I decided to take the IBM Cloud Solution Advisor certification to consolidate my existing knowledge and prove my skills to my customers. Next are the steps I took to achieve it.
Taking the online courses
I signed in to the certification learning path page with my IBM account. If you don’t have one you can easily register with your email for free.
The learning path is structured in several courses, each represented by a card and hosted in Cognitive Class. You can authenticate with your IBM account so you don’t need to register again.
Each course is composed of several modules, which start with a description of its objectives. Then there are several videos made by skilled IBM engineers. The explanations are very clear and they also have subtitles and transcripts so they are very easy to follow even for beginners.
There are technical demos and hands-on labs too so you can practice with some of the course technologies.
I liked that this was not a strictly technical certification and there were subjects like the IBM Garage Method related to applying technology to corporate processes.
Finally, there is an outline of the module, a practice, and a partial exam. At the end of each module, there is a final exam. If you get a passing score you will get a certificate and a badge you can collect on Creedly. Even if you don’t pass these, they will help you to know which parts of the course you need to review for the certification exam.
Once you complete all courses you will be ready to take the certification exam.
Registering for the online exam: no Linux support
You can register for the certification exam by clicking on the Purchase Certification Exam button on the Learning Path page. You will be redirected to the Pearson VUE page, where you need to register with your email.
You can choose between taking the exam online or from your home or office. I selected the latter but when checking the technical requirements I noticed that they only support Windows and macOS.
As all my computers run Linux, this was not an option for me. It would be nice to support it as many developers and system administrators use it.
Registering for the onsite exam
Fortunately, there were several Pearson VUE centers in my city, so I registered onsite. The process is very straightforward and you start choosing from a list of centers from a map and an ordered by distance list from your location.
Then you can select one of the available dates and make the payment. The interface is very simple and I was able to find a suitable appointment quickly.
Taking the exam
The exam center was located a few subway stations from my home and it took me around half-hour to get there. If I had taken it from home I would have needed to install the exam software, test it and check that is compatible with my webcam, so this was not an issue at all.
It was a nice sunny morning as you can see in this photo I took at the subway station exit.
The sign-in procedure was very fast, they asked for my photo ID, took a picture of me, and asked me to sign a form.
Then they guided me to the exam room which was very quiet, comfortable, and had natural light, so it was easy to concentrate.
I got the passing score immediately after completing the exam and a few hours later IBM sent me an email with another badge.
Overall it was a great experience and I can recommend it to anybody who wants to strengthen his existing skills and learn new things.
Software and Outsourcing 