Not sure if this has been posted before. Below is a link to a 12 month free subscription to AWS that you can use to play around and learn about AWS if you are new, novice or advanced for that matter. I came across this in a Coursera cloud lecture but never got the chance to post it. In addition to the AWS software you get some free infrastructure and devops software to use.
The big issue with Cloud and some vendor specific certifications is that people do not have the necessary material yet to get training and exposure. I think Amazon is making a very good strategic move in giving away 1 year of free training on your own pace with their cloud services.
In the next few years, i think AWS will be like the CISCO/MSFT certs.
Myself i haven't gotten into cloud yet but i am reading what i can about cloud technologies and at work we are implementing and have 2 projects that i am managing and implementing SaaS solutions and will be the primary administrator for those products. They will have heavy usage, almost all of our users will be required to use them, about 1500 users so far. I am expecting to get these 2 solutions up an running in the next 2-3 months. So sooner or later i would have to learn some cloud stuff too even though they are vendor specific, a lot of cloud technology can translate into other vendors also. Would definitely benefit if you get in sooner than later.
https://aws.amazon.com/free/