If you have decided to go for AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification this post is for you.
If you are an absolute beginner you can start with free labs from AWS . To practice further you can create free AWS account. These two actions will get you started on AWS.
Beware that if you go beyond free tier limits you will be billed. Best practice is to create a billing alert. This alert can save you from unexpected bill shockers.
To further hone your skills you can either go for AWS classroom training or go for online courses. The classroom training will cost you from USD 800 to USD 2000. While the online courses can cost you from USD 10 to USD 300, depending on which course you choose.
Our personal opinion is that you should go for online courses as they are cheaper and if you follow their labs honestly they can be as good as classroom training.
In online courses we recommend two providers acloudguru and Linux Academy. Both have monthly plans to buy the courses but they can become bit costly if you can’t complete the course in 1 month.
We have observed that acloudguru also provide the same course on Udemy where you get lifetime access to course with just one time payment. Also, Udemy provide heavy discounts on courses during sale which can get you a good bargain.
Thus, we recommend this AWS Certified Developer – Associate course of acloudguru on Udemy . Also, once you buy this course on Udemy you will get access of the same course on acloudguru website also.
The acloudguru course instructor Ryan is an industry expert and deliver the course really well. The course will cover almost all the main topics which are asked in exam. (Though we have observed that as of Apr-18 it was missing a session on AWS lambda for which the questions have started appearing in exam. Hope they update the course soon.) Currently you can learn about lambda from Ryan’s other course on AWS Lambda .
It’s a good idea to follow all the labs with the instructor and once you get confidence redo the labs independently. Don’t forget to complete the practice quizzes to check your knowledge.
This course will give you good base for the exam. But, the course itself is not enough to clear the exam. You should go through whitepapers and FAQs of atleast below service .
- EC2
- S3
- SQS
- RDS
- DynamoDB
- Lambda
Exam has Multiple-choice and multiple-answer questions. Exam is of 80 minutes.
Practice Exam Questions
To get a good evaluation of your preparation you can go through another course of acloudguru sample exam questions on Udemy . Many test takers have said that they got similar questions in exam.
Exam Cost
Exam will cost you USD 150. AWS also gives you an option to book a practice exam for USD 20 before you go for actual exam.
How to book exam
To book an exam you will have to create an account in AWS Training and Certification Portal .
Passing score
AWS doesn’t reveal minimum passing score and it keeps on changing. But we have observed that generally people who score above 80% passed the exam. You will immediately see the score on you screen once you finish the test and will also get a report on your mail within 1 hour.
Exam Tips
- Get good sleep and keep calm during the exam.
- You won’t get more than 3 mins per question.
- You may find some very long questions in exam. Best strategy to tackle them is to read the answer options first and than check for relevant info in question.
- Since it’s an AWS exam so look for AWS related options in the answers. Chances are high that Non-AWS related option in answer will be wrong.
- AWS exams generally don’t focus on mugging their datasheets. So you won’t get a question like “How much RAM does a C3.xlarge offer?” .
Do let us know in comments section if you have any query.