There are 12 AWS Certifications offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). These certifications are classified according to the role and experience level. If you are planning to prepare for the AWS certification, then the first and most important step is to understand all the certifications and find out which certifications are most suitable for your career.
There are four categories of AWS certifications, foundational, associate, professional and specialty. There are multiple certifications under each category. We are going to start learning about each certification in detail in this blog post.
AWS Certification Levels are classified into four levels:
1) Foundation
2) Associate
3) Professional
4) Specialty
These are for various positions such as developer, architect, admin, and others with specialties like big data, security and networking. So, you can make a choice for the right AWS certification according to your career and the experience level.
Here is the list of 12 AWS Certifications that are grouped under each level. In the subsequent sections, we will read more details about each category and how you should choose a learning path that’s suitable for your career.
Foundational Level:
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Associate Level:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
Professional Level:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
Specialization Level:
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty
- AWS Certified Security – Specialty
- AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty
- AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty
- AWS Certified Database – Specialty
We will be discussing below the 12 AWS Certifications are:
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C01)
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C01)
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02)
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional (DOP-C01)
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C01)
- AWS Certified Security – Specialty (SCS-C01)
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty (ANS-C01)
- AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty (MLS-C01)
- AWS Certified Database – Specialty (DBS-C01)
- AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty (DAS-C01)
- AWS Certified SAP on AWS – Specialty (PAS-C01)
1. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner- Foundational (CLF-C01):
This is the entry level certification offered by AWS. The AWS Cloud Practitioner exam certification gives you a high-level introduction to AWS. It doesn’t go deep on any particular services. Instead, it provides a general overview of how AWS is structured.
We recommend our AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner course as the best place to start for anyone who’s new to cloud computing. This will help you build the, er, foundation you’ll need as you delve deeper into the inner workings of AWS.
Knowledge-based certification for foundational understanding of AWS Cloud.
No prior experience needed.
2. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03):
This Amazon Web Services Certification is designed for candidates who have some experience in building and deploying applications in the AWS cloud. To earn this certification, candidates will be expected to demonstrate their ability to design, manage, and deploy applications.
AWS Solutions Architect is the one who has the knowledge of how to design and deploy secure, scalable, robust, and cost-effective applications on AWS. This is the most important and valuable certification that is present in the industry as of now. If you are a beginner in the cloud, you can take this certification just after passing your cloud practitioner certification. There are 2 Amazon Web Services Certifications for the AWS Solutions Architect role – one is the Associate level and another one is Professional level.
There are no prerequisites for this certification. This exam mostly focused on how to design solutions using AWS architecture principles.
This exam validates all your skills required to work on AWS infrastructure, that’s the reason this certification is most popular among the AWS engineers. The following core services are tested heavily in this exam:
- Identity and access management (IAM)
- Simple Storage Service (S3)
- Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
3. AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C01):
The AWS Developer Associate validates the candidate’s ability to develop and maintain applications built on the AWS platform. The candidates must have basic coding skills. Moreover, this certification validates a candidate’s understanding of AWS SDK, and how it can be used to interact with various AWS services.
Skills validated in the exam:
- The basic architecture of AWS
- Uses of AWS
- Significant services of AWS
- Application design, development, deployment, and maintenance
- Use of AWS to debug applications built on the cloud
4. AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02):
This AWS certification roadmap will qualify you to become a System Administrator interacting with the AWS cloud. The AWS SysOps certification validates the ability to deploy, manage, and operate system resources in the AWS cloud. Candidates must have a sound understanding of how to manage systems for fault tolerance and high availability.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Deploying, monitoring, and operating fault-tolerant, scalable, and highly available systems on AWS
- Implementing and controlling the data flow from and to AWS
- Selecting the correct AWS services as per the data, security, and compute requirements
- AWS operational best practices and their use
- Identifying the operational cost control mechanisms and usage cost of AWS
- Migrating workloads from the premises to AWS
5. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (DOP-C01):
Since this is a professional-level certification, you need a lot of knowledge and experience in order to clear this exam as compared to the Associate-level certification exams. The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification validates the ability of a candidate to use high-level skills and experience in designing AWS-based applications. The candidates are also expected to make architectural recommendations for implementing and deploying applications on AWS.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Designing and deploying fault-tolerant, reliable, highly-available, and dynamically scalable applications on the AWS platform
- Selecting the correct AWS service in order to design, build, and deploy applications as per the requirements
- Migrating multi-tier and complex apps on AWS
- Designing scalable AWS operations company-wide and deploying them
- Implementing strategies to control cost
6. AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional (SAP-C01):
This is a professional-level certification for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer. The AWS DevOps certification validates a sound knowledge of the process of automation and the DevOps stage of continuous delivery which is one of the cornerstones of the AWS DevOps implementation in any organization.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Implementing and managing continuous delivery methods and systems on AWS
- Implementing and automating governance processes, security controls, and compliance validation
- Defining and deploying systems on AWS to monitor and log
- Implementing scalable and highly available systems on AWS
- Designing and managing tools for the automation of several operational processes
7. AWS Certified Security – Specialty (SCS-C01):
The AWS Security certification validates your knowledge in the field of security with respect to the security aspects, such as data encryption, protection, how to secure the infras0tructure, responding to security threats, managing identity and access, and how to monitor and log AWS services, etc., among other skills.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Understanding of the AWS mechanisms for data protection and specialized data classifications
- Knowledge of data encryption techniques and the respective AWS mechanisms required to implement them
- Understanding of the mechanisms in AWS to secure internet protocols
- Implementing AWS security services, along with their features to build a secure environment for production.
- Making decisions to a tradeoff with respect to security, cost, and deployment complexity based on the requirements.
- Knowledge of security risks and operations
8. AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty (ANS-C01):
The AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty certification was last updated in July 2022 and is designed to validate a candidate’s skills and experience in connection with performing complex networking tasks on AWS and hybrid IT networking architecture at scale. Candidates should have a background in architecting and implementing network solutions and advanced knowledge of networking on AWS.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Designing, developing, and deploying cloud solutions with AWS
- Implementing core services according to architectural best practices
- Automation for AWS tasks for network deployments
- Security and compliance design and implementation
- Network optimization and troubleshooting
9. AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty (MLS-C01):
The AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty certification validates your ability to create, implement, and maintain machine learning solutions for a range of business problems. This exam is for anyone who performs a development or data science role. Candidates should have one to two years of experience using ML and/or deep learning on the AWS Cloud.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Choosing and defending the best ML approach for a given business problem
- Identifying the relevant AWS solutions to create and deploy your ML solution
- Designing and implementing cost-optimized, scalable, reliable, and secure ML solutions
10. AWS Certified Database – Specialty (DBS-C01):
The AWS Certified Database – Specialty certification validates that you have an overall comprehension of all the AWS database services offered, as well as how to bring value to your business through optimized database integration and architecting. This exam is for anyone who works closely with databases and implements DB solutions. Candidates should at least two years of experience working with both AWS Cloud-based and on-premises relational and NoSQL databases.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Database Design
- Deployment and Migration
- Management and Operations
- Monitoring and Troubleshooting
- Security
11. AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty (DAS-C01):
The AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty certification is for those with a background in data analytics and experience using AWS services for designing and architecting big data solutions. It is designed to validate a candidate’s experience in extracting value from data using AWS services.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Architecting best practices for implementing core AWS big data services
- Designing, maintaining, and visualizing data
- AWS tools for automating data analysis
- Security best practices for data analytics solutions
- AWS services covered include: Kinesis, Athena, Quicksight, and Rekognition
12. AWS Certified SAP on AWS – Specialty (PAS-C01):
The newest AWS specialty certification is the AWS Certified SAP on AWS – Specialty, which was released in April 2022. This exam has been designed for individuals wanting to demonstrate critical knowledge related to SAP solutions and workloads running in the AWS Cloud.
Skills validated in the exam:
- Designing an SAP solution that runs in the AWS Cloud in adherence with the AWS Well-Architected Framework as well as SAP certification and support requirements
- Implementing new SAP workloads on AWS
- Migrating existing SAP workloads to AWS
- Operating SAP workloads on AWS
How much does it cost to get AWS certified?
The prices of the exams are different based on the level of the certification:
Practitioner = $100
Associate = $150
Professional = $300
Specialty = $300
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