Certification Survey Extra is a series of periodic dispatches that give added insight into the findings of our most recent Certification Survey. These posts contain previously unpublished Certification Survey data.

It's not uncommon among certified IT professionals to take and pass a certification exam without so much as cracking the cover of a study guide, downloading a single video walkthrough, or sitting through even 60 seconds' worth of anyone's online training course. Many experienced professionals have learned everything they need to know for a given exam just by working in the industry.

Among certified cloud computing professionals who participated in our recent Cloud Computing Certification Survey, 52.2 percent did not use any training materials or study aids created by the certification provider to prepare for their most recent certification exam.

In a similar vein, roughly 55 percent of survey respondents did not use any training materials or study aids created by a third-party training provider to prepare for their most recent certification exam. So one key takeaway relating to the various kinds of the certification study and training materials out there is that a lot of people in the industry don't use them.

Some individuals, on the other hand, probably especially including those who are relatively new to cloud computing, do indeed rely on certification training materials and study aids to help them prepare for certification exams. For those who do use books, videos, training courses, and so forth, we asked them where they tend to get their training from.

Among certified cloud computing professionals who prepared for their most recent cloud computing certification exam using certification training materials created by the certification provider, the five most popular sources of training are as follows:

1) Amazon Web Services
2) (ISC)2
3) Microsoft
4) Cloud Security Alliance
5) CompTIA

Among certified cloud computing professionals who prepared for their most recent cloud computing certification exam using certification training materials created by a third-party training company, the five most popular sources of training are as follows:

1) A Cloud Guru
2) Linux Academy
3) Udemy
4) Whizlabs
5) Pluralsight

If there's a cloud computing certification in your future, and you'd like to have the benefit of some additional training, but haven't been certain where to turn — well, now you have some options.