My Journey to AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Professional
It all started with my interview with Amazon Web Services for the role of a Solution Architect where I was almost there and reached until the last stage of the round. AWS calls it a ‘Loop-Interview’ stage. Where some of the best industry innovators will drill you down on your technical skills face to face.
Although I did not qualified for the position but in the end, I realized a few things, like I was not very confident in answering some of the questions during the interview. However, I was conceptually right on the scenario, but proficiency was missing.
Before this, the Year 2017 is when I had successfully excelled the associate level certification. From then to now there was almost a gap of 1.5year, which I should have applied it earlier as learning.
Back in the Year 2018 (Just a few months from now), when I had realized my shortcoming from the excellent interview experienced which has advanced me with the challenge to upskills your Architecting Cloud Skills at a proficient level is how AWS Certified Solution Architect — Professional certification journey has stated.
“Clearing just a certification will not truly help you in getting a job or qualified as a Solution Architect.” However, it is always recommended to go through the certifications preparations, which help you to deep dive the concepts at length on which you may not have the hands-on experience.
Preparing For the Exam
I started my professional level preparation 3months back where two things were in my mind, one that I need to excel my proficiency level of Architecting AWS Cloud Computing and another where my associate level certification is approaching towards an expiry. I quickly created a short course plan for myself, which has a list of resources I need to follow for my preparations and commitment to myself of the contribution of few learning hours every day and over the weekends for next three months.
Resources, which I used for my Preparation
I initially started watching some of the videos available on YouTube and started following a playlist “This is My Architecture” from AWS.
• This is My Architecture — This is an excellent free available resource on YouTube, which enables to understand some of the best architectures running on AWS. It also helped me to be more focused on my learning curve to understand thoroughly all required deep concepts and industry trends.
• ReInvent Videos — Reinvent videos are indeed a fantastic experience to watch again and again which gives so much insightful information along with keeping your motivational level and interest always green. Reinvent videos will cover every single topic in depth and with hands-on demos and discussing some of the real-life scenarios and business challenges.
• Linux Academy — covers every important area in depth, the material helped me to understand the topics rather than just memorizing them. Post every video and topic you get an opportunity to get your hands on some of the real world scenarios.
• A Cloud Guru — Though from a lot of discussions I have read that their course material is excellent. But for my preparation, I trusted Linux Academy and had joined A Cloud Guru free discussion forums where people are sharing latest reviews on the exam, practice questions where you have doubts, etc. that was fun and for me a much-wanted motivation level.
• Linkedin Community — Follow some of the high rated HashTags (#) like #CloudComputing, #AWS, #Certification, etc. this will help you to stay connected with the community and review all possible post where people do share exam experience along with resources they have used for there preparations.
• Podcast — Follow some of the free available podcast from Amazon covering all essential services with the in-depth dive sessions.
• White Papers — one cannot go without going through all the White Papers. AWS white papers are a great set of available resource, which assists you to follow best practices and answers all your doubts. By going through them thoroughly, you will understand what your week points are and what the areas of the improvements are. The List of White papers recommended reading before appearing in the exams are
o Overview of Amazon Web Services
o AWS Storage Services Overview
o AWS Security Best Practices
o Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
o How AWS Pricing Works
o Cost Management in the AWS Cloud
o AWS Storage Optimization
o Introduction to AWS Security
o Introduction to AWS Security Processes
o AWS Security Best Practices
o AWS: Overview of Security Processes
o AWS Migration Whitepaper
o Backup and Recovery Approaches Using AWS
o AWS Storage Gateway
o Using AWS for Disaster Recovery
o AWS Best Practices for DDoS Resiliency
• FAQs — AWS Faqs are again a great tool, which helped me to answer most of the doubts I have in my mind. I would highly recommend reading all the FAQs for AWS essential services such as EC2, S3, SNS, EBS, VPC, etc. This list I followed for the FAQs are as below:
o Amazon EC2 FAQ
o Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling FAQ
o AWS Elastic Beanstalk FAQ
o Elastic Load Balancing FAQ
o Amazon S3 FAQ
o Amazon EBS FAQ
o Amazon EFS FAQ
o Amazon Glacier FAQ
o AWS Storage Gateway FAQ
o Amazon RDS FAQ
o Amazon DynamoDB FAQ
o Amazon Redshift FAQ
o Amazon VPC FAQ
o Amazon CloudFront FAQ
o Amazon Route 53 FAQ
o AWS CloudFormation FAQ
o AWS Data Pipeline FAQ
o AWS Data Pipeline FAQ
o Amazon SQS FAQ
o Amazon SWF FAQ
o Amazon Elasticsearch Service FAQ
Practice Exam
Not sure but many of us may not be aware that in case if you have an AWS Solution Architect — Associate level certification, you can claim your Practice Exam for Professional Level which cost $40 at free. Before two weeks of my scheduled day, I planned my practice exam, which was extremely hard with very long questions and complex or hidden terminologies used. I Score just 55% on my single attempt available with me. It has resulted in me into losing my motivational level. However, I started exploring the discussion forum of A Cloud Guru, and most of the successful people did mention about the practice exam as not updated from AWS side for a very long time and may not stand accurately with the results. It gives me some level of happy breath in the end.
• WhizLab — Whizlab have some of the excellent experience tool, which makes you familiar with the exam pattern and creates a similar model for you with a timer clock, pause, resume, etc. It has helped me a lot especially when you end your exam, and you get the opportunity to review your incorrect answers with excessive explanation. Explanations are so good that I am profoundly convinced why I selected wrong and why the following option is correct. Moreover, with my free AWS account, I indeed replicated most of the scenario’s to understand the correct answer and get myself convinced rightly.
Exam Day tips
On the Exam day, do not stretch or get exhausted during the one day before and ensure you take a deep sleep. You are already through with the preparation, and now it is time to have trust and your confidence level up. The exam will have 77 questions with 170Minutes. It means you have approx. 2minutes and few seconds on each question. Most of the questions are 5–6 lines and scenario based. Just ensure you read them carefully and pick up the keywords like “Cost effective,” “High availability,” “Disaster Recovery” etc. The exam will be massive on topics such as AWS Direct Connect, VPC, VPN, Dynamo DB, Kennis, etc.
Once you are through with the question, do not jump on seeing the multiple options first. Go one by one and have a process of elimination in your mind. You need to start eliminating the possibilities, which are not correct as per the scenario question need, and you will have your answer by the end.
Flag all those questions where you are not very confident with an answer do not wait and stay on the same question. You will have an option where you can flag those questions and can review them later when you have time left.
Finally this Day
Today, I am delighted! Big day for me. A day that I should have planned much earlier from the time is finally here with great joy. I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam, a journey that I started about two years ago with an Associate level and now completing the professional degree. It leaves a great satisfaction and confidence level to achieve proficient level skills of Architecting AWS.
What’s Coming from AWS
By the end of February 2019, all current and future AWS Certifications will be valid for a period of 3 years, rather than two years. This means that the “Expired” date and “Last Day to Recertify” date will be the same in your AWS Certification Account.
“The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack which helps you to achieve your confidence.”
