4 Keys to Successful Cloud Deployments

A sure way to prompt eye rolls in a room full of IT professionals is to mention the phrase cloud computing. Eye rolls are soon followed by the inevitable question about the definition of cloud computing and what you mean by it. This knee-jerk cynicism aside, cloud models continue to transform the delivery of IT services despite our collective exhaustion over the catchphrases we use to describe them.

Driving this transformation is the desire to achieve certain business outcomes, which can almost always be boiled down to the prosaic:

• Reduce costs
• Improve profitability
• Generate more revenue
• Be more agile

Whatever the desired outcome, business leaders recognize the importance of correctly applying the right technologies. And doing that requires the right skillsets.

The New CompTIA Cloud+ Addresses the Keys to Cloud Deployment Success

The refreshed CompTIA Cloud+ performance certification validates the skillsets needed by professionals in IT operations roles. It reflects an emphasis on deploying, monitoring and securing hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Cloud+ validates the skillset needed to weave together solutions that meet specific business requirements.

The changes to the CompTIA Cloud+ certification exam (CV0-002) were driven by industry findings of the keys to successful cloud deployments and the corresponding skillsets needed to support them.

1. Cybersecurity is central to successful cloud deployments. The security and maintenance domains of the exam acknowledge the many security considerations integral to successful cloud deployments.

Both preventative and proactive measures based on an awareness of an organization’s desired security posture are reflected in exam topics:

• Policy and compliance
• Risk mitigation tactics
• Impact of cloud service and deployment models on security
• Security automation tools and techniques
• Business continuity and disaster recovery

2. Automation and orchestration bring massive value to the business. Spread across all five domains of the exam are objectives related to automation and orchestration. These two core cloud computing concepts, the tools needed to implement them, and their appropriate application given system requirements are the keys to unlocking the promise of cloud initiatives.

Exam topics include automation and orchestration tools and techniques, proving a candidate’s ability to do the following:

• Deploy systems that meet given requirements
• Update cloud elements, such as hypervisors, virtual machines (VMs), virtual appliances, networking components, applications, storage, clusters
• Perform routine maintenance tasks, such as clearing and archiving logs, compressing drives, removing orphaned resources, removing outdated firewall rules, and so on
• Meet security and policy requirements

3. Managing cloud vendors is essential to controlling costs. The management domain of the exam addresses the pivotal role that monitoring and resource management plays in cloud implementations.

Topics include the following:

• Cost considerations in deployment planning
• Monitoring performance against service-level agreement (SLA) requirements
• Monitoring resource consumption
• The importance of de-provisioning
• Calculating chargeback

4. Workload migrations to cloud platforms continue to grow. Organizations recognize the opportunity presented by cloud platforms and continue work to identify what to move and when.

Related exam topics include the following:

• Storage, compute and network requirements
• Moving workloads between cloud providers
• Application migration considerations

The new CompTIA Cloud+ certification exam (CV0-002) addresses the increased diversity of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) required of today’s systems administrators and systems engineers and validates what is currently necessary to perform effectively on the job. For business leaders wanting to leverage cloud models to achieve their objectives, CompTIA Cloud+ offers proof of the skillset needed to apply those models against a set goal.

Validate your cloud computing skills for today’s business needs with CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-002).