How Can You Choose Best AWS Certification For Your Career?

Amazon Web Service certification or AWS certification validates the technical knowledge of the person giving the exam with an industry recognized credential. After having an AWS certification, the IT professional will be acknowledged to have the expertise to perform the following functions on AWS:

• Design
• Deploy
• Operate applications
• Manage infrastructures

AWS certifications are in demand because it gives recognition to the skills and knowledge that you have for working with the AWS services. Moreover, preparing for this elite exam will increase your knowledge base and expertise for working with AWS services.

What are the certifications which are offered by the Amazon?

There are three main types of certifications, which are offered by the Amazon. These are listed below:

• Associate Certifications
• Professional Certifications
• Specialty Certifications

All the certifications are necessary for one reason and another. It might be confusing for a first-time to know about the differences among these certifications and to have a clear view about the certification that they should be giving. The post discusses all the three certifications in detail and will let you know about the best AWS certification for your career.

Associate Certifications By Amazon

Associate Certifications offered by Amazon is of further three types:

Solutions Architect Associate

Solution Architect Associate certification is useful for the individual who has already designed and distributed systems and applications on the AWS platform. You can opt for this exam if you have knowledge about:

• Deploying and creating highly available, scalable, and fault tolerants systems on Amazon Web Services
• Ingress and egress of data in AWS
• Selecting the suitable AWS service on the basis of database, compute, and data & security requirements
• Estimating AWS costs
• Identifying cost control mechanisms

Developer Associate

This certification acknowledges the technological knowledge that the candidate has for both developing and maintaining a different kind of application on AWS platform. You can opt for this exam if you have the knowledge about:

• Picking the correct AWS service for the application
• Leveraging AWS SDKs for interacting with the AWS service from the application that you have developed
• Writing codes to optimize the AWS services, which are used by your application
• Code-level application security

Apart from that, the candidate should know about developing on AWS.

SysOps Administrator:

SysOps Administrator certification validates technical expertise on the AWS platform for:

• Deployment
• Management
• Operations

The following concepts should be clear before appearing in the exam:

• Managing, deploying, and operating highly available, scalable and fault tolerant system on AWS.
• Implementing the flow of data in AWS
• Controlling the flow of data in AWS
• Selecting the appropriate AWS service on the basis of computing, data, and security requirements
• Proper use of AWS operation practices
• Estimating usage cost of AWS
• Identifying operational cost control mechanisms

The candidate is expected to have knowledge about System Operation on AWS.

Professional Certifications By Amazon

Associate Professional Certifications offered by Amazon is of two types:

Solutions Architect Professional

To appear for the exam you should have the badge of AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Associate. It is only after fulfilling this eligibility criterion you can appear for an exam to earn the Solutions Architect Professional certification. If you want to validate the technical expertise that you have for designing distributed applications and system on AWS platform, then you should go for this certification. But before that, make sure you know the following:

• How to design and deploy highly available, scalable, reliable and fault tolerant application on AWS
• Information to select appropriate AWS service to design and develop an application on the basis of requirement, which can be deployed later
• Migrating complex on AWS
• Designing enterprise-wide scalable operations on AWS
• Implementing cost control strategies

The candidate should also have the capability to provide the best solution for architectural design across multiple enterprise, projects, and applications.

Developer Engineer Professional

You can try to have this certification only when you have either AWS Certified SysOps Administrator-Associate certification or AWS Certified Developer-Associate certification. Having a Developer Engineer Professional Certification will allow you to validate the technical expertise in application system on the AWS platform for the following things:

• Provisioning
• Operating
• Managing

Before taking an exam to earn the certification, make sure that you have a strong knowledge base to:

• Implement and manage methodologies and continuous delivery systems on AWS.
• Implement, understand, and automate governance processes, security controls, and compliance validation.
• Define monitoring, metrics, and logging systems on AWS.
• Implement systems that are highly available and scalable on the AWS platform.
• Design, manage and maintain the necessary tools to automate operational processes.

The person who wants to have this certification should possess a full understanding of the agile and other development processes and methodologies.

Specialty Certifications By Amazon

The specialty certification which is offered by Amazon is of three types:

Advanced Networking Specialty

For grabbing the Advanced Networking certification, you should have one of the following certifications:

• AWS Certified Solution Architect-Associate
• AWS Certified Developer-Associate
• AWS Certified SysOps Administrator- Associate

Only after having one of the levels mentioned above, the certification can be attained to validate your advanced technical experiences and skills in designing and implementing hybrid IT network architectures. If you can do complex networking, then you should go for this certification to move ahead in your career. Also, check whether you have the following abilities:

• You can design cloud-based solutions using AWS, which can later be developed and deployed by you
• You know how to implement core AWS services
• You can design and maintain network architecture
• You can use leverage tools for performing AWS network tasks

Also, you should have a minimum of five years of experience to get this certification. Moreover, you need advanced knowledge of concepts and technologies of AWS networking.

Security Specialty

Again you should have a certification in one of the following AWS Certified Solution Architect-Associate, AWS Certified Developer-Associate, or AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate to get the certification of security Specialty. The certification in Security Specialty will validate that you have the exceptional experiences and technical skills, which can be used by you to design and implement AWS.

Big Data Specialty

Again the candidate should have five years of experience and the certifications, which are mentioned in the above two certifications, to get a certification in Big Data Specialty. Certification in Big Data Specialty validates that you have the necessary technical skills and experience in creating and implementing AWS services to derive value from data. If you can perform complex Big Data analysis, then this course will help you to climb the ladder of success. After receiving a Big Data Specialty certification, you will be validated to know the following things:

• Design and maintain big data
• Use leverage tools for data analysis
• Use AWS big data services according to the requirements

Which AWS certification you should you opt?

You now know that you can’t directly skip having the Associate Profession Certifications and the Specialty Certifications. If you have never taken an AWS certification, you have to start by grabbing the Associate Certification. The Associate Certification will indicate that you are an experienced AWS professional.

This certification doesn’t need any prior certification, and this is the first certification you should get if you want to have the Specialty Certifications, which will mark that you are an expert in AWS; therefore, your value in the IT industry will automatically increase. It is quite easy to pass the exam for Associate Certification, but reasonable efforts will be needed to pass the exam for Associate Professional Certification.

Once you have both the certification with a five-year on-hand experience, you can say that you are an expert in your field by having the Specialty Certification. The Advanced Network Specialty certification is the hardest to crack among the Specialty Certifications while the Big Data Specialty Certification is one of the most popular certification. The very first thing that you should do before taking the exam is whether you are eligible for it or not. Once, you know that you can climb the ladder of success by beginning at Association Certifications.

So, this is everything you should have known about AWS certification, its different types, and how you can choose the best AWS certification to boost your career. Based on the information provided above, now it is your turn to decide which certification is the best for you as per your current experience and expertise. We wish you all the best for your career ahead with the right selection of AWS certification.