AWS Certifications - Part 1 - Certified solutions architect associate

A word on AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is AWS’s newest certification. This entry-level certification is designed to validate a candidate’s overall understanding of the AWS cloud.

The most common approach to begin your cloud career is to start with AWS Solution Architect Associate Certification. Solutions Architect AWS Certification is a great way to familiarize yourself with AWS ecosystem and core AWS services. Moreover, it is mandatory to have an associate certificate before you can take the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Certification.

What Order Should the AWS Certification Exams be taken?

I have found the following sequence to be the most impactful route for entry into the AWS certs and turbocharging a cloud career:

• The Associate Certificates

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect associate
  • AWS Certified Developer associate
  • AWS Certified SysOps Administrator associate

• The Speciality/Professional Certificates

  • AWS Certified DevOps Engineer professional
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect professional

Note that this route does not include the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, as it�s not a terribly technical exam and essentially just covers a basic understanding of the AWS platform. I recommend folks in technical roles to start with the AWS Certified Solutions Architect�associate exam and move on from there.

Certified Solutions Architect - Associate - Free Courses to Get you Going

General Concepts

• Achitecting and deploying solutions on AWS
• Defining solutions based on customer requirements
• Providing implementation guidance during projects

Knowlege Areas

• Design Resilient Architectures - 34%
  • Storage
  • Decoupling mechanisms - Break apart monolithic applications, distributed

accross different servers/services

• Multi-tier architectures - application layer, database layer etc
• High availability and fault tolerance

• Define Performant Architectures - 24%

  • Storage and Databases
  • Caching
  • Elasticity and scalability

• Specify Secure Applications and Architecutre - 26%

  • Secure application tiers
  • Secure data
  • Network Infrastructure

• Design Cost Optimized Achritectures - 10%

  • Storage
  • Compute

• Define Operationally Excellent Architecture - 6%

Four Key Areas

• Compute
• Networking
• Storage
• Databases

Information

Books Amazon and other videos Practice Tests AWS Documentation

• AWS - Certification prep

• General Info - AWS

• Certified Solutions Architect - Associate - Exam Guide - 2019

• [50] - AWS Ramp-Up Guide - Architect

Good Articles

• [10] - Building a scalable web app on AWS

• [40] - Amazon Docs * Guides and API references . Compute - EC2, Lambda etc . Storage - S3, Backup, EBS, S3 Glacier etc . Database - Aurora, DynamoDB, ElasticCache etc . Security, Identity and Compliance - IAM etc . Networking and Content Delivery - VPC, API gateway etc . etc * General Resources . AWS White Papers . Quick Starts . FAQs

For example: VPC

• Guides and API References -> Networking and Content Delivery -> VPC -> User Guide

VPC - User Guide

• General Resources -> Quick Starts -> Search for VPC -> From the results select Modular and Scalable VPC -> View Deployment Guide

VPC Quick Start

• [40] -

Free Courses and Practice Tests.

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - How to become

• [20] - AWS Zero to Hero - Udemy

3 hours course that gives a general overview of AWS architectures with use cases and hands on labs.

• AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (Practice Tests) Whizlabs

Format: Practice Exam, No. of Questions: 20, No. of Hands-on Labs: 0, Practice Tests: 1

• [60] - AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Amazon Sample Questions 1

• [70] - AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Amazon Sample Questions 2

Free Trial

• [30] - AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate - Linkedin

30 days free trial for new users

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate - Pluralsight

30 days free trial for new users

Paid Courses and Practice Tests.

• AWS Cerfitified Solutions Architect - Associate - Udemy

Format: Video, Duration: 14hrs 30min, Practice Tests: 2

• AWS Solutions Architect - Associate - Whizlabs

Format: Video, Duration: 14hrs 36min, No. of Hands-on Labs: 38, No. of Videos: 106

• [80] - AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (Practice Tests) - Whizlabs

Format: Practice Exam, No. of Questions: 600+, No. of Hands-on Labs: 38, Practice Tests: 19

If you have USD 1000+

More Reading Materials

• Achitecting on AWS - AWS

• For reference architectures browse quick starts by categories

  • Browse to AWS Management Console -> Management & Governance -> CloudFormation
  • Click on the Quick starts link
  • Design a template
  • Download the template for your own architecture case
  • Select file -> Open - Local file
  • Select the template you got from the quick starts section of AWS

• AWS Storage Gateway -> Planning your storage gateway deployment

• Go to Amazon Web Services Documentation and search for What is AWS Direct Connect.

• Elastic Load Balancing Features -> Product Comparison

• AWS Pillars Pillars

  • AWS Reliability Pillar
  • AWS Performance Efficiency Pillar
  • AWS Security Pillar
  • AWS Cost Optimization Pillar

References

• Top AWS certifications - Which should I choose

• AWS cloud certifications explained

• Top 5 AWS courses to learn online for free