Passed my CCSP 2019

[Rayz]

Passed my CCSP exam today and wanted to share some thoughts regarding the prep:
- To prepare, I have read the Official Study Guide(1st edition) twice, CCSP CBK(2nd edition) once and CSA Guidance v4 once
- Twice went through CCSP official questions 800+ questions
Started on October 25 2018 and passed the test on January 4th 2019 (minus the holidays and 2 weeks vacation)

I was surprised how relatively easy it was. When I took the CISSP I wasn’t sure about my progress (I think that CISSP was really tough!), but I knew that I am doing well during the CCSP and I knew that I would pass.
The questions are less tricky than CISSP and there are lot of simple questions similar (not Disclosing any actual questions here) to “what is the port for xxx”- so very well aligned to Wiley Testbank.
Four hours to answer 125 is also a lot, I could have finish it in less than two, but decided to take a break and then rechecked all the answers that resulted in approx 2h30min.
In the conclusion, I think this is a great cert that has more depth than CISSP, but lacks in breadth. Also, it is way less complex than CISSP, but I would not take this test before the CISSP, since the material definitely crosses over between the two.

[ro83]

Congratulations! Thanks for a brief overview.

[Syne07]

Congratulations! Thank you for sharing your experience.

[CyberLead]

Congratulations!

I took my exam in October of 2018, and received the certification email just after Christmas.  My experience was very similar to yours.  I'm also a CISSP, and found that covered the security basics, so a candidate thus certified would only need to focus on "cloud-specific" subjects.

I completely agree with your assessment regarding the ease of the questions (bearing in mind that I have 8 years of cloud architecture, engineering, and security experience), enabling completion of the test in 2 hours, as well.

Although the CISSP is not a prerequisite, it helps a lot, as does the years of hands-on experience.  There were approximately 60 students in the compressed 16 hour CCSP boot camp that I attended during the 2018 Security Congress in New Orleans.  When the instructor, @Ben_Malisow, polled the class as to how many held a CISSP, many, many hands went up.  (Ben, you had a better view of the class than I did; was it approximately 80% or 90%, would you say?)

[Ben_Malisow]

At least 70%, maybe less than 90%. There were a LOT of CISSPs in that room.

[Ben_Malisow]

Outstanding! Welcome to the club.

[Jean-François]

Same experience for me, I just passed it today (got my CISSP in 2013) in about 2 hours (taking the time to write down when in doubt, coming back to question flagged once and then all the question another time.)

I had a free voucher to pass the exam through my company ( some colleagues did the training without trying to pass the exam)

I had only a week to train for it as the voucher had to be use before a specific date.

But I had also done the ISC2 on demand training in April 2016 (when they did make an offer to follow it for 395 dollars) at that time I had no incentive to pass the exam if I had to pay for it, as I felt it was too similar to CISSP in a ligther way (there has been also some changes since then...)

I did go through the CCSP official question book once (getting around 70/75% of correct answers for each domain), while writting down topics I was weaker on, and then did look for clarification on those, did the 2 practice exams (first one I did get around 75% of good responses while making silly mistakes, looked for more clarifications and then did the second practice exam, getting around 90% of good responses) . I also went through cccure mindmaps and some additional material I wrote down to revise a bit.

I felt the questions were easier globally than expected, and only a limited number were poorly written.

[CyberLead]

Congratulations, and welcome to the club of (ISC)2 professionals that hold multiple certs from them.  On their "Member Counts" page it would be an interesting statistic to see how many of us hold multiple certs, and which ones they are.

[dentonjc]

Congrats and thanks for the comparison, I've just passed the CCSP and was considering doing the CISSP as much of the risk management and physical security seemed to be shared between the two.

While the content is fresh in my head I thought I'd work on the other additional domains the CISSP covers, you've highlighted to be prepared for a stiffer challenge.

Thankfully there's more structured learning content available which was challenging for the CCSP, I ended up relying on general knowledge as most of my learning's seemed unused on the test.

Cheers

[mgorman]

I have to say the CCSP surprised me a bit, in a good way.  The material I used, the CCSP study guide and practice tests helped, but it was more practical (What would you do in this situation?) than the regurgitating of facts.  Being a newer cert, I didn't think there would be that much maturity in the testing.  Definitely a good coverage of cloud concerns, and well worth the study time I devoted.   Now if only ISC2 wasn't so slow in finishing the paperwork...but that's another thread.