How you can start your AWS Certifications journey for free 📚
Tags: aws, career, beginners
Published: 2020-06-24 15:11:25

*First of all, I would like say a huge thanks to @andrewbrown for providing his courses and resources to the Cloud community.*

(⚠ You would still have to pay for the certification fee.)


## Where should you start? 🤩

**AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner**
So the Cloud Practitioner is the fundamental and entry level certificate for AWS, it covers the principles of cloud computing and introduction to the fleet of cloud services AWS provides.
In AWS's own words "The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner examination is intended for individuals who have the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively demonstrate an overall understanding of the AWS Cloud, independent of specific technical roles addressed by other AWS Certifications."
Also, here is the official [exam guide](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-cloud-practitioner/AWS-Certified-Cloud-Practitioner_Exam-Guide.pdf)
There are some free resources, and you can totally rely on them.
- Course : [Exampro's Cloud Practitioner course](https://youtu.be/3hLmDS179YE)
- Cheat Sheets : 
  - [TutorialDojo](https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-cheat-sheets/)
  - [Digital Cloud Training](https://digitalcloud.training/certification-training/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner/)
  - [My Personal notes](https://rishabkumar7.github.io/CloudNotes/)
- AWS Whitepapers : 
  - [Overview of Amazon Web Services](https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws-overview.pdf0)
  - [How AWS Pricing Works](http://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws_pricing_overview.pdf)
  - [Compare AWS Support Plans](https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/plans/)

## What's Next? 🤔

Now you can advance to the AWS Associate certificates!
So you can with either Solutions Architect Associate or Developer Associate certificate, I personally went with Solutions Architect first. Also passing the Cloud Practitioner would give you 50% for you next exam.

**AWS Certified Solutions Architect**
This is a bit advanced level certificate and AWS recommends to have at least 1 year of hands-on experience, you might be thinking how I am gonna get 1 year experience as beginner? Well this is where you should start building your own projects and get you hands dirty with AWS Free Tier. Wondering what all services you can play without a huge credit card bill, here you can checkout what's included in [Free tier](https://aws.amazon.com/free/?all-free-tier.sort-by=item.additionalFields.SortRank&all-free-tier.sort-order=asc).
In regards to what is covered in this exam, since we already are familiar with the fundamentals of AWS architectural principles and services, in this, we will deep dive into each of the individual elements: IAM, S3, Cloudfront, Storage Gateway, Snowball, EC2, Cloudwatch, CLI, Lambda, Route 53, RDS, Dynamo DB, Redshift, ElastiCache, Aurora, VPC, SQS, SNS, Elastic Transcoder, Kinesis, API Gateway and so on.

- Course : [Exampro's Solutions Architect Associate Course](https://youtu.be/Ia-UEYYR44s)
- Cheat Sheets :
  - [TutorialDojo](https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-cheat-sheets/)
  - [Digital Cloud Training](https://digitalcloud.training/certification-training/aws-solutions-architect-associate/)
  - [My Personal notes](https://rishabkumar7.github.io/CloudNotes/)
- AWS Whitepapers and FAQ's : 
  - [AWS Well-Architected](https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/) 
  - [Amazon EC2](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/)
  - [Amazon S3](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/faqs/)
  - [Amazon VPC](https://aws.amazon.com/vpc/faqs/)
  - [Amazon Route 53](https://aws.amazon.com/route53/faqs/)
  - [Amazon RDS](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/faqs/)
  - [Amazon SQS](https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/faqs/)
- Free Practice Exam : 
  - You will get a free practice exam on passing the Cloud Practitioner.
  - [Digital Cloud Training](https://digitalcloud.training/quizzes/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-free-practice-questions/)
  - [WhizLabs](https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-solutions-architect-associate/free-test/)

**AWS Certified Developer Associate**
This certificate for intermediate-level professional who are familiar with the fundamentals of Cloud computing, and introduces you to an in-depth curriculum on developing, deploying, and maintaining applications — especially Serverless ones — on AWS.
So basically it's for anyone who wants to learn how to build applications using AWS.
In AWS's own words, "The AWS Certified Developer - Associate examination is intended for individuals who perform a development role and have one or more years of hands-on experience developing and maintaining an AWS-based application."
You can refer to the official [exam guide here](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-dev-associate/AWS-Certified-Developer-Associate_Exam-Guide.pdf)
For the resources :  
- Course : [Exampro's Developer Associate Course](https://youtu.be/RrKRN9zRBWs)
- Cheat Sheets :
  - [TutorialDojo](https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-cheat-sheets/)
  - [Digital Cloud Training](https://digitalcloud.training/certification-training/aws-developer-associate/)
  - [My Personal notes](https://rishabkumar7.github.io/CloudNotes/)
- AWS Whitepapers and FAQ's : 
  - [AWS Security Best Practices](https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/Security/AWS_Security_Best_Practices.pdf)
  - [AWS Well-Architected Framework](https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/architecture/AWS_Well-Architected_Framework.pdf) 
  - [Practicing Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery on AWS Accelerating Software Delivery with DevOps](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/DevOps/practicing-continuous-integration-continuous-delivery-on-AWS.pdf)
  - [Microservices on AWS](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/microservices-on-aws.pdf)
  - [Serverless Architectures with AWS Lambda](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/serverless-architectures-with-aws-lambda.pdf)
  - [Optimizing Enterprise Economics with Serverless Architectures](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/optimizing-enterprise-economics-serverless-architectures.pdf)
  - [Running Containerized Microservices on AWS](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/DevOps/running-containerized-microservices-on-aws.pdf)
  - [Blue/Green Deployments on AWS](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/AWS_Blue_Green_Deployments.pdf)
  - [Amazon Simple Queue Service](https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/faqs/)
  - [Amazon DynamoDB](https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/faqs/)
  - [Amazon ElastiCache](https://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/faqs/)
  - [Amazon Kinesis](https://aws.amazon.com/kinesis/data-streams/faqs/)
  - [AWS Lambda](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/faqs/)
  - [Amazon API Gateway](https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/faqs/)
  - [AWS Elastic Beanstalk](https://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/faqs/)
  - [AWS Identity and Access Management](https://aws.amazon.com/iam/faqs/)
  - [AWS Key Management Service](https://aws.amazon.com/kms/faqs/)
- Free Practice Exam : 
  - You will get a free practice exam on passing the previous certification.
  - [Digital Cloud Training](https://digitalcloud.training/aws-developer-associate-free-practice-exam-questions/)
  - [WhizLabs](https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-developer-associate/free-test/)

## Why you should listen to me?
Well, I went down the same path and currently I am preaparing for the Azure Fundamentals Certifications, and after that I will be continuing my AWS journey with the SysOps Associate Certification.

You can follow me on Twitter to be part of my #AWSCertified and #AzureCertfied journey.

I also highly recommend to checkout these Youtube channels that Andrew listed on his article.
{% link https://dev.to/exampro/free-youtube-channels-i-recommend-to-help-you-pass-aws-azure-certification-3463 %}


Please feel free to reach out if you have any concerns or doubts with AWS certifications.