Cloud career roadmap: Azure Administrator vs Security Engineer certs | Guest Wilfredo Lanz

[00:00:00] Chris Sienko: Today on Cyber Work Hacks InfoSec Bootcamp instructor Wilfredo Lanz walks us through Microsoft Azure certifications and how it and security professionals alike can use Azure certification to build and future-proof their career roadmap. 

[00:00:15] Wilfredo Lanz: because most organizations, more than 90% of businesses are moving workloads to the cloud, then you are going to limit yourself if you don't expand that knowledge to how you administer resources on the cloud.

[00:00:32] Chris Sienko: That's today on cyber work hacks. The IT and cybersecurity job market is thriving. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 377, 500 new IT jobs annually. You need skill and hustle to obtain these jobs, of course, but the good news is that cybersecurity professionals can look forward to extremely competitive salaries. That's why InfoSec has leveraged 20 years of industry experience Drawing from multiple sources to give you, cyber work listeners, an analysis of the most [00:01:00] popular and top paying industry certifications.

[00:01:02] Chris Sienko: You can use it to navigate your way to a good paying cyber security career. 

[00:01:05] Chris Sienko: So to get your free copy of our cyber security salary guide ebook, just click the link in the description below. It's right there near the top, just below me. You can't miss it. click the link in the description and download our free cyber security salary guide ebook.

[00:01:19] Chris Sienko: Your cyber security journey starts here. 

[00:01:21] Chris Sienko: Now let's get the show started 

[00:01:29] Chris Sienko: Welcome to a new episode of Cyber Work Hacks. The purpose of this spinoff of our popular Cyber Work podcast is to take a single fundamental question and give you a quick, clear, and actionable solution, as well as new insight into how to utilize InfoSec products and training. To achieve your work and career goals. So today I'm happy to welcome Wil Fredo Lance. Now, Wil Alfredo is an InfoSec bootcamp instructor for, among other things our Microsoft Azure, uh, dual cert bootcamp, which is a must for cloud computing. And, uh, he's also a [00:02:00] past guest talking about CCNA. so because our wonderful hacks, listenership is often coming to us with questions about starting their careers and which paths to take. Uh, Wil Alfredo's gonna answer a few, uh, easy questions about where cloud certifications like Mac, Microsoft Azure CERT, can support your IT or cybersecurity career journey. So let's get into that. 

[00:02:20] Chris Sienko: uh, so Alfredo, the two certifications we're speaking about specifically today are the Azure Administrator Associate Certificate, and the Azure Security Engineer Associate Cert. Uh, can you differentiate what each of these certifications is aimed at teaching you and, and what type of work it helps you to do?

[00:02:36] Wilfredo Lanz: Uh, sure.

[00:02:37] Chris Sienko: sure.

[00:02:37] Wilfredo Lanz: thanks again for the opportunity, Chris. Um,

[00:02:40] Chris Sienko: Um,

[00:02:41] Wilfredo Lanz: these two are, uh,

[00:02:43] Chris Sienko: uh,

[00:02:44] Wilfredo Lanz: compliment each other, but they cover different areas. The a Z 1 0 4. Which is the Azure administrator, uh, certification concentrate on operational. [00:03:00] Issues related to managing day-to-day cloud resources, for example, uh, on that certification.

[00:03:09] Wilfredo Lanz: The main, uh, topics are related to managing compute resources like a filter machines. Containers, uh, storage resources, storage accounts, and all the components of managing storage on the cloud.

[00:03:25] Chris Sienko: cloud.

[00:03:26] Wilfredo Lanz: It also is heavy on networking, content, managing, uh, everything we manage in the cloud needs to be connected somehow.

[00:03:37] Wilfredo Lanz: And the networking component of the Azure administrator is really heavy, so we're talking of main

[00:03:45] Chris Sienko: main

[00:03:46] Wilfredo Lanz: of the

[00:03:47] Chris Sienko: the

[00:03:48] Wilfredo Lanz: administrator being compute, storage, networking, and it has. A light component on security. Uh, it is not

[00:03:58] Chris Sienko: is,

[00:03:59] Wilfredo Lanz: as, you [00:04:00] know, the C 500 that is, uh, security certification, but you do go over some of the basic security configurations on the AC 1 0 4.

[00:04:13] Wilfredo Lanz: As you manage, deploy, manage, administer resources on the AC 1 0 4, on the AC 500, the Azure,

[00:04:26] Chris Sienko: As

[00:04:27] Wilfredo Lanz: um, certification on security technologies. That is to how you secure, protect,

[00:04:36] Chris Sienko: Yes.

[00:04:37] Wilfredo Lanz: and you know the resources that you deploy on the AC 1 0 4.

[00:04:42] Chris Sienko: Yeah. So you're starting with, uh, you first you need to sort of know the system itself, and then in the second part, you, you, uh, you learn to secure it specifically.

[00:04:51] Wilfredo Lanz: Absolutely.

[00:04:52] Chris Sienko: Absolutely. Okay. So, um, many of our listeners, uh, obviously are fully cyber security professionals or in process of learning. [00:05:00] Cybersecurity, but also some of them work in adjacent fields like it, or project management or networking. As you said, this is a, uh, uh, somewhat of a networking focused, uh, certification, at least the first part. So for people pursuing these types of careers, uh, when and how should you pick up Azure certifications to improve your skillsets?

[00:05:17] Wilfredo Lanz: Well, the, uh, getting familiar with cloud deployment maintenance, um, and secure administration enhances, uh, people's skills. If you already have, let's say

[00:05:31] Chris Sienko: say

[00:05:31] Wilfredo Lanz: it, uh, an IT background, you manage resources, uh, on premises, right? So, 

[00:05:39] Wilfredo Lanz: because most organizations, more than 90% of businesses are moving workloads to the cloud, then you are going to limit yourself if you don't expand that knowledge to how you administer resources on the cloud.

[00:05:57] Wilfredo Lanz: Um, if you already have a background.

[00:05:59] Chris Sienko: [00:06:00] background

[00:06:00] Wilfredo Lanz: On managing

[00:06:01] Chris Sienko: managing it

[00:06:02] Wilfredo Lanz: on premises, then it becomes easier for you to move and understand how that works on the cloud. In the case of cybersecurity, I will say that cybersecurity on premises, there are some important differences is right, but having a background.

[00:06:23] Chris Sienko: Background

[00:06:24] Wilfredo Lanz: On cybersecurity.

[00:06:25] Wilfredo Lanz: Let's say you are a tester, for example, or you are part of a security operations center on premises. When you move to the cloud, you are gonna be dealing with the same type of issues, right? You still need to handle threats, uh, protect data,

[00:06:43] Chris Sienko: data.

[00:06:43] Wilfredo Lanz: but the.

[00:06:44] Chris Sienko: the

[00:06:45] Wilfredo Lanz: Understanding how that security applies on the cloud is very important to successfully protect those resources.

[00:06:53] Wilfredo Lanz: Uh, now if you are, for example, a, a project manager, you may not need to get into the [00:07:00] details of deploying how to deploy and manage resources on the cloud, but a good understanding of cloud functionality and processes. Is gonna be important for you to successfully manage those projects. So it depends on

[00:07:17] Chris Sienko: on

[00:07:17] Wilfredo Lanz: much, um, responsibilities you are gonna take, but I will say that in any of those cases, moving to the cloud will be, will enhance somebody's opportunities for sure.

[00:07:29] Wilfredo Lanz: It.

[00:07:29] Chris Sienko: yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I, it seems like whether we're talking Azure specifically or not, uh, the benefits of increasing your knowledge in cloud computing a across a wide range of security or it functions is going to be crucial in the, in the years to come.

[00:07:43] Chris Sienko: Is that right?

[00:07:44] Wilfredo Lanz: Oh, definitely, definitely.

[00:07:46] Chris Sienko: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're, we're, we're moving there whether, uh, whether you want to or not. So you better be, uh, you better be ready. Uh, alright. Well, Wil Frito launch, thank you for giving our listeners, uh, a little career strategy with Azure here.

[00:07:58] Wilfredo Lanz: Absolutely.

[00:07:59] Chris Sienko: Uh, [00:08:00] thank you all for watching this episode.

[00:08:01] Chris Sienko: If you enjoyed, uh, what you saw here and felt it helped you, please share it with colleagues, forums on your social media accounts, anywhere you, uh, normally tell people about things you like. So for more hacks and feature length conversations. With cybersecurity thought leaders tune into cyber work both on video, via YouTube, and as a podcast in all the usual podcast places. Uh, and if you like the hacks formats, check out previous videos on everything from hacking APIs to using chat GPT to U to learn cybersecurity. time, this is Chris and Will Alfredo saying Happy learning.