AWS Cloud Practitioner: Certification, Exam, Jobs, and Salary in 2022

An Amazon Web Services (AWS) certified cloud practitioner is defined as a technical professional who is well-versed with cloud computing and has foundational knowledge of AWS to support cloud operations across various verticals and industries. This article discusses the available learning tracks for AWS cloud practitioners, guidance to pass the exam and obtain the certification, and the jobs and salaries one can expect in 2022. 

AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification

An Amazon Web Services (AWS) certified cloud practitioner is a technical professional who is conversant with cloud computing and has foundational knowledge of AWS to support cloud operations across various verticals and industries. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon, is one of the world’s leading cloud computing platforms, providing both public and private cloud capabilities. It offers over 200 fully-featured services from data centers across the globe and has millions of customers, including startups, large enterprises, and leading government agencies. The idea behind it is to help businesses scale and grow. 

AWS offers a variety of career opportunities, either based on the role or the service. For example, one could pursue a career as an AWS cloud practitioner, operations, architect, or developer. Or, they could specialize in skills such as AWS storage management, machine learning (ML), and AWS media services.

To that end, AWS provides various certifications designed for individuals looking to validate their technical skills and cloud expertise to grow their careers and business.

One of the professional certification exams conducted by Amazon Web Services is the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification exam. It’s ideal for professionals who want to understand AWS cloud services and cloud computing. Technical, managerial, sales, purchasing, or financial roles working with AWS cloud should obtain this certificate.

See More: What Is AWS: Services, Hosting, Pricing, and Certifications

5 Courses to Prepare for AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification

The certification aids organizations in identifying and developing personnel with vital expertise in cloud implementation. It also demonstrates an understanding of AWS fundamentals, which is useful when hiring for cloud-related work. 

To prepare for this exam, AWS offers a wide range of courses to choose from, and people willing to enroll in these courses can pursue them both online and offline. 

The following are digital training courses designed to help people prepare for the exam:

1. The AWS Cloud Foundations Learning Plan

AWS learning plans provide a recommended set of digital courses to help beginners get started. The Foundations Learning Plan helps individuals who are new to AWS technology get an overall understanding of the AWS cloud environment, whether they are in a business-facing or a technical role. 

Candidates are directed through an AWS-experts recommended curriculum that they can complete at their own pace. Once they complete this course, candidates will better understand AWS cloud’s foundational concepts, the core AWS services, its security controls, underlying architecture, pricing, and support options. This learning plan also helps them prepare for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification exam.

The plan includes several components for learning, including cloud-based job responsibilities, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS Organizations, AWS Auto Scaling, and Amazon Elastic Load Balancer, as well as containerization in AWS. 

2. AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials 

Like the AWS Cloud Foundation course, this learning option also targets candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds, no matter which technical role they are in. It covers a host of subjects, ranging from AWS cloud fundamentals and services to security and architecture. As you might expect, there is some overlap between the AWS Cloud Foundations learning plan and the Cloud Practitioner Essentials course. The only difference is that this course focuses less on AWS services and more on how to apply the different features of the AWS cloud platform to various business use cases. 

As a result, individuals working in sales, legal, marketing, business analysts, project managers, and IT-related professionals can all gain from this course. It will teach learners how to: 

• Understand the difference between on-premise, single cloud, and hybrid cloud implementations, along with their implications.
• Find suitable solutions for business use cases using available AWS services and features.
• Formulate account management, invoicing, and cost control strategies. 
• Use the various pricing tools available on the AWS cloud platform. 
• Manage global cloud infrastructure using AWS data centers. 

3. Exam Prep: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner  

Through this foundational-level course, participants will be able to determine their degree of preparation for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. 

In order to be eligible for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner test, candidates must show a thorough grasp of the AWS cloud, including hands-on knowledge and problem-solving skills. As a result of this course, students will be able to make connections between the exam’s many subject categories, AWS Cloud Practitioner roles, and particular disciplines of study.

They will also go over sample certification questions in each area, practice skills with hands-on exercises, test their knowledge with practice question sets, learn strategies for spotting wrong answers by understanding the ideas examined on the exam, and complete a full-length approved practice test to determine their strengths and shortcomings in each domain area.

This course teaches individuals how to:

• Provide a rationale for why the AWS cloud is beneficial and how the AWS shared responsibility model operates.
• Recognize the importance of security best practices.
• Learn about the pricing, economics, and billing processes related to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Describe AWS’ main services, such as computing, networking, databases, and storage, and their role in terms of their importance to customers.
• Analyze a particular AWS service’s suitability for frequently-faced use cases.

See More: Hybrid Cloud: Basics of IBM, AWS, Azure, Google and RedHat Cloud

4. AWS Cloud Development Kit Primer 

This is an introductory course to the Amazon Web Services Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK). This course demonstrates how to use familiar programming languages to model, provision, modify, and delete cloud application resources. It guides developers through the development best practices for creating reusable components that meet the organization’s security, compliance, and governance requirements. Once they complete the course, learners will be able to use objects, loops, and conditions to speed up and add logic to the development and deployment process. 

Unlike some of the other courses on this list, this option is best for intermediate-level technical professionals looking for a career as a cloud practitioner and not those with a business user background. To take this course, students should be familiar with AWS services, including AWS Cloud Formation. They should have completed the Developing on AWS or equivalent technical courses. Since this is a relatively difficult course, it is recommended that candidates have a Cloud Practitioner Essentials certification. Or, they may bring equivalent experience and at least one year of prior experience as an AWS developer. 

This course teaches candidates how to:

• State the purpose of the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK).
• Explain the main components of AWS CDK.
• Describe the key ideas utilized with AWS CDK. 
• Interact with the AWS CDK command-line interface to deploy an app or stack.
• Design AWS CDK constructs.

5. AWS Cloud Essentials for Business Leaders 

This course teaches course participants the fundamental tenets of cloud computing and how they may be used to help an organization achieve its business objectives. It delves into the potential and advantages that cloud computing enables. Additionally, it covers security and compliance to assist line of business (LOB) professionals, IT leaders, and execs in facilitating more effective interactions. The training does not need any previous IT or cloud expertise.

This course teaches individuals how to:

• Identify the value proposition for cloud computing in various business use cases
• Formulate and implement the ideal cloud business model
• Explore and leverage the key properties  of cloud computing
• Select and enforce the most essential cloud computing security practices for an organization
• Use the AWS Cloud Value Framework to benchmark performance and find new value-generating opportunities

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

AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam

Also known as the CLF-C01 test, the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam is suitable for candidates from both business and technical backgrounds, as long as they can demonstrate a working knowledge of the AWS cloud environment. During the examination, candidates will be tested on a variety of topics such as the core AWS services, the cloud’s value proposition, and the  AWS shared responsibility model. 

It will also assess a person’s skills in AWS security and their ability to enforce security best practices for cloud environments. Finally, candidates can expect questions on AWS economics, managing cloud costs, and the solution’s billing procedures.

Individuals planning to take this exam should have a minimum of six months (or equivalent) of direct involvement with the AWS environment and exposure to AWS cloud architecture, implementation, and operations. Apart from that, they must demonstrate a working knowledge of well-architected cloud solutions.

This exam contains 65 questions, out of which 50 questions affect the score, and 15 questions are classified as unscored questions. To evaluate these unscored questions as scored questions in the future, AWS collects information on applicants’ performance on unscored questions. These questions are not part of the examination. 

Candidates will face two kinds of scored questions during this exam – multiple-choice or multiple-response. Multiple-choice questions have one correct answer and three incorrect ones. Additionally, candidates may also be required to respond to questions with a multiple-response structure, which may contain two to five correct responses out of the five or more options provided.

Together, these questions form a passing or failing system for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam, which is based on a set of minimum standards established by certified AWS professionals. One needs a minimum score of 700 to pass the examination, and the exam results are scaled between 100 and 1000. 

As a part of the final score report, a table may be included that details classifications of the candidate’s performance at various sections of the exam. This data is meant to give them general feedback on their exam performance. 

The test will check the candidates’ knowledge in four discrete domains. Interestingly, candidates do not have to obtain a passing score for each section individually. Since the exam uses a compensatory scoring system, one only needs to pass the overall examination as per the minimum score mentioned. Because each exam component is weighted differently, some sections will contain more questions than others. Let us now explore each of these domains or sections in detail.

Domain 1: Cloud concepts

This test domain accounts for 26% of the exam. Under this test domain, the candidate needs to cover the following:

• Summarize Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its key value proposition, as well as the advantages of using the AWS cloud, and explore how it enables customers to concentrate on delivering business value.
• Be familiar with the different parts of AWS cloud economics, outline things that would be included in a total cost of ownership proposal, and indicate which operations would see a cost reduction as a result of migrating to AWS.

• Describe the various cloud architecture design principles and design principles, as well as the differences between them.

Domain 2: Security and compliance 

This test domain accounts for 25% of the exam. Under this test domain, the candidate needs to cover the following:

• Distinguish between the meaning and aspects of the AWS shared responsibility model and outline the customer’s obligation to AWS and the duties of AWS.
• Explain the concepts of AWS cloud security and compliance, know where and how to find AWS compliance information, specify how users improve compliance on AWS, describe who has the authority to enable encryption on AWS for a given service, and clarify the meaning of least privileged access to AWS services.
• Identify the capabilities of AWS access management and the objective of user and identity management in order to complete this task.
• Identify available resources for security help, distinguish between various network security capabilities, and get familiar with the AWS literature and its components (for example, best practices, whitepapers, official documents, etc.).
• Use AWS Trusted Advisor to run security checks.

See More: Cloud Security Basics: AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure & Oracle

Domain 3: Technology 

This test domain accounts for 33% of the exam. Under this test domain, the candidate needs to cover the following areas:

• Explain how to install and operate on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, and describe the various provisioning and operational techniques available in the cloud, including the different kinds of cloud deployment models and the various connectivity possibilities.
• Fully comprehend the AWS global infrastructure (including the relationships between regions, availability zones, and edge locations), achieve high availability through the use of multiple availability zones, appreciate when it is appropriate to use different AWS regions, and describe the advantages of edge location deployments.
• Highlight the key AWS services, as well as the categories of services available on AWS (compute, storage, network, database).
• Prioritize support resources and navigate documentation by working through the various levels and scope of AWS support, gaining from a partner network, and requesting AWS technical assistance. 
• Obtain support through professional services, solutions architects, AWS training, and the Amazon Partner Network (APN).

Domain 4: Billing and pricing

This test domain accounts for 16% of the exam. Under this test domain, the candidate needs to cover the following:

• Understand, compare, and examine the different pricing models for AWS and identify the situations that are the greatest match for on-demand pricing per instance, reserved instance pricing, and spot instance pricing.
• Familiarize yourself with AWS billing and pricing account structures, such as consolidated payment and the utilization of numerous accounts for cost-sharing across business units.
• Identify resources for billing assistance, know where to get price information, establish cost alerts, and leverage tags to help with budget allocation.

See More: How To Secure Enterprise Data Using the AWS Shared Responsibility Model

AWS Cloud Practitioner Jobs and Salary

Remember that the certification is not limited to in-depth knowledge of any particular service. Instead, it provides an overview of AWS to prepare for various cloud jobs and careers. The following are some of the jobs that can be obtained with an AWS cloud certification:

*All salary figures mentioned below were last updated on March 02, 2022.

1. AWS cloud architect

A cloud architect is in charge of translating the technical elements into the design and architecture to drive the final result. According to PayScale, the average pay for this AWS practitioner job in the U.S. is $160,000 per year. 

2. Sysops administrator 

The computer server is managed and maintained by a sysops admin. Their responsibilities include maintaining and operating the server. They’re also responsible for security and access for users. Their principal task is to configure AWS cloud management and track and control its services. According to PayScale, the average pay for this AWS practitioner job in the U.S. is $159,000 per year.

3. Cloud developer 

Cloud developers design apps that run on the internet. The day-to-day tasks of a cloud developer are comparable to those of a software engineer or web developer. They devote a significant amount of time to studying consumer needs, building solutions and systems, coding, and debugging, among other things. As a result, they must also deal with system architecture security and performance challenges. According to PayScale, the average pay for this AWS practitioner job in the U.S. is $125,000 per year.

4. Cloud DevOps engineer

A cloud DevOps engineer ensures that production-related processes run smoothly while ensuring server reliability and delivery speed. In addition to installing and tracking services, cloud DevOps engineers design software delivery workflows and oversee and learn from events using a cloud-based platform. They design and test the framework and resources required for rapid software development. According to PayScale, the average pay for this AWS practitioner job in the U.S. is $140,000 per year. 

5. AWS networking specialist 

Network professionals keep an eye on how networks work and make sure they’re running smoothly. They gather network performance data, troubleshoot problems, monitor network security, predict issues, and maintain the network. According to PayScale, the average pay for this AWS practitioner job in the U.S. is $120,000 per year. 

6. Cloud software engineer

Cloud software engineers only work in cloud computing solutions. They aid in analyzing a system’s operation and provide direction to programmers who assist in creating software code. In addition to that, they may be able to improve the efficiency of existing systems or construct whole new ones. According to PayScale, the average pay for this AWS practitioner job in the U.S. is $130,000 per year. 

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

Key takeaways 

AWS is among the most popular cloud platforms globally, making the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification an in-demand qualification for technical and non-technical professionals. Certified cloud practitioners can be invaluable assets in supporting the organization’s growth journey. Professionals embarking on this career track should remember the following key takeaways: 

• The cloud practitioner’s role is cross-functional, and candidates from any background can undertake the certification, even if they do not have technical knowledge. 
• The examination covers four domains, and candidates must successfully obtain a score of 700 on 1000. 
• The course provides a wide range of skill sets that can be useful in multiple job roles, such as a cloud architect, a cloud developer, a DevOps engineer, etc. 
• Professionals in this field typically earn six-figure salaries, on average. 

AWS provides all the learning materials necessary to obtain the certification, and candidates can learn at their own pace, working around their professional schedules. 

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