TOP 14 OF THE BEST IT CERTIFICATIONS 2023

Data engineers and data architects are in high demand these days. And there are some IT certifications that can give you a competitive advantage.

Nowadays, data and big data analytics are the lifeblood of any successful business. However, getting the technology right can be a challenge. However, building the right team with the right IT certifications to undertake big data initiatives can be even more difficult.

Therefore, successfully implementing big data initiatives requires more than data scientists and data analysts. After all, it requires data architects to design the “blueprint” for your enterprise data management framework. This way, data engineers can build such a structure in a way that data pipelines bring in, process, and create business value from data.

What is the difference between data architects and data engineers?

Data architects typically have years of experience designing, managing, and storing data. Data engineers typically have skills in Hadoop, Spark, and the open-source big data ecosystem. This is in addition to complementary programming skills in Java, Scala, or Python.

In other words, if you are an engineer or data architect and are looking for a competitive advantage, IT certifications are a great option. After all, IT certifications measure your knowledge and skills against industry- and vendor-specific benchmarks. Therefore, they serve to prove to employers that you have the right skills.

Below is a guide to the most sought-after IT certifications for engineers or data architects:

Top 14 IT certifications related to data engineering and architecture

1. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Big Data – Specialty
2. Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Spark and Hadoop Developer
3. Cloudera Certified Professional (CCP): Data Engineer
4. Google Professional Data Engineer
5. HDP Apache Spark Developer
6. HDP Big Data Hadoop Developer
7. Hortonworks Certified Associate (HCA)
8. IBM Certified Data Architect – Big Data
9. IBM Certified Data Engineer – Big Data
10. MapR Certified Hadoop Developer 1.0
11. Spark MapR 2.1 Certified Developer
12. Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite 11 Certified Implementation Specialist
13. SAS Certified Big Data Professional
14. SAS Certified Data Scientist using SAS 9

1. Big Data from Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Specialty

AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty IT certifications validate technical skills and experience in designing and implementing AWS services to derive value from data. In this way, it is intended to validate the ability to:

• Implement core AWS big data services in accordance with core architectural practices;
• Design and maintain large volumes of data;
• Leverage tools to automate data analysis;
• Organization: Amazon Web Services

Price: $300 exam registration fee

How to prepare:

It is recommended that candidates hold a current AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or Associate-level certification: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, AWS Certified Developer – Associate, or AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate

However, having other aspects of prior knowledge is recommended:

• Experience defining and designing AWS big data services architecture. In other words, being able to explain how these services fit into the data lifecycle of collection, consumption, storage, processing, and visualization;
• Minimum five years of practical experience in a data analysis field;
• Experience in developing scalable and economical architecture for data processing.

2. Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Spark and Hadoop Developer

CCA Spark and Hadoop Developer IT certifications certify that a professional has proven their core skills to collect, transform, and process data using Apache Spark. This is in addition to Cloudera’s core enterprise tools. Therefore, it requires passing the CCA Spark and the Hadoop Developer Exam (CCA175). 

This consists of eight to 12 practical, performance-based tasks on a Cloudera Enterprise cluster. Each question requires the candidate to solve a specific scenario. However, some cases may require a tool like Impala or Hive. Others may require coding. Candidates have 120 minutes to complete the exam.

Organization: Cloudera

Price: US$295

How to prepare:

There are no prerequisites required. However, Cloudera says the exam follows the same objectives as the Cloudera Developer Training for Spark and Hadoop course. In other words, he is perfect in preparing for the exam.

3. Cloudera Certified Professional (CCP): Data Engineer

CCP: Data Engineer certifications ensure the ability to execute the core competencies required to collect, transform, store, and analyze data in Cloudera’s CDH environment. However, it is necessary to pass the remote CCP: Data Engineer Exam (DE575). This consists of a hands-on practical exam in which each user is given five to eight customer problems. Each has a single large dataset, a CDH cluster, and four hours. Therefore, for each problem, the candidate must implement a technical solution with a high degree of precision that meets all requirements.

Organization: Cloudera

Price: US$400

How to prepare:

Cloudera suggests that professionals pursuing these IT certifications get hands-on experience in the field and attend the Cloudera Developer Training for Spark and Hadoop course.

4. Google Professional Data Engineer

Google Professional Data Engineer certifications ensure the ability to design, build, operationalize, secure, and monitor data processing systems. You must pass a two-hour, multiple-choice, multiple-select certification exam. The exam has no prerequisites but must be taken in person at a Google testing center location. The exam is available in English, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.

Organization: Google

Price: $200 registration fee

How to prepare:

Google offers an exam guide and on-demand or instructor-led training.

5. HDP Apache Spark Developer

The HDP Apache Spark Developer certification is intended to validate an individual’s understanding of Spark Core and Spark SQL applications in Scala or Python. The exam consists of a series of tasks that must be performed successfully on an active cluster.

Organization: Hortonworks

Price: US$250 for exam

How to prepare:

Hortonworks offers courses on its website with options including live training, self-paced e-learning, or a blended experience.

6. HDP Big Data Hadoop Developer

HDP Certified Developer’s Big Data Hadoop certifications validate a developer’s proficiency in Pig, Hive, Sqoop, and Flume. The exam consists of a series of data processing, data transformation, and data analysis tasks that must be performed on an HDP 2.4 cluster.

Organization: Hortonworks

Price: US$250 for exam

How to prepare:

Hortonworks offers courses on its website with options including live training, self-paced e-learning, or a blended experience.

7. Hortonworks Certified Associate (HCA)

The Hortonworks Certified Associate (HCA) certification is a foundational credential that validates that an individual understands the technologies and can recognize the business use cases for Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) frameworks. Candidates must pass a multiple-choice exam consisting of questions from the following five categories:

• Data access (including Pig, Hive HCatalog, Tez, Storm, HBase, Spark, and Solr);
• Data management (including HDFS and YARN);
• Data governance and workflow (including Falcon, Atlas, Sqoop, Flume, Kafka and Hortonworks DataFlow);
• Operations (including Ambari, CloudBreak, ZooKeeper, and Oozie);
• Security (including Ranger and Knox).

Organization: Hortonworks

Price: US$100 for exam

How to prepare:

Hortonworks offers courses on its website with options including live training, self-paced e-learning, or a blended experience.

8. IBM Certified Data Architect – Big Data

Designed for data architects, the IBM Certified Data Architect – Big Data certification requires passing a test that consists of five sections containing a total of 55 multiple-choice questions. It demonstrates that a data architect can work closely with customers and solution architects to translate customers’ business requirements into a Big Data solution.

Organization: IBM Professional Certification Program

Price: US$200

How to prepare:

IBM recommends a series of seven multi-day courses in SPSS Modeler for InfoSphere BigInsights to prepare for the test.

9. IBM Certified Data Engineer – Big Data

The IBM Certified Data Engineer – Big Data certification is for big data engineers, who work directly with data architects and hands-on developers to translate an architect’s big data vision into reality. Data engineers understand how to apply technologies to solve big data problems and have the ability to build large-scale data processing systems for the enterprise.

That is, they develop, maintain, test, and evaluate big data solutions within organizations, providing architects with information about the necessary hardware and software. This IT certification requires passing a test that consists of five sections containing a total of 53 multiple-choice questions.

Organization: IBM Professional Certification Program

Price: US$200

How to prepare: 

IBM recommends a series of nine multi-day courses to prepare for the test.

10. MapR Certified Hadoop Developer 1.0

The MapR Certified Hadoop Developer credential validates a developer’s ability to design and develop MapReduce programs in Java and use them to solve typical problems with large data sets. The exam focuses on using MapReduce to solve typical data analysis problems using the MapReduce API. That is, managing, monitoring, and testing MapReduce programs and workflows. The exam consists of 50-60 questions in a two-hour proctored session.

Organization: MapR Technologies

Price: US$250 for the exam

How to prepare:

MapR recommends that candidates prepare with three of its courses:

• Create Hadoop MapReduce applications;
• Manage and test Hadoop MapReduce applications;
• Start jobs and Advanced Hadoop MapReduce.

MapR also offers an MCHD Study Guide.

11. Spark MapR 2.1 Certified Developer

The MapR Certified Spark v2.1 Developer certification validates a developer’s ability to use Spark to work with large datasets to perform analytics on streaming data. That is, it measures the developer’s understanding of the Spark API for performing basic machine learning or SQL tasks on given data sets. The exam consists of 50-60 questions in a two-hour proctored session.

Organization: MapR Technologies

Price: US$250 for the exam

How to prepare:

MapR recommends that candidates prepare with three of its courses:

• Introduction to Apache Spark;
• Apache Spark Building and Monitoring Applications;
• Advanced Apache Spark.

MapR also offers an MCSD v2 study guide.

12. Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite 11 Certified Implementation Specialist

The Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite 11g Certified Implementation Specialist IT certification demonstrates skills in implementing solutions based on the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite. Covers installing OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition), creating the BI Server metadata repository, creating BI dashboards, building ad hoc queries, configuring security settings, and configuring and managing the files cache.

The certification is intended for mid-level implementation team members with up-to-date training and field experience. To obtain certification, you must pass the Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) Foundation Suite 11g Essentials (1Z0-591) exam. It is a multiple-choice exam that consists of 75 questions.

Organization: Oracle University

Price: US$245

How to prepare:

Oracle recommends that candidates complete one of two training courses:

• Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus Implementation Boot Camp (available to partners only);
• Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation 11g Implementation Specialist.

13. SAS Certified Big Data Professional

The SAS Certified Big Data Professional certification program is for individuals looking to develop their basic programming knowledge by learning how to collect and analyze large volumes of data in SAS. The program focuses on:

• SAS programming skills;
• Access, transform, and manipulate data;
• Improve data quality for reporting and analysis;
• Fundamentals of statistics and analysis;
• Working with Hadoop, Hive, Pig, and SAS;
• Data exploration and visualization.

The program includes two certification exams. Participants must pass both.

Organization: SAS Academy for Data Science

Price: $299/month or $2,250/year for self-paced e-learning

How to prepare:

At least six months of programming experience in SAS or another programming language is required to apply.

14. SAS® Certified Advanced Analytics Professional using SAS®9

This IT certification suits individuals who want to analyze big data with a variety of statistical analysis and predictive modeling techniques. Therefore, successful candidates must have experience in the following areas:

• Machine learning and predictive modeling techniques;
• Applying machine learning and predictive modeling techniques to large, distributed, in-memory data sets;
• Pattern detection;
• Business experimentation;
• Optimization techniques;
• Time series forecasting;

Organization: SAS Academy for Data Science

Price: US$970

How to prepare:

Candidates who receive this certification will be required to pass three exams:

• Predictive Modeling Using SAS® Enterprise Miner™ 7, 13 or 14*;
• SAS Advanced Predictive Modeling;
• SAS Text Analysis, Time Series, Experimentation, and Optimization.

*Candidates who hold the SAS Certified Predictive Modeler using the SAS Enterprise Miner 7, 13, or 14 credential are not required to take this exam.

Alternatives

Companies that need IT professionals who hold these IT certifications but are not interested in paying such individual fees have alternatives. One of them is the outsourcing of IT professionals. Whether through the allocation of professionals or remote service. Any company can count on specialized professionals, as required, nowadays. All you need is to contact a good IT provider.