AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

Claymoore · December 2014

I passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam this morning with an acceptable 77%. That's the first non-Microsoft exam I have taken in almost 7 years.

I was getting bored of the 2 week Office 365 migration engagements I've been delivering and looking to branch off into another area. I was trying to decide between Lync, Azure, or something else when my company signed a partnership with Amazon Web Services a few months ago. That came with some training and certification vouchers with the requirement that we have certified individuals by the end of the year. I was pushing for training and we needed people to certify, and it all came together last month.

Resources used:
AWS Partner Technical Assessment courses
3-day Global Knowledge AWS Associate training course.
Slides and notes from the course
The free AWS tier for some general familiarity
AWS Whitepapers
AWS Official Documentation - free on Kindle
CloudAcademy Subscription for the practice exam.

The Getting Started guides, followed by the User/Admin/Developer Guides for a deeper dive, were great resources - and free! I took the class a couple of weeks ago, reviewed the slides and referenced the guide books last week, the reviewed with CloudAcademy yesterday. The test was the typical multiple choice exam. I had plenty of time to complete and review some questions, but there were a few that I flat did not know.

I'm excited about AWS now and looking forward to deploying and migrating customers to AWS. Especially after the 96 hour, 12 hour on/12 hour off schedule, disaster recovery test at my client last week. The whole time I was thinking "If they would only put this in the cloud..."

srabiee · December 2014

Thanks for letting us know. I'm still wholly engaged in Microsoft certs, and soon to be VMware certs, so I haven't really given any AWS stuff much thought. Definitely worth a look into.

SixtyCycle · December 2014

The Getting Started guides and the User/Admin/Developer Guides, are these from the AWS website? I'm interested but my company is not a partner. What will be my best materials and how much study time do you suggest?

Claymoore · December 2014

Search the Kindle store on Amazon for AWS and you will find all the documentation. The Fundamental level labs at QwikLabs look very close to the labs we ran in the class. Most of the labs cost tokens, however the Introductory labs are free. Everyone also gets access to a free tier of AWS for the first 12 months to build familiarity.

My total time from starting to certifying was 6 weeks. I read the Getting Started and User Guides for about a month, spent 3 days in class, and then reviewed for a week before the exam.

SixtyCycle · December 2014

That was valuable information. Thanks for the help Claymoore.

Itrimble · December 2014

To anyone interested in pursuing this track, EDx is currently getting ready for a new class: The minimum for the verified certificate is $50
[h=2]Get $1000 of Amazon Web Services free when you earn a verified certificate
in Entrepreneurship 101 or Entrepreneurship 102 [/h]

Use your edX course experience and AWS to grow and quickly scale your business

Starting a company? Looking to scale a business? Want access to a global network of support and entrepreneurs?
Amazon Web Services provides businesses with low cost, easy to use infrastructure needed to scale and grow.
AWS Activate is designed to provide you the resources needed to get started on AWS. Join some of the fastest-growing startups in the world and build your business using AWS.
What do I get?

$1,000 in AWS credits valid for 2 years
Free access to the AWS Essentials: 1 day web-based or instructor-led training (normally ~$600/course), plus 8 tokens for self-paced labs (normally ~$30/lab)
One month of premium AWS Business Support
Free access to 1:1 virtual office hours with AWS solutions architects
Special offers from other companies that help startups, including Chef, Bitnami, Amazon Payments, SOASTA, Podio, CopperEgg and more

Am I Eligible?

Enroll in the verified track in Entrepreneurship 101 or Entrepreneurship 102
Receive a passing grade in the course.
The AWS offer is limited to one per person.

How does it work?

When you pass either Entrepreneurship 101 or 102 as a Verified student you will receive an email with a code that you can use on the AWS site.
Step 1: Sign up at AWS with the coupon code provided
Step 2: Fill out the form edX will email you with your student email address, name and AWS Account #
In approximately 3 weeks, AWS will confirm your eligibility and grant you access to your AWS credit

ENROLL IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101
ENROLL IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP 102
FAQ
If I already took 15.390.1x for a verified certificate, can I get $1,000 of credit on AWS?

We encourage you to enroll in 15.390.2x Entrepreneurship 102: What can you do for your customers? in the verified track to be eligible for the $1,000 credit. We are not retroactively allowing eligibility.

If we have a team account for AWS, how could we apply the $1,000 credit to a team account?

When you apply on AWS make sure to use your team’s Account #. Whatever Account # you provide to edX is the one that will be associated with the credit.

Can I transfer the $1,000 AWS to a teammate on a startup?

Unfortunately no. The credit is associated to the individual who completed the Verified Certificate in the Entrepreneurship course.

AWS has set up AWS China (Beijing) Region to improve accessibility in China. If I get an edX certificate for 15.390.1x or 15.390.2x, can I apply it to AWS China (Beijing) Region?

Contact AWS for details about China. More can be found on their FAQ page.

If I take the course on Edraak or Xuetang and get a verified certificate, can I get the $1,000 AWS credit?

The credit is only available to those who take the course on edx.org.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

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