CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-003) Review

I just recently took (and passed!) the Cloud+ exam and wanted to share some of my thoughts about the test, the content it covers and why it might be a good idea for others starting out in infosec to consider this certification.

I bought my voucher for it at the same time I got my PenTest+ voucher in March 2024 as I had a discount due to being a student in WGU's Masters in Cybersecurity. The academic discount for both vouchers brought my total to US $440, which is an amazing deal, as the PenTest+ voucher alone is US $404. Seeing that it would be a bit cheaper to get the Cloud+ this way than with the beta exams, regularly US $50, I thought "well, why not buy the voucher? I have a year to take it!"

I took the PenTest+ exam very soon after as I had to renew my other CompTIA certifications in less than a month from getting the voucher, and because of other obligations, mainly school and work, I pushed off the Cloud+ exam because, well, I forgot I had the voucher.

My job as security analyst doesn't really touch on cloud design and architecture, but with the general trend of more and more services and data moving to the cloud, taking at least some training was a good idea to make sure I had some understanding of how cloud architecture, design and works. Before deciding that it would be a good idea to take the exam before my voucher expired, I did complete the Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) training course from ACloudGuru/Pluralsight, in preparation for that exam.

Before taking the AZ-900 exam, I remembered that Cloud+ voucher was gathering dust and would expire shortly, so I opted to take the ITProTV CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-003) Cert Prep course on LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda). Another nice perk of being a WGU student is that I have lifetime access to LinkedIn Learning, which will be great for my studies and planned certifications in the coming year. I loved the course, and really appreciated the episodes where Ronnie and Wes went over specific questions that the exam could ask and strategies for the exam. This course also shows deployments and demonstrations in Azure, which also tie into my AZ-900 studies.

I opted to take the exam at home via OnVue, Pearson Vue's remote testing platform. At this point, I've taken most of my exams remotely, and I find I prefer the convenience of at-home testing - not to mention the nice clean desk I have after the exam is over!

I actually found the test to be a bit more difficult than I expected it to be. A lot of networking concepts, like subnetting, came up in the training materials, and that's been a pain point for me previously - causing me to fail Network+ the first time I took it. The sim questions I thought were actually some of the easier sim questions I've seen on a CompTIA exam. I passed the exam with a 770, with a 750 necessary to pass.

Overall, I think this is a general good path for someone who wants to have some basic knowledge of how cloud computing works and you don't yet have a decision on which path you'd rather go down (Azure vs AWS) or if you want a stepping stone with a broad overview. If you already have a specific technology you work with, a lot of what was covered here is covered in the base fundamentals for both Azure (in AZ-900) and AWS (in AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner).

I think I'd recommend the vendor exams over the Cloud+ because the vendor exam in general costs less than the Cloud+ does normally ($100 vs $ $370). More job descriptions tend to focus on the vendor exams over the Cloud+, because they have the specific cloud services that they use (and sometimes it's multiple). But for someone not sure of which path, and you have access to a beta or academic voucher, I think it's worth taking a look at. This exam also renews a few CompTIA certifications, the A+, Network+, and Linux+, which can be a fast way to renew them if you need to, though I believe Security+ also renews all 3, if not, it definitely renews A+ and Network+.

My next steps for cloud training are taking the AZ-900, followed by AZ-104 and AZ-500, and then I'm pivoting at a later time to the AWS certs. As far as GCP goes, I have no intention at this time to tackle those.