The document discusses the importance of AWS certifications for cloud professionals, highlighting the growing demand for certified individuals in the context of cloud migration and various technological complexities. It provides detailed information on certification costs, preparation strategies, essential AWS services to know, and recommended resources for learning. Additionally, it encourages continuous learning and interaction within the cloud community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Let’s Stay Home and
Stop COVID-19 Together
For those who have died,
For those who are fighting,
And for those who are showing courage to fight for others

3. At the very last page of a Kubernetes book :)
Download the free book from here if you are into kubernetes
https://www.nginx.com/resources/library/cloud-native-devops-with-kubernetes/
Applicable to any technology
out there...

4. Session Format
● We will keep the session interactive
● You can ask the questions in-between
● We will keep the Audio on Mute for Attendees
● You can ask the questions by typing and we will answer
● This session is RECORDED. Will share the recording later.

5. Why AWS Certifications!
● Amazon Web Services is a Cloud-leader by many measures
● Huge portfolio of services for every possible domain
● Rapidly growing in many areas
● From single-person startups to Fortune 500, everyone uses AWS
● More services add more complexities. Certified professionals help
● Cloud Migration is rapidly increasing, but that is not easy. Enterprises ask for
tough questions like Compliances, Security, Cost, Auditing, Scaling and many
more. A certified professional is expected to know many of these things.
● Current situation is leading to many companies realizing the advantages of
going to cloud and hence planning to migrate.

6. Things to know about AWS Certifications
● There is no prerequisite, you can take any exam
● You can take all exams ONLINE now
● Cloud Practitioner is $100
● Associate Level Exams are $150
● Pro and Specialty Level Exams are $300
● You will receive 50% discount coupons after you pass any certification, which
you can use for your next certification. This is a nice motivation :)
Spare around 5% of your earnings every month on
learning and don’t buy those useless things every now
and then, you should be fine with the cost.

8. Certifications do not equate to
experience, mastery, or competence.

9. Before you sit for any Certifications
● Make sure you understand the subject
● Post certification, you can continue utilizing the skills in one or the other way
● Always have deadlines, but make sure they are reasonable and achievable
● Don’t spend 100% time on watching videos, hands on experience is the best
teacher

10. Know the Fundamental Services
Similar to in a programming language, if you don’t know how to use variables,
if-else, for, functions, you will not be able to go far. Same way, AWS as a lot of
base/fundamental services which you MUST know.
● Region, Availability Zones
● VPC, Subnets, Route Table, Security Groups, NACLs
● IAM, Role, Group, Policies
● CloudWatch Logs, Alarms
● CloudTrail
● S3
● KMS
● Billing, Budgets, Cost of your services, etc
● EC2, Instance Family/Size, SSH Keys, EBS, Snapshots

11. Before you sit for any Certifications
● Read other people’s exam experience on blogs, social media. This alone will
not help, but will definitely guide.
● Take a official practice exam if it exists, it will give you a very clear idea if you
are ready for the real exam. It’s not mandatory, but it will help you assess your
performance.
● If at all you fail, do not lose hope, identify your weaker sections and focus on
them for the next attempt. Use this as another learning opportunity, idea is not
just to pass the exam, but learn the important services too.
● PRACTICE MORE. It’s always good to fail in practice, than in exam :)

12. Why we decided to go for a certification, and kept on
going
● Certifications set a north star, a direction for learning
● Provides foundational knowledge used to gain experience
● Validation of knowledge to a degree
● Provides an on-ramp
● Structured learning
● You will not always get to work on exciting and new technologies.
Certifications are a way to ensure you are keeping up to date and ready to roll
whenever needed
http://duffney.io/certifications-dont-matter-but-they-do-matter

14. Important and In-Demand Skills these days
● Machine Learning
● DevOps
● Solutions Architect / Cloud Architect
● Big Data
● Cloud Security
● Containers, Kubernetes, Serverless (No Direct Certification Available on
AWS)

20. Common questions that we usually receive...

21. I want to learn cloud, where do I start!!
● Linux fundamentals
● Basics of virtualization and infrastructure
● Start with video courses, it provides a organized learning approach
● Create a free tier account and do as much hands on possible. Make sure you
spend some time with Billing part.
● Use Qwiklabs or Whizlabs Labs for advanced and expensive labs (free for
April) Cloud is not FREE :)

22. How I cleared all 12 Certifications in a good long time...
https://medium.com/appgambit/how-i-cleared-all-11-aws-certifications-in-a-good-long-
time-c37a8a5e2a62

23. Q / A

24. I am already certified, what should I do next!!
● As a Cloud Engineer, there are a lot of cross-cutting skills you need for a long
professional career
● Best option would be to go for a next suitable certification option. It will not
only expand your existing knowledge, but will also gain new critical skills
● If you have extensive hands on experience, go through the list of topics in the
professional/speciality exam guides and select one most relevant to you
● Cloud is massive, hundreds of services and there is no easy way to learn
them all. Certifications will help you get a chance to learn them closely.

25. Q / A

26. Difficulty level of Pro and Specialty level exams!!
● As the name suggests these are long and complicated exams
● Lengthy questions, complicated answers will need some time management
along with expert level knowledge
● If you have been working on certain areas like Big Data, Security, Networking
then the exam may not be that difficult as you know the things in reality.
● If you are sitting for Pro or Speciality level exams without any prior
experience, this might get very complicated or frustrating.

27. Q / A

28. Learning Resources - Best time to LEARN
● AWS What’s New
● AWS Blogs
● https://www.lastweekinaws.com/
● https://www.pluralsight.com/
● https://www.udemy.com/
● https://inthecloud.withgoogle.com/training-discount/register.html
● https://www.coursera.org/
● https://linuxacademy.com/
● https://acloud.guru/
● https://www.whizlabs.com/
Due to current COVID-19 situation, many online training sites, are offering coures at
very low prices or FREE. While we have time and opportunity, we should make a
good use of it and learn something new in this difficult time, and come back strong.

29. Cloud People to follow, always reachable and happy
to help
● Yujun Liang
● Jeevan Dongre (Bengaluru AWS User Group)
● Bhuvaneswari Subramani (Bengaluru AWS User Group)
● Gaurav Kamboj (Mumbai AWS User Group)
● Nilesh Vaghela (Ahmedabad AWS User Group)
● Sandip Das
● Jayendra Patil
● Sathish VJ (GCP)
● David Das Neves
● Konrad Clapa (GCP Fellow)
● Noah Gift
● Manoj Fernando (Colombo AWS User Group) And there are many more...

30. Q / A

31. Thank You!!
● Join a meetup group in your area
● Participate in online/offline events
● Write about the skills you are acquiring
● Organize the meetups in your area, if there is none
● Submit a talk, present, that’s an experience too
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I
remember. Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin

32. Dhaval Nagar Kaivalya Shah
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