AWS Cloud Practitioner

AWS certification is the most in-demand IT certification these days.  AWS or Amazon Web Services, is a major player in pay as you use basis, cloud computing market as against Google cloud and Azure. Opportunities for AWS certified candidates are increasing, due to which there is huge interest from IT professionals. The article serves as a comprehensive guide providing complete details about AWS Cloud Practitioner certification exam and how to prepare and obtain the AWS certification.

AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification is the entry level basic certification for obtaining advanced expert level AWS certifications.

Its highly recommended for candidates to clear the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification exam to qualify for advanced AWS certifications and learning paths on Solution Architect, DevOps, Networking, Security, Big Data.

AWS CP Exam details

Exam Eligibility
AWS has listed following eligibility criteria for the exam

• A minimum of six months of experience with the AWS Cloud
• Eligible role may be technical, managerial, sales, purchasing, or financial.
• Basic knowledge of IT services and their uses in the AWS Cloud platform

Exam Pattern
AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification Exam has MCQ type objective type questions only.

Two types of objective questions are present in the examination, as

• Multiple-choice type objective questions: These questions have only one correct answer and remaining three are incorrect (also called as distracters by AWS).
• Multiple-response type objective questions: These questions have multiple correct answers usually two or more amongst remaining five or more listed options.

Exam Scoring

• Candidate should select one or more answers which best answer the question
• There is no negative marking or penalty for answers guessed by candidate.
• Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect
• The examination may also have content items which are unscored or no score is assigned. They are listed in exam to collect statistical information. They are not identifiable and do not affect your score.

Exam Result

• Exam result, is a scaled score between 100 to 1000
• Minimum passing score is 700.
• The exam score report has a tabular listing of your performance for every section of the exam.
• The table shows your strengths and weaknesses, for every section.
• You do not need to pass each section but, should be able to pass the overall certification exam.
• As every exam section has varying weighting hence, varying number of questions is listed in exam against each section.
• Score lists your performance in the examination and whether or not you passed.
• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam is a pass or fail exam.
• Scoring is done against a minimum standard established by AWS professionals as per best practices and guidelines.

Exam Objectives

According to Amazon’s official exam description page, this exam validates the following aspects:

• Define what the AWS Cloud is and the basic global infrastructure
• Describe basic AWS Cloud architectural principles
• Describe the AWS Cloud value proposition
• Describe key services on the AWS platform and their common use cases (for example, compute and analytics)
• Describe basic security and compliance aspects of the AWS platform and the shared security model
• Define the billing, account management, and pricing models
• Identify sources of documentation or technical assistance (for example, whitepapers or support tickets)
• Describe basic/core characteristics of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud

Main Subject Areas

According to Amazon’s official exam description page, this exam validates the following aspects:

• Billing and pricing (12%)
• Cloud concepts (28%)
• Technology (36%)
• Security (24%)

Services You Will Need to know

This exam will focus on services in the following areas:

• AWS Cost Management
• Security, Identity & Compliance
  • IAM
• Migration & Transfer
• Network & Content Delivery
  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
  • Route53
• Compute
  • EC2
  • Lambda
• Storage
  • S3
• Glacier
• Databases
  • Relational Database Service (RDS)
  • DynamoDB (Non Relational Databases)
• AWS Global Infrastructure

Free AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials Course

The fundamental-level course is intended for individuals who seek an overall understanding of the AWS Cloud, independent of specific technical roles. It provides a detailed overview of cloud concepts, AWS services, security, architecture, pricing, and support. This FREE course also helps you prepare for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam.

Reviewing AWS Whitepapers

• Overview of Amazon Web Services whitepaper, Jan 2020
• Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices whitepaper, Feb 2016
• How AWS Pricing Works whitepaper, June 2018
• The Total Cost of (Non) Ownership of Web Applications in the Cloud whitepaper,
  Aug 2012
• Compare AWS Support Plans webpage

Further details regarding Cloud Practitioner exam can be found here

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So, now you have all the basic information regarding this exam. Lets start learning…

Cloud Computing

The on-demand delivery of compute, databases storage, applications and other IT resources through a cloud services platform via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.

6 Advantages of Cloud Computing
1. Trade capital expense for variable expense
2. Benefit from massive economies of scale
3. Stop guessing about capacity
4. Increased speed and agility
5. Stop spending money running and maintaining data centers
6. Go global in minutes

3 Types of Cloud Computing
1. Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS) – You manage the server and OS. Data center provider has no access to your server e.g. EC2
2. Platform As A Service (PAAS) – Someone else manages the hardware and OSs. You focus on your applications. E.g. LightSail, Elastic Beanstalk
3. Software As A Service (SAAS) – All you worry about is the software and how you want to use it E.g. Gmail

3 Types of Cloud Computing Deployments
1. Public Cloud – AWS, Azure, GCP
2. Hybrid – Mix of public and private
3. Private Cloud (On Premise) – You manage it in your datacenter. Openstack or Vmware.

Global Infrastructures Regions and Availability Zones

Region is a geographical area that has two or more Availability Zones.

Availability Zone (AZ) is basically a Data Center. It is an area with either one or more Data Centers (building filled with servers). If there are more than one, they are counted as one AZ because they are located close together.

Edge Locations are endpoints used for caching content. There are more Edge Locations than regions.

As of September 2019, there are 22 regions & 69 Availability Zones. For an up to date number of AWS Availability Zones and Regions, see the Global Infrastructure Regions and AZs page

AWS Budgets

Gives you the ability to set custom budgets that alert you when your costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) your budgeted amount. Used to budget costs before they have been incurred.

AWS Cost Explorer

Easy-to-use interface that lets you visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. Used to explore costs after they have been incurred

AWS Organizations

AWS Organizations is an account management service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. AWS Organizations includes account management and consolidated billing capabilities that enable you to better meet the budgetary, security, and compliance needs of your business. As an administrator of an organization, you can create accounts in your organization and invite existing accounts to join the organization.

In addition, AWS Organizations is integrated with other AWS services so you can define central configurations, security mechanisms, audit requirements, and resource sharing across accounts in your organization. AWS Organizations is available to all AWS customers at no additional charge.

AWS Billing and Cost Management

AWS Billing and Cost Management is the service that you use to pay your AWS bill, monitor your usage, and analyze and control your costs. AWS automatically charges the credit card that you provided when you signed up for a new account with AWS.

AWS automatically charges the credit card that you provided when you signed up for a new account with AWS. Charges appear on your monthly credit card bill. You can view or update your credit card information, including designating a different credit card for AWS to charge, on the Payment Methods page in the Billing and Cost Management console. AWS Billing and Cost Management provides useful tools to help you gather information related to your cost and usage, analyze your cost drivers and usage trends, and take action to budget your spending.

AWS Identity and Access Management

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service for securely controlling access to AWS resources. It enables you to create and control services for user authentication or limit access to a certain set of people who use your AWS resources.