Understanding AWS Cloud Principles and Key CharacteristicsUnderstanding AWS Cloud Principles and Key Characteristics
Several independent content creators on Udemy, such as Stephane Maarek and Jon Bonso, have excellent content and are passionate about AWS with a growing following. For example, as of April 2022, Stephane Maarek’s Solution Architect Associate course has over half a million students with over 120,000 ratings and a satisfaction rating of 4.7 stars out of a possible five stars.The pricing model used is also similar to Whizlabs. The practice exams are sold separately from the online courses.
As always, YouTube is an excellent source of free learning. AWS has its own YouTube channel with nearly 600K subscribers and 14000 videos. These videos cover AWS services from 100 to 400 levels by AWS product manager and solutions architect. AWS uploads all re: invent and summits videos in the YouTube channel, the best resources to dive deep for any services. You can find serval playlists people have created to prepare for certifications.
If you are a book reader, there are multiple AWS certification-related books available on Amazon, which you can refer to prepare for the exam. If you are preparing for the AWS Solutions Architect Professional exam and solidifying your concept, refer to “Solution Architect’s Handbook ” (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1801816611). It explains multiple architectural patterns using the AWS platform and goes deep into each of the Well-Architected pillars to apply architectural best practices.
It doesn’t matter how much you are reading or watching courses. There are always knowledge gaps, and practice exams are the best sources to identify and focus on weak areas. Whizlabs (https://www.whizlabs.com/ ) is suitable for associate-level certification and test your knowledge in multiple areas to find weak points. Whizlab also provides answers with details explanations and associated resources which can help you fill the knowledge gap by exploring related content against questions you got wrong. Whizlabs divides the charges for their training between their online courses and their practice tests. One disadvantage of Whizlabs is that unlike the exam simulator with A cloud.guru, where they have a bank of questions and randomly combine them, the Whizlabs exam questions are fixed and will not be shuffled to create a different exam. They also have a free version of their practice exams for most certifications, with 20 free questions.Like Whizlabs, you can use Brain Cert for AWS professional and specialty level certification (https://www.braincert.com). They have a perfect set of questions near exam difficulty level with details explanations for each answer. While Whizlabs practice exams have lifetime validity, Braincert provides only one-year validity.The same strategy as mentioned before can be used with Whizlabs or Braincert. You don’t need to sign up for multiple vendors for the more straightforward exams, but you can combine a couple for the harder exams.