AWS Certifications: Path, Exams, and Cost in 2022

An Amazon Web Services (AWS) certified expert refers to a technical professional conversant with cloud computing, who has foundational knowledge of AWS to support cloud operations across various verticals and industries. This article discusses the learning paths to obtain the certifications, how to prepare for the examinations, and the cost component you can expect. 

AWS Certification Path

AWS certifications can help candidates, especially new graduates, add to the foundation of their knowledge and cloud skills in order to efficiently work with AWS services and solutions in an enterprise environment. It signifies that the candidate has a thorough understanding of cloud architecture, management, and security. In addition, it can help senior professionals demonstrate their technical knowledge and competence in the AWS cloud. 

Given its rigorous assessment of a candidate’s expertise and emphasis on hands-on experience and best practices, an official AWS certification is extremely important in the market today. It could prove to be an added benefit to someone with prior experience in AWS as it broadens one’s knowledge scope by strengthening their understanding of key concepts. 

AWS certification exams comprise a wide range of experience levels, from absolute beginner to expert level examinations that test even the most seasoned AWS users. These are designed for a variety of professional roles, including developer, security engineer, machine learning engineer, etc. 

These examinations consist of a series of independent tests that can be completed at an AWS certification partner location or from the comfort of your own home. To validate the completion of an exam, candidates receive a badge that they may display on their LinkedIn page, CV, or anywhere else – such as their professional website.

See More: AWS Career Path: Key Skills, Jobs, Training, and Salaries in 2022

The AWS certification path comprises three core tiers: foundational, associate, and professional. In addition to this, it offers specialization courses that focus on certain job skills in greater depth. As a result, candidates can explore a four-step pathway, which includes the following:

1. Foundational level

At the foundational level of the AWS learning pathway, professionals have the option of pursuing the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification. 

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner: Individuals with a basic understanding of the AWS cloud platform can undertake this course. Before taking this test, candidates are strongly advised to have at least six months of industry experience in the AWS cloud domain. This test primarily covers the central components of AWS cloud – i.e., how to manage global infrastructure, its underlying architectural principles, the value proposition of AWS, basic security and compliance aspects, pricing structures, and so on.

2. Associate level

Next, professionals can seek three certifications at the associate level. This includes the AWS Certified Solutions Architect course, the AWS Certified Developer course, and the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator course.

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect: To obtain this certification, participants need to demonstrate their ability to plan, oversee, and organize AWS implementations. During the examination, candidates are expected to discuss infrastructure management and related topics. Therefore, they must be familiar with IT infrastructure engineering, AWS utilization data management, structural plans and standards, capacity optimization, utilization measurement throughout project lifecycles, etc. 
• AWS Certified Developer: To attain this certification, one must have a strong grasp of programming languages, as well as an in-depth understanding of the AWS admin console and vital AWS engineering best practices. In addition, one must be conversant with the ideal sequence of events, the arrangement and analysis process of cloud-based programs, as well as other relevant software development concepts.
•  AWS Certified SysOps Administrator: The systems operations or SysOps administration certificate primarily deals with topics related to production environments and how to maintain them. Candidates should read about application hosting on AWS, information movement between server farms and AWS, selecting the appropriate AWS administration for the associated requirements, AWS cost vs. use assessment, and operational cost control instruments.

3. Professional level

Once you have completed the foundational and associate levels, you are ready for AWS’s professional certifications. At this stage, you have two options ahead of you – AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional and AWS Certified DevOps Engineer.

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional: Professionals with two years of experience as a solution architect in the cloud business can explore this certification. Before taking this test, it is advisable (not mandatory) to pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam. This test determines one’s skills and abilities in a variety of areas, such as cloud application prerequisites, planning and organizing cloud engineering on AWS, using cost-control tactics, etc. 
• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer: To pass this certification examination, it is recommended that you bring at least two years of relevant experience in delivering and supervising AWS designs. Two preliminary options are available before taking the certification exam. Individuals either need to pass the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam, or they may opt for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate exam, depending on their career trajectory. An AWS Certified DevOps Engineer works on continuous delivery (CD) tactics, log frameworks, and so on.

4. Specialization level

Once a candidate has obtained foundational, associate, and professional level certifications, they can progress on to specialization opportunities. They can choose between four options at this level. 

• AWS Certified Machine Learning: Candidates must have two or more years of experience of working with machine learning (ML), as well as deep learning design and events. They should also have the skills needed to handle ML workload exceptions using AWS cloud tools. The certification demonstrates your expertise in planning, implementing, and maintaining ML setups on AWS.
• AWS Certified Advanced Networking: This accreditation demonstrates a candidate’s ability to handle complex network and systems-related tasks on AWS. Before deciding on this certification, you must have AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification or any other associate-level certifications, such as architect, operations, developer, and so on. Before attempting this certification exam, one should have at least five years of experience in the design and implementation of enterprise network topology.
• AWS Certified Data Analytics: This course certifies a person’s aptitude for data analytics as well as their ability to create and present big data analysis using AWS services. Before appearing for this exam, people must have at least five years of experience in data science and business intelligence tools, and at least two years of active experience in AWS infrastructure.
• AWS Certified Security: This certification proves your expertise in the AWS security domain. To obtain this certificate, the candidate must have at least two years of experience in executing cloud security measures. They should also have at least five years of developing and implementing security tools using home-grown and open-source code repositories. 

See More: Common AWS Services Explained: EC2, RDS, S3, VPC

AWS Exams and Exam Questions

Individuals who demonstrate relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities are granted an AWS certification by Amazon Web Services. The company collaborates with AWS specialists to establish the bar for necessary experience in common cloud employment roles as well as technical skills in specialized areas. One needs to attend and pass one of the company’s AWS certification exams to exhibit the fulfillment of this criterion and as a result, AWS awards the individual with an AWS certification. 

Passing a timed, proctored test is required to secure the certification. Each exam has a set number of questions, a time limit, and a passing score. Candidates should explore sample questions like the ones given below and take a few practice tests online before appearing for the test. This ensures that you know the topics to be covered, what is out of scope, relevant hands-on experience, and other prerequisites. 

Sample question 1:

A business is shifting its application landscape to its AWS environment. It will need to deploy up to 40 m4.4xlarge instances to accomplish the task. Before deploying the instances, what should a cloud engineer or infrastructure manager do? 

1. Book 40 Elastic IP addresses before initiating the request to launch the instances.
2. Submit a request for a service limit increase to AWS support specifying the instance type and region.
3. Increase the service limit from AWS Trusted Advisor before launching new instances.
4. Update the instance count in the AWS Service catalog’s default service limit.

Sample question 2:

Using stateless web servers, a corporation is designing a widely accessible online application. What services are the most suitable for session state data storage? (Choose any two from the following five options.)

1. CloudWatch
2. Elastic Load Balancing
3. DynamoDB
4. Storage Gateway
5. ElastiCache

Sample question 3:

A file gateway has been implemented by an organization to save copies of users’ home drives in Amazon S3. While conducting a routine analysis, an administrator notices that most files are no longer accessed after 30 days. What is the best strategy for the administrator to reduce expenditure on storage while still allowing users access to the files?

1. Define a lifecycle policy to move files older than 30 days to the infrequent access storage class.
2. Setup a bucket policy to limit user access to only newer files (those created in less than 30 days).
3. Outline a lifecycle policy to move files older than 30 days to Amazon Glacier storage class.
4. Turn on versioning on the S3 bucket to ensure that all copies of the files are saved.

Sample question 4:

The logs are saved to an S3 bucket by an application. For troubleshooting purposes, a user wishes to store the logs for one month and subsequently delete them. What feature will make this possible?

1. Enabling cross origin resource sharing (CORS) on the S3 bucket.
2. Setting lifecycle configuration rules on the S3 bucket.
3. Inserting a bucket policy on the S3 bucket.
4. Creating an identity access management (IAM) policy for the S3 bucket.

Sample question 5:

A Ruby-based online application is being moved to AWS by a development team. The program must be simple to scale, require no maintenance or upkeep, and be easy to update with new versions. Which AWS service will be able to fulfill these needs?

1. AWS Code Pipeline.
2. AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
3. AWS Lambda. 
4. AWS EC2.

Sample question 6:

Sensitive data on Amazon S3 is consumed by an application running on EC2 instances. These applications access the data over the internet. Connecting to Amazon S3 by way of the internet poses a security risk, says the security team. What is the best way to address the security threat?

1. Use a network address translation (NAT) gateway to access it.
2. Access it through an internet gateway.
3. Access it through a virtual private cloud (VPC) for Amazon S3.
4. Access it through a virtual private network (VPN) connection.

Sample question 7: 

A system administrator needs the public IP address of an Amazon EC2 instance to run a configuration script. What is a simple way that a system administrator can obtain an IP address?

1. From Amazon machine images (AMI) used to launch the EC2 instance.
2. From user data.
3. From the operating system of the EC2 instance.
4. From the instance metadata.

Sample question 8:

Daily sales numbers are uploaded by company salespeople. For these records, a solutions architect needs a long-term storage solution that also provides a safeguard against users unintentionally deleting crucial data. Which action will help protect against accidental user behavior?

1. Save data in two different S3 buckets in separate AWS regions.
2. Save data in an elastic block store (EBS) volume and create snapshots on a weekly basis.
3. Save data on EC2 instance storage.
4. Save data in an S3 bucket and enable versioning.

Sample question 9:

An organization plans to move its on-premise apps and data to the cloud – including 500 TB of data that must be moved to Amazon S3. The time, cost, and performance factors all need to be taken into consideration. What is the most efficient and cost-effective method for performing the cloud migration activity?

1. Ensure that multiple instances of the AWS Snowball client with multiple Snowball applications are installed on multiple workstations.
2. Use multiple instances of AWS Snowball in conjunction with multiple AWS Snowball edge applications. 
3. Copy the data from the on-premises network to the destination S3 bucket over the network. 
4. Use AWS storage gateway (file gateway type) and facilities to create an on-premise copy using the file gateway mount point. 

Sample question 10:

The initial storage capacity of an application needs to be 8 TB and it must be a highly accessible relational database. Every day, the database will grow by 8 GB. Managing database reads will require at least eight replicas to address the predicted load. Which option best meets these criteria?

1. DynamoDB
2. Amazon Redshift 
3. Amazon Aurora
4. Amazon S3

Candidates will find a wealth of material on AWS examinations and their preparations, through various online resources. However, keeping all the useful content in one place or bookmarking them for future reference can prove challenging and time-consuming. This is why it is advisable to refer to the official AWS certification site and the company’s online skill-building portal. These offer extensive resources that can aid you in your preparation for AWS tests.

The company provides exam guides as well, which are based on information procured from subject matter experts (SMEs) who also assist in the design phase of new or revised examinations.

In addition, every exam program includes a job task analysis (JTA) session led by the AWS certification team. During this session, SMEs provide feedback on the knowledge, skills, and abilities that practitioners in relevant job positions must possess in order to perform successfully. They also offer advice on whether AWS services should be included or excluded from the test, what to include for each subject area, and how much experience practitioners should have before enrolling for the exam.

See More: Horizontal vs. Vertical Cloud Scaling: Key Differences and Similarities

AWS Exam Cost in 2022

The AWS certification exams are meticulously designed by subject matter specialists to evaluate a candidate’s knowledge, skills, and ability to use AWS products and services. For each exam, a content overview covering the exam guidelines (domains, goals, and the proportion of questions in each domain) is available. The exam manuals can be downloaded from the AWS certification website. 

Although one is permitted to attempt an AWS certification without any prerequisites, the company suggests that you have the appropriate hands-on experience required for each test. It also provides training courses and tools to assist you in gaining the essential knowledge and skills to pass each certification. 

With the approval of a parent or legal guardian, applicants between the ages of 13 and 17 are also allowed to take the AWS certification exams. An examination will typically comprise 65 multiple-choice questions and takes 130 minutes to complete. 

One can expect to pay the following charges as an examination fee:

Certification Level	Fees
Foundational certification	Approximately $100
Associate certifications	Approximately $150
Professional certifications	Approximately $300
Specialty certifications	Approximately $300

The expected amount of time required to prepare for AWS certification exams is determined on the basis of the topic under discussion, prior knowledge, and learning pace. It also depends on how much time one can commit to the preparation. Theoretically, if an individual commits to 60-90 minutes of study time daily, they can expect to prepare for the exams in the following timeframes:

Exam Name	Time Required to Prepare
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner	Approximately two to four weeks
Associate-level exam such as the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate or AWS Developer Associate	Approximately four to 12 weeks
Professional or specialty-level examinations	Approximately eight to 12 weeksÂ

Remember that these are only estimates, and the duration required for preparation may vary from person to person. One should take as much time as they deem fit, as the first priority is passing the actual test. Taking practice tests and going through AWS exam sample questions during your study time can be a fantastic approach for monitoring your progress and preparation.

See More: Why AWS Certification Matters in a Cloud Driven World

Takeaway 

By ratifying their cloud competence with an industry-recognized accreditation, AWS certification helps professionals gain credibility and confidence. It assists experienced professionals in obtaining several types of AWS credentials according to their qualifications.

Amazon provides certifications for cloud practitioners, architects, developers, and operations roles, among others. It also offers a variety of specialization possibilities to verify advanced skills in a wide range of technical fields. AWS presents a wealth of opportunities to individuals seeking careers in cloud computing. AWS skills are in great demand and the certifications have a high level of credibility in the industry – this helps candidates hit the ground running and discover new career pathways in 2022. 

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