Big Data Certifications to Add on Your Profile

Big Data is a promising career as big business continues to grow. A successful business requires a highly-efficient organization of massive volumes of data. Being involved in big data analytics is a challenging career. You are expected to look for trends from diverse data and draw insights from it― insights that will eventually create strategic plans and more impactful business decisions. Hence, to thrive in this competitive field, you must be very skillful and knowledgeable.

All these necessary skills and knowledge are achievable only by earning the right certifications. Organizations prefer candidates that are armed with certifications. These certifications are a way to showcase your expertise. With certifications, you get to improve the necessary skills sets important when dealing with big data. Whether you aspire to become a data scientist, a data analyst, a data engineer, or data architect, it is important to fully understand Big Data and all that it takes.

With that, here’s a quick guide of the leading Big Data certifications as of 2018. Read thoroughly and consider these choices to boost your career.

Cloudera

Cloudera is one of the top big data certification providers. It mainly specializes on megadata collections built on the open source Apache Hadoop platform. The Hadoop platform is widely used nowadays, which provides Cloudera a convenient way to extract valuable insights from your data. Cloudera offers two levels of professional certifications. Associate level certifications include Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Administrator, CCA Data Analyst, and CCA Spark and Hadoop Developer. A Cloudera Certified Professional (CCP) Data Engineer is available for the professional level certification.

Cloudera Certified Associate serves as a foundational certification essential prior to acquiring the Big Data professional certifications. Skills in core systems and cluster administration are being assessed with the CCA Administrator credential. Moreover, CCA Data Analyst is a vital certification that hones one’s analytical skills further. Specifically, CCA Data Analyst allows you to define relationships and draw reasonable insights from big data. Aside from that, Cloudera continues to produce competent professionals who can support the Apache Hadoop infrastructures. In line with this, Cloudera also offers the CCA Spark and Hadoop Developer. For the professional certifications, the Certified Analytics Professional (CCP) Data Engineer fortifies individuals to understand the analytic process of Big Data through developing reliable and scalable data pipelines.

For all these certifications, Cloudera supports its candidates by providing exam objectives, practice tests, and other exam preparation training. Cloudera certified specialists get annually approximately $132,500.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services offers role-based and specialty certifications that are structured according to advancing level of competencies. For instance, AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty Exam is required for candidates pursuing AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty. This specialty certification validates one’s advanced skills, particularly in Big Data.

AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty Exam assesses one’s ability to design and implement AWS services and eventually derive value from such data. The exam lasts for 170 minutes and exam questions are given in multiple-choice format with multiple answers. Registration fee costs around USD$ 300. The prerequisites for this exam include an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or a current Associate-level certification. Moreover, a hands-on experience in data analytics for at least five years, a comprehension in AWS Big Data services, and an experience in designing cost-effective and scalable architecture are needed. Candidates must specifically study the fundamentals of Big Data Technology as well as Big Data on AWS. Additionally, study more about Big Data emphasizing the AWS whitepapers and documentation.

Big Data on the AWS is designed with more than 50 services and hundred features. It allows you to build highly scalable and secure Big Data application virtually and support workload regardless of data’s volume, velocity, and variety. No need to obtain hardware or maintain infrastructure. With AWS, big data can be collected, stored, processed, analyzed, and visualized efficiently on the cloud with lesser time and money investments. Building and deploying big data analytics application are made quickly and easily. AWS certified professionals get annually about $125,591.

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE)

With a lot of IT certifications on offer, Microsoft is another premier certification provider. Microsoft has invested in large-scale data analytics projects and is set to introduce new Big Data certifications and exams.

Recently, Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSA) just announced the Machine Learning Certification suited for individuals working as data scientists and analysts. Processing and analysis of various Big Data sets and deploying Big Data solutions can either be done in R or with Azure cloud services. In order to earn MCSA: Machine Learning Certification, you must pass exams 70-773 and 70-774 i.e., Analyzing Big Data with Microsoft R and Perform Cloud Data Science with Azure Machine Learning, respectively.

Furthermore, MCSA also introduced the Data Management and Analytics certification, which has more emphasis on Big Data exams. After earning the Machine Learning Certification, you are qualified to take 70-475 exam also known as Designing and Implementing Big Data Analytics Solutions. This certification validates your skill sets in SQL administration as well as your ability to build enterprise-scale data solutions and leverage business intelligence data. In this exam, the processing and analysis of Big Data occur in Azure. Annually MCSE Big Data certified professionals get around $128,500.

Aside from these two certifications, there are several other certifications on Big Data that are offered by Microsoft. You can pursue these depending on your level of expertise.

SAS

In SAS, there are two additional dimensions added to the traditional three V’s definition― volume, velocity and variety. That is the variability and complexity of big data. Variability refers to the consistencies and trends of the flow of data. Meanwhile, complexity boils from the different sources of data, which can be difficult to manage.

The SAS Global Certification Program offers Big Data professional certifications for individuals wanting to broaden their ability to analyze big data using SAS. With this, big data are used for statistical analysis. These certifications include SAS Certified Big Data Professional and SAS Certified Data Scientist Using SAS 9. There are two required exams needed to pass for you to earn the SAS Certified Big Data Professional credential. These include the SAS Big Data Preparation, Statistics, and Visual Exploration as well as SAS Big Data Programming and Loading. As for salaries SAS Big Data certified professionals get annually around $135,200.

Conclusion

Stand out from the rest of the candidates and advance your career with Big Data certifications. What’s important is to choose certifications wisely! Then invest enough time, money, and effort. Eventually, you’ll add that reputable certification on your profile!