As cloud computing has exploded in use and popularity, so has the demand for employees that have a sound understanding of how it works and its key aspects. AWS has long been a leader in cloud and is the most synonymous platform with it. The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CCP) was designed for individuals to show they have a broad understanding of AWS, its key services, and how to operate within its environment and tools.

Why Get Certified?

Obtaining a certification that is widely known and respected demonstrates to employers that you have a certain level of understanding and education about the material it encompasses. With cloud computing growing so rapidly, many jobs will look for employees with an understanding and familiarity with AWS, and the CCP is an excellent way to independently show that you have this. The AWS CCP will serve individuals that work in IT, but also those outside of IT that want to demonstrate that they understand AWS and can offer value to themselves, their employers, prospective clients, and others through this knowledge. The AWS CCP servers as a first AWS certification that can start you on your path to more advanced and specialized certifications offered on the AWS platform.

How to Get Certified

As a first certification for the AWS platform, the AWS CCP does not have required work-experience time as a prerequisite, though it is highly recommended that you have six months of experience working with AWS in some capacity. This can range from IT professionals to students, business professionals, project managers, marketing specialists, and even legal professionals. Candidates should also have a basic understanding of IT and IT services in order to relate these concepts to the AWS Cloud environment.

In order to successfully pass the AWS CCP exam, a candidate will be expected to demonstrate the following:

•   Explain the value of AWS Cloud services

•   Understand and be able to explain the AWS Shared Responsibility Model and how it would apply to their business or job

•   Understand and be able to explain security best practices for AWS accounts and management consoles

•   Understand how pricing, costs, and budgets are done within AWS, including the tools that AWS provides for monitoring and tracking them

•   Be able to describe the core and popular AWS service offerings across the major areas of network, compute, storage, databases, and development

•   Be able to recommend and justify which AWS core services would apply to real-world scenarios

The AWS CCP exam consists of 65 questions with a 90-minute exam time limit. The current cost of the exam is $100 USD.

The following information applies to the exam content:

•   The exam consists of two types of questions:

•   Multiple choice: Each question has four possible answers, only one of which is correct.

•   Multiple response: Each question has five or more possible answers, two or more of which are correct.

•   Unscored content

•   Some questions are included for trial or research purposes that are not scored as part of your examination.

•   You will not know which questions fall into this category.

•   Any unanswered question is scored by the exam as incorrect.

Once you have completed the exam, you will be given your results based upon a scoring of 100 to 1,000. You need a score of 700 to pass.

You will also receive a report that breaks down your performance on each section of the exam, so you can see which areas you were strongest in and which need improvement. However, the overall exam is based on a pass/fail determination. You do not need to perform to a certain level in each section—only overall do you need to reach a passing score. The number of questions from each section will generally follow the weighted distribution of content for the exam, so you will get more questions from some sections and fewer than others to reflect this.

AWS CCP Domains

The AWS CCP is divided into four different domains. The distribution of those domains and their weight of the overall exam content are shown in the following table.

Domain 1: Cloud Concepts

Domain 1 will introduce you to the AWS and the value it can bring to your organization. Before you attempt to sell your stakeholders on the value AWS can bring to your organization, you need to have a full understanding of what AWS is, the value it offers, how it is structured and designed, and how it differs from the traditional data center model. This chapter will give you a sound basis and show you how to get started with using AWS from the ground up by giving you an understanding of cloud concepts.

Domain 2: Security and Compliance

Domain 2 focuses on how security is a primary focus for AWS across all services and one of the most prominent benefits of using a cloud provider. AWS can implement extremely robust security through economies of scale that can far exceed what any organization could have the finances and experience to implement on their own. This domain will introduce you to the Shared Responsibility Model that cloud providers employ, as well as the key concepts used with cloud security. We will cover the specific implementations of these concepts by AWS and the resources available to users for security support.

Domain 3: Technology

Domain 3 covers the technical aspects of the AWS Cloud. This includes the tools and utilities to get users up and running in AWS, as well as code development. The core AWS services are highlighted, along with their key features and how they can improve the on-premises hosting and operating models that most companies already use. Many support options are available for AWS technical aspects, including support plans, documentation, and user forums.

Domain 4: Billing and Pricing

Domain 4 covers the many different pricing models that AWs offers across all of their services, focusing on the unifying fact that costs are only incurred for resources that are provisioned and only while they are being used. With the complexity of services and all the possible cost points, AWS provides management tools to estimate, plan, and track usage of both services and budgets to allow users to stay on top of their costs. This includes both the AWS Free Tier and paid services.

Chapter Review

This first chapter covered the value in obtaining the AWS CCP certification, as well as the steps required to earn it. We covered the details of the exam, the distribution of material on it, and the types of questions that are used. We also covered the requirements to pass the AWS CCP exam and how the scores are broken down. Lastly, we covered a brief introduction of each domain of the AWS CCP.