AWS Certified Solutions Architect - anyone working in this area?

chickenlicken09

Anyone working in this space, is it interesting?

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and1play5

I am, in a startup...all AWS environment. Using a whole plethora of the tools, lots of monitoring too (DataDog, NewRelic). Boss wants us to get all 3 of the associate certs as well.

chickenlicken09

which is the best cert to start with? do you like it?

LeBroke

I don't have the cert, but thinking of getting it soon. My new job is basically 80-90% AWS (as in, I'm responsible for the company's up and coming AWS environments).

chickenlicken09

theres a few certs i believe - think the starting point is AWS certified solutions architect foundations exam.
correct me if im wrong.

DoubleNNs

Working w/ AWS (as an engineer) is interesting if you're interested in automation. It's more fun (in my opinion) if you use an API, config management tool, or some kind of command line tool or homegrown scripting. I don't think it's as great when you have to log into the web UI and click-click your way around tasks.

Not sure how being an AWS architect would work. That would probably depend on the company, size of the deployment, and complexity. I imagine it could be a technical role based more on design of the infrastructure, a more project management role, or someone who also gets their hands dirty and does some implementation.

and1play5

Def start at CSA then go the Dev route and then SysOps. Automation is def key, we use chef, puppet & jenkins. Re-upped my membership on LinuxAcademy & got a couple of lessons off of acloudguru. Lots and lots to learn but it's definitely fun

chickenlicken09

which cert is the dev route?

metalone4

I'm currently taking the "A Cloud Guru" class on Udemy for AWS Architect Associate. After I pass that exam, I'll probably go for SysOps Admin.

LeBroke

metalone4 wrote: »

I'm currently taking the "A Cloud Guru" class on Udemy for AWS Architect Associate. After I pass that exam, I'll probably go for SysOps Admin.

+1, taking the same class.

metalone4

LeBroke wrote: »

+1, taking the same class.

Right on, good choice. It's the best class I've taken on Udemy yet. It's really got everything; clear instruction/lectures, labs, quizzes, etc. I'm so glad this course caught my eye, and at the sale price that Udemy offers, it's a steal.

As a newcomer to AWS, I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into, but I've discovered that cloud technology/virtualization in general really interests me. I don't find the material dry at all...which can't be said for most IT courses. Being that it's relatively new, fast growing, and revolutionary is pretty exciting. The fact that Amazon offers a fully-functional, free environment to learn on is icing on the cake.

techfiend

I haven't taken the test yet but I'm not sure acloudguru has prepared me very well, it's fairly technical while another well reviewed practice test is a lot more about maximums and costs. I'm now reading, slowly, AWS in action and it's much more in line with the aforementioned practice tests and covers cloud formation, also in the other practice test, which acg doesn't cover.

I'm waiting to see if the test leans more towards one practice test than the other before taking it. I'm kind of concerned it's a little too early to learn AWS since it's moving along more like an alpha than a stable service. The stable product will likely be much different than what we learn now.

I eventually plan on passing architect, developer and sysops this year. It'll be a lot easier once I'm working with it every day at work. I have a feeling the developer test will have some of the most important knowledge for the practical world. There's something to be said about json scripting a whole smallish infrastructure in less than an hour and roll it out in seconds, with the ability to clone or delete in one-click as well. I can see that being one of, if not the most, in demand skills. Working smarter, not harder. The scripts are pretty comparable to xml and not very cryptic at all although the aws paths and ids can get a bit out of hand.

metalone4

After the acloudguru course I'll be doing a lot of practice tests. I always do that, but now that you mention that it's not the best exam prep, even more of a reason.

The main reason I want at least one AWS cert on my resume is to show that I'm interested in, and educating myself for, cutting-edge technology. I don't even intend on applying for AWS jobs just yet, but hopefully the fact that I've been expanding my skill-set, preparing for future tech will look good to potential employers.

techfiend

I don't know for sure if it's a good prep. Reviews would say it is but there's a lot of barely passing scores posted. Ryan seems to put in a lot of effort trying to keep up to date and giving you only the knowledge you need to pass which is really towing a line considering how fast AWS is changing. I have a feeling cloud formation basics are going to be all over the test because it's a very powerful service and ACG doesn't touch it. I really don't regret the $10 I spent on it and his 2 other AWS courses. I just feel I need more.

I'm not a very good learner from video and I really struggled doing the two biggest projects in ACG, VPC and wordpress, after 3 tries I decided to move on. Meanwhile I've rolled out an HA wordpress site and scripted a small infrastructure while reading AWS for Action on the first try. I'll likely give one more valiant attempt to the two biggest ACG projects before testing, I don't like failing when I know it's possible to succeed by following instructions.

LeBroke

The main reason I'm doing A Cloud Guru is that I'm currently intensively working with AWS, there's consultants making us implement stuff at a fairly rapid pace, and I'd like to be a lot more familiar with AWS than I currently am.

The fact that it was $20 with a coupon and I can take a cert exam at some point later is just icing on the cake.

chickenlicken09

cbt nuggets might be better for this course.

Claymoore

As I said in a different thread, the CBT Nuggets course is 3+ years old and AWS has released 1500 new features or updates in that time. The study guide I put together is almost all 2015 or 2014 docs and videos.

Qwiklabs has free introductory labs. The SA lab tracks cost about $70, though
https://qwiklabs.com/lab_catalogue

I wouldn't worry too much about CloudFormation in the SA - Associate exam. I passed the exam over a year ago and I didn't start using CloudFormation until a couple of months ago when I started an internal project that required complete automation. You need to know some CF for the Pro exam and the SysOp Associate, but don't expect the questions to quiz you on JSON formatting mistakes. Know what the service is, when to use it and how to administer it, just not necessarily how to write a template.

I am transitioning into an AWS consulting role (MS consulting still pays the bills for me and my employer) and look forward to the time I can focus on AWS. Right now it's a lot of pre-sales, designs and proposals, followed by a POC or assessment. The implementations I have done are generally as part of a larger project. Our customers are using it more, which is why we started supporting AWS.

chickenlicken09

do you have a link to your study guide? was the exam hard?

Claymoore

Here is the introduction to my CSA-Pro Study Guide. You can use it for the Associate if you skip some of the deep dive and masterclasses. There is more information in the Cloud Certifications forum.

I didn't find the test difficult, especially considering it was something new on which I had little experience. Here is my summary from the AWS CSA - Associate exam. The practice exam for the CSA - Pro was at an entire other level. The Pro won't be easy.

metalone4

Claymoore wrote: »

Here is the introduction to my CSA-Pro Study Guide. You can use it for the Associate if you skip some of the deep dive and masterclasses. There is more information in the Cloud Certifications forum.

I didn't find the test difficult, especially considering it was something new on which I had little experience. Here is my summary from the AWS CSA - Associate exam. The practice exam for the CSA - Pro was at an entire other level. The Pro won't be easy.

THANK YOU!! Most helpful.

chickenlicken09

where can i book the exam? do they have to be done through amazon?

Claymoore

The exams are proctored by Kryterion. There is a link to schedule the exam on each exam homepage or you can go to the Kryterion page. You can probably take the exam at the same place where you take other Prometric or Pearson exams.

chickenlicken09

Great thanks, are there good contractong opportunities in AWS? is there money to be made in this area? if not will there be in the future?

Magmadragoon

I am currently working on this certification. The resources I used for it are linux academy and Acloudguru. The cbt nuggets materials were horrible for this subject.

DoubleNNs

techfiend wrote: »

I'm kind of concerned it's a little too early to learn AWS since it's moving along more like an alpha than a stable service. The stable product will likely be much different than what we learn now.

I disagree. AWS is already a stable product. The velocity of their updates and innovation is the driving force behind the DevOps movement. If you look at the other major cloud providers, they're moving just as fast -- or at least trying to.

I don't see AWS slowing down in the near future. And because of that, now is the best time to learn it.
But if you want to work in administering the cloud, you'll have to do more to keep up with the technology after passing the exam than you would with other technologies.

Magmadragoon

DoubleNNs wrote: »

I don't see AWS slowing down in the near future. And because of that, now is the best time to learn it.
But if you want to work in administering the cloud, you'll have to do more to keep up with the technology after passing the exam than you would with other technologies.

I agree just the past few months AWS has launched Managed NAT Gateways, AWS Certificate Manager, and T2.nano instances. So you will have to constantly learn about the tools being released in the environment. This is probably the reason why the certification only last for two years before having to renew it.

techfiend

EFS is in preview right now, that'll render EBS mostly useless but we're being taught about it. Due to this I'm leaning towards moving on to something else for a few months.

DoubleNNs

Nonsense. EFS is more expensive than EBS w/ lower performance. Additionally, being able to mount some types of data in multiple places could possibly be viewed as a security vulnerability, especially if certain audit trails aren't in place.

Additionally, although EFS is in preview, it is only available in US West (Oregon). If you're using AWS today you're not using EFS.
EFS will most likely be an amazing service, but not only is it not even currently possible for a large amount of people to use it, it probably won't be the best choice for a majority of use cases.

MS Server 2016 is in preview yet people are still working on and learning Server 2008. Server 2005 still has 3 more months before EOL. As an IT professional, I don't think you gain much by being resistant to the changes that occur in technology. And the major theme in the field at the moment is figuring out how to innovate and release at an even faster pace.

DoubleNNs

To be completely honest, I think the likes of Docker+ECS, Lambda, and scheduled EC2 instances are going to be more frightening to keep up with than EFS vs EBS.

techfiend

I see EFS is more expensive per GB but it's pay per data instead of pay per provision like EBS, so EFS could be (much) cheaper or more expensive depending on how you use it. I don't know about performance but I've read that EBS is a lot slower than EC2 and Instance and the most expensive. I came to my conclusion based on what's written in the AWS in Action book:

Amazon Elastic File System is coming
AWS is working on a service called Amazon Elastic File System (EFS). EFS is a distrib-
uted file system service based on the Network File System version 4 (NFSv4) proto-
col. As soon as EFS is available, you should choose it if you need to share block-level
storage between multiple servers. Find out if EFS is available in the meantime by vis-
iting AWS | Amazon EFS - Cloud File Storage.

In their defense they did go on to explain NFSv4 and EFS but no labs.

I have no issue resisting changes. I just don't like studying something that's opposite in the practical world. Microsoft is a good example of making drastic changes but I can't think of anything you'd do in 2008 that you'd do the opposite in 2012. I foresee this happening in AWS and I'm just getting started.

There really is all sorts of variables in AWS another thing off the top of my head is in the practical world do you start with EC2 provisioning like AGC or create CloudFormation stacks like AWS in Action? The latter looks a lot easier to manage but one click can take down an infrastructure.

Another is Aurora is likely the MySQL variant of choice but neither ACG or AWS in Action teach it. They both teach MySQL instead.

LeBroke

If you can provision IOPS for EFS, it doesn't matter if it'll be more expensive than EBS. It'll be insanely powerful for certain use cases, and a very compelling argument to a lot of companies using traditional SAN solutions like NetApp. Now, I wouldn't put mission critical production in there any time soon, but it's certainly great for an auto-scaling DR environment, for example.

Individual servers are probably still better with EBS.

I can also see EFS very useful if you have multiple nodes running the same (fairly small, RAM contained) app, for example. You no longer need to clone it 50 times and launch 50 nodes, you just need to launch 50 nodes that all point to the central EFS mount. Really good for up-down scaling infrastructure.

Lack of a proper NFS SAN solution in AWS was one of its main drawbacks for a long time.