Devon K McDonald

Blog

  • My AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Journey: What I’ve Been Learning

    As I dive into preparing for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, I’ve been immersing myself in the fundamentals of AWS Cloud. Let me share what I’ve been studying and some key insights I’ve gained along the way. (click arrow to expand)

    Cloud Concepts

    I’ve spent considerable time understanding the value proposition of AWS Cloud. The economics make so much sense now – shifting from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, and only paying for what you use. The global infrastructure is impressive with its Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations.

    Learning about the AWS Well-Architected Framework has given me a structured way to think about cloud solutions. The six pillars (operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability) provide a comprehensive lens for evaluating architectures.

    I’ve also been studying the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF), which helps organizations develop efficient plans for cloud migration. Understanding these migration strategies is fascinating – from simple “lift and shift” approaches to complete application refactoring.

    Security and Compliance

    The shared responsibility model has been a critical concept to master. AWS handles security “of” the cloud (infrastructure), while customers handle security “in” the cloud (data, configuration, etc.). I’ve learned how these responsibilities shift depending on the service – for instance, how they differ between EC2 (more customer responsibility) and Lambda (more AWS responsibility).

    I’ve familiarized myself with key security services:

    • AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for access control
    • Amazon Inspector for automated security assessments
    • AWS Shield for DDoS protection
    • Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection
    • AWS Security Hub as a comprehensive security view

    The importance of protecting the root user account with MFA can’t be overstated, and applying the principle of least privilege makes perfect sense for managing access.

    Cloud Technology and Services

    This has been the most extensive area of study, familiarizing myself with AWS’s vast service catalog:

    Compute Services:

    • EC2 for virtual servers with various instance types
    • Lambda for serverless computing
    • ECS and EKS for container orchestration
    • Auto Scaling for elasticity

    Storage Services:

    • S3 for object storage with different storage classes
    • EBS for block storage
    • EFS and FSx for file storage
    • S3 Glacier for long-term archival

    Database Services:

    • RDS for relational databases
    • DynamoDB for NoSQL
    • Aurora for MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible databases
    • Neptune for graph databases

    Networking Services:

    • VPC for networking isolation
    • Route 53 for DNS management
    • CloudFront for content delivery
    • Direct Connect for dedicated connections

    I’ve also studied analytics services like Athena and QuickSight, and AI/ML services like SageMaker, Comprehend, and Lex.

    Billing, Pricing, and Support

    The various pricing models have been eye-opening:

    • On-Demand instances for flexibility
    • Reserved Instances for predictable workloads and discounts
    • Spot Instances for cost savings on non-critical workloads
    • Savings Plans for committed usage discounts

    I’ve learned about tools like AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets for managing costs, and the AWS Pricing Calculator for estimating expenses. Understanding the different AWS Support plans (Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, and Enterprise) has helped me grasp the support structure.

    My Study Approach

    To prepare effectively, I’ve been:

    1. Using the AWS exam guide as my roadmap
    2. Going through AWS free digital training courses
    3. Getting hands-on experience with the AWS Free Tier
    4. Taking practice exams to identify knowledge gaps
    5. Creating flashcards for key services and concepts

    I’ve found that understanding the core concepts and the relationships between services is more valuable than memorizing details. The real-world scenarios in practice exams have been particularly helpful in applying what I’ve learned.

    As I continue preparing, I’m gaining confidence not just for the exam but in my ability to work with AWS Cloud services in real-world scenarios. The Cloud Practitioner certification is just the beginning of my AWS journey, and I’m excited to build on this foundation.