It is not newsworthy that Amazon Web Services are important. It is the 800-pound gorilla in the cloud space. According to Canalys report has 33% of the cloud market.

My Java skills have paid the bills for a long time. I knew I needed to add some cloud skills to stay relevant. So I began asking friends and researching.

Cloud Practioner

I talked to many of my friends and former co-workers. They overwhelmingly agreed to start with the Cloud Practioner. The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is a solid basis for cloud work.

One caveat is that I have been in software development for quite a few years. So a lot of the terms and technologies are familiar. Depending on where you are starting from you may need more time.

As a developer, I can be focused on the code. I asked everyone how to prepare. “What tools should I use?” Here are the means for study.

Tools

Initially, my certification journey in my career meant picking up a thick book. Today we have a lot more at our disposal. Therefore I used online training and some traditional paper as well.

Udemy

I have used Udemy for a few different courses so I was familiar with their system. Although a few people did recommend A Cloud Guru. I tried them both out and found Udemy worked better for me.

I settled on the Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner course. It is taught by Stephane Maarek. He explains this quite well. Stephane organizes the course in digestible chunks.

For instance, he would explain a topic like EBS in a short video. Then next he would do a hands-on lab. Once complete he reminds you to clean up. This will keep you in the free tier. I didn’t listen and got a few bills…

At the end of the unit, he will review it. Then he has questions to simulate the topic you just covered. These help you begin to think about the exam and what to study.

Video

To supplement the great content from Udemy I also found a great video on YouTube. Andrew Brown from ExamPro has posted his course AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification Course (CLF-C01).

Andrew breaks things down really well. Similar to Stephane’s work he helps you focus on what is important. Andrew has Cheatsheets for the main parts of the exam. These are great to review for last-minute preparation.

Article

Maddy Pet from Captial One Technology shared some wonderful tips on their blog. In her article My Guide to CRUSHING the AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam, she lays out the steps.

Maddy gives you step-by-step guidance. What documentation to read and how long. She reminds you to diagram important topics. Then you can start taking practice exams.

Practice Exam

Stephane’s Udemy course was helpful so I also used his practice exam too. He has the 6 Practice Exams you can use to really understand what you need to know. He created these with Abhishek Singh.

I took 10–15 questions per day and reviewed the information. Then weekly I would schedule 90 minutes to go through a complete exam. This worked for me but you may find a better approach.

Book

Last but not least I went old school. I purchased a book to prepare for the exam. This is recommended by Maddy. Neal Davis from Digital Cloud Training has a great review book.

Perhaps all this is overkill. Although I not only wanted to pass the exam. I wanted to learn it. Early in my career, I was concerned about just passing. Today I find it more rewarding to pass and learn.