Happy New Year!

As 2024 came to a close, it became evident that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was a hot topic. It’s all over in the news and popular media. The markets for any AI-related stocks (NASDAQ:NVDA, C3.ai, NASDAQ:PLTR) are going wild. AWS helped fuel this interest by releasing its AI Practitioner training and certification offerings. AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) is a beta AWS certification test that validates the candidate’s knowledge of AI, machine learning (ML), generative AI concepts, and other use cases. This is a foundational certification like Cloud Practitioner that demonstrates that the candidate understands these technologies and how these technologies are positioned within AWS offerings.

Additionally, AWS raised the stakes by offering:

• a free video training course,

• a reduced exam cost (USD 100),

• exam cost includes a retake for no additional charge, and

• anyone who passes their AIF-C01 AI Practitioner exam before February 15th not only certification but also early adopter status.

Many Udemy course developers (Maarek, Kane, Trisal ) are working on or have already produced low-cost (sale priced at USD 9.99) training materials and practice exams targeting this certification. I’m a fan of Jon Bonso’s Tutorials Dojo, and he’s published some valuable study and practice materials. My email inbox reflects this trend, as numerous colleges and universities also offer a range of courses, from short weekends to week-long sessions to semester-long programs.

AWS AI Practitioner is interesting in how it fits into the network of technical certifications and pathways. Looking at AWS, the next logical step after earning an AI Practitioner would be to pursue a Machine Learning (ML) certification. AWS already offers an ML Specialty certification. Another route might be to earn a data analytics certification such as CompTIA Data+ or Microsoft Certified Azure Data Scientist Associate. There are also vendor-specific data analytics certifications from companies like Cloudera and SAS. Why is this interesting? Remember I said that my email inbox was being filled; those institutions are launching those programs to assess demand and develop curricula. This is learning and certification around a technology that hasn’t yet found its way into many college and university programs.

My plan is to change my course. I have been studying for the AWS Security Specialty exam. There is a lot of material there, and my scores on practice exams tell me I need to learn more before I sit for the exam. I’m going to take the next two weeks and complete both the Maarek at Udemy and the AWS Skill Builder Standard course. Each of those courses requires about 20 hours to complete. Both courses include practice exams, and I’ll also use practice exams at Tutorials Dojo. I want to get that ‘early adopter’ badge. After that, I need to finish about a week’s worth of project work. Then, I’ll double down on my Security Specialty studies.

I'm working my way through the Cisco Ethical Hacker course to provide a more detailed review. In a future article, I intend to compare it to the EC-Council Ethical Hacking certification published exam objectives and other materials. From what I’ve learned already, I think many students earning Security+ and CySA certifications would be better off pursuing Cisco Ethical Hacker than CEH. In my opinion, the knowledge and experience entry point for the Cisco certification is lower than CEH, making it better suited for those early in their careers.

I don’t intend to pursue EC-Council CEH certification at this time. Why? I’m not a fan of CEH. The CEH training materials and instruction from the EC-Council are probably (maybe) reasonably priced as employer-paid (business-to-business or B2B) training. I think it’s way too expensive for a consumer (business-to-consumer or B2C) to pay their way.

My name is Brian Ford. Welcome to my newsletter. Many know me as a technology instructor, teaching networking and cybersecurity courses. I’m also a coach who works one-on-one with people who want to learn about and understand Internet, cloud, and cybersecurity technologies. I’m also a technology researcher investigating various cybersecurity topics, including how web browsers and protocols can be used and abused.

Things that I’m going to help readers with:

• Choose what technologies, certifications, and career choices to pursue.

• Become lifelong learners and earn various technical certifications.

• Those who have earned a certification maintain and use it to their advantage.

Please look at these posts for help maintaining your CompTIA and ISC2 certifications.

Have you submitted CEUs or CPEs and been audited? I'd like to hear about your audit experience.

I tell all my clients and students that I get tremendous personal satisfaction from what I do, not because of the paycheck but because of the impact. I encourage clients to keep in touch with me. If you find this newsletter helpful or if you have something you want to share with others, please don’t hesitate to message me.

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