Cloud Certifications: Are They Worth the Effort? 

So, your organization is not reaping the expected cost savings after migrating to the cloud, deployments seem to take longer, and business needs are likely driving you to use multiple cloud vendors. Perhaps you already are in this scenario, and your staff are not comfortable operating in the cloud. While you could try to force cloud training on them, the staff are busy. Realistically, they have little spare time during the workday to think about studying, much less knowing the subject well enough to pass a difficult test. 

The WIIFM acronym — “what’s in it for me?” — will play heavily in individual decisions to commit enough time to know the subject area. The question will require significantly more contemplation if the training requires you to use time outside of the workday. It gets worse if you must pay for training and/or the actual certification tests.

Yet as organizations move more applications to the cloud, customer satisfaction feels harder to achieve, and the challenge is even harder when an organization expands to multiple cloud vendors. The complexities of deployment and operating in a multi-cloud environment should not be underestimated. 

So, is getting staff certified the proverbial “magic bullet” to resolve all these issues? Well, perhaps. You’ll realize benefits over time, especially as more applications are migrated to cloud environments.

Operational roles in which cloud certifications should help include:

• System Architect
• System Administrator
• Database Administrator
• Storage/Backup Administrator
• Network Administrator

Of the roles listed above, the System Architect (SA) is likely the most important as they design the application environment to meet the business teams’ performance and resilient needs. If a cloud vendor offers more than one level of cloud architecture, then attaining the first level is a must-have. If an organization uses more than one cloud vendor, then consider having SAs for each cloud used. There are cloud certifications beyond operational roles that should benefit your organization, and management teams would benefit by minimally taking the foundational courses offered, or more advanced as desired.

Do not let anyone convince you that cloud certification tests are easy to pass. Beyond the foundational tests, the difficulty increases, primarily to ensure you understand the material (and have the experience).  Even so, making the effort to know and understand the information likely will reward the individual, which should result in better cloud deployment and increased customer satisfaction.

Agencies needing to operate in a cloud environment should expect to provide training and certification opportunities for staff. Leaders should seriously consider creating a roadmap for staff training that culminates in a certification. However, they should leave some room for skill growth in other areas outside their normal operations. Most employees will appreciate the opportunity to expand their knowledge, and that should reduce the potential for suboptimal cloud application environments. And lastly, organizations should review other certifications that may help various parts of the organization.

Dan Kempton is the Sr. IT Advisor at North Carolina Department of Information Technology. An accomplished IT executive with over 35 years of experience, Dan has worked nearly equally in the private sector, including startups and mid-to-large scale companies, and the public sector. His Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science fuel his curiosity about adopting and incorporating technology to reach business goals. His experience spans various technical areas including system architecture and applications. He has served on multiple technology advisory boards, ANSI committees, and he is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Industrial & Systems Engineering school at NC State University. He reports directly to the CIO for North Carolina, providing technical insight and guidance on how emerging technologies could address the state’s challenges.

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