Following the Yellow Brick Road To AWS DVA Certification: Take 1
Tags: aws, amazonwebservices, awsdva, developer
Published: 2020-01-17 05:44:04

---
title: Following the Yellow Brick Road To AWS DVA Certification: Take 1
published: true
description: AWS Developer Associate Certification Exam Journey
tags: AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS DVA, Developer
---

Taking on certifications is like leveling up in CoD or belt promotions in Krav Maga, but for my professional life. As I embark on this journey, I’ll be recording my adventures and lessons learned, along with resources I’ve used to prepare for the certification exam, the big B.O.S.S. at the end of the road.

Where do you go to find out about something? The source. Amazon (thank you, Bezos) has plenty of resources out there, free of charge, gratis, my favorite type of resource. I mean, Amazon is already making Bezos the top 3 richest man in the whole wide world (trip dubs), so it’s nice of them to put out the roadmap, along with some resources at no cost. However, there are always those classrooms offered for an eye and half of the other. A class at $2K USD > is not out of reach, but not cheap enough. Since I'm frugal AF, I'm not going to shill out that amount of cash, so free resources and maybe, just maybe, some material paid for by my place of work (wink, smile).

# The Yellow Brick Road

![AWS DVA Path](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/Learning_Paths/learning-paths_developer.115e1ac21f35457075b2f953a6b17bad4cc24a73.png)
￼
To start off, I’m not going to do the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner. I’ve been working around AWS for around 3+ years, so I’m just going to go big (BC I AIN’T GOING HOME), get that AWS Certified Developer - Associate notch under my belt. 

The exam guide by AWS is [here](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/Docs%20-%20Cloud%20Practitioner/AWS_Certified_Cloud_Practitioner_Exam_Guide_v2.1.pdf).

All the details about the exam are there, but some of the major points are:
* Multiple choice!
* Pass or fail
* Scoring goes from 100-1K, with a min passing score of 700, sounds doable

## Major note!!!

* 4 domains, each with different weight, make sure you get the big picture in each domain below…
￼
![AWS DVA Domains](https://i.imgur.com/EG5RUoF.png)

There are a few, free sample questions [here](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-dev-associate/AWS_Certified_Developer-Associate_Sample_Questions_v2.0_FINAL.pdf).

After giving the sample questions a shot, I got 3 out of 10 wrong, so a 70 average. Compared to the big dawg (the exam), I have a good chance of passing this thing…SO YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE?!

# AWS Ramp-Up Guide: Developer

Find the guide [here](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/Learning_Paths/RampUp_Developer_122019_final.pdf).

This list is curated by AWS experts, so it should be a good starting point.

## Phase 0 - Learn The Fundamentals Of AWS Cloud

I might be skipping some of the Phase 0 resources, since I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the foundation of AWServices.

### What is Cloud Computing?

I reviewed the first link for “What is Cloud Computing?”, and it was pretty basic, but there are some cool infographics as to how other companies are using AWS services. The link is [here](https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/).


### Overview of Amazon Web Services

Link [here](https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws-overview.pdf).

I downloaded the pdf from the link above and will begin to read the 95 pages and highlight some good pointers…I'll share them next time.

Peace Out.

irb___