Technology has changed the way we communicate, work, and live. With the advent of the internet, we got access to an unprecedented amount of information. Thanks to the smartphone, we can watch any video, transfer money, check out a place, book a hotel, and more online within seconds. Today, you are not even worried about losing data. Suppose you lost your phone and don’t have anything on your new phone yet. All you need to do is log in to your account and various other mobile applications and bam! All the previously stored data is now available on your new phone. But wait, how does this access to data happen? Well, you unknowingly used the power of cloud computing.
Cloud computing allows you to access various tools, platforms, as well as infrastructure as services over the internet. You can open any application and use it just like you open a website on a browser without installing the software in your local drive. Cloud computing is brought to end-users by cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Though there are many service providers in the market, the one that is leading the cloud space is AWS.
AWS offers over 200 fully-functional cloud services to its customers and offers them on a pay-as-you-go basis. Some of its widely used cloud services include compute, databases, storage, development, autoscaling, identity and access management, analytics, among others. Now, if you want to start a career in cloud computing, then AWS is probably the best platform to get started with. Does this mean you should know about each and every service of AWS? Obviously no! You need to know only about the services that your job role requires. For example, if you are a developer, you need to know core AWS services, including Amazon ECS, AWS Lambda, S3, DynamoDB, Route53, Kinesis, and ELB.
Now, if you are a beginner, the very concept of cloud services may seem confusing to you and you may not be able to get a hang of core AWS services instantly. Here comes the AWS Certification – credential awarded by AWS to candidates who learn about a specific part of AWS and pass an exam based on it. Fortunately, these certifications are role-based and there is a detailed content outline for each. So, you will be able to understand all the AWS concepts related to a given job role.
Let us discuss which AWS certification should you get started with if you are new to AWS.
AWS Certification for Beginners
When you check out the list of AWS certifications on its official website, you will instantly be able to identify that the certification meant for starters is the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
This credential is designed for professionals who wish to validate their cloud fluency and foundational knowledge of AWS. before applying for this certification, make sure you have six months of exposure to AWS cloud, basic knowledge of IT services, and core AWS services and use cases. When you start preparing for this certification, you will become familiar with a number of concepts like the value of AWS cloud, AWS shared responsibility model, security best practices, AWS cloud costs, economics, and billing practices, and determine AWS services for common use cases.
The exam has 65 multiple choice and multiple response type questions to be completed in 90 minutes. The passing score is 700 on a scale of 100 to 1000. You can download the exam content outline from the AWS website and check out the detailed syllabus.
Associate Level Certifications
Once you have built the foundational skill through the above certifications, you can move on to the associate-level certifications. Remember that the cloud practitioner certification is not a prerequisite for any other AWS certification. Here are the three associate-level certifications:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
- AWS Certified Developer Associate
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate
Based on the job role you are interested in, you can pick a relevant certification. To give you an idea, let us describe the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate credential, the one which also happens to be one of the highest-paying IT certifications across the world.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate – This credential is designed for candidates willing to demonstrate their ability to design and implement distributed systems on AWS. it will help you learn how to design a solution through suitable AWS services and by following architectural principles based on requirements. Moreover, you will become capable of providing implementation guidance based on best practices to the organization throughout the workload lifecycle.
The associated exam involves 65 multiple choice and multiple response type questions to be completed in 130 minutes. The passing score is 720 on a scale of 100 to 1000. It is based on 4 domains, namely:
- Design resilient architectures
- Design high-performing architectures
- Design secure applications and architectures
- Design cost-optimized architectures
Now that you are familiar with the options available to you, decide which AWS certification best matches your career interests. Validate your cloud skills today and advance your career in cloud computing with AWS certification.