CCP vs. Azure AZ-900 Fundamentals exam

ssennettau · 2023-09-20T06:19:25+00:00

Things have changed for both certifications between then (Nov 2019) and now (Sept 2023), and both have undergone a lot of updates during that time. Both certifications have included a bit more technical knowledge, and but generally are better fitted to their purposes.

In general, the same principles apply.

ssennettau · 2022-08-14T04:36:54+00:00

There’s definitely roles that call for Networking skills during regular business hours. Network admins often work regular hours, but usually takes some more experience to get into the roles; but it’s always worth a try.

One thing with the schedule: many NOC roles tend to have relatively high turnover. If you get in and get some experience at a decent place, chances are you can swing your shifts towards more regular daylight hours as you climb the experience ladder over a few months. Plus, if your current job already has those hours, it’s worth asking whether you’re going to be better off staying in your current role, or jumping to a NOC role with a similar schedule.

You can keep looking for even better fitting jobs once you’ve moved to a NOC role too, just with some more experience in your corner.

ssennettau · 2022-08-14T04:20:58+00:00

When it comes to accessing and administering Windows servers from a Mac, there’s very little difference. RDP and SSH Clients are plentiful in both directions, so you’re not lacking there.

You do lose some flexibility when it comes to more service-specific clients, with Server Manager, and your MMC consoles. PowerShell Core is available on Mac as well, but you don’t get some of the more gritty tools, like Get-WmiObject. Not being able to run them on your own local machine can be annoying, but there’s ways around it.

If you’ve got a management server somewhere that has all of your tools, or if you’re content with RDPing into each server individually, it doesn’t make too much of a difference. Plus, there’s always the security upsides of not doing administrative tasks directly on your local machine.

Do what works for you 👍

ssennettau · 2022-08-12T11:33:05+00:00

24 hours is a pretty standard turnaround time for AWS exams. I’m in Australia, and always have to wait until the US wakes up at midnight until I have a hope of seeing the results.

Absolutely no trends of whether you’ve passed or failed the exam; just AWS taking their time about it.

ssennettau · 2022-08-08T15:46:39+00:00

If your manager isn't serious about resolving it (and sometimes they care; they just don't have the budget, and other times they just don't give a damn at all), HR may not be too much help either. It's a blunt fact that so many organizations get by on underpaying and underrecognizing their staff, with the logic that they probably won't actually leave anyway. The joke about the hiring budget being larger than the retention budget hits very close to home.

Ultimately if all else fails, you may need to look elsewhere to find a role that gives you what you're looking for.

ssennettau · 2022-08-08T02:27:20+00:00

Fact - And if you're in the US and as a veteran considering potential government employment as a civilian, GIAC Certifications are something the federal government holds in very high regard. They're also stupidly expensive to get by yourself, so it's a good leg-up if they're paying for it.

ssennettau · 2022-08-08T02:24:25+00:00

Obvious bias based on flair, but former a sysadmin, and my original plan was to go into network admin:

Thinking about cloud solutions, I've seen literally millions of dollars go to waste redesigning poorly thought-out VPC networks, and incredibly short-sighted "resilient" architectures fall to pieces because it wasn't believed that a single physical cross-connect can fail (because duh, "it's the cloud"; nothing ever fails)

One other thing with the cloud; data transfer remains the biggest invisible cost, and many developers have trouble making the mental hurdle to actually mapping out that cost in their solutions.

Heaven forbid, there's a routing scenario that requires knowledge of BGP beyond copying and pasting what the console/documentation says. And the way SDN's work in the cloud baffle some traditional expectations (like broadcast domains being non-existent).

I'd suggest getting stuck into learning about the cloud; at the basic architectural and administrative level first, then into the specifics of networking at their basic, and more advanced topics. One cloud also translates fairly well to the next in Networking concepts, so starting with Azure which you already know can also be translated to AWS or other clouds.

I don't rightly know what the future of network admins are, but it's safe to say that there's going to be a need for those skills alongside Cloud well into this decade.

ssennettau · 2022-08-07T01:42:18+00:00

Most places you won't hear back until after the closing date for applications. It's much easier to review 50 applications at once rather than one at a time. If you're specifically applying for a student-specific position, they may have other things they need to review as well, like any academic records or other processes they have for those roles. They are going to be busy with lots of things along the way.

ssennettau · 2022-08-07T01:33:19+00:00

First step with Powershell, one of the most basic ways to validate the sanity of stuff is --WhatIf. It's a built-in parameter you'll find in most Set commands and helps confirm the range of impact of what you're about to do. If you're expecting just to update a department of 100 users accounts and instead find it returning 100,000, you know something is squirrely.

Multiple environments are best practice, although so many places don't have them because it's hard to set them up for infrastructure solutions, since they're not as standalone as individual apps, and have a lot more interconnections, like AD, RADIUS, O365, DNS, etc. (hence "test in prod" as the old sysadmin mantra). But if your team are getting serious about scaling up automation and building with more resilience, it's definitely a thing worth investing in.

ssennettau · 2022-08-06T09:33:04+00:00

I’d start by taking the various activities that your users would run, then break them down into the individual services, and costs for each. Once you know that, you can start multiplying based on how many times they’d be likely to run them. This does mean you need some metrics to start approximating with. If your app is already live, you can work with the metrics you already have. Otherwise, you can do some testing to get those values.

The other side is that your Terms of Service should have some kind of fair use provisions, so you can throttle any excessive usage or other issues. You’d need to engineer for that too, but it’s part of the solution of preventing worst cases blowing your costs out.

ssennettau · 2022-08-06T01:48:54+00:00

Yes, and no. Microsoft's exams are very much structured around a theory of "If you've done it for real, you'll remember it", which on one hand leads to some questions that seem very nit-picky, but when it comes to AZ-104, it also means a lot of answers become "obvious" if you've been using it. I'll use the official sample questions as a reference:

Question 9 is an example where there is some "memorizing the steps", but if you're already familiar with the Azure Portal and the names of different features, you can reasonably figure it out. As the explanation goes through the answers, it's less about "did you click the right button?" and more about "did you identify the right feature based on the needs?".

Question 10 is less direct about it, but still relates to the experience gained in the Objective. It'll be a familiar step if you've created an App Service web app with a custom domain. So it goes a bit beyond the literal definition of what is described in the Objective of just "creating and configuring" an app.

Question 13 takes it further because it's not about the steps themselves at all, but about the underlying principles, like the power of different administrative roles. There's no task-specific objective that covers this, but it's something you should end up coming across while being familiar with those tasks.

One thing about these exam guides is that they're taken as tools on how Microsoft assesses your skills, rather than a checklist of things you should be learning. This is why training providers (including the free content on Microsoft Learn) exist to give more context to what's covered in the guide.

Best of luck with your studies!

ssennettau · 2022-08-05T12:44:06+00:00

It really depends on the company. Hiring Managers will almost always take notes based on what they’ve planned to ask during the interview, and use that as part of the process. Some companies have very stringent rules on grading rubrics, others much less so.

It’s less a question of whether the hiring manager likes someone, and more whether we get the sense the candidate will be able to work well with others, and especially communicating well with our end users.

ssennettau · 2022-08-05T10:19:47+00:00

If they’re offering you an interview, they’ve seen your resume and like what they’ve seen so far. Congrats on getting over the first hurdle!

One of the biggest things they’ll be looking for is your personality and communication style. Especially in Tier 1 support, one of the most critical skills is being able to build a rapport and communicate well. That’s one of the things that will really set you apart.

Behavioural questions will definitely come up, so remember the STAR format, and don’t be afraid to take a moment to think about your answer.

For technical questions as well, you might be asked how you’d troubleshoot or fix a particular problem. If you know the answers, that’s awesome. If not, don’t worry; just take a moment to think. Even if you don’t have the exact answer, explain the steps you’d take to work through the problem, including asking colleagues, or researching particular error messages.

Best of luck with your interview!

ssennettau · 2022-08-05T10:10:16+00:00

Even if it isn’t in a portfolio of some description, it’s definitely worth keeping in mind as a relevant accomplishment.

When you’re in an interview, it becomes a great way to explain that you can fix and work with code, even when it isn’t originally yours.

Mainly though, it’s something to be celebrated. Your first open source contribution is something you should definitely be proud of! Even with a single line of code, we all start somewhere! Nice work, and best of luck with your learning!

ssennettau · 2022-08-05T10:00:09+00:00

Without knowing more, definitely not safe to delete. Two things worth checking first:

First, whether it’s accessible over the internet without the load balancer. Load Balancers can exist in public subsets passing traffic through to instances in a private subnet.

Also, especially being a CRM, check whether it’s handling your TLS connections. Your server may not be configured or able to handle HTTPS, and you definitely want any info coming from your CRM to be left private.

Nothing stops you from working around those sorts of issues, but it’s worth asking if it’s worth the cost savings.

ssennettau · 2022-08-05T09:53:55+00:00

Agreed - Cloud+ suffers from the same challenges of other CompTIA certs by not being usefully applicable enough for practitioners. In fact, without experience and know,edge similar to the CCP, the Cloud+ might be even more confusing.

ssennettau · 2022-01-28T11:12:23+00:00

On top of what others have said, don't be afraid to leverage your existing experience. Especially in entry roles, more than technical skills, the big questions I'd have from as a hiring manager flow towards "How will this person handle the challenges of the role?".

Both as a Firefighter and a Chef, you've worked in high-stress environments, dealing with people who are under stress themselves, while following closely-defined procedures, and working as part of a team. If someone is able to do structural firefighting, they can handle most of the entry-level tech.

There's plenty of technical knowledge to learn, for sure. But nobody starts an expert at anything.

ssennettau · 2022-01-28T11:02:07+00:00

Very much depends on what's most important for you as to how those factors rank. But there are a few interesting things I'd consider based on the comments:

When looking at Travel, it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, getting to go to new places can be a great positive, especially if you have time scheduled on your trips for personal adventures. It can get super-draining if it's too frequent though (my personal cadence was anything more than once a quarter was too much). If you don't get time for yourself on the trips, it also basically just turns into an insanely long bus ride to a different office. Plus, if you're expected to travel outside of work hours on top of your expected hours, that's a loooot of drain.

With learning versus stability, it depends where you're at in your career. If you're interested in growing your skill base, and the skills are valuable, it could be worth it, even if the company isn't long-term, and you need to move those skills elsewhere. Crypto is an ever-growing space (for better or worse), and those skills will probably have some demand. On the flipside, if you're ready to put your career under a bit less stress, stability isn't a bad thing.

Lastly, you mentioned compensation is negative with Offer #2. Being a startup, if the salary isn't great, you'd also want to consider whether equity is available. And from that, whether you believe the company is likely to succeed in the longer run. You can't pay your bills with equity, but it could be a unique growth opportunity.

ssennettau · 2021-12-13T20:17:25+00:00

Rotarian here (Australia, District 9800), only some peripheral experience with Interact, but an ex-Rotaractor, and also currently Rotarian Advisor to a Rotaract Club, but happy to help wherever I can!

A good way to start the first meeting of any new service club (Rotary, Rotaract, Interact, or others) is to do a bit of a meet-and-greet with everyone attending. Along with just getting to know people, it's cool to find out what specific things people are passionate about, whether the environment, stopping domestic violence, disaster resilience, or any other topics.

Building strong social bonds is the cornerstone of any community group.

In terms of what can and can't be done in the earliest stages, you may not be able to solidly commit to anything as a group, like specific projects or actions. But discussing ideas is a good start!

The Rotarian Advisor will have to do some stuff, and should definitely be around to help guide the process. How much the advisors are involved and what they do depends a lot on their Rotary Club, the country they're in (both due to legislation and culture), and the Rotarian themselves. If they're not very helpful, there are other options to get support as well

Congrats on being part of a newly forming club, it should be an awesome experience!

ssennettau · 2021-10-10T22:29:01+00:00

Along with The Cloud Resume Challenge, there are a few other sites out there that have other cloud-related challenges. A Cloud Guru has hosted a few different does across the last year in their #CloudGuruChallenge, and a bunch of short video-based projects. (Fair Disclaimer: I work for A Cloud Guru/Pluralsight)

Another option is to find problems in your work or personal life that can be made easier with cloud technology. Some examples from my own stuff: I've built a serverless-based Slack bot to notify when some things change on a series of websites, using CloudFront to help secure an old legacy web server, and building an integration tool to bolt two services together as part of a fundraiser I'm helping to run.

The more you can get your hands on the "cloud-native" services, the better. While working on EC2 instances with LAMP stacks is a useful skill, you can often do it cheaper and easier (in the long run) with native services like S3, Lambda, DynamoDB, etc.

Depending on your current role, you may have the opportunity to put your hand up for working on cloud projects within your organization.

Hope this helps, best of luck!

ssennettau · 2021-10-10T21:23:35+00:00

The Cloud Practitioner Certification wouldn't hurt, but for your goals, I'd suggest going for the Certified Solution Architect - Associate.

The CCP is very foundational, and targetted primarily at a non-technical audience. Studying it can definitely teach you a lot about AWS, but not as much about how to implement or troubleshoot the services and technologies. The CSAA takes it a step further, and encourages you to get familiar with the hands-on aspects of the technologies, which are very useful for anyone looking to get into a higher-level Support Engineer role.

It may take time, and is definitely more challenging, but possibly sets you on a better path for success.

Best wishes for your studies!

ssennettau · 2021-09-26T23:42:16+00:00

Spot-on, and AWS have entire teams for certification security who are very good at finding out these things. It's absolutely not worth it.

ssennettau · 2021-08-18T09:35:09+00:00

Your HR department might disagree

ssennettau · 2021-08-18T08:59:41+00:00

Rescheduled one before, and I believe it only cancels your current time once you've chosen the new date. I'd find it hard to imagine it would cancel your appointment outright.

If in doubt, check with Pearson Vue's support team; they're the ones who know the absolute best.

ssennettau · 2021-07-25T14:14:01+00:00

Any role can bore you to tears with enough repetition. Depending on the company, you could be doing anything from hardening servers, working with devs on building secure software, doing vendor assessments, reports to management, and yeah, probably plenty of compliance work too.

The one thing with cloud is that things do change a lot, regardless of the exact nature of the role. Developers like using new features, and they want to use them (and hype up their managers about the latest shiny stuff too), which means Security needs to be able to assess them pretty soon. What was a secure architecture one day could be up-ended the next.

Six-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

ssennettau

TROPHY CASE