A guide to

AWS Training and Certification

for IT professionals

Contents
Get AWS Certified and advance your career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

APN Training Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What do other IT professionals say about AWS Training and Certification? . . 4

Role-based certifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Curriculum guide:

AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

AWS Technical Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Architecting on AWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Advanced Architecting on AWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Developing on AWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Systems Operations on AWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
DevOps Engineering on AWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals

Get AWS Certified

and advance your career

AWS Certification helps IT professionals distinguish themselves in a crowded

marketplace. In a time where more and more applications and workloads are
moving to the cloud, the industry is taking notice.

Achieving AWS Certification demonstrates you have the skills and

knowledge required to design, deploy, and operate applications
and infrastructure on the world’s largest cloud platform. Which
Sign up today!
means wherever your career takes you, you’ll be taken seriously. Foundational, role-based, and
specialty training: we have it all.
Here are the top reasons to get AWS Certified right now:

Advance your career www.aws.training »

AWS Training and Certification can help you
build your cloud skills and get you noticed by
colleagues, employers, business partners, and
customers.

Show you’re a pro

AWS Certifications validate your unique
AWS Cloud skills and enhance your Not all certifications
credibility with an industry-recognised are created equal
credential.
According to the 2018 Global
Knowledge IT Skills Report, AWS
Learn at your own pace and style Certifications can command
AWS Training digital and classroom learning greater value in the cloud talent
marketplace than many others.
options can help you acquire the AWS skills

“
you want, the way you want. Digital training
offers 150+ self-paced online courses built by
AWS experts. Classroom training is taught by
accredited AWS technical instructors.
An AWS Certified Solutions
AWS currently has nine certifications: AWS Certified Cloud Architect - Associate is one
Practitioner, AWS Certified Developer - Associate, AWS of the top three highest-
Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate, AWS Certified paid professional IT
Solutions Architect - Associate, AWS Certified Solutions certifications.

“
Architect - Professional, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
- Professional, AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Global Knowledge 2018

Specialty, and AWS Certified Big Data - Specialty, and AWS

Certified Security - Specialty.

If you’re a technology professional looking to advance your

career, you should consider getting AWS Certified.

2
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals

APN Training Partners

Training Partners play an invaluable role in the Amazon Partner Network (APN). AWS works side-by-
side with selected training organisations around the globe to ensure that customers can access training
courses in their preferred language and location. Our APN Training Partners have met the robust
requirements of AWS course delivery and are the only organizations endorsed by AWS to deliver our
classroom-based training. Here are some of the key reasons why many of our customers take their
training through APN Training Partners.

Authorized AWS Instructors

APN Training Partner courses are delivered by AWS Certified
instructors who are members of the AWS Authorized Instructor
Program. This program ensures that customers experience the
same standards of learning, no matter which training organization Get help with the
they work with. skills you need to
build success on AWS
Breadth of Expertise
Our APN Training Partners often work with a range of technology The AWS Partner Network allows
vendors, which enables customers to work with a single preferred customers to easily identify partners
that provide training which will
partner that can cater to the breadth of their training needs. This
enhance their knowledge of the
allows customers to benefit from an integrated training plan on AWS platform.
the technologies they choose.

“
Local Presence
Our APN Training Partners are based in the local country in which
their training courses are delivered. This means that customers can Working with an official
benefit from an instructor that has local knowledge of the market, AWS APN Training Partner
culture, and employment environment in which they are training. gives you confidence that
you’re gaining the skills
Choice and Convenience needed to design, deploy,
By working with selected APN Training Partners in each region, and operate on the
we’re able to offer customers more choice on when and where AWS Cloud.

“
they can take their classroom-based training, giving our
customers increased flexibility.

Public Training Schedule

In almost every country we operate in, the only route to attend
an AWS public training class is through our APN Training Partners.
These public classes are for individuals looking to deepen cloud
skills without the need for dedicated private onsite training.

Find an Authorised Training Partner: aws.amazon.com/partners/aws-training-partners »

3
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals

What do other IT professionals say

about AWS Training and Certification?

“
AWS Certification is about
sharpening the saw. Our product
is our people, so we practise
continuous improvement.
“
AWS Certification has helped me
establish my technical credibility
at Adobe.

“ Sebastian Krueger

Director of Cloud
Engineering, API Talent
“ Todd Murchison
Cloud Operations
Engineer, Adobe
Systems Incorporated
Holds five
AWS Certified Solutions
AWS Certifications
Architect - Associate

“
My Professional-level AWS
Certification informs my
colleagues and clients that
I have the knowledge and
You’re in good company
The Global Knowledge 2017 IT Skills and Salary Report,
based on a survey of more than 14,000 IT and business
professionals, found that training and certification are
becoming the mainstay of success in professional IT.
experience to successfully
guide a solution to its
desired outcomes. Globally, 86% of surveyed IT

“ Sathish Mohanram
86 professionals held at least one
% professional certification.
Architect, Altimetrik

AWS Certified Solutions

IT professionals with AWS
Architect - Professional
Certification earned on average $$$$+25.5
25.5% more than those who %
were not certified.

From obtaining a certification to personal fulfilment,

AWS Training is a validation of AWS Cloud skills and
knowledge—and a matter of professional pride.

4
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals

Role-based certifications

Whether you’re just starting out or seeking a Professional-level certification,

AWS Training offers four role-based paths with advancing levels of expertise,
plus three Specialty certifications.

Role-based certifications
»» Foundational - Validates overall understanding of the AWS
Cloud. Prerequisite to achieving Specialty certification or an
optional start toward Associate certification.
»» Associate - Technical role-based certifications.
No prerequisite.
»» Professional - Highest-level technical role-based certification.
Relevant Associate certification required.

Specialty certifications
»» Validate advanced skills in specific technical areas. One active
role-based certification required.

5
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Get to know AWS

Curriculum guide:
AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials
AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials is intended for individuals who seek an
overall understanding of the AWS Cloud, independent of specific technical
roles. It provides a detailed overview of cloud concepts, AWS services, security,
architecture, pricing, and support.

Curriculum outline
LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH
Note: Course outline may vary slightly based
on the regional location and/or language in
Foundational Digital, Self-Paced 6 Hours which the class is delivered.

Section 1: AWS Cloud Overview

Curriculum objectives • Introduction to the Cloud
Upon completion of this curriculum, learners should be able to: • Introduction to the AWS Cloud

»» Define what the AWS Cloud is and the basic global Section 2: AWS Technology
infrastructure
Overview
»» Describe the key services on the AWS Platform and their
common use cases (e.g., compute, analytics, etc.) • Overview of Services and
Categories
»» Describe basic AWS Cloud architectural principles
• Introduction to the AWS Global
»» Describe basic security and compliance aspects of the AWS Infrastructure
platform and the shared security model
• Introduction to Amazon VPC
»» Define the billing, account management, and pricing models
• Introduction to Security Groups
»» Identify sources of documentation or technical assistance • Introduction to Amazon EC2
(e.g., whitepapers, support tickets, etc.)
• Introduction to Amazon EBS
»» Describe the AWS Cloud value proposition
• Introduction to Amazon S3
»» Describe basic/core characteristics of deploying and operating
in the AWS Cloud Section 3: AWS Security Overview
Intended audience • Introduction to AWS Security
This course is intended for: • The AWS Shared Responsibility
Model
»» Sales »» Chief Experience Officers
• AWS Access Control and
»» Legal »» AWS Academy students Management
»» Marketing »» Other IT-related professionals • AWS Security Compliance
»» Business analysts Programs
»» Project managers • AWS Security Resources

This is an entry-level training, but

View course description online » ! it assumes the following:

aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/cloud-practitioner-essentials »» General IT technical knowledge

»» General IT business knowledge

6
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Get to know AWS

Curriculum guide:
AWS Technical Essentials
AWS Technical Essentials introduces you to AWS products, services, and common
solutions. It provides you with fundamentals to become more proficient in
identifying AWS services so that you can make informed decisions about IT
solutions based on your business requirements and get started working on AWS.

Course objectives
LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH
This course teaches you how to:
»» Recognise terminology and concepts Instructor-led, Live
as they relate to the AWS platform Foundational 1 Day
or Virtual Class
and navigate the AWS Management
Console
»» Understand the foundational services,
including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Course outline
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Simple Storage Service
(S3), and Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Note: Course outline may vary slightly based
on the regional location and/or language in
»» Understand the security measures AWS provides and key which the class is delivered.
concepts of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
»» Understand AWS database services, including Amazon • Introduction and History of AWS
DynamoDB and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) • AWS Foundational Services: EC2,
VPC, S3, EBS
»» Understand AWS management tools, including Auto
Scaling, Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), • AWS Security, Identity, and
and AWS Trusted Advisor Access Management: IAM
• AWS Databases: RDS, DynamoDB
• AWS Management Tools: Auto
Intended audience Scaling, CloudWatch, Elastic Load
This course is intended for: Balancing, Trusted Advisor

»» Individuals responsible for articulating the technical

benefits of AWS services to customers
Hands-On Activity
This course allows you to test new
»» Individuals interested in learning how to get started with
skills and apply knowledge to your
using AWS
working environment through a
»» Sysops administrators, solutions architects, and developers variety of practical exercises.
interested in using AWS services

As this is an essentials course,

! there are no recommended View course description online »
prerequisite qualifications
or experience required aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/essentials

7
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Architect path

Curriculum guide:
Architecting on AWS
Architecting on AWS covers the fundamentals of building IT infrastructure on AWS. The course is
designed to teach solutions architects how to optimise the use of the AWS Cloud by understanding
AWS services and how these services fit into cloud-based solutions. This course emphasises AWS
Cloud best practices and recommended design patterns to help students think through the process
of architecting optimal IT solutions on AWS. It also presents case studies throughout the course that
showcase how some AWS customers have designed their infrastructures and the strategies and services
they implemented. Opportunities to build a variety of infrastructures via a guided, hands-on approach
are also provided.

LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH

Course outline
Instructor-led, Live
Intermediate 3 Days Note: Course outline may vary slightly based
or Virtual Class on the regional location and/or language in
which the class is delivered.

Course objectives Day 1

This course teaches you how to:
• Core AWS Concepts
»» Make architectural decisions based on the AWS-recommended • Core AWS Knowledge
architectural principles and best practices • Core AWS Services
»» Leverage AWS services to make your infrastructure scalable, • Designing Your Environment
reliable, and highly available • Making Your Environment Highly
»» Leverage AWS-managed services to enable greater flexibility Available
and resiliency in an infrastructure
»» Make an AWS-based infrastructure more efficient in order to Day 2
increase performance and reduce costs
• Forklifting an Existing
»» Use the Well-Architected Framework to improve architectures Application onto AWS
with AWS solutions • Event-Driven Scaling
• Automating
Intended audience • Decoupling
This course is intended for: • Build a New Environment

»» Solutions architects Day 3

»» Solution design engineers
• Well-Architected Framework
• Troubleshooting Your
Environment
• Large-Scale Design Patterns
and Case Studies
View course description online »

aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/architect
! There are recommended
prerequisites for this course

8
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Architect path

Curriculum guide:
Advanced Architecting on AWS
Advanced Architecting on AWS is intended for individuals who are experienced with designing scalable
and elastic applications on the AWS platform. Building on concepts introduced in Architecting on
AWS, this course covers how to build complex solutions that incorporate data services, governance,
and security on AWS. This course introduces specialised AWS services, including AWS Direct Connect
and AWS Storage Gateway to support hybrid architecture. It also covers designing best practices for
building scalable, elastic, secure, and highly available applications on AWS.

LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH

Course outline
Instructor-led, Live
Advanced 3 Days Note: Course outline may vary slightly based
or Virtual Class on the regional location and/or language in
which the class is delivered.

Course objectives Day 1

This course teaches you how to:
• Review of Architecting for the
»» Apply the AWS Well-Architected Framework Cloud Best Practices and the AWS
»» Manage multiple AWS accounts for your organisation Well-Architected Framework
»» Connect on-premises data centres to the AWS Cloud • AWS Account Strategies
»» Understand billing implications of connecting multi-region VPCs • Advanced Networking
»» Move large data from on-premises data centres to the AWS Architectures
Cloud
• Deployment Management on
»» Move large data from an on-premises data center to AWS AWS
»» Design large datastores for the AWS Cloud
»» Understand different architectural designs for scaling a large website
»» Protect your infrastructure from DDoS attacks Day 2
»» Secure your data on AWS with encryption
• Designing Large Datastores
»» Design protection of data at rest and data in flight
• Moving Large Datastores
»» Enhance the performance of your solutions
into AWS
»» Select the most appropriate AWS deployment mechanism
• Big Data Architectures
• Designing for Large Scale
Intended audience Applications
This course is intended for:
»» Experienced IT professionals who are already familiar with
AWS services Day 3
• Building Resilience into Your
There are recommended
! prerequisites for this course Architecture
• Data Encryption and Key
Management in AWS
• Securing Data on AWS
View course description online » • Designing for Performance

aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/advanced-architecting/

9
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Developer path

Curriculum guide:
Developing on AWS
Developing on AWS helps developers understand how to use the AWS SDK to develop secure and
scalable cloud applications. The course provides in-depth knowledge about how to interact with
AWS using code and covers key concepts, best practices, and troubleshooting tips.

LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH

Course outline
Instructor-led, Live
Foundational 3 Days Note: Course outline may vary slightly based on
or Virtual Class the regional location and/or language in which
the class is delivered.

Course objectives Day 1: Building the Foundation

This course teaches you how to: • Introduction to Developing
on AWS
»» Set up the AWS SDK and developer credentials for Java,
C#/.Net, Python, and JavaScript • Choosing a Datastore
• Developing Storage Solutions with
»» Use the AWS SDK to interact with AWS services and develop
Amazon S3
solutions
• Developing Flexible NoSQL
»» Use Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon
Solutions with Amazon DynamoDB
DynamoDB as datastores
»» Integrate applications and data by using Amazon Kinesis,
Day 2: Connecting Applications
AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS),
and Data with Event-Driven
Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and
Processing
Amazon Simple Workflow Service (Amazon SWF)
»» Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for service • Working with Events
authentication and Web Identity Framework and Amazon • Developing Event-Driven Solutions
Cognito for user authentication with Amazon Kinesis Stream
»» Use Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon CloudFront to improve • Developing Event-Driven Solutions
application scalability with Amazon SWF, Amazon SQS,
»» Deploy applications by using AWS Elastic Beanstalk and AWS and Amazon SNS
CloudFormation • Developing Event-Driven Solutions
with AWS Lambda
Intended audience
Day 3: Developing and Deploying
This course is intended for:
Secure, Scalable Applications
»» Intermediate-level software developers
• Developing Secure Applications
• Caching Information for Scalability
! There are recommended prerequisites for this course
• Monitoring Your Application and
AWS Resources with Amazon
CloudWatch
View course description online » • Deploying Applications with
AWS Elastic Beanstalk and AWS
CloudFormation
aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/developing

10
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Operations path

Curriculum guide:
Systems Operations on AWS
System Operations on AWS is designed to teach those in a Systems Administrator or Developer
Operations (DevOps) role how to create automatable and repeatable deployments of networks
and systems on the AWS platform. The course covers the specific AWS features and tools related
to configuration and deployment, as well as common techniques used throughout the industry for
configuring and deploying systems.

LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH

Course outline
Instructor-led, Live
Intermediate 3 Days Note: Course outline may vary slightly based on
or Virtual Class
the regional location and/or language in which
the class is delivered.
Course objectives
This course teaches you how to: Day 1

»» Use standard AWS infrastructure features such as Amazon • System Operations on AWS Overview
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud • Networking in the Cloud
(EC2), Elastic Load Balancing, and Auto Scaling from the • Computing in the Cloud
command line
»» Use AWS CloudFormation and other automation technologies Day 2
to produce stacks of AWS resources that can be deployed in an
• Storage and Archiving in the Cloud
automated, repeatable fashion
• Monitoring in the Cloud
»» Build functioning virtual private networks with Amazon VPC
• Managing Resource Consumption
from the ground up using the AWS Management Console
in the Cloud
»» Deploy Amazon EC2 instances using command line calls and
troubleshoot the most common problems with instances
Day 3
»» Monitor the health of Amazon EC2 instances and other
AWS services • Configuration Management in
»» Manage user identity, AWS permissions, and security in the the Cloud
cloud • Creating Scalable Deployments
in the Cloud
»» Manage resource consumption in an AWS account using tools
such as Amazon CloudWatch, tagging, and Trusted Advisor • Creating Automated and
Repeatable Deployments
»» Select and implement the best strategy for creating reusable
Amazon EC2 instances
»» Configure a set of Amazon EC2 instances that launch behind
a load balancer, with the system scaling up and down in Intended audience
response to demand This course is intended for:
»» Edit and troubleshoot a basic AWS CloudFormation stack definition
»» System administrators
»» Software developers, especially those in
a developer operations (DevOps) role
View course description online »
There are recommended
aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/sysops/ ! prerequisites for this course

11
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals Developer path

Curriculum guide:
+
DevOps Engineering on AWS Operations path

DevOps Engineering on AWS demonstrates how to use the most common

DevOps patterns to develop, deploy, and maintain applications on AWS. The
course covers the core principles of the DevOps methodology and examines
use cases for startup, small and medium-sized business, and enterprise
development scenarios.

LEVEL MODALITY LENGTH

Course outline
Instructor-led, Live
Foundational 3 Days Note: Course outline may vary slightly based on
or Virtual Class the regional location and/or language in which
the class is delivered.

Course objectives Day 1

This course teaches you how to: • Introduction to DevOps
»» Use the principal concepts and practices of DevOps methodology • AWS Command Line Interface
»» Design and implement an infrastructure on AWS that supports • Introduction to DevSecOps
one or more DevOps development projects • Deployment Strategies and
»» Use AWS CloudFormation and AWS OpsWorks to deploy the Developer Tools
infrastructure necessary to create development, test, and
production environments for a software development project Day 2
»» Use AWS CodeCommit and understand the array of options for • Infrastructure as Code
enabling a Continuous Integration environment on AWS
• Deep Dive into AWS Developer
»» Use AWS CodePipeline to design and implement a Continuous Tools
Integration and Delivery pipeline on AWS • Automated Testing on AWS
»» Use AWS CodeStar to manage all software development activities
in one place Day 3
»» Implement common Continuous Deployment use cases with AWS
technologies, including blue/green deployment and A/B testing • Configuration Management
• AMI Building and Amazon EC2
»» Distinguish between the array of application deployment
Systems Manager
technologies available on AWS (including AWS CodeDeploy,
AWS Opsworks, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon EC2 Container • Containers: Docker and Amazon ECS
Service, and Amazon EC2 Container Registry), and decide • DevOps Customer Case Studies
which technology best fits a given scenario • Course Wrap-Up
»» Use Amazon EC2 Systems Manager for patch management
»» Leverage Automated Testing in different stages of a CI/CD pipeline
»» Fine-tune the applications you deliver on AWS for high
performance and use AWS tools and technologies to monitor Intended audience
your application and environment for potential issues This course is intended for:
»» System administrators
View course description online » »» Software developers

There are recommended

aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/devops-engineering
! prerequisites for this course

12
A guide to AWS Training and Certification for IT professionals

2018

© Copyright 2018 Amazon Web Services

Disclaimer: The information contained in this guide is (a) informational only and
provided solely for discussion purposes, (b) non-binding and not an offer to contract
that can be accepted by any party, (c) provided “as-is” with no representations or
warranties whatsoever, and (d) based on AWS’s current knowledge and may change
at any time due to a variety of factors such as changes to curriculum content or
assessment requirements, or varying or discontinuing any course. All obligations
must be set out in a separate, definitive written agreement between the parties.
Neither party will have any liability for any failure or refusal to enter into a definitive
agreement. Pricing information (if any) provided in this guide is only an estimate
and is expressly not a binding quote. For course information updates, please visit:
https://aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions.

Highest paying IT certification information sourced from Global Knowledge:

https://www.globalknowledge.com/us-en/content/articles/top-paying-certifications/

Published by AWS, April 2018.

Visit aws.amazon.com/training to find out more.