studies and be advantaged in the exam.
Overall, I think that this is not the case, since having prepared the cases, will only help you not having to re-read the whole case before answering the questions.
Also, I found myself to read the case name, read the question, read the answers, choose the answer, and then read the case text again, just to be sure.
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August 24, 2019
As for a company certification goal, I decided to certify as a Google Associate Cloud Engineer as well as Google Professional Cloud Architect this month.
The Google Associate Cloud Engineer certification is mainly focused around GCP standard operations, such as managing IAM, osLogin, as well as many other core services such as compute instances, Cloud SQL and many more.
I found the certification to be fairly well balanced, with maybe a little bit a skew toward IAM and security, which I do appreciate due to the importance of these topics.
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March 1, 2016
A couple of weeks ago, I took the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator exam.
One interesting thing about this exam is that the participant decides which flavor and version of Linux he wants to use for the test.
The reality is that the Linux flavor changes very little on the tasks, but it puts the test-taker in a more comfortable situation due to the OS familiarity.
Overall I think the exam is pretty straightforward both in the way questions are formed and solving them.
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October 16, 2013
A month after the CompTIA Linux+, I decided to do the CompTIA Security+.
As for the Linux+, the Security+ uses on a multiple-choice test.
In this case, I think this kind of exam is a perfect fit since it’s essential that the candidate has and can demonstrate a solid understanding of the theory behind security.
Overall I liked the exam, and I would suggest it to anyone interested in starting a journey in security or wants (or needs) to have a certification that certifies a base knowledge around security.
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September 15, 2013
In August, I passed the CompTIA LX0-101 exam and a couple of days ago the LX0-102 exam.
Together, those two exams allowed me to earn the CompTIA Linux+ certification.
I did not found the two exams too hard, and in fact, I passed both with a considerable margin.
Those two exams are multiple-choice kind of questions.
I would find a scenario-based exam more valuable since it would test actual capabilities.
Still, I understand that for basic knowledge, the multiple-choice option can be a good one.
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(Fabio Alessandro Locati|Fale)'s blog