I passed the CCSP exam today. Here is my experience to help others
Background - I have some experience working with various cloud providers and virtualization technologies. I do not have a CISSP or have not taken the CSA exam. I chose to do the CCSP since it was more relevant to my work (and I know I cannot sit for 6 hours to take CISSP).
I passed in my second attempt. I took the CCSP training class offered by ISC2 and it was an utter waste of time. The instructor was knowledgeable however he spent hours on irrelevant topics - such as calculating the cost of AWS EC2 instances in various regions..etc. I ended up sitting at home and studying rather than wasting time in the class. The class supplied me with CBK training guide, the flash cards and a question bank (which I found totally useless since the questions are framed without any thought and are incorrect). I got pressured into taking the exam the first time since most of my class mates took the exam on the Saturday after the class and passed. Most of them had a CISSP and/or passed the CSA certification. I took the exam a week after the class and I failed - I got 679.
I took the second attempt today after studying seriously for a month. Here is what I did - I studied the CBK book twice. I took the preparation exam (which are preparation questions by ISC2) a couple of times to check my own knowledge. I tried the CCCURE one day package. Most of the questions in the exam plays on subtle differences which one might skip or not pay attention to. Its easy to narrow down 2 incorrect answers out of the 4. However it is very hard to choose the correct answer out of the remaining 2. Pls note almost all questions are worded as - Choose BEST suited, BEST possible, LEAST likely, LEAST effective choice. So unless you know the subtleties in the topics that are in the CBK, you would not be able to pass.
Summarizing - though the CBK is extremely dry and has inaccuracies, it is the single source of knowledge for the exam. I studied the CBK twice and still felt I did not thoroughly study it. A lot of ppl in the forum suggest the CSA guide or ENISA document or the Jericho model but in both my attempts I did not see any questions that were out of the CBK and covered by the other documents. IMHO if you study the CBK thoroughly and use the preparation exam questions (which mirror actual questions on the test) you should be able to pass the exam. Hope that helps and Good Luck!!
