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This depends on several factors including which certification you are pursuing, how much knowledge you have already, and how much time you can dedicate to preparing. For example, we have 28 hours worth of content for the Azure Fundamentals learning path. If you are new to cloud, expect to put in approximately 40 hours of preparation for the exam. If you can only study for a few hours a week, it will take longer as you will need to refresh your knowledge as you study. By comparison, there are over 150 hours of videos and activities that cover expert topics for the Azure Solution Architect learning path. If you are pursuing this certification without any other Microsoft Azure certifications first, expect to spend significantly more time than that on exam preparation. However, there is overlap between the Solution Architect exam objectives and content in the Azure Administrator path (63 hours of content) and Azure Security Engineer path (72 hours of content). If you pursue those certifications first, there will be less preparation required for the Solution architect exam.

The major cloud vendors (AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud) have role-based certifications. AWS and Azure both have fundamental level, associate level and professional/expert level certifications as well as specialty certifications. With Google, there is one associate level certification and several professional level certifications.

Yes. INE has hands-on labs for all of our general cloud courses, as well as over one hundred labs for Microsoft Azure. INE cloud labs currently require that you have an account with the cloud vendor of your choice - AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Each of these cloud providers have trial accounts that will allow you to work on labs without paying anything.

Not surprisingly there is no right answer to this. Each cloud has a substantial market and opportunities for growth. I suggest starting with a more general approach, trying all three major clouds while learning fundamental concepts. You can then choose a cloud to focus more on as you gain experience. INE is developing our cloud content this way - starting with general cloud concepts and building toward specific cloud implementation.