It seems like a certification geared towards introductory coding for configuration management (CM) automation and orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes and similar technologies in the space).

While these topics have formed the crutch of loosely-defined devops/SRE roles these past 5 years, that space is quickly moving towards one where those roles are now more focused on platform engineering. In other words, modern devops/SREs must understand the dev stack in a lot more depth nowadays, and are called platform engineers as a result (I do this currently).

And that dev stack aspect is missing from the objectives for Autocode+ (but will likely be added in a later version of the certification).

I have taken my last 12 exams online over the past 3 years. I have a room set up to deliver virtual classes that I use for exams, I use my MacBook Pro and the only problem I had was drag and drop can be slow.

Gregory Childers said:

So their plan for increasing profit is entering an overly saturated market where a lot of the content is more mature? Or in some cases, absolutely free?

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Undoubtedly. Can't win a game if you don't play.

Great expansion! I personally think, even if one is not into coding its still valuable, especially if it covers automation, scripting, or practical IT coding skills, bridging the gap between IT operation and coding..... Thank you for you sharing updates.

TBrown said:

Thank you for your feedback. I am currently in contact with Pearson to try to find a point of resolution, but so far it feels like an uphill battle!

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It was a hassle for me at that time as well. I made several phone calls and, after some effort, I was finally able to speak with a representative. She informed me that I would need to wait up to 10 business days for someone to reach out. I remember waiting about a week, and then they issued me a new voucher.

In my case, I used the university's fast internet and tested everything according to the instructions prior to the exam. It seems the issue was on their end. I'm not even sure if the proctors were actually based in the US; they may have been located in India.

Gregory Childers said:

I've taken dozens on online exams using OnVue since the pandemic and I love it. The last exam I had to take at a Pearson Vue testing center was my CISSP in October 2023, because ISC2 doesn't offer online exams. My home office is set up for virtual training, and it's the perfect testing environment.

Most exam issues were caused by user errors. They didn't read the system requirements or the room setup instructions and then griped when they could've just read and followed the rules.

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I also have taken CompTIA's A+, Net+, Project+, and Sec+ without issue. It seems so far it has only been an issue this year for students.

Rick Butler said:

I've heard of a number of issues with OnVUE over the years, to the point where, I, myself, will never take an OnVUE exam; I'll continue to go to a testing center. Just safer that way,, IMAO. Hopefully appealing to their support staff will help.

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Thank you for your feedback, Rick!

Sukanya Suranauwarat said:

Hello Tanner,

I had a different issue, but it also prevented me from rescheduling my exam, similar to your students' cases. When I attempted to take an online exam about two years ago, the proctor reported that my screen appeared frozen. I exited and rejoined, but the second proctor saw the same issue, and I was unable to proceed. I was advised to reschedule, but my account was marked as "no show," which prevented me from doing so.

I had to contact Pearson VUE (though I don’t recall the number), and while the process was somewhat inconvenient, I received a new voucher within a week. If your students are experiencing the same issue, reaching out to support directly may be the best course of action.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your feedback. I am currently in contact with Pearson to try to find a point of resolution, but so far it feels like an uphill battle!

I've taken dozens on online exams using OnVue since the pandemic and I love it. The last exam I had to take at a Pearson Vue testing center was my CISSP in October 2023, because ISC2 doesn't offer online exams. My home office is set up for virtual training, and it's the perfect testing environment.

Most exam issues were caused by user errors. They didn't read the system requirements or the room setup instructions and then griped when they could've just read and followed the rules.

So their plan for increasing profit is entering an overly saturated market where a lot of the content is more mature? Or in some cases, absolutely free?

Tanner Brown said:

Greetings to all reading this. I am currently instructing an A+ class. I have had 4 students take the Core 1 exam using PearsonVUE and have had 2 software malfunctions resulting in students not being able to test and reschedule from their side. I am reaching out to see has anyone else had this issue with them? I have been teaching and using them for the last 3 years and had no issues until now.

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I've heard of a number of issues with OnVUE over the years, to the point where, I, myself, will never take an OnVUE exam; I'll continue to go to a testing center. Just safer that way,, IMAO. Hopefully appealing to their support staff will help.

Tangobro said:

There may be other products that do the same thing, but when dealing with cumbersome purchasing requirements, having a one stop shop is a good thing.

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Gregory Childers said:

I still don't see anything in the Essentials series that isn't offered elsewhere by other vendors.

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So, my thought on this is that CompTIA's leadership and ownership has decided that profit is more essential than the high-ground it once had by being a non-profit. But again, when you're non-profit, you are always on the edge of financial collapse because you don't/or can't make too much money. You have to rely on partnerships with for-profits to pull in necessary revenue. Many of the thoughts I heard is that CompTIA just can't function as a non-profit these days, with the costs of maintaining certifications against the revenue stream needed to keep all that going.

A case in point, the CTT+ credential, which died on the vine because not enough people had an interest in it to justify the project costs of keeping it alive.

CompTIA is for-profit now, so they're not going to make business choices based on whether the marketplace may or may not have products in the space. They're not going to operate in a more philanthropic way - they're going to compete and they're in it to win and get profit. They're going to enter a space and compete, and sometimes, with people and organizations, some whom used to be partners. That's the harsh cold reality.

Maybe CompTIA can do Tech Adjacent training better than other companies. We'll find out if those offerings are better. Competition does result in a better product. Maybe CompTIA will succeed. Maybe they will fail miserably. We'll see.

The game has changed, though, that much is true.

I still don't see anything in the Essentials series that isn't offered elsewhere by other vendors.

Gregory Childers said:

There is no audience for these courses as they currently stand.

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I've had many students in the workforce development space, especially the 16 24 y.o. target demographic, but including others in Gen Z who definitely would benefit from the Essentials courses. I've passed on the info about the courses to the Continuing Ed admin folks at the community colleges I'm affiliated with. They will make the decisions about audience.

To Rick Butler's point - some of the students that I've taught VLOOKUP & Pivot Table's to realized they didn't really want to become hands on IT pros and move into the Career Professional area of the chart, but they didn't have the digital fluency to move into the Tech Enabled workspace.

There may be other products that do the same thing, but when dealing with cumbersome purchasing requirements, having a one stop shop is a good thing.

NATUNA said:

CompTIA has released CloudNetX Certificate for passed users. It has just been available in Certmetrics.

View attachment 2224

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Congrats man

Gregory Childers said:

CompTIA needs to update the CEU information. The Data pathway doesn't allow one cert to renew another, although DataSys+ is good for 13 hours towards A+ CEUs. Cloud+ renews Net+, which renews A+, but CloudNetX doesn't renew anything or give partial credit.

The three Xpert level certs should renew everything in their pathway. SecurityX does, but DataX and CloudNetX don't.

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Thanks alot for the clarifications.

Thomas T said:

Dear folks,

I was sharing the information about renewing Network+ (N10-009) certification using CEUs with my class, and noticed the required CEUs are missing on the website.
(Has the required CEUs changed for the current exam?)

Renew CompTIA Network+ With Multiple IT Industry Certifications | CompTIA IT Certifications

Other IT industry certifications you earn may qualify as CEUs. See what CompTIA and other IT certifications will count towards renewing your Network+ certification.

www.comptia.org

I attached a screenshot of the previous version N10-008 below.

View attachment 2226

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Follow the due process u will get the results.

Hello Tanner,

I had a different issue, but it also prevented me from rescheduling my exam, similar to your students' cases. When I attempted to take an online exam about two years ago, the proctor reported that my screen appeared frozen. I exited and rejoined, but the second proctor saw the same issue, and I was unable to proceed. I was advised to reschedule, but my account was marked as "no show," which prevented me from doing so.

I had to contact Pearson VUE (though I don’t recall the number), and while the process was somewhat inconvenient, I received a new voucher within a week. If your students are experiencing the same issue, reaching out to support directly may be the best course of action.

No, it's still 30 CEUs. The web site is in desperate need of an update. There is a lot of outdated information, as well as inaccurate or incomplete information still on the site.

Rick Butler said:

How many of you IT types know how to do a VLOOKUP or a Pivot Table?

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I can do LOOKUP, HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, MATCH functions, and many more. I can do Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts. I can establish ODBC links and can connect to Azure services. I can write VBA macros and have most of the object model memorized. I've been using Excel since 1995 and have taught it since 2000. My weakness is formatting. if you want it to look pretty, get someone else. If you want it to crunch numbers, that's my srength.

I could see incorporating some of the Essentials technical content into the Tech+ course. Add the little "a+" course content to Tech+. Tech+ is already written at the high school level. Merging the Essentials content and the little "a+" content into it makes more sense than diluting the CompTIA brand. There is no audience for these courses as they currently stand.

As for the AI content, develop a rigorous AI certification and add it to the Data+, DataSys+, DataX track. The smaller AI courses are unnecessary.

So, I finally am getting caught up on things. It's been a wild ride this month as try to keep Anthology from slowly taking over my life.

What I see, first of all, is that the Essentials series is not for established IT specialists. This was brought up a few years ago at CompTIA Summit (I want to say...Chicago) that established a need for skills training BEFORE that of the like of Tech+, even. The word of the day is "Tech Adjacent", And the fact that it's coming up out of CompTIA Spark, which seemed to be angled towards Secondary (middle/high) school students, tells me that the scope is decidedly not for the IT specialist - someone where even Tech+ may be too much a challenge, but needs to know some basic technical knowledge. Where the lot of us in CIN are somewhere in the Blue to Black part of this model, there are undoubtedly instructors that are to the left of that.

How many of you IT types know how to do a VLOOKUP or a Pivot Table?

Exactly the point.



I remember an old IT instructor who used to work for me back in the day who would recount stories of "teaching computer skills to old dirt farmers in the Midwest". I'd see this as on-par to that.

CompCerts - Seems like something that came up out of the old LabSim products where you'd get a "Pro" cert from completing one. I don't disagree with these - good low hanging fruit for those who need early confidence building.

Objectively, the way I see the "essentials" thing, depending on how the effort is marketed and promoted, it might have some traction. Sure, there are a thousand different products in the pre-tech training space so CompTIA is jumping into that pool. It's really not that much different than CompTIA Certmaster being one choice/alternative for IT Professional training.

/r