How to master AWS certifications(associate)

Arnaud Gadal, Program Manager, DBA@SlashData

Why pass an AWS certification ?

Why pass an AWS certification ?

“Certifications don’t replace experience, but certifications allow you to get a precise overview of many services quickly”

- Arnaud Gadal, 06/2016, AWS meetup.

Why pass an AWS certification ?

• Fun way to learn (according to me)

• Prove your motivation & knowledge (!= experience !)

• The “logo” effect : get noticed on professional network

• That kind of article help$ too : https://www.globalknowledge.com/us-en/content/articles/top-paying-certifications

Pick up a certification

• Create your own Free Tiers Account (!) https://aws.amazon.com/free/

• https://aws.amazon.com/certification/

• The exam guide : https://d0.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs/AWS_Certification_Guide_2015.pdf

A few figures

Difficulty Price Nb of questions / duration

Sol.Archi Associate *** $150 60 / 80 minutes

Developer Associate ** $150 55 / 80 minutes

Sysops Adm Associate ***(*) $150 55 / 80 minutes

Sol.Archi Pro ****** $300 80 / 170 minutes

Devops Engineer Pro ****** $300 80 / 170 minutes

Training

Training

• You may, or may not need training. Depends on your AWS experience.

• According to me, even experienced people should brush up their knowledge before taking an exam (remember it’s 150 $ the try)

• Maybe you rocks in your daily routine ? You may be a data rockstar but not a network one (VPC/SG/ACL/NAT/Route53…)

Training(Traditional training : around 2000 € / 3 days)

• I’ve used

• cloudacademy.com (from 29$ to 59$. I used a 120$ / 6 months very special price from black friday 2015)

• qwiklabs.com (they had a free period I’ve used)

• acloud.guru (79 $ bundle for the 3 certifications or 33 $ / certif.)

• AWS practice exams (x3) (20$ x 3)

=> Total : 259 $

Benchmark : cloudacademy

• Content is OK and wider than the certifications (docker, machine learning, cloudformation, lambda…)

• *Many* quizz (a bit too scholar that said)

• Cool labs, they create a management console for you

• English only but subtitles are available if you need them

• 1 week trial period (all you can eat buffet !)

• Speakers are a bit too monotonous / not very expressive

• Pricing (with labs included) a bit expensive ? (I look at you 59$ / month)

** DEMO **

Benchmark : Qwiklabs• Cool if you only need one or two labs

• Create an AWS management console for you

• … But you’ll probably need more (and theoretical lessons too)

• Expensive (hello 10$ autoscaling lab, and the others)

• Old school UI

** DEMO ? **

Benchmark : acloud.guru• Great courses/labs/forums, excellent value for the money

• No subscription : once paid, the content (+ updates) are available ‘forever’

• Ryan Kroonenburg is dynamic and charismatic (and he just won a community award from AWS !)

• Advices for the exam are regularly given throughout the lessons

• High quality quizz overall (recently rewritten for the Sol.Architect) but sometimes unequal : sometimes too easy or too hard !

• No subtitles (but Ryan’s pronunciation is easy to understand)

** DEMO **

Benchmark : AWS practice exams

• Good way to get used to the exam interface (play with “review” system)

• Dev & sysops practice exams are the most useful

• The most expensive AWS service ? (20$ / 20 questions)

• Unequal difficulty (Sol.Archi is way too easy -> false self-confidence feeling)

• Don’t try them twice : same set of questions every time

AWS practice exams :my scores

AWS didn’t tell it but passing score is around 65-70%

Practice Exam Real Exam

Sol.Arch Assoc. 95 % 80 %

Dev Assoc. 90 % 85 %

Sysops Assoc. 90 % 74 %

A few notes• Only 6 exam center in France ! (4 in Paris, 1 in Lyon, 1

in the Var area)

• Too much management console ?

• “Developer” certification

• Not available in french anymore

• Certifications are valid 2 years, then re-certification programs are available (80 minutes / 75 $ USD), see https://aws.amazon.com/certification/recertification/?nc1=h_ls

A few tips• Don’t forget the whitepapers & FAQ

• Use the “review” feature wisely during the exam (15x max ?)

• Eligible to Free Tiers account or not : create a billing alert / cloudwatch

• Don’t crawl the web looking for brain dumps (unreliable / waste of time)

• Quizz Quizz Quizz

• Try the sample questions (answers not included but available on the net), they sometimes include *real exams questions*

Questions ?