Oracle Cloud Foundations Associate Certification: How I aced the test (94%)

When it comes to cloud computing and IaaS the three names that come to mind at least here in North America are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Many may not know that Oracle Cloud also has a solid cloud offering, with services that match those available with the top 3, and some advantages of it is own.

I first considered doing an Oracle Cloud certification early in May when I became aware of the fact that Oracle was offering this free for a limited period (until May 15th, 2020, as per this blog post). I quickly signed up for both the Foundations Associate and Cloud Operations Associate exams, and went through courses and videos available on Youtube and at the Oracle Learning portal. Unfortunately, I failed to start both test, due to technical issues with the Person Vue online proctoring system (I may write a separate topic on this later).

I contacted the Oracle Cloud support team and they were nice enough to give me a free code to take a make-up exam even though the deadline had passed. I scheduled it for July 31st to give me enough time for preparing as I had a couple of AWS certification exams coming soon as well as the final paper for my MBA.

Eventually I only got started on preparing (again) for the test 10 days prior to the exam date and this proved to be more than enough to pass easily the test. At that point I already had all three AWS Associate certifications and many of the cloud concepts are almost identical on both platforms even if the names may be different. In retrospect, I think I should have used my free coupon to go for the Cloud Operations Associate or Architect Associate instead.

The exam felt almost too easy and I was done in less than 40mn out of the 85mn allowed, including a few minutes spent to review the 10 questions I initialy flagged out of the 55 questions of the exam. Immediately after you finish the exam, you get the score on the screen, which is different from AWS where you are only informed that you have passed or not. The same score was confirmed later by email and two days later I was able to accept the certificate in my Acclaim account.

You might want to know what resources I used to pass this exam. Glad that you asked:

1. FreeCodeCamp Free course on Youtube: I went through the course when I first started preparing for the test in May. Didn’t have time to go through it again but would certainly recommend it if you were completely new to Oracle and the Cloud.
2. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Course in Oracle Cloud University Learning Subscription: this course is free as of the time of this blog post but I can’t say if will remain so in the future. It has three sections: Getting Started with OCI, Core OCI Services and Oracle Security, Pricing, Billing & Support. This is a comprehensive course that goes over all the main sections of the Oracle Cloud platform and by its own should be sufficient to pass the exam.
3. Other short courses on Oracle Cloud University that would allow you to go into depth in some of the specific aspects of Oracle Cloud.
4. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation: the primary resource to learn more about each of the OCI services. I usually referred to it when I needed to learn more about areas that were unclear to me.
5. The official study guide which has links to how to register for the exam, the exam topics, and tips for preparation.
6. Understanding OCI Foundations learning path which includes links to the preparation course, the study guide, but also a free practice exam (tip: some questions may appear on your test…)

Other resources that I did not use but could come handy for higher level certification exams are:
–The Technical White Papers
-The Oracle Learning channel on Youtube
-The OCI Level 100 playlist on Youtube

As usual, nothing beats the hands-on approach to learning the cloud. Oracle Cloud offers a 30-day free trial with $300 credit to get started, and some services that are always free. Just Google “Oracle Cloud free tier” to find the link. I must say however that this is absolutely not needed to pass the Foundations examination, at least if you already have cloud experience. It may help you however better understand the services and how OCI is structured (compartments, Virtual Cloud Network etc.). Personally, I may have spent less than 10mn in the console and did not use at all the CLI to access resources. I do plan however to set up some workloads on OCI for my business in a few weeks time.

If needed, you may download my notes here, although I would recommend to take your own while going through the resources above.

In summary, the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Associate certification is a good entry point into the Oracle Cloud ecosystem, and proves that you have a basic understanding of cloud computing in general, the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and its main services. It should be possible for anyone to prepare and pass this certification with 2 to 4 weeks of preparation using free resources readily available online. If you are an IT professional or already have another cloud certification, you should be able to get this certification in less than a week.

If you have any question on this Oracle Cloud certification, please let me know in the comments.