Tag: AWS Cloud Practitioner Certifiction

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Practitioner Test

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Practitioner Certification is the first step into cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (AWS). If you are an existing architect you could get the certification in your first attempt itself! A lot of revision of the concepts and terms is needed before signing up for the test.

Amazon Web Services certification has different learning paths based on role or solution or specialty.  Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Practitioner Certification will help in understanding the concepts and basic terms of AWS.

Domains 

The AWS Cloud Practitioner Test is in four domains:

  1. Cloud Concepts – 28%
  2. Security – 24%
  3. Technology – 36%
  4. Billing and Pricing – 12%

Register

You can sign up for the test via your free AWS account. The test is conducted at a testing center near you. The AWS Cloud Practitioner Test comprises of 65 questions and you have 90 minutes to complete the test. The questions are multiple-choice or multiple select questions. You have an option to review the questions or to skip them for answering later. There is a short survey about your profile at the end of the test.

Test Questions

Test questions mainly comprise from the basics of the AWS. You will need a lot of eLearning and revision just to understand the concepts and familiarize with the terms. You will notice that some of the questions are interlinked and you can connect the answers while reviewing the questions.

The basic training from the AWS Training website will cover most of the test concepts. However, you will need an additional study on the Amazon Database services. Official Study Guides must be reviewed for new and updated AWS concepts.

Scores

Your score will be from 100 to 1000 and the passing score is determined by the AWS community. You need 70 percent to pass the test and you will receive a score report to your email. Do refer official AWS Cloud Practitioner exam guides. The cost of the test is $100 for two attempts. You will have fourteen days to retake the test if you fail the first attempt. Preparing notes will help and mock tests will assist in the review.

Developers, testers, business analysts, product owners, scrum masters, managers, administrators, and all IT professionals alike are recommended to take AWS certifications. Definitely looks good on your resume and organizations are preferring IT professionals with AWS knowledge and/or experience. Good luck on the AWS certifications and your first step will be AWS Cloud Practitioner Test! 🙂

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The magical keyword in the Information Technology industry is the ‘Cloud’ and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is definitely leading the game. Globally distributed organizations require high-available and fault-tolerant services that are possible with AWS. The pay-as-you-go option from AWS is another reason for organizations to subscribe to AWS services.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Fortune 500 companies are preferring Amazon Web Services (AWS) in addition to their traditional data centers and original applications. Seamless integration with existing systems is a major plus for AWS. The elasticity and scalability of the AWS help organizations build cost-effective cloud computing services. The on-demand delivery of IT resources and applications via the Internet with pay-as-you-go options is the key advantage of AWS. Agility, reliability, and elasticity are the benefits of AWS.

Access

Users can create an AWS account via there corporate or personal email. AWS services can be accessed via the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or AWS Software Development Kit (SDK). Users can subscribe or core services and integrated services and create instances. AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification will help to better understand the AWS and learn/share best practices with the community.

Core Services

  1. EC2 – Elastic Cloud Compute: Cloud storage for storing your applications and data
  2. EBS – Elastic Block Storage: Add on storage volumes with pay-as-you-go options
  3. S3 – Simple Storage Service: Managed Storage Service that is scalable for high volumes. Stores application data
  4. AWS Global Infrastructure: Regions, Availability Zones, Edge locations to facilitate provision in multiple locations
  5. VPC – Virtual Private Cloud: Private network with configuration, security control, subnets, route tables, and Internet Gateway
  6. AWS Security Groups: Has builtin firewalls and to specify which traffic to allow

Integrated Services

  1. Application Load Balancer (ALB): Enables routing of instances
  2. Auto Scaling: Automatically adjusts instances based on conditions and capacity management
  3. Route 53: DNS resolution strategies and routing
  4. RDS – Relational Database Services: Managed service to provide relational database services on Cloud.
  5. Lambda: Compute service without provisioning. Create an environment, routines, and functions. ETL and REST API
  6. BeanStalk: Platform-as-a-service for quick deployment of applications. Supports all programming languages
  7. SNS – Simple Notification Service: Send emails/alerts/mobile communications for alerting users
  8. Amazon Cloud Watch: Monitor AWS applications/services and set alarms
  9. Amazon Cloud Front: Content Delivery Network that has local caching and scale out options
  10. Amazon Cloud Formation: Infrasructure-as-a-service; Template with a resource stalk

Five Pillars of AWS Architecture

AWS Architecture and design principles are based on the five pillars for your systems:

  1. Security: Identify Access Management(IAM), Data protection, incident response, traceability, security at all levels
  2. Reliability: Ability to recover from disruption, Scale horizontally
  3. Performance Efficiency: Virtualize resources, deploy in multiple regions, serverless architecture
  4. Cost-Optimization: Maximize ROI, Optimization over time, Match supply with demand, Measure overall efficiency
  5. Operational Excellence: Fault-tolerant and high availability systems

High Availability Systems

The following are the services that support high availability systems through AWS:

  1. Elastic Load Balancer
  2. Route 53
  3. Amazon Cloud Watch
  4. Elastic IP Address
  5. AutoScaling

Fault-Tolerant Systems

The following are the services that support fault-tolerant systems through AWS:

  1. Amazon Simple Queue Service
  2. Amazon Simple Storage Service
  3. Amazon Relational Database Service

Amazon Shared Responsibility

Under AWS Shared Responsibility model, the user is responsible for user data, application, and guest operating system. AWS is responsible for managing Hypervisor, network, and physical resources.

  1. User Data
  2. Application
  3. Guest Operating System
  4. Hypervisor
  5. Network
  6. Physical

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Identity and Access Management (IAM) in AWS is possible with users, groups, roles, and policy documents.

  1. User: Every user is given permanent credentials also with multi-factor authentication.
  2. Group: Multiple users are categorized into Groups.
  3. Role: Temporary credentials are given to roles based on the users and groups.
  4. Policy Documents: Policy documents establish rules for providing or denying access to the users/groups/roles.

AWS Security

AWS has a resilient infrastructure with high security and strong safeguards. Compliance management and cloud-based governance are possible with AWS Security. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), data encryption, key management service, hardware-based key storage, access control and management, and multi-factor authentication are some other features of AWS Security.

AWS Security also passed compliance requirements from many government authorities. Users can run their own scans on top of the AWS Security for compliance.

  1. Amazon Inspector: A tool to improve security and automated security assessment
  2. AWS Shield: Managed Distributed Denial of Service that safeguards applications. The basic AWS Shield is free for all users and the Advanced AWS Shield can be purchased.

AWS Pricing

AWS Pricing has multiple payment options for users. There are pay-as-you-consume or Pay per GB options. Users can pay less when they use more or pay less when paid all upfront. There are monthly payment options for users. Pricing Dashboard, Simple monthly calculator, and TCO calculator assist users in determining the services and duration.

Users can get discounts for reserved instances and there is no charge for inbound data transfer. The AWS free tier provides access for 12 months to try out their services. Users can map usage to pricing and see their pricing on the Consolidated Pricing dashboard.

AWS Support Plans

Amazon Trusted Advisor is a service to advise customers on fault-tolerance, security, performance, and cost-optimization. Users can view recommendations, weekly notifications, and download reports.

AWS Support Plans exist for Basic, Developer, Business, or Enterprise. Technical Account Manager, Trusted Advisor, and Account Assistance is available to users.

Constant Learning

AWS is an ocean and how users can best use those services for their business is constant learning. Good luck on your AWS journey!