Prepared with AI assistance by Pass-IT. Vendor sources support exam facts; the exercises and study recommendations are ours.
Build your cloud certification roadmap around a task you want to perform. Choose a platform you use or can practice with, then connect its exam objectives to a project. The paths below are examples for cloud literacy, design and operations, not a complete catalogue or a universal ranking of levels.
Match the path to the work
On AWS, Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) develops understanding of cloud concepts, responsibilities, services and billing. Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) addresses secure, resilient, performant and cost-optimized design. Studying those foundations before architecture can be useful; AWS does not require the earlier certification.
On Azure, Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) covers cloud concepts, architecture, services, management and governance. Azure Administrator (AZ-104) concerns implementing, managing and monitoring identity, governance, storage, compute and networks. This is an administration path; SAA-C03 centers on architecture decisions. Treat them as preparation for different tasks.
On Google Cloud, Cloud Digital Leader connects cloud capabilities with business uses. Associate Cloud Engineer concerns deploying and securing applications, services and infrastructure, plus operations and access. Google recommends at least six months of hands-on Google Cloud experience for Associate Cloud Engineer but lists no formal prerequisites. Cloud Digital Leader is not compulsory first.
Turn an objective into work you can check
Use our learning sequence with one actual task, such as deploying an internal application:
- Define acceptance: readers can view documents, editors can change them, and unauthorized users are denied access.
- Learn the identity, permission and deployment concepts needed to explain that behavior.
- Design a small project on paper. Draw the request path and identify where each access decision happens.
- Write a test for each user type. Test an unauthorized request and verify that it is denied: the expected denial means this negative test passes. Record the evidence and investigate if the behavior differs from what you expected.
- Compare your work with current exam objectives and choose the next gap to address.
If you implement the project, use an authorized sandbox, check potential costs beforehand and remove resources afterward. The paper version remains useful when access is limited.
Measure progress by what you can explain, verify and operate. Use original certification practice questions and explanations to examine decisions your project has not yet covered.