AWS certifications path

In the past decade, the rise of cloud computing has been undeniable. Businesses of all sizes are moving their infrastructure and applications to the cloud. This is partly because the cloud allows businesses and their employees to access important information from just about anywhere. In spite of this, many people still have nagging questions about AWS certification: What is the AWS certification path? What is the AWS certification cost? Is it really the right choice for your career? Which ones should you pursue, and in what order? Where do you start—and are there any certs you should not consider earning?

Let’s begin with the big picture: AWS currently offers 12 certifications, including one Cloud practitioner certification, three associate, two professionals and six specialty certs. AWS organizes its core certs into three tiers: starting with Foundational; and then advancing to Associate to Professional then finally to Speciality certs. The diagram below shows how AWS views the relationships between certifications each level :

Let’s take a closer look at each exam

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

This foundational exam covers the core principles of the AWS cloud platform. You’ll answer questions concerning essential AWS services and features, including business use cases. The exam also covers AWS security and compliance fundamentals, and requires you to demonstrate a working knowledge of AWS billing, support, and pricing. You should also expect questions about deploying resources and services in the AWS cloud.

This cert is perfect for anyone in a non-technical role who needs a general understanding of the AWS platform. IT salespeople, for example, can learn to speak with confidence and authority when a conversation touches on a customer’s AWS investments, and it can also help people in finance, management, and business roles communicate more clearly with their IT colleagues.

Amazon recommends six months of AWS experience before taking this exam, but that experience can be in any capacity, including technical and non-technical roles (e.g., sales, management, finance). In practice, your prep time—set aside at least six hours for study and review—is far more important to passing this exam.

We recommend to pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practioner practice exams before taking the real exam.

• Format: Multiple choice
• Length: 90 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $100

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

This is the cert you’ll want to prove you know how to build and deploy systems in the AWS cloud. This exam will ask questions about cloud-based solutions for deployments that follow strict requirements; and require you to demonstrate a knowledge of architectural best practices. You’ll need considerable experience deploying, configuring, and managing compute, network, storage, and database services in AWS. I also strongly suggest going into this exam with working knowledge of AWS security and compliance policies. AWS recommends at least one year deploying distributed systems at scale, using AWS cloud services.

We recommend to pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate practice exams before taking the real exam.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 130 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $150

AWS Certified Developer Associate

This exam tests your ability to develop applications native to the AWS cloud. You’ll need to show your ability to use the AWS SDK to interact with and optimize the AWS services that you built into an application. Passing this exam also demands a functional understanding of code-level security practices, including credential creation and encryption strategies.

AWS recommends at least a year of experience maintaining applications in the AWS cloud to take this exam. You should also understand the core services, principles, and best practices associated with services on the AWS platform; and have some experience creating applications for tools like Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and AWS CloudFormation (among others).

We recommend to pass the AWS Certified Developer Associate practice exams before taking the real exam.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 130 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $150

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate

This exam certifies your ability to deploy, manage, and operate system resources in the AWS cloud. You should understand what it takes to manage cloud systems for both fault tolerance and high availability. You should also be able to match resource deployment to requirements;  and to account for operational needs, such as security and cost control.

You’ll want at least a year of experience managing AWS-native applications. You’ll also want some experience gathering requirements and following AWS best practices for deployments and project lifecycle management.

We recommend to pass the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate practice exams before taking the real exam.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 130 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $150

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional

The DevOps Engineer certification is all about testing your ability to manage distributed applications in the AWS cloud—from provisioning to full operational management. You’ll face questions about continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) methodologies and automation best practices, including best practices for automating security and compliance checks. You’ll also need to show a working knowledge of monitoring and logging practices as they pertain to the AWS platform.

AWS recommends holding an AWS Certified Developer (associate) or AWS Certified SysOps Administrator (associate) cert before taking this exam. AWS also recommends at least two years delivering applications in or managing AWS cloud deployments; and some experience with automation best practices, including scripting or other programming.

We recommend to pass the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional practice exams before taking the real exam.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

In this exam, you’ll prove your ability to build and deploy distributed systems in the AWS cloud to spec—plus understanding how to deploy them at scale with fault tolerance and high availability. This cert also requires the ability to deploy multi-tier applications to the AWS cloud, and to build enterprise-scale cloud solutions with AWS resources—all while managing your cloud spend.

AWS recommends earning the AWS Certified Solutions Architect (associate) certification before taking this exam. AWS also strongly recommends more than two years experience deploying distributed systems, at scale, using AWS cloud services based on design requirements and best practices.

We recommend to pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Engineer Professional practice exams before taking the real exam.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Certified Security Specialty

This exam is all about advanced methods for securing the AWS cloud platform. Candidates for this cert should be seasoned IT security experts who can demonstrate expert-level knowledge of data protection and encryption techniques for AWS environments; and mastery of AWS tools for implementing and managing cloud security.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Machine Learning Specialty

This exam emphasizes designing and deploying machine-learning solutions to solve practical business problems. You can expect questions that ask you to choose the best machine learning solution to a problem—and why the chosen approach is better than others. You’ll also need to understand which AWS services are relevant to delivering a machine-learning solution, and you’ll need to know how to optimize your AWS services to deliver scalable, reliable, and secure solutions.

AWS recommends that candidates work in development or data science roles and have one to two years of experience using machine learning or deep learning on the AWS cloud.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Certified Advanced Networking Specialty

If you’re into complex networking projects, especially ones that span scalable AWS systems, then this cert is perfect for you. The exam requires you to know how to manage a network architecture for any service on the AWS platform; and also how to automate most networking tasks.

AWS recommends earning an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner cert or any of the associate certs before taking this exam. AWS also recommends five years of experience managing networks and a firm understanding of networking concepts and best practices as they relate to the AWS platform.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Certified Big Data Specialty

This exam will demonstrate your ability to use various AWS services to get the most of your data analysis—including knowing how to automate key data analysis tasks.

AWS recommends earning an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner cert or any of the associate certs before taking this exam. AWS also recommends five years of experience in data analytics and a functional knowledge of AWS Big Data, including how to ingest, store, process, and visualize data.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder Specialty

This exam tests your ability to create, test, and deploy Amazon Alexa skills. That includes understanding and communicating the value of voice solutions; applying user experience design best practices; security imperatives; and tools and techniques for creating, testing, and validating a skill.

AWS recommends this cert to anyone who has (or wants) a job role that involves building Alexa skills. AWS recommends at least six months of hands-on experience building voice applications using the Alexa Skills Kit, and proficiency with at least one programming language.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

AWS Certified Database Specialty

This exam validates your expertise in the breadth of AWS database services and accelerating the use of database technology to drive your organization’s business transformation. Build credibility and confidence by highlighting your ability to design, recommend, and maintain the optimal AWS database solution for a use case.

To be able to Validat this Certification, you need to Understand and differentiate the key features of AWS database services, and analyze needs and requirements to recommend and design appropriate database solutions using AWS services.

It is recommended to have at least 5 years of experience with database technologies and 2 years of hands-on experience and knowledge working on AWS. And also have experience and expertise working with on-premises and AWS-Cloud-based relational and nonrelational databases as well. This is a brand new certification.

The first date to take the exam is April 6, 2020.

• Format: Multiple choice, multiple answer
• Length: 170 minutes ·        
• AWS Certification Cost: $300

Getting AWS certified shows that you have some of the most in-demand (and profitable) skills as validated by one of the most recognizable entities in cloud computing. In the enterprise, certifications demonstrates a shared understanding of a platform, a shared terminology, and a certain level of cloud expertise that can speed up time to value for cloud projects. Increase your knowledge of cloud computing and AWS, and read multiple AWS whitepapers and forums that holds some invaluable informations, which may answer many of your questions to be able to make the right choice. Finally Practice, practice, practice. Practice exams will help ease any worries or stress you may be having about the certification exam.

Good luck Clouders !