Passed AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner on 25-Nov-22

E Double U

No more than 2 weeks of on & off study. Primary resources:

- Took a full day internal AWS training & went for the exam 3 hours after the training day ended.
- Internal AWS training material. Self-study of 1 full course which totaled 6 hours. Went through only the practice quizzes in another course.

After several years of networking, security, and cloud computing exposure (mostly Azure) I would say the material above was only to fill some gaps of knowing the names of the AWS services. 

Since training & exam vouchers are free, I will go for AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate next. 

JDMurray

Congratz! The ACCP is a good "first Cloud cert" and the ACSA is a much more in-depth study on the same material and more, making it a great follow-on cert.

E Double U

Agreed! I plan to jump right into the next one before work gets too busy. Plus I like to keep up the momentum. 

chickenlicken09

how much harder is the ACSA ?

JDMurray

Quite a bit because the material is much broader and deeper. More services to understand how they work and fit together. However, it's what you need if you will be working as an engineer or developer in an AWS environment. 

E Double U

I do not need to be hands on with AWS tech since I work in audit, but would like in-depth understanding of the services. It is recommended at my level since it is listed in my onboarding activities so here we go 

JDMurray

If I needed to go in-depth with AWS from a tech perspective, I would start out with IAM, because it's the largest service and it touches most other AWS services. From just an AWS user's perspective, I would start with billing and how everything money-wise works in AWS. It looks like AWS Audit Manager is a great thing to get to know too.

E Double U

I prefer following the structured approach of an exam syllabus for focus. Then afterwards going deeper into each service as needed when work requires it. 

scasc

Go for the Security speciality as it will help dive deeper into the security implication of services as well as tie together how things work together - e.g. Config can trigger CW event which would trigger Lambda to correct an anomaly or SCP violation etc etc. 

E Double U

@scasc - I will shoot for that after Solutions Architect because SA is actually assigned to me in my onboarding activities. First things first 

scasc

Sure thing. BTW - how have things been with your new role? With the redundancies flying about has it been unsettling? Also, is your role a client facing (Pro-serve) or internal? 

E Double U

All good within Security Assurance. We are having a hiring freeze at the moment, but no layoff talk *knock on wood* lol. 

The new role has been information overload. Doing more consumption of training, meeting people, and learning the culture than being hit with work. It is very fast paced, intense, but not overwhelming and very far from boring. Definitely enjoying it. 

My role is meant to focus on AWS customers and regulators/external auditors, but things change so rapidly we shall see. 

scasc

Sounds great - best of luck with it. I have an eye on the portal in the same team - Security Assurance - but saw recently that many roles were pulled from the site. We shall see how things look in the future. 

E Double U

Let's see what 2023 brings. Good luck!