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AWS Certifications
19 Plays2 years ago
In this episode I talk about AWS Certifications, and provide some tips about the exam process.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Note
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello basement programmers and welcome to the basementprogrammer.com podcast. My name is Tom Moore and I'm a developer advocate working for Amazon Web Services. The opinions expressed in this podcast are my own and should not be assumed to be the opinions of my employer or any other organizations I may be associated with. Also, basementprogrammer.com is not affiliated with Amazon in any way.
Preparing for AWS reInvent
00:00:23
Speaker
This month's podcast is a little bit late getting published. For those of us who are around AWS, this time of year is known as reInvent season. Now reInvent is obviously huge and a massive amount of time and energy goes into making this as good as possible.
00:00:38
Speaker
For those of us, like me, who will be presenting, that means months of preparation in the lead up. Despite any hiccups that may occur when we are live, we put a ton of effort in trying to make everything run smoothly.
AWS Certification Journey
00:00:51
Speaker
Yes, I will be there again this year presenting a session on refactoring strategies. So if you're in Las Vegas, Wednesday, come and see my session.
00:01:03
Speaker
For me, this time of year is also recertification time. I typically have an AWS certification that's coming due right around now. And that means it's time to really hit the books and study up so I can take my recertification exam. Just last week, I took it and thankfully passed the AWS DevOps Pro exam. So in this episode, I decided I'm going to talk about AWS certifications and certification process.
00:01:31
Speaker
Now, before I start, I should be clear, I'm not going to teach you how to cheat on your certifications exams. To be honest, I don't know how to cheat on the exams and even if I did, I wouldn't. I will, however, offer some tips and tricks on making the exam process run a little bit smoother. Now, I will tell you this, the exams are challenging. I've had certification exams in the past where you could basically download some practice exams from the net, run through them and pass the exam after a week of study.
00:02:00
Speaker
Now with the exception of maybe the cloud practitioner exam, the AWS exams are not like that. So don't feel you can just cram for a week and go in and pass. I've taken about nine or 10 exams in the past six and a half years. With the exception of the cloud practitioner, I was nervous every time.
00:02:19
Speaker
Now, obviously part of that's a personality thing. I'm generally not a confident test taker, but a lot of it also has to do with the study material as well. You really do have to know your AWS stuff in order to pass these exams.
00:02:34
Speaker
It also used to be that there were prerequisite qualifications for taking the exams. So, for example, you couldn't take the Solutions Architect professional exam until after you took the Solutions Architect associate exam. These prerequisites were all eliminated a few years ago. However, I would actually recommend following the tracks because they build and the professional exams are significantly more difficult than the associate exams, which are actually fairly difficult as well.
Overview of AWS Exams
00:03:05
Speaker
To start with, there are basically four groups of exams along three different tracks. The first group is the most basic, obviously, and it only has the cloud practitioner exam. This is a good starting exam, and it's an exam that can be taken by anyone, no matter the level of technical aptitude or experience. The cloud practitioner serves the basics of operating in the cloud, and studying from the exam will help you understand some of those fundamentals.
00:03:35
Speaker
Of all the exams, this is the only one I would classify as being easy, providing you have a base level of knowledge around cloud technologies. Seriously, if you touch AWS in any way, go ahead and get this exam. The second group of certifications are the associate certifications.
00:03:52
Speaker
Now way back in 2016, when I took my first exam, the AWS Solutions Architect Associate, I walked out of that exam thinking, wow, that was tough. The material was quite in depth and really focused on designing and building high quality systems. For this exam, you need to understand which services are used for what type of functionality and what the trade-offs are.
00:04:16
Speaker
Big tip here, oftentimes the questions will have a qualifier, like what is the most cost effective method or what is the most resilient method? You'll find that there are multiple answers that can solve the problem, but only one that addresses that specific qualifier. So really look for those qualifiers.
00:04:37
Speaker
So the AWS associate covers systems design for cloud native solutions. It's all about how to select the right service for the job. The SysOps associate exam talks about how to incorporate operational excellence into your solutions. SysOps is going to cover how to make your systems resilient and incorporate concepts like backup and DR into your overall system design. You'll also cover things like deployment strategies for your solution.
00:05:06
Speaker
Top tip here, building a production system by pointing and clicking in the console is usually not the right answer. The final exam on the track of the associate exams is the developer associate.
00:05:20
Speaker
Now, when I took this exam the first time, I felt it was a really hard exam. While the other associate exams talk a lot about concepts and trade-offs, the developer associate, at least when I took it, focused on understanding specific APIs for the services that were involved.
00:05:38
Speaker
If you're striving to get all three of the Associates exams, I did find that the Solutions Architect and the SysOps Associate exams were closely related as far as concepts were concerned.
00:05:51
Speaker
And, you know, this makes sense because you're generally trying to build solutions that are well-designed, resilient, and cost-effective. The developer certification was completely different in content and structure. Because of this, I would really recommend kind of grouping the essay and sysops associates together as you're studying and sitting those exams. If you did this, you'd probably find that it took about 50% more time to get both exams rather than, you know, 200% of the total.
00:06:20
Speaker
Now, strategy wise, it's a good idea to stage these exams over a period of time. Maybe do an associate exam a year for three years. This is actually what I did. I suggest this because each certification is good for three years and then you have to re-certify. If you go and do all the exams in a single year, then three years later you're going to have a massive effort to study and do all the re-certifications exams.
00:06:48
Speaker
One thing to keep in mind, recertification means you have to sit the same exam again. There is no short form for the recertification exam. At this point, you should decide whether you are going to pursue the professional certifications or not.
Professional Exam Insights
00:07:02
Speaker
Make this decision as soon as you complete your associate exams. Why?
00:07:07
Speaker
Well, because if you pass the Solutions Architect professional exam, this is automatically going to recertify your Solutions Architect associate certificate as well, as long as it's still current. Some important points here. If you have the SA associate exam and you have your sites in the professional exam, study up and give yourself a good window of time. If you take the SA pro exam and you pass, you're good. You'll get to keep your SA associate current
00:07:36
Speaker
If not, you can always fall back and then recertify at the associate level. If, however, your essay associate certification has expired, it will not get renewed when you pass the essay pro exam. This may or may not be important to you. Okay, so look at the professional exams. They are a level above the associate exams, and quite frankly, these are pretty tough exams.
00:08:03
Speaker
There are, at the point of this podcast, only two professional exams, the Solutions Architect Professional and the DevOps Professional exam. The Essay Professional is a level up from the Essay Associate, obviously. The DevOps Professional is a level above and combines the SysOps and Developer exams together. So you're really focusing on the DevOps strategy of combining the two disciplines. The Essay Professional exam
00:08:34
Speaker
is, as you would expect, similar in scope to the SA associate. It digs into your knowledge of designing systems and is going to test your knowledge of things like security and cost controls. You really want to understand concepts like when do you choose RDS as a database and when would you choose DynamoDB, for example. How would you make sure your system can handle scaling for traffic? And how do you control your costs?
00:09:00
Speaker
For the DevOps Pro, you're going to be looking at things around automation and deployment technologies. How do you make sure that a solution can be deployed across multiple regions and multiple accounts? How does OpsWorks fit into the mix? This exam goes deep into concepts like infrastructure as code. When it comes to taking the Pro exams, understand that tree structure. As I mentioned, if you pass the DevOps Pro,
00:09:28
Speaker
that will automatically recertify your DevOps Pro as well as your SysOps Associate and your Developer Associate and your Cloud Practitioner.
00:09:37
Speaker
If you pass the solutions architect professional exam, you're automatically going to be recertified at the solutions architect professional, the solutions architect associate, and again, the cloud practitioner. What this means is that while getting all six certifications requires you to pass six certification exams, keeping them up to date requires you to pass two exams. Once again, I would recommend staggering these exams so they don't all come due at the same time.
00:10:09
Speaker
Okay. So now we've covered the basic associate and professional exams.
Specialty Exam Highlights
00:10:13
Speaker
I did mention there's a fourth track here or a fourth set of exams. The other exams fall into the category of specialist exams. Each of these specialist exams has its own focus and goes really deep into the services in that specific area. So security, machine learning, big data, and others.
00:10:36
Speaker
Once again, each of these exams provides you with a certification for three years. However, there's no cascade effect when you pass a specialty exam like there is with the professional exams. So let's talk about some study tips. You need to understand that the exams get updated regularly.
00:10:56
Speaker
If you have a look at your AWS certification account, when you go to set up an exam, you may notice something that says something like solutions architect professional retiring in a date. After that date, the exam is going to be updated with new content. Be aware of this because it will affect what you're studying. Now the exams are not going to be radically different in nature from one iteration to the other.
00:11:22
Speaker
but they will incorporate new services and functionality that were brought out since the last exam was written. So if you're taking the exam in January, functionality that was just released and reinvent last year won't be on the exam, but it may be on the exam after the next update. Each exam has a guide published by AWS. This guide will tell you the different categories
00:11:47
Speaker
that the material is going to cover in the exam and a percentage weight. That weighting will tell you how many of the questions on the exam will be drawn from a specific domain. As a general guide, you would want to dedicate that percentage of your study time into those areas. Make sure to spend time studying each of the areas from the guide. Those sections will draw from a range of different services and tools in each of those categories.
00:12:17
Speaker
The other thing to keep in mind is there may be multiple services and tools available to fit a specific need. You may do everything for DevOps in your day job using CloudFormation, but when it comes to the DevOps Pro certification, you're going to need to understand things like CDK, SAM, and OpsWorks as well. Obviously, studying materials are important. Everything you need to know about the exams can be found in the AWS documentation,
00:12:46
Speaker
white papers, guides, and by using the services.
Study Resources and Recommendations
00:12:50
Speaker
Now, nothing in the service is going to be designed as a gotcha. There's no trick questions, and the exam writers generally try to avoid the bizarre, obscure edge cases. They do, however, want to make sure that you have a functional level of knowledge about the services in question. So, you know, what was that life cycle hook in the auto-scaling service? That might be something you need to know.
00:13:14
Speaker
There's a range of other study guides available on the internet as well. These have varying degrees of quality. In the course of studying for various exams, I found some that are woefully inadequate while others have been really quite good. I will say this, and this definitely falls into the realm of this is my personal opinion and it should not in any way be considered the opinion of my or in the endorsement of my employer. But I've actually found a cloud gurus materials to be quite good.
00:13:41
Speaker
They usually cover a broad section of materials that is going to get you ready, not only for the exam, but actually teaches the materials in question. So they're not, this is what you need to know to pass the exam. It's this is what you need to know around the domain. Now it comes to actually taking the exam and you essentially have three choices.
Exam Options and Technical Setup
00:14:04
Speaker
If you're going to be around reinvent, there's always a huge testing facility set up there.
00:14:09
Speaker
Exams are running pretty much constantly and you can take any exam you like. This is a great option because, hey, you're there anyway, so why not? Outside of reinvent, the exams are run by an AWS testing partner. You get there by logging into your AWS certification account and then following the links to book or manage your exams. That used to be the only option was to go to a testing facility and sit your exams there.
00:14:37
Speaker
However, with the pandemic of 2020, that changed a bit. There's no remote proctored exam option where you sit the exam on your own PC in your home. However, keep in mind these exams are proctored. You're going to have to have a webcam on all the time and somebody's going to be watching you. From an actual exam perspective, the questions and the processing results are exactly the same. You aren't going to have an easier exam using one option or the other.
00:15:06
Speaker
Going to the test center is pretty straightforward. You show up, you take your exam and you leave. However, you do have to travel, and depending on how you feel being around people in public places, especially people you don't know, considering COVID, this may affect how comfortable you are. The other option, as I mentioned, is to use the remote testing software to take your exam.
00:15:29
Speaker
Now this does require some prep on your part. You need to have an isolated place to take your exam. It can't be anyone else in the room with you. The area you're taking the exam also has to be pretty minimalistic. They don't want it. They won't allow you to have multiple monitors attached to your system. They'll also check for running processes on your computer.
00:15:51
Speaker
and require you to shut things down. In some cases, this is pretty basic. Not having any instant messaging software or platforms running like Slack or Chime or Teams, stuff like that. Nothing that can be used to screen capture. So if you have something like Snagit running, you have to kill that process as well. Now, if you're running Windows, sometimes you're going to have this rogue Internet Explorer task running. You'll need to kill that. This is where things get a little bit tricky.
00:16:19
Speaker
If you've got the Windows subsystem for Linux running, along with Docker, you may have some virtualization processes running on your system. Some of those will trip up the scanning software as well, so you'll need to kill those off. In order to take my last exam, I'd actually uninstall my copy of Ubuntu that was running under the Windows subsystem and make sure that Docker didn't start up automatically.
00:16:43
Speaker
While we're talking about killing processes, having task manager running will also get flagged by the system, so make sure you shut that down after you turn off all the offending processes. Okay, so after all that's done, you are, like I said, gonna have to have a working webcam and microphone on your system. However, you're not allowed to be wearing headphones, so your normal headset for meetings isn't gonna work here. Luckily, most webcams have a built-in microphone, so it's not likely to be too big of an issue.
00:17:13
Speaker
Other things to keep in mind, you can't be wearing a watch. Smart watches are everywhere these days. Your phone after the initial check-in process has to be well out of reach. I actually had to move my glasses case away as well. You can't have a drink. I had a glass of water next to me, but no food. Make sure to have your laptop plugged in.
00:17:33
Speaker
The software that runs is going to keep your webcam on, your microphone running, etc. It may choose through your battery. And if you start running low, you're going to have to get the proctor to pause the exam while you go ahead and plug in. And that time counts against you.
Final Thoughts on AWS Certification
00:17:50
Speaker
So, well, that's about it for my episode for this month. In my opinion, look, certification is valuable. These exams are tough, but they are fair, and they really test your knowledge. In the case of AWS certification, it really does show that you know your stuff. So, get your certifications, keep them up to date, and hey, celebrate your accomplishments. All right, take care, and
00:18:14
Speaker
consider subscribing to the podcast if you haven't already. And if you're going to be at re-event, stop by my session and say hi.