Top 5 Cloud-Related IT Certifications

The growing importance of IT-related Cloud Computing certifications to IT professionals.

For the past five years or so, there’s been no other technical area in information technology that’s generated as much interest, absorbed as much investment, or produced as much breathless hype as Cloud technology. Though the term can–and often does–have different meaning for different users, there’s no doubt at all that the Cloud has become a permanent fixture for end users, service providers, and companies and organizations of all sizes around the world.

Why then, shouldn’t it also attract considerable coverage and attention from certification providers as well?

And yet, a close examination of what’s available to IT professionals by way of Cloud-related certifications shows less than you might think at the moment, and for some very good reasons. Before we dig into the Top 5 in this arena, and talk about other important (and emerging) players in the Cloud certification space, it’s important to understand that certification is what an economist might call a “trailing indicator” rather than a “leading indicator” for technology areas.

That means that certification providers watch technology areas and markets carefully, and seldom jump into any of them until clear and strong interest has been indisputably established.

Ed Tittel is a 30-year-plus veteran of the computing industry, who’s worked as a programmer, a technical manager, a classroom instructor, a network consultant and a technical evangelist for companies that include Burroughs, Schlumberger, Novell, IBM/Tivoli and NetQoS. He has written and blogged for numerous publications, including Tom's Hardware, and is the author of over 140 computing books with a special emphasis on information security, Web markup languages and development tools, and Windows operating systems.

Mary Kyle is a full-time freelance writer, editor, and project manager based in Austin, TX. A former IBMer, Mary has over 10 years of project management experience in IT, software development and IT-related legal issues.

Check out Ed's Tom's IT Pro  Making It in IT - Certification & Training blog here.

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