It has been a little while since I’ve updated this, outside of tracking my reading for this year which has also been somewhat of a challenge to myself.
After looking through my old posts I noticed that I had not provided an update on my learning goals since my post on Feb 1. At that time I had just completed my Security + and had planned on pursuing my AWS CCP (Certified Cloud Practitioner). The good news is that I actually did successfully pass that exam at the beginning of march
The certification was very basic. I however am grateful that I did it because I realize in my interactions with many IT professionals that they claim competence and have no grasp of the absolute basics. The basics that I learned studying for this certification are never useless and will help me as I continue to do more advanced certs.
With the completion of the CCP, I was able to cross off the “Something Cloud” learning goal and I sought to move on to the next objective. For that I chose Linux.
Anyone who knows me knows I have a long running history with Linux. The first distro I played with in the early 2000’s was Mandrake and at that time I actually had to order the burnt CD’s because it would have taken to long to download on my slow internet connection. I also had to compile all programs from source – Which I had very limited success on.
In the late 2000’s I jumped back on the linux bandwagon when Ubuntu came into the market and I ran the distro as my desktop system for many years before eventually going back to windows and even Mac. I however have never lost my love for the OS and my “familiarity” with the linux has helped me countless times on my job.
I say all of this to say I do have some familiarity with the OS and decided to look over the exam objectives of few certs (Linux+, and LPIC1) and realized that there was a major difference between operating linux, knowing a few commands, following online guides, and meeting these objectives. I therefore decided to go down the route of basics first again and pursue the Linux Essentials Certification. I have completed training for this and feel quite comfortable with the material (Allot I knew, some I didn’t such as scripting). I however have not been able to complete the exam as yet do to COVID19 restrictions. I will be looking to do the exam soon though. It is valid for life and therefore think it’s still worth it as a means of showing basic knowledge. I am somewhat disappointed that LPI does not offer remote testing though.
As stated before, my plans for doing the LPI Linux Essentials were kinda changed by COVID19 and I decided to look at my goals and choose an objective that allowed for remote testing. For this I chose to tackle the “Something Microsoft”. I chose this because I don’t have any Microsoft certs even after over 10 years in IT (Embarrassing, I know), and also because I had already started looking into the MS-900 Microsoft 365 Fundamentals in the later part of 2019.
As with all the other certs I will repeat, basic is relative. I have worked with M/O365 for over 5 years even successfully migrating the company I work for to the platform while on an overseas install. One thing I realize as a benefit of certification to the test-taker is exposing how much you do not know. I had a pretty good grasp of cloud concepts and even the M365 offerings, but knew very little of the security, compliance and even automation/management with use of Intune.
I did do this cert via remote testing and was very nervous going in because this was my first time using this method and I had heard horror stories. The sign in process was not without a hitch as my St. Lucian driver’s licence seemed to have issues being read. I changed this to my National ID and that seemed to work out. I also had to take pictures of my workspace as well as had a remote proctor who could hear and see me.
During the exam I did encounter an issue which really freaked me out. The test engine demands that there are no other programs running on your computer. I had already progressed passed their demographic survey and was on about the third question when an error appeared on screen saying some “Skype service was running and the test would be ended”. I noticed once this happened there was a re-start test button so I went to the task manager and after some digging found the service, ended it and restarted the test. To my horror all I got was a white screen. I began to call out to the remote proctor and after a few minutes a chat window popped up and I explained my dilimea. The proctor was very helpful and restarted the test for me, after which I had no issues.
I am happy to report that I was successful at this exam and earned the certification. I am now exploring the AZ-900 as a fundamental cert into Azure which I have no experience in. Wish me luck.
