My AWS Certifications Journey
The purpose of this article is to share some of my learnings and best practices, which helped me to pass 4 AWS certifications, in first attempt, without taking any paid course/services from cloud training providers. You may follow a similar approach if you have interest in cloud technology with little/no prior experience, but want to gain knowledge in this exciting area. I have given the specific details of each certification in the sections below but before that I would like to share the reason to get these certifications.
The Reason: Most of the customers are migrating their workloads to cloud infrastructure. Hence, there is an increasing need to gain knowledge in cloud technology in today’s IT world. As we know, any technical certification is quite effective to increase and baseline our knowledge in short duration, especially when we do not work in a particular technology/area on daily basis. I also wanted to increase my knowledge in this domain and have chosen AWS cloud certifications because AWS has the biggest share of cloud market.
Covid’19 has given (and is still giving) a hard time to all of us. Nonetheless, this has also given us an opportunity to retrospect and pursue some of our long-pending, unfinished goals. For the initial few months, I followed this pandemic on many news channel, internet sites, personal whatsapp groups etc on continuous basis. I slowly started directing my energy towards completing my personal and professional goals. One of the goal was to pass 5 AWS certifications within one year (from June 2020 till June 2021). AWS offers free-tier account for one year only, so I wanted to utilize this free tier account to understand various AWS services.
I could achieve my goal partially; I passed 4 AWS certifications and currently preparing for the final one (so running behind schedule by few months). I have taken all 4 certification exams in PearsonVUE exam-centre (not from my home) and passed all of them in the first attempt. To pass these exams, I have not taken any paid course or study material. Instead, I have taken help of learning aids, which are available in the public domain. Just for your information, the minimum marks to pass any AWS certification is ~72% (this may vary by 1–2% depending upon other factors) so each certification requires in-depth knowledge of few specific services.
I have described the study material (must-have or optional) and best practices for each exam based on my personal view, but please note that these may vary depending on individual personality and specific need.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner: This is the most basic exam from AWS and recommended for target group such as Sales, Pre-Sales, Program/Project Managers, non-technical team. In case you do not have any prior experience in cloud infrastructure, I would suggest you to take this certification. Below are some of the key learning materials:
· AWS Free Tier Account (must-have)
· Open each service in AWS Console and read it for few minutes (must-have)
· Free Video (on youtube by FreeCodeCamp, Andrew Brown) (must-have)
· Free Practice exam questions — Examtopics, Cloud Academy/Skillcertpro/Others sites — (must-have)
· Paid Practice test — optional
· AWS Free Digital Training — (must-have)
· AWS Whitepapers — Five pillars of well architected framework — optional
My rough estimate is that 60–90 hours of study is sufficient to pass this exam. So, you may invest 2–3 hours per day if you target to pass this exam in a month.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate: This is considered as one of the most valuable technical certifications in cloud technology, as per the outcome of surveys published in year 2020 & 2021. This certification is primarily for technical managers, cloud technical team, architects etc. You should be able to understand pros/cons of most of cloud architecture after this certification. Few key pointers to pass this exam are as follows:
· AWS Free Tier Account — (must-have)
· Open each service in AWS console & complete hands on for important use cases– (must-have)
· Free Video (on youtube by FreeCodeCamp, Andrew Brown) — (must-have)
· Free Practice exam questions — Examtopics, Cloud Academy/Skillcertpro/Others sites — (must-have)
· Paid Practice test –optional
· AWS Free Digital Training — (must-have)
· AWS Whitepapers — Five pillars of well architected framework — (must-have)
· AWS Re-Invent & That’s my architecture (on youtube) — optional
My rough estimate is that 120–180 hours of study is sufficient to pass this exam. So, you may invest 2–3 hours per day if your target to pass this exam in two months.
AWS Certified Developer — Associate: I would suggest to attempt this certification after passing “Solution Architect-Associate” . This certification is primarily targeted for cloud developer, architects etc and requires hands-on knowledge of some programming language (Java/.Net/Python/SQL etc). Few key pointers to pass this exam are as follows:
· AWS Free Tier Account — (must-have)
· Open each service in AWS console & complete hands on for important use cases– (must-have)
· Free Video (on youtube by FreeCodeCamp, Andrew Brown) — (must-have)
· Free Practice exam questions — Examtopics, Cloud Academy/Skillcertpro/Others sites — (must-have)
· Paid Practice test –optional
· AWS Free Digital Training — (must-have)
· AWS Whitepapers — Five pillars of well architected framework — (must-have)
· AWS Re-Invent & That’s my architecture (on youtube) — optional
Around 120–180 hours of study is sufficient to pass this exam. So, you may invest 2–3 hours per day if your target to pass this exam in two months.
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator — Associate: I would consider this as the hardest exam at associate level and recommend to attempt this certification only after passing “Solution Architect-Associate” . This certification is primarily targeted for System Admin, cloud support team, architects etc and requires hands-on knowledge of system admin related tasks (such as managing group of servers, operational activities, run-books etc). Few key pointers to pass this exam are as follows:
· AWS Free Tier Account — (must-have)
· Open each service in AWS console & complete hands on for important use cases– (must-have)
· Free Video (on youtube by FreeCodeCamp, Andrew Brown) — (must-have)
· Free Practice exam questions — Examtopics, Cloud Academy/Skillcertpro/Others sites — (must-have)
· Paid Practice test — optional*
· AWS Free Digital Training — (must-have)
· AWS Whitepapers — Five pillars of well architected framework — (must-have)
· AWS Re-Invent & That’s my architecture (on youtube) — optional
*I have not taken any paid practice test, but would strongly recommend to buy it for this certification.
Around 150–200 hours of study is sufficient to pass this exam. So, you may invest 2–3 hours per day if your target to pass this exam in approx. three months.
Overall, learning new technology is fun when you have intrinsic (or sometimes extrinsic) interest in any specific topic. You may follow abovementioned learning pattern or adapt it as per your individual preferences. I will update this article again after passing my 5th certification.
Happy learning & wish you all the best for your certifications!!
