Calling all azure (or maybe AWS) experts

Banzai_Joe · 4 May 2019 at 08:13

Hi,
looking for advice.
I was recently made redundant after being a Group ICT Manager for 13 years (2 weeks prior to promotion to Director

). I have good technical experience and expertise but no real quals to quantify what i've done. A lot of my job was the managing of the whole infrastructure (strategic and hands-on). The heavier tech stuff like cloud etc were managed services so i didn't really touch then.
I've picked back up on the CCNA course i started 4 years ago but never finished with the view to taking the exam and adding the cert to add to my CV.
My main aim is to get into cloud stuff like Azure. I have had very limited exposure to Azure as i deployed/administrated o365 into our domain, but this was mostly done from the o365 portal.

So, for the Azure geeks out there, what's the best cert/course to start with please? I'm likely looking at role-based (Azure Administrator?) but at the same time i need a course that assumes no prior knowledge of cloud computing. If i get on with it so to speak i'd then like to pursue to the next logical cert.

Been out of work now for 6 weeks, really didn't think that with my experience it would take this long, but.....i was wrong and i think my paper thin CV (quals wise) is in part to blame. Some of the eejits at agencies cannot look past the quals list and see that at my age and experience can count for a lot more.

So, any advice would be most appreciated.

LizardKing · 5 May 2019 at 23:44

I hope you like devops, if your not devops or devops orientated its going to be tricky getting into azure/aws (imo of course!) - the good thing about devops is there is no one standard and it means different things for different people, they just know that they want it!

But write your cv around that lingo and you may get a few bites of interest. the Az-103 cert is what you want to go for in regard to azure, it will add some weight anyhow.

Udemy have a few decent courses and a few free Azure IAAS courses at the moment (though I cant say if they are relevant or not but the price is right) they may be worth checking out.
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/9-free-udemy-courses-4-best-seller-5-highest-rated-3225224

memyselfandi · 6 May 2019 at 07:49

Personally I prefer AWS to Azure (having used both) and most of the jobs, when I was looking earlier this year, wanted AWS over Azure (but of course YMMV). With AWS the lowest exam is Certified Cloud Practitioner followed by Associate Solution Architect (the former covering about 60% of the syllabus of the latter). AWS exams seem to cost £120 and training is available from various sources (I use A Cloud Guru and Linux Academy normally).

Banzai_Joe · 6 May 2019 at 09:24

Lizardking; thanks for the links, i've enrolled on the 3 IaaS courses just cos they're free with the code. I was doing a free course on learning tree which cames with labs, but then i found out its free for a reason; the azure portal is much newer than their course material so trying to find the new way of doing things that are described in the old way, especially when you're studying something new isn't a nice experience, so i canned it.
memyselfandi; my experience over the past 6 weeks of searching is that Azure is appearing in job descriptions more than AWS.
What's kind of put me off AWS is the ridiculous amount of certifications they offer. I get that its a continuing/developing platform but seriously, there'll be scores of people obsessed with simply gaining each qual. It's a money-making scam imho. And the more certs they offer the more likely that the 'one' i do becomes obsolete/irrelevant much quicker. Not having that!

But thanks guys, good advice all round, keep it coming if you have more to add.
Much appreciated.

Chandler_90 · 7 May 2019 at 12:57

I'm in a similar position, not out of work but been working in the heavy lifting industry for 10 years where previously I've worked in an IT administrator/Helpdesk role.

I've been following free training from Microsoft for the Azure platform, there is a load of material at:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/azure/

They mainly prepare you for the exams, my aim is to attain AZ-103 and see where I go from there.

Its certainly different than it was a decade ago!

d_brennen · 7 May 2019 at 14:12

Chandler_90 said:
I'm in a similar position, not out of work but been working in the heavy lifting industry for 10 years where previously I've worked in an IT administrator/Helpdesk role.

I've been following free training from Microsoft for the Azure platform, there is a load of material at:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/azure/

They mainly prepare you for the exams, my aim is to attain AZ-103 and see where I go from there.

Its certainly different than it was a decade ago!

Good shout, thanks for the link. I'm administering Azure for my organisation and have bog all idea what I'm doing tbh, bumbling along with Google advice and trial and error!

Going to get work to pay for the exam and give me study time off