Why and How to Prepare for AWS Certification?

In an existing article, we carried out a detailed outline on how to get started with Amazon Web Services (AWS). With extensive code support, various data centers and illustrative pricing — AWS is definitely the best in the world for a dozen of reasons. We discussed how a business can get started with a free tier and upgrade to various other tools once they get used to it.

But Amazon Web Services' supreme features require different levels of knowledge and expertise. If you are new to it, it is wise to either go through their extensive documentation or hire a certified professional to help you around, for example, a solutions architect. These professional AWS certifications are provided by AWS itself and you will have to learn the inside out of being a Solutions Architect to become one. There are several useful guides that can help you with that. I found a couple of courses on our partner site Simplilearn that can be very helpful. Simplilearn provides free practice tests for all AWS certification exams, most notably being AWS solution architect associate dumps.

Apart from this struggle to hire certified professionals, AWS is total gold. With AWS, businesses can enjoy stability, flexibility and durability — and plenty more to their projects. There are several such reasons why AWS is getting popular among businesses.

First of all, I will be discussing those reasons/benefits that are making AWS popular among business. This will help you as a student to make up your mind whether or not to go for an AWS certification. Later on we will discuss how you can get these certifications.

Reasons why AWS is popular

For everyone

As mentioned earlier, AWS is pretty easy to begin with. You can start for free and use it under a limited bandwidth for no charge. Once you are done with that you can use various services from the AWS management console to build your web applications. But then comes the issue. On a personal level - everything is good but on a company level you will always require a proper architect to deliver and maintain your projects.

Limitless

AWS is free to start and charges are levied only once you cross a certain bandwidth limit. And the amount you are billed for, is way less than any other such web host or any kind of web service in the market. It is truly based on what you pay is for what you used.

Ready to deploy anytime

AWS servers are up and running in no time and you don't need to wait for the deployment for even a minute. Amazon provides several web tools that can help you get started in no time. There is always a need to understand how things work but with AWS you just need to know the workflow.

Speed and Performance

Like most of the top web servers, AWS is run over total cloud and is scalable to your needs. With cloud-based servers, you will have better performance than the regular web hosts that run on old architecture. Your files are loaded on your consumer's device from the nearest AWS server, causing less ping time and faster load.

All in One

With AWS, you can deploy all types of your code — from mobile apps to computer applications and websites in between.

AWS offers a broad set of global compute, storage, database, analytics, application, and deployment services that help organizations move faster, lower IT costs, and scale applications.

Source: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/

To summarize all into one, we can term AWS as an all-in-one solution for all project needs for businesses. Sign up for the service and hire someone to maintain it for you — and viola you are all ready to boost up your business.

Types of AWS Certification

According to the needs, there are at least 7 certifications available in four categories.

AWS Certified Foundational

Cloud Practitioner

This certification is for those individuals who want to have a core concept of cloud computing and those that want to know how AWS cloud works. There is an exam for it which takes 90 minutes to complete and can be prepared by various online sources.

AWS Certified Associate

Solutions Architect Associate

Solutions Architects are the ones who know how to architect & deploy secured and robust applications on AWS technologies. This is an official certification from AWS that requires the passing of the AWS certified solutions architect - associate exam.

According to the official AWS Certification page:

It validates an examinee's ability to:

• Define a solution using architectural design principles based on customer requirements.
• Provide implementation guidance based on best practices to the organization throughout the life cycle of the project.

What is the job about?

Once businesses are ready to deploy their code, they want to make sure that the code is deployed properly, is secured and properly structured. That is the primary work of a solutions architect. We all know that AWS requires less setup at the beginning but for more rigorous setups, companies require experienced & certified solutions architects.

Developer

AWS developers develop, deploy, and debug cloud-based applications using AWS.

SysOps Administrator

SysOps Admin deploys and manages systems on AWS. He also implements and controls the flow of data to and from AWS. The certification exam tests all such abilities.

AWS Certified Professional

Solutions Architect Professional

Roles are already mentioned above under Solutions Architect Associate but certification requires extensive knowledge testing.

DevOps Engineer

DevOps Engineers can manage continuous delivery and automate security controls, deploy various monitoring/logging systems and design tools to automate operational processes.

AWS Certified Speciality

Advanced Networking

Advanced networking specialists can design, develop & deploy all sort of cloud based solutions on AWS – they can implement core AWS services, maintain network architecture and automate networking tasks.

Big Data

In addition to implementing core AWS Big Data services, Big Data certified professionals can design & maintain Big Data and leveral tools to automate it.

Security

As the name suggests, this certification requires the knowledge of security measurements on AWS and its automation.

Machine Learning

Machine Learning (ML) is quite essential for growing businesses and this certification tests the knowledge of ML so that it can be used as an approach to boast a business.

How to prepare for AWS certification exams?

AWS certification exams can be scheduled all over the year from AWS's official exam pages. AWS also provides several resources for you to get started with these exams. In addition to those, there are other free and paid resources available on the internet. Amazon Web Services' website itself has a quick guide on how to prepare for AWS certification, so be sure to check their website.