Build expertise for the AWS Cloud in 2023.

A study featured in a Guardian article mentions that the IT sector is growing at a staggering rate. In fact, it claims that the sector is “beating the rest of the economy by three to one.”

So with this info in mind, it makes sense to educate yourself with IT knowledge and abilities. Certification is one of the best ways to validate your cloud skills and AWS Certifications, in particular, are industry-recognized credentials that showcase your expertise in the AWS Cloud and familiarity with core AWS services.

In this article, we’ll deliver a complete guide to AWS cloud certification and training. By the end of reading this, you should have a clear idea about which AWS certification pathway you might want to take with AWS certification.

So without further adieu, let’s get into it!

What Is AWS?

AWS is the abbreviated form of Amazon Web Services and its the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. Amazon Web Services provides more than 200 fully featured services from their data service facilities right across the globe catered to startups, enterprises and government agencies in varying capacities.

An AWS Career Path

AWS offers a number of industry-recognized certifications that validate your experience to help you go beyond training and highlight your skills. Earning AWS Certifications allows you to showcase your cloud knowledge and abilities specific to roles or technical domains that help move your career forward.

There’s a multitude of courses that you can choose from to gain AWS cloud certification. These AWS training courses cover a wide range of AWS cloud skills and learning.

AWS Certification validates cloud expertise to help professionals highlight in-demand skills and organizations build effective, innovative teams for cloud initiatives using AWS. Choose from diverse certification exams by role and specialty designed to empower individuals and teams to meet their unique goals.

Each course is sure to take your AWS cloud expertise to the next level. We will now run through these certification pathways in more detail.

Cloud Fundamentals: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

The AWS Cloud Practitioner pathway is for anyone who is just starting out in cloud computing and wants to know the basics. The emphasis is on understanding cloud-computing theory rather than training you up with certain skills.

So the foundational aspect acts as an excellent platform to move you into other AWS certifications. And it’s worth studying this AWS Cloud Practitioner certification, even if you are a manager or business owner to understand the technology you are using.

AWS Solutions Architect Pathway

If you are a developer or systems administrator then opting for the AWS Solution Architect pathway could work for you well. Candidates will gain expertise required to identify services and features to build resilient, secure, and highly available IT solutions in the AWS Cloud. Gain insights into best practices using the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

There are two levels of certification in this pathway of learning. You get Associate level, and then you can move onto Professional and at the very least, you will learn through this avenue of study how to speak with confidence about cloud computing options for clients.

AWS Systems Operations Pathway

This systems operations pathway is intended for system administrators/engineers who intend to understand AWS Well-Architected Framework as well as AWS networking and security services. If you’re keen to gain expertise to deploy, manage and operate workloads on AWS, well then the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate is the certiication for you.

This credential helps organizations identify and develop talent with critical skills for implementing cloud initiatives.

AWS Developer Pathway

If you are a software developer, this AWS pathway is an excellent way to learn more about cloud-based application development. Once more, there are professional and associate training courses that you can undertake.

On the Associate level, you will study how to work with the Amazon API Gateway, IAM, and SDK, for example. Plus, you should know that this pathway falls very much in line and complements the Architect pathway we mentioned earlier.

The Professional level will make you an AWS Certified DevOps Engineer and with this certification, you can expect a mixture of Developer and Operational pathways.

AWS Specialty Pathways

There are five Specialty pathways that you can explore and consider. These Specialty certifications are designed to validate your expertise in a specific domain and/or knowledge area on AWS technologies. AWS currently offers Specialty certifications for:

• AWS Certified Advanced Networking
• AWS Certified Database Specialty
• AWS Certified Data Analytics
• AWS Certified Security
• AWS Certified Machine Learning
• AWS Certified SAP on AWS (coming soon)

All of these options are meant for cloud professionals who intend to deep dive into specific AWS technologies. For instance, the machine learning pathway is ideal for developers and data scientists. The AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty certification builds critical skills required for building, training, tuning, and deploying machine learning (ML) models on AWS.

On the other hand, the AWS Certified Security Specialty credential provides learners with expertise in securing data and workloads in the AWS Cloud.

Other Factors To Consider With AWS Certification

Exam preparation can make all the difference.

There’s no substitute for experience. We recommend that you have the suggested amount of experience with relevant AWS products and services before attempting an AWS Certification exam. But experience isn’t everything. Proper exam preparation is also critical.

Taking advantage of exam prep materials provided by AWS—including exam guides, sample questions, and whitepapers—can help you succeed.

Practice exams and sample questions.

Practice exams allow you to test your knowledge in a timed environment. The exam is scored, and information about your performance on the various domains is offered on the practice exam score report. This information may be useful in determining a study plan, but it may not be reflective of actual performance on the certification exam. You can register for practice exams by creating a free AWS Certification Account or signing into an existing account. Practice exams are different from sample questions. AWS posts sample questions on the website to provide you with an opportunity to become familiar with the format of questions used on AWS Certification exams.

Before you embark on any AWS training courses to become certified, it’s a good idea to know the timeframe of learning. If you are going to go Foundational in your training, you should be looking at a period of between 6-12 months.

Another thing you should know is that you do have the opportunity to retake your AWS certification exam if you fail the first time. There is only a two-week period where you have to wait before you can retake.

Get Your AWS Cloud Certification

It should be much clearer to you know what subjects you can get AWS cloud certification in now. There are plenty of options which are also complementary to each other, so it’s worth considering a combination of training courses.

If you want to learn more about how you can get AWS certified, we recommend you check out our website for more advice and access to such training. The idea is you can springboard your company to the next level through excellent fluency in AWS cloud technology.

Trainocate is the new and exciting development of the 25-year old establishment – Global Knowledge and a HRD Corp Registered Training Provider as well as AWS learning partner for AWS certification courses.