AWS Advanced Networking Certification

I'm looking to learn supplement my networking knowledge with something new. I came across this AWS Advanced Networking certification and was wondering if this is worthwhile?

The prereq says "AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner", which I never heard of, or AWS Solution Architect, Developer, or Sysops Associate.

My current role is network engineer
CE

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GoHawks

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is their new 'business' knowledge certification if I recall correctly. I'd skip it for one of the other three you've listed. Most people start with Solution Architect and then move on from there. The worthwhile question, for me, is still an unknown. I don't know how valuable, if at all, the AWS specialty certifications are. I was going to pursue the security specialization out of pure interest before it was cancelled but now I'm leaning towards just focusing on the Solutions Architect Professional exam instead.

CE1028

gotcha. I wonder where that specialty network cert fits in. Is it more for network engineers, or just for people who are 100% cloud?

I would do the solutions architect cert, if it was worthwhile. I'm honestly trying to figure out all this cloud stuff. I'm not the developer type, that seems who most cloud jobs are geared towards. Other than VAR positions who are helping folks migrate to cloud

victor.s.andrei

CE1028 wrote: »

gotcha. I wonder where that specialty network cert fits in. Is it more for network engineers, or just for people who are 100% cloud?

I would do the solutions architect cert, if it was worthwhile. I'm honestly trying to figure out all this cloud stuff. I'm not the developer type, that seems who most cloud jobs are geared towards. Other than VAR positions who are helping folks migrate to cloud

Fellow network engineer here.

My two cents on the Advanced Networking certification: yes, for a network engineer, it's totally worth it.

Get the Solutions Architect or SysOps Associate certifications first. Sybex just released a book for the second one that's got glowing reviews. I believe that AWS has made its "Essentials" one-day courses available for free as Web-based Training. Sign up for the AWS Free Tier and Qwiklabs.

If you look at the Advanced Network exam guide topics (see below, or see https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-advanced-networking-specialty/), I would say that this specialty is good for someone who might be building out infrastructure in AWS for a newer organization without an existing footprint of physical data centers...or for an organization with physical data centers that also wants infrastructure in the cloud). If you've been working with the usual Cisco, Juniper, CheckPoint, F5, Palo Alto, etc. network infrastructure - this basically adds one more item to your tool kit - and it's an item that's especially important with the focus on third-party cloud environments (public, private, or some mix of the two). There's also a two-day course "Migrating to AWS" that I found interesting, and I'm sure that Microsoft has some training for Azure that's equivalent to this specialty.

AWS Certified Advanced Networking Certification - Exam Guide / Topics

Domain 1.0: Design and implement hybrid IT network architectures at scale
1.1 Implement connectivity for hybrid IT
1.2 Given a scenario, derive an appropriate hybrid IT architecture connectivity solution
1.3 Explain the process to extend connectivity using AWS Direct Connect
1.4 Evaluate design alternatives that leverage AWS Direct Connect
1.5 Define routing policies for hybrid IT architectures

Domain 2.0: Design and implement AWS networks
2.1 Apply AWS networking concepts
2.2 Given customer requirements, define network architectures on AWS
2.3 Propose optimized designs based on the evaluation of an existing implementation
2.4 Determine network requirements for a specialized workload
2.5 Derive an appropriate architecture based on customer and application requirements
2.6 Evaluate and optimize cost allocations given a network design and application data flow

Domain 3.0: Automate AWS tasks
3.1 Evaluate automation alternatives within AWS for network deployments
3.2 Evaluate tool-based alternatives within AWS for network operations and management

Domain 4.0: Configure network integration with application services
4.1 Leverage the capabilities of Route 53
4.2 Evaluate DNS solutions in a hybrid IT architecture
4.3 Determine the appropriate configuration of DHCP within AWS
4.4 Given a scenario, determine an appropriate load balancing strategy within the AWS ecosystem
4.5 Determine a content distribution strategy to optimize for performance
4.6 Reconcile AWS service requirements with network requirements

Domain 5.0: Design and implement for security and compliance
5.1 Evaluate design requirements for alignment with security and compliance objectives
5.2 Evaluate monitoring strategies in support of security and compliance objectives
5.3 Evaluate AWS security features for managing network traffic
5.4 Utilize encryption technologies to secure network communications

Domain 6.0: Manage, optimize, and troubleshoot the network
6.1 Given a scenario, troubleshoot and resolve a network issue

JDMurray

If you are a security architect, engineer, or operations person working with AWS then the information in the AWS Architect, Networking, and Security certs is excellent knowledge to have. These certs also look great on a resume when looking for an InfoSec position in a company that has put all of its business eggs in Bezos' basket.

Mitechniq

I am actually studying to take this exam, for me it is crucial to understand networking in complex hybrid cloud environments. You will find most large companies have a Direct Connect or VPN back to on-premise for enterprise connections like Active Directory/DHCP. Knowing how to connect multi-regions through VPC's or designing back up connections I think is worth it for a network engineer or architect.

JDMurray

Also consider very large enterprises with multiple, regional/global, on-prem data centers that are being shrunk by moving their apps and data into AWS. How do the feature in AWS help solve the problems encountered in these sort of resource migrations? Good stuff to know.

CE1028

thanks for the responses. At my company, we are not using AWS at all. Not sure if that should stop me, but it does make more difficult.

stlsmoore

Thanks all for the info, we're slowly implementing AWS into our environment (Hybrid). Anyone have good reading/video resources for the Networking specialty exams? I'm not sure if I even need to go that in-depth yet with the VPC networks I need to build out but would rather start now than playing catch up later.

zemma

Actually Cloud or DevOps has two sides to it. It is for Infrastructure or Operations staff as well as Development staff. So it doesn't lean towards or favour just developers. It's the new normal