PASSED: CLF-C01 AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam
Not too long ago, I posted a review for the book "Learn Amazon Web Services in a Month of Lunches" by David Clinton.
Today, I earned my first AWS certification, officially becoming an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner!
Working through the Month of Lunches book, I fell in love with AWS and all that it has to offer. It also showed me the future of IT practices, and it is something I am ready to wholeheartedly get on board with.
After completing the book, I completed Linux Academy's corresponding course for this exam.
I think the book did a great job introducing me to AWS' core services, allowing me to easily grasp the information that was presented in LA's course, helping me build a stronger foundation of knowledge and understanding.
While these are both great resources, researching other people's opinions on the exam (which I am glad I did) convinced me that more study resources were needed. And they were.
The above resources will help with you the majority of the exam, but there are some topics in the exam that these two alone will not cover. The exam was actually much more in-depth than I expected it to be based on the LA course, so you will want to ensure you also utilize the following resources.
AWS' training website is great and offers a lot of training courses and material for free. I recommend completing their Cloud Practitioner Essentials course. While a lot of it mirrors the LA course, some sections go more in depth, and some tidbits of information here and there will also come in very handy.
Lastly, Amazon offers resources called Whitepapers that are informational and technical documents, and there are quite a few of these that you will want to read:
- Overview of Amazon Web Services (~88 pages)
- Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices (~50 pages)
- How AWS Pricing Works (~22 pages)
- The Total Cost of (Non) Ownership of Web Applications in the Cloud (~30 pages)
The first two should be considered mandatory. Make sure to go through each of the services listed in the overview (and there are a ton!). A lot of the questions like to throw service names as options, even if they aren't the answer, it's good to have a vague idea of what the service is so you can at least know if you can rule it out and narrow down the options.
As you can see, they are not short documents, so make sure to plan accordingly when studying and scheduling your exam. While it is interesting information, they are technical documents, so they aren't always the easiest read - especially the sections that may be completely unrelated to your interests or profession.
As for the length of the exam, many resources state that the exam is 60 questions, however mine ended up being 65 questions, so be prepared for more. I finished the exam in about 45 minutes, then took about 10 minutes extra to go over all of my answers one more time.
I am excited to dive further into AWS (and Azure as well!), however, next I will be running headfirst into Linux. CompTIA is updating their Linux+ test, making it part of their CE program (requires renewals instead of a lifetime certification) and discontinuing their partnership with LPI this year, which prevents you from also achieving LPI's LPIC-1 Linux Administrator certification at the same time. I am up against the clock - time to move!