Passed CCSP exam this past weekend, took about an hour and twenty minutes. First I refer the CCSP exam outline to limit my boundaries or exam preparation.
Study Material vs my rating
- Cybrary.it Kelly Handerhan CCSP video (3.5/5)
CSA v3 (3/5)
- EDUSUM CCSP online practice exams (4.5/5)
- ENISA Cloud Computing Risk Assessment (3.5/5)
- CCSP (ISC)2 Certified Cloud Security Professional Official Study Guide (3/5)
- Wiley website practice tests (from the book) (2.5/5)
- (ISC)2 CCSP Official Study App (iPhone) (2/5)
Background
I've been in the IT industry 20 years and have been working in a SaaS company for the last 14 years (back when it was an ASP). I architected and wrote most of the core platform software libraries, services and processes. I designed and managed the infrastructure being used as well.
Preparation
While preparing for the CCSP, I took the CCSK V3 exam since the material is what it's based on and it seems to have a decent foothold. Read through the CSA v3 and ENISA documents then took the CCSK test over the course of a week. Scheduled the CCSP exam for when I could get an opening. Over the next three weeks I watched the Kelly Handerhan video, read through the official study guide and did some mini practice tests and a couple full practice tests.
Study material review
Cybrary.it Kelly Handerhan video - Good as always, definitely a good overview. Cybrary.it is free and the content is good, that's hard to beat.
EDUSUM CCSP Online Practice Exams - I am full positive on CCSP questions on the test offered by EDUSUM, got many similar questions in real exam and helped me to clear my doubt for some topics. Truly recommended!!
CSA v3 document - Dry read. Some sections seem overly long while others seem shorter than they should be. I see that the V4 has been released, so I'll check that out in the near future.
ENISA document - Fairly to the point, I like that. I didn't focus too much on this one since I deal with this type of information daily.
CCSP (ISC)2 Certified Cloud Security Professional Official Study Guide - The book is well written with relevant information and questions, it isn't all you need to know for the test in and of itself but I'd say it covers ~70-80%. It's divided into easily digestible chapters. I'm a terribly slow reader so that was a plus. The writing style is easy to read. I didn't feel like they drug out topics too long or were too brief either. When I said in the first sentence that it isn't all you need to know, if you don't have experience with the CISSP domains at least read a study guide before taking this exam. This book doesn't cover the CISSP specific material that I saw on the actual test. There wasn't a lot, but there were a few.
Wiley website practice tests (book publisher) - I did see one question from here that was on the test, but that was about it. The rest were quite different than the practice questions here.
(ISC)2 CCSP Official Study App (iPhone) - Decent questions but not like the actual test, essentially the same questions as the book.
The test
Neither of the practice tests were really like the actual test. The Wiley site and the app are pretty much the same questions and I prefer to use two different providers practice tests if possible; even if one is really rudimentary, it helps break the memorization pattern. Unfortunately, there are very limited resources for practice exams. In my opinion, the actual CCSP exam questions are more clearly worded than the CCSK test even though the CCSP is broader. Maybe the V4 of the CCSK will correct that issue. There were also questions on CISSP material during the exam but if you have reviewed the CISSP material or work in the domains daily, you should be fine. The structure of the questions is similar to the CISSP exam.
I'd take a 15 question test when I had breaks. A week before the actual test I took two full exams and did the full domain tests in the iPhone app. I got a bit uneasy because I was scored 100% on all the domain tests in the iPhone app and thought it may give me a false sense of security. The online CCSK test, the questions were worded in a way that I had to really think them through.
I think it's a good addition to the CISSP. The CCSP exam is broader in scope than the CCSK while still focusing on cloud specific concepts. They just updated the CCSK material so I'll take a look at that and see what the updates look like for it.
Endorsement app sent, just have to wait on approval. Now on to CISM
