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Looking ahead at new and emerging certifications provides insight into the areas deemed valuable in the IT industry. If you are an early adopter or in a position where you need to show that you have the bleeding-edge expertise of a technology, this list of recent and upcoming certifications is for you.
To get a better understanding of top-performing and established certifications, check out the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report – Salary and Certifications.
Cisco Certified DevNet Associate, Professional and Specialist
What is it? Helps network administrators, engineers, and architects combine their infrastructure expertise with the power of programming and automation to realize the advantages of intent-based networking.
Who is it for? The new DevNet certifications are targeted at networking professionals and software developers whose roles are converging. Taking advantage of the new opportunities in application design, software development, and automation, these roles can master the art of designing applications that leverage Cisco platforms all the way from designing, implementing, and running the infrastructure to writing the code that brings the infrastructure to life.
Why is it needed? As automated networks become the new normal, software and the network grow more and more interconnected. The opportunities to realize this potential are boundless but the number of qualified professionals is limited.
How to get certified: Cisco announced their new certification framework at Cisco Live in June. The DevNet certifications are entirely new. Though the exams won’t be available until February 2020, the new courses will start to be available in the second half of 2019.
There will be three main levels of DevNet certification:
- DevNet Associate will require a single exam to achieve.
- DevNet Professional will require one core exam and one concentration exam.
- DevNet Specialist will require a single core exam to achieve.
Cisco’s new certification framework is simpler, more streamlined, and with the addition of DevNet, more aligned and relevant with the direction of today’s enterprise infrastructures.
Learn more about the new Cisco certification framework.
IBM Certified Application Developer – Watson 3
What is it? This intermediate-level credential verifies that an individual understands the concepts essential to the development of applications using IBM Watson AI services. It demonstrates experience using the IBM Cloud and the ability to consume IBM Watson AI services in an application. A certified professional is able to perform these tasks with little to no assistance.
Who is it for? IT professionals may be interested in this certification if they have:
- Working knowledge of developing an application using IBM Watson AI services.
- Working knowledge of core IBM Cloud services (monitoring, logging, scaling) and security.
- Working knowledge of designing, developing and deploying RESTful APIs.
- Working knowledge of use cases using IBM Watson AI services.
- Working knowledge of AI concepts such as intent, relationships, entities and ground truth.
- Working knowledge of the application starter kits and demos available on the IBM Cloud.
- Working knowledge of open technologies like Cloud Foundry and Git like repositories.
- Basic knowledge of application development using common web technologies such as Node.js, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
- Basic knowledge of machine learning methods and technologies.
How to get certified: Pass the IBM Watson Application Developer V3.1 exam and you’re certified. The exam consists of 60 questions and 44 correct answers are required to pass.
To prepare for the exam, take our prep course, IBM Watson Application Development Certification Bootcamp.
What will you learn? After achieving this certification, you’ll walk away with the following areas of competency:
- Fundamentals of IBM Watson AI services on IBM Cloud
- Use cases of artificial intelligence and machine learning
- Developing AI applications using IBM Watson AI services
- Administering applications using IBM Watson AI services
Learn more about IBM training.
IBM Certified Specialist – New Workloads Sales V2
What is it? This certification helps individuals identify opportunities for business, and generate and qualify demand using a consultative approach. An IBM Certified Specialist effectively determines and uses available tools and resources to define and sell storage solutions that meet customer requirements. This specialist has a broad knowledge of the features, functions and benefits of IBM storage solutions, and a high-level understanding of competitive offerings. Successful candidates will apply their knowledge of the IBM storage portfolio to the customer's environment to solve business problems.
Who is it for? Certification candidates should have a minimum of 12 months of practical, storage-related experience selling in the large scale storage environment and three months selling IBM storage solutions.
How to get certified: This certification requires that you pass the IBM New Workloads Sales V2 exam, which consists of 60 questions. A passing score is 36.
What will you learn? After achieving this certification, you’ll walk away with the following areas of competency:
- IBM software-defined storage concepts including IBM Spectrum Suite
- IBM Flash Storage Family
- IBM All-Flash concepts and application acceleration
- IBM FlashSystem A9000 and grid scale cloud concepts
- New workload concepts
- IBM Spectrum Family (IBM SAN Volume Controller; IBM Storwize family and virtualized storage concepts, IBM Spectrum Control, IBM Spectrum Protect/Plus, IBM Spectrum Archive, IBM Spectrum Virtualize, IBM Spectrum Accelerate, IBM Spectrum Scale, IBM Spectrum NAS and IBM Spectrum Connect)
- Cloud Object Storage
- Storage cloud and hybrid cloud concepts
Learn more about IBM training.
IBM Certified Specialist – Storage Technical V2
What is it? This certification asserts that an individual has the expertise to consult with customers to gather and understand customer requirements and position the correct solutions. This specialist uses available resources to design the solution. They have a broad knowledge of the features, functions and benefits of IBM storage solutions and the IBM storage portfolio, including disk, tape, storage management software, and software-defined storage. Successful candidates understand competitive offerings used in the enterprise segment.
Who is it for? Certification candidates should have a minimum of 12 months of direct technical storage experience, with six months experience with IBM designated storage products.
How to get certified: This certification requires that you pass the IBM Storage Technical V2 exam, which consists of 60 questions. A passing score is 35.
What will you learn? After achieving this certification, you’ll walk away with the following areas of competency:
- IBM Flash Storage
- All flash solution concepts
- Hybrid storage solutions including IBM System Storage DS8800 and IBM FlashSystem
- Software-defined storage including the IBM Spectrum Suite; IBM Spectrum Accelerate, IBM Spectrum Control, IBM Storage Insights, IBM Spectrum Virtualize and IBM Spectrum Scale
- IBM tape solutions and technologies
- IBM Spectrum Protect
- IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
- IBM Spectrum Archive
- Cloud Object Storage
- SAN/Networks
- VersaStack and converged infrastructure
Learn more about IBM training.
Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate
What is it? Becoming a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate validates the skills necessary to be successful in the role of Azure cloud administrator. With the retirement of the MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure certification, the Azure Administrator Associate is one of three role-based certifications taking its place.
Azure administrators manage cloud services that span storage, security, networking, and compute cloud capabilities. The Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate certification is role-based and validates a professional’s ability to implement, monitor and maintain Microsoft Azure solutions, including major services related to compute, storage, network, and security.
This certification launched in late 2018.
Who is it for? Candidates for this certification require a deep understanding of each service across the full IT lifecycle, and will take requests for infrastructure services, applications, and environments. They will need to be equipped to make recommendations on services used for optimal performance and scale, as well as provision, size, monitor, and adjust resources as appropriate.
Microsoft cloud technology professionals that have completed any of the following certifications are candidates for the Azure Administrator Associate certification:
- MCSA: Windows Server 2016
- MCSA: Cloud Platform
- MCSA: Linux on Azure
- MCSA: Windows Server 2012
- MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure
How to get certified: Candidates for this certification need to pass Exam AZ-103.
To prepare for the exam, we offer a prep course, Microsoft Azure Administrator (AZ-103). This instructor-led training course teaches IT professionals to manage their Azure subscriptions, implement storage solutions, and more.
Purchase a Microsoft Certification Test Voucher.
What will you learn? Earning this certification will validate you are able to:
- Manage Azure subscriptions and resources
- Implement and manage storage
- Deploy and manage virtual machines (VMs)
- Configure and manage virtual networks
- Manage identities
- Evaluate and perform server migration to Azure
- Implement and manage application services
- Implement advanced virtual networking
- Secure identities
View the complete Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate track.
Learn everything you need to know about this certification in our complete guide, How to Become a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate.
Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert
What is it? Becoming a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert validates the skills necessary to be successful in the role of Azure cloud solutions architect. With the retirement of the MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure certification, the Azure Solutions Architect Expert is one of three role-based certifications taking its place.
Azure solutions architects advise stakeholders and translate business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable solutions. This expert-level, role-based certification will validate your mastery of the skills needed to design solutions that run on Azure, as well as your expertise in compute, storage and security.
This certification launched in late 2018.
Who is it for? Candidates for this certification need to have advanced experience and knowledge across various aspects of IT operations, including networking, virtualization, identity, security, business continuity, disaster recovery, data management, budgeting, and governance. This role requires management of how decisions in each area affect an overall solution. Candidates must be proficient in Azure administration, Azure development, and DevOps, and have expert-level skills in at least one of those domains.
Microsoft cloud technology professionals that have completed any of the following certifications are candidates for the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification:
- MCSA: Windows Server 2016
- MCSA: Cloud Platform
- MCSA: Linux on Azure
- MCSA: Windows Server 2012
- MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure
How to get certified: This certifications require that you pass two exams to become certified: AZ:300—Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Technologies and AZ:301—Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Design.
We have three prep courses for these exams:
- Azure Solutions Architect Technologies (AZ-300)
- Azure Solutions Architect Design (AZ-301)
- Azure Solution Architect Boot Camp (AZ-300 and AZ-301)
Purchase a Microsoft Certification Test Voucher.
What will you learn? Earning this certification will validate you are able to:
- Deploy and Configure Infrastructure
- Implement Workloads and Security
- Create and Deploy Apps
- Implement Authentication and Secure Data
- Develop for the Cloud
- Determine Workload Requirements
- Design for Identity and Security
- Design a Data Platform Solution
- Design a Business Continuity Strategy
- Design for Deployment, Migration, and Integration
- Design an Infrastructure Strategy
View the complete Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert track.
Learn everything you need to know about this certification in our complete guide, How to Become a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
Microsoft Certified Azure Developer Associate
What is it? Becoming a Microsoft Certified Azure Developer Associate validates the skills necessary to be successful in the role of Azure cloud developer. With the retirement of the MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure certification, the Azure Developer Associate is one of three role-based certifications taking its place.
Azure developers design and build cloud solutions such as applications and services. They participate in all phases of development, from solution design, to development and deployment, to testing and maintenance. They partner with cloud solution architects, cloud DBAs, cloud administrators, and clients to implement the solution.
This certification launched in late 2018.
Who is it for? Candidates for this certification need to be proficient in developing apps and services by using Azure tools and technologies, including storage, security, compute, and communications. They should have at least one year of experience developing scalable solutions through all phases of software development and will need to be skilled in at least one cloud-supported programming language.
Microsoft cloud technology professionals that have completed any of the following certifications are candidates for the Azure Developer Associate certification:
- MCSA: Windows Server 2016
- MCSA: Cloud Platform
- MCSA: Linux on Azure
- MCSA: Windows Server 2012
- MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure
How to get certified: Candidates for this certification only need to pass Exam AZ-203.
To prep for the exam, we recommend the following training course: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure (AZ-203)
Purchase a Microsoft Certification Test Voucher.
What will you learn? Earning this certification will validate you are able to:
- Develop Azure Infrastructure as a Service compute solutions
- Develop Azure Platform as a Service compute solutions
- Develop for Azure storage
- Implement Azure security
- Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize solutions
- Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services
View the complete Microsoft Certified Azure Developer Associate track.
Learn everything you need to know about this certification in our complete guide, How to Become a Microsoft Certified Azure Developer Associate.
Update on 2018 New and Emerging Certifications
In the Global Knowledge 2018 IT Skills and Salary Report, we highlighted 20 certifications that had either recently launched or were soon-to-be released. Looking back on our list, some certifications are still up-and-coming, while others have already had a major impact.
Google Cloud
Having made their debut in 2017, Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect, Cloud Engineer and Data Engineer are already associated with some of the top salaries in our report.
GCP Cloud Architect is the top-paying certification in North America with an average annual salary of $152,129. Globally, Cloud Architect ranks second while Data Engineer is fourth and Cloud Engineer is 10th.
Google Cloud-certified professionals are also growing in number. Over 800 respondents to our IT Skills and Salary Survey have at least one Google Cloud certification. That’s seven percent of our total base, making it the ninth most popular certification category in the world.
AWS Security
The AWS Certified Security – Specialty exam was released last year and like the other AWS certifications, it’s already associated with above-average certifications. The North American average is $107,288 and the worldwide average is $132,825.
These high salaries can be attributed to job experience, as candidates for this certification should have five years of IT security experience designing and implementing security solutions, and at least two years of hands-on experience securing production AWS workloads.
Over 260 respondents said they plan to pursue the AWS Security certification this year.
CompTIA Cloud+
The popularity of CompTIA certifications and the salaries of cloud professionals produce the perfect storm. CompTIA Cloud+ has an average North American salary of $110,126. While it hasn’t reached the popularity of A+, Security+ or Network+, it certainly is a credential that cloud professionals have their eyes on.
Four percent of CompTIA-certified professionals have their Cloud+, while an additional 11% plan to pursue this certification in 2019.
DevOps Agile Skills Association
We spotlighted two DASA certifications last year—DASA DevOps Fundamentals and DASA DevOps Practitioner. Forty-one percent of DevOps-certified IT professionals have their DASA DevOps Fundamentals credential, while 19% are certified in DASA DevOps Practitioner.
Associated salaries of these two certifications eclipse regional averages, with the highest being DevOps Practitioner with a $155,190 North American average amongs 13 survey respondents.
This year, 177 IT professionals plan to pursue either one of these DASA certifications.
Related Resources
2019 IT Skills and Salary Report Resource Hub
