AWS Certifications

Tips and tricks to get certified: links to tutorials, videos, practice exams.

                       

Overview

• Type of AWS Service
• AWS Exams
  • Associate level exams:
  • Professional level exams:
  • Specialty exams:
• Social
• FREE AWS Training Resources
• For-fee Training resources
• Practice exams
  • Other Practice Tests
• AWS Practioner
• AWS Associate
• AWS Professional
• References
• More on Amazon

This page covers preparation for certification exams by several dimensions:

• by AWS exam
• by type of AWS service
  
  

NOTE: Content here are my personal opinions, and not intended to represent any employer (past or present). “PROTIP:” here highlight information I haven’t seen elsewhere on the internet because it is hard-won, little-know but significant facts based on my personal research and experience.

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Type of AWS Service

• Security, Identity, and Compliance (Organizations, Users, Permissions security, AWS Config, Inspector, Security Hub)
• Management, Monitoring, and Governance (CloudWatch, X-Ray)
• Application Integration (Config, SQS, SNS, EventBridge)
• AWS Cost Management:
• Networking and Content Delivery (Regions, AZs, VPNs, DNS, Route 53, IPs, CIDR, DMZ, VPCs, Peering, Gateway, NAT, SGs, NACL, ENIs, ELB, WAF, CDN, ASG)
• aws-Architecture (Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity, ASG, Snapshots, Log shipping)
• Compute (AMI, Server Types, CPUs, AWS Batch)
• Storage (EBS volumes, EFS, Snow)
• Databases (RDS, Athena, Elastic)
• Analytics: Amazon Elasticsearch Service (Amazon ES)
• Migrations

Covered only in specialty exams:

• Machine Learning (Polly, Rekognition, Amazon ML, Greengrass, Deep Learning AMIs (DLAMI) )
• DevOps (Cloud9, CodeBuild, CodeCommit, CodeDeploy, CodeStar)
• Mobile Hub, SDK
• IoT

Not covered in exams:

• Amazon Chime
• Amazon SES (Simple Email Service)
• Amazon CloudSearch to add rich search capabilities to your website or application.
• Amazon Connect to provide customer service with a cloud contact center GUI

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AWS Exams

Official info on AWS exams: PDFs lists the services tested:

Associate level exams:

• PDF: $100 to answer 65 questions in 90-minute
  AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

• PDF: $150, 80-minute
  AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SOA-C02)

• PDF: $150, 80-minute
  AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate

• PDF: $150, 80-minute
  AWS Certified Developer - Associate DVA-C01

  Pearson Practice test at OReilly has a “study mode” which allows you to provide answers after every question from across 4 complete exams.

Professional level exams:

• PDF: $300, 170-minutes
  AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional

• PDF: $300, 170-minute
  AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional

Specialty exams:

Design and deploy dynamically scalable, highly available, fault-tolerant, and reliable applications on AWS.

The “and deploy” applies to Professional level exams.
Associate exams has just “design”.

• PDF: $300, 170-minute
  AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty

• PDF: $300 to answer 65 questions in 180-minute
  AWS Certified Database - Specialty

• PDF: $300, 170-minute
  AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty

• PDF: $300 to answer 65 questions in 180-minute
  AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty MLS-C01 [Schedule]

  3-day classes:

  • MLOps Engineering on AWS
  • Amazon SageMaker Studio for Data Scientists
  • Amazon SageMaker Studio for Data Scientists
    
    

• PDF: $300 to answer 65 questions in 170-minute
  AWS Certified Security - Specialty SCS-C01

  • Pluralsight
  • https://github.com/acantril/aws-security-specialty
    
    

Social

https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications

stackoverflow

FREE AWS Training Resources

• AWS Free SkillBuilder

• AWS WellArchitectedLabs.com

• Memorize AWS Acronyms as flash card games using my Quizlet

For-fee Training resources

• Gradually revealed diagram videos (great for visual and auditory learners), “animals4life.org” sample app in a GitHub (migrating from on-prem to AWS), plus quizzes with instant feedback make learn.cantrill.io by Adrian Cantrill in Melbourne, Australia (@adriancantrill) the premier resource for comprehensive AWS training. All 5 exams (except specialty) for just $200.
  
  Each course covers the basics (as “refresher”):

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect (SAAC02)

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Pro

  • AWS Certified Sysops Administrator - associate

  • Dev asso
  • DevOps Engineer - Pro

  • Advanced Networking

  • CFN Snippets for Linux & Windows
    
    

• ACloudGuru.com (began in Sydney Australia)

• LinkedIn.com Learning on AWS

CloudAcademy.com provides hands-on lab instances with their tutorials.

• Learning Path for Associate
  
  

• ORilly.com:

  • AWS Certified Database - Specialty Complete Video Course by Chad Smith
    
    

• http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/aws-certified-sysops-admin-associate

• https://scotch.io/tutorials/deploying-a-mean-app-to-amazon-ec2-part-1

• https://scotch.io/tutorials/deploying-a-mean-app-to-amazon-ec2-part-2

• https://www.aws.training/home?courseid=8&language=en-US&src=web_en_course-developing&view=table

• AWS re:Invent 2016: Become an AWS IAM Policy Ninja in 60 Minutes or Less (SAC303) by Jeff W

• Script to launch Amazon EC2 Spot instances with a simple Python script

  1. create a new key pair if one doesn’t exist
  2. create a security group if one doesn’t exist
  3. request a new spot instance
  4. wait for the spot request to be fulfilled
  5. wait for the instance to boot
  6. connect to it via SSH and run a script of your choice
     
     

Practice exams

CloudAcademy has practice exam for each AWS exam actual length.

• Practitioner exam
• Associate exam: 2h 10m to correctly answer 72% of 55 questions.
  
  

Each retake shows more questions from a large pool.

Because a minimum score of 35 percent is needed on each exam domain, Pearson Practice tests at OReilly has a “study mode” which allow you to provide answers after every question from across 4 complete exams.

PROTIP: If you have an OReilly.com subscription (to Pearson) you can also filter to focus questions by exam domain!

• For the AWS Certified Cloud Practioner (CLF-C01) (number of questions in bank):

  • 01 - The AWS Cloud Defined (26)
  • 02 - Advantages of the AWS Cloud (10) * 03 - Core AWS Services
  • 04 - Cloud Architecture Design Principles
  • 05 - The AWS Shared Responsibility Model
  • 06 - Cloud Security and Compliance
  • 07 - AWS Access Management Capabilities
  • 08 - Resources for Security Support
  • 09 - Methods of Deploying and Operating in AWS
  • 10 - The AWS Global Infrastructure
  • 11 - Resources for Technology Support
  • 12 - Using the Free Tier to Build a Web Server
  • 13 - AWS Pricing Models
  • 14 - Account Structures for Billing and Pricing
  • 15 - Resources for Billing Support
    
    

• For the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C01) test

• For the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C02

• For the AWS Certified Security – Specialty SCS-C01

• For the AWS Certified Machine Learning-Specialty (ML-S)

• For the WS Certified Big Data - Specialty (CCENT)
  
  

Other Practice Tests

• http://www.techexams.net/forums/cloud/131715-passed-cv0-001-a.html

• Practice exam dumps for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 2018 $5.99 or Kindle Unlimited.

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AWS Practioner

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AWS Associate

the “AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate” exam (PDF)

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AWS Professional

12.5%	Design for Organizational Complexity
31%	Design for New Solutions
15%	Migration Planning
12.5%	Cost Control
29%	Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions

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References

https://www.gliffy.com/blog/aws-architecture-diagram-examples

https://online.visual-paradigm.com/drive/#diagramlist:proj=0&new=AWSDiagram

https://warren2lynch.medium.com/aws-architecture-diagram-with-2019-new-icons-over-50-examples-d401a76c6d5c

https://www.diagrams.net/blog/aws-diagrams

https://www.conceptdraw.com/How-To-Guide/aws-icons-2

More on Amazon

This is one of a series on Amazon:

• AWS Cloud Services Comparisons
• AWS Well-Architected Cloud
• AWS Cloud Services

• AWS Certifications

• AWS IAM
• AWS CLI
• AWS On-boarding (GUI, CLI, API)
• AWS Security

• AWS Cognito

• AWS Data Tools
• AWS DevOps (CodeCommit, CodePipeline, CodeDeploy)
• AWS server deployment options

• AWS Cloud Formation IaS

• AWS CDK

• API Management by Amazon

• Build load-balanced servers in AWS EC2
• AWS Networking
• AWS Xray

• Cloud performance testing

• IoT on AWS

• MacOS on AWS

• AWS Lambda
• AWS Lambda

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