The Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect Exam is perhaps the most coveted blockchain certification out there on the market.
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Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) All in One Guide
Set yourself apart by becoming a Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) this year.
Take the next step in your career by expanding and validating your skills on blockchain architecture by preparing for and passing the Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) exam.
The Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) provides a solid introduction to this industry-leading technology, relied upon by growing numbers of businesses across the globe, as well as the resources you need to prove your knowledge in the Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) exam .
This guide offers complete and thorough treatment of all topics included in the exam, beginning with a discussion of what a blockchain is as well as both the technical and business impacts of blockchain are.
Other chapters dive into the technical, exploring core characteristics of the Bitcoin blockchain, Ethereum blockchain and the Hyperledger Fabric blockchains. Coverage includes all the exam objectives specified by the Blockchain Training Alliance (BTA) for candidates to learn.
To complete their coverage, the authors discuss the Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) value proposition of the exam and how you can find new career opportunities.
Distinguish yourself as an expert by obtaining a highly desirable certification!
- Laser sharpen your skills and gain new insights on blockchain components and architecture whether you work in a technical, managerial, sales, purchasing, or financial fields.
- Fully prepare for this exciting exam using expert content and real-world knowledge, key exam essentials, chapter review questions, and other textual resources.
- Benefit from access to the MyBlockChainExperts online interactive learning environment and test bank, including chapter tests, practice exams, key term glossary, and electronic flashcards
The Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) all in one guide is essential reading for any professional in IT or other fields that work directly with blockchain technology, soon-to-be graduates studying in this area, or anyone hoping to prove themselves as an aspiring blockchain architect.
Exam Objectives – My Unbiased Review.
| Exam Objectives |
The exam objectives are clearly listed on the Blockchain Training Alliance’s (BTA) website. BTA calls the exam objectives actually “skill sets” to be clear on their website.
I have participated professionally in several areas of exam development and know more than a thing or two about test development stages.
From an experience standpoint I was a prior CompTIA SME and Brocade SME who has participated in the development of 8 exams at various levels such as Item Development, Job Task Analysis and Cut Score exercises.
I can state that I believe overall the exam objectives are fairly clear at a macro level and give potential test candidates a high level of what to expect.
However, I do not believe the exam objectives are at a micro level detailed enough for certification candidates and therefore I have found this can cause students to get a bit overwhelmed. Having vague objectives can be misleading and can cause exam candidates to be studying wrong subject areas. For example, Ethereum and Hyperledger basics and use cases are tested on the exam but there is nothing in the exam stating these blockchains.
For examples, of well written exam objectives clearly defined in sections and in a logical order view any of CompTIA’s exam objectives for what I mean.
The main value of this book I believe will be focused on exam candidates that did take an official vendor course which at the time of writing is 3 days.
I will break down each of these tested objectives (skillsets) simply in a logical order and easy to digest format for an efficient test preparation process.
The book will also provide significant detail from real working experience as part of the objectives coverage.
My opinion of the Blockchain Training Alliance’s (BTA) objectives (skill sets) are that they are vague but with some minor efforts could be professionally specified without challenging the exam security and experience. This is their first take so credit needs to be given especially with no real competition in the blockchain education market.
Overall I believe it’s a great exam and worth your effort.
Check out my CBSA Crash Course Live Training on O’Reilly.
Official Exam Objectives as of 02/09/2020
There you have the official objectives so now let me cover each of these at a high level and provide some insight into now.
| High Level Exam Objectives Review |
The objectives as above is the extent of detail that is provided by the certification body which is the Blockchain Training Alliance (BTA). What I am going to now cover is each objective at a macro before we proceed to the next chapter where the detailed objective coverage starts.
- The difference between proof of work, proof of stake, and other proof systems and why they exist
This objective is focused on can you identify features and functions of consensus methods. Understanding what consensus is faster, slower, more economical, etc. The other area tested was what blockchain uses specific consensus methods.
- Why cryptocurrency is needed on certain types of blockchains
This objective is focused solely on can you specify reasons a blockchain would use a cryptocurrency or a token. Main reasons are commonly is the blockchain public or private as well node distribution and control.
- The difference between public, private, and permissioned blockchains
This objective is quite clear and one of the easier objectives. Should you specify a public blockchain that has transparency or should you specify for an enterprise a private blockchain that is centralized with no transparency.
- How blocks are written to the blockchain
This objective covers the details of how blocks are logically ordered on a blockchain. A block contains data of the transaction, hash of the block and hash of the previous block. There are also some basic terms to learn such as a merkle root and metadata.
- Where cryptography fits into blockchain and the most commonly used systems
This objective covers the area of cryptography which is the use of mathematical equations to facilitate secrecy and integrity for transactions and authentication and anonymity to the blockchain communications.
- Common use cases for public blockchains
This objective is focused on why an enterprise would use a public blockchain over a private blockchain over Hyperledger.
- Common use cases for private & permissioned blockchains
This objective is focused on why an enterprise would use a private or permissioned blockchain over a public blockchain over Ethereum.
- What is needed to launch your own blockchain
This objective is focused on what components and planning goes into a blockchain deployment.
- Common problems & considerations in working with public blockchains
This objective is focused on what challenges around public blockchains around security, transparency, user management, etc.
- Awareness of the tech behind common blockchains
This objective is focused around the technologies that work together to make blockchain possible such encryption, programs and peer to peer networks.
- When is mining needed and when it is not
This objective is focused on identifying the use case for having miners in a blockchain and when not to such as in an enterprise blockchain.
- Byzantine Fault Tolerance
This objective is focused on Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) and the “Byzantine Generals’ Problem” which states that no two node on a decentralized network can entirely and irrefutably guarantee that they are displaying the same data.
- Consensus among blockchains
This objective is focused on contrasting the differences between major consensus methods such as Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS) and other such as Proof of Elapsed Time (PoeT) and Proof of Burn (PoB). Consensus is a dynamic way of reaching agreement in a group.
- What is hashing
This objective is focused on challenging you on the basics of hashing technology and terminology. Hashing means taking an input string of any length and giving out an output of a fixed length
- How addresses, public keys, and private keys work
This objectives covers technically how both private key and public keys are a part of encryption that encodes the information. It covers both symmetric and asymmetric encryption and terminology such as identity, privacy and x.509 certificates.
- What is a smart contract
This objective is focused on the high level understanding of basics of smart contracts. Terminology is covered such as dapps and chaincode.
- Security in blockchain
This objective covers best practices in IT security lightly to protect your blockchains.
- Brief history of blockchain
This objective simply covers the history of Bitcoin and we would need to learn some release dates.
- The programming languages of the most common blockchains
This objective is focused on identifying what programming languages are used with Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.
- Common testing and deployment practices for blockchains and blockchain-based apps
This objective is widely focused on the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC, Agile and other development frameworks and best practices. This objective also covers testing around blockchains such as why a testnet is used.
End of Objectives.
Check out my CBSA exam prep course on O’Reilly.
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/certified-blockchain-solution/9780135411841/