I'm a cloud engineer, mostly working in AWS and on-prem SQL environments, but my company just started running a couple of workloads on ApsaraDB for a new APAC client. It's small right now, maybe one team touching it, but there's talk of it growing. I'm wondering if it makes sense to get ACA Database certified now, while it's still early, or wait until it's more central to what I actually do day-to-day.

Part of what's making me hesitate is not knowing how much this cert actually helps outside places where Alibaba Cloud already has a strong footprint. If my company stays a light user, does the cert still carry weight, or does its value really depend on being somewhere Alibaba is already big?

While looking into this, I came across some info on Alibaba ACA Database Certification benefits that got into how the value of this cert can shift depending on regional demand, which is basically my exact situation right now.

Has anyone here gotten certified while their company was still in the early adoption stage? Did it end up paying off, or would you have waited?