What will you learn in the AWS Cloud Certification course?

It shouldn’t be news to anyone that cloud computing is taking over the traditional on-premises model that the IT industry has adopted for many years. The advantages of switching to a cloud model are as abundant as they are clear – no upfront costs, better scaling, and efficiency to name but a few. In moving to the cloud, companies and entities such as governmental agencies require certified people to manage these systems. With Amazon’s AWS being the biggest service provider, an AWS Cloud Certification goes a long way in providing you with ample opportunities to make a mark in this sector.

Server infrastructure can be a complex affair whether it’s an on-premises or a cloud solution. Whilst cloud certainly takes away much of the complexity, knowing how to efficiently and effectively manage such systems is of paramount importance. Complexity tends to increase according to the application of such environments and therefore, getting certified in the management of such systems can help you stay at the forefront, whilst helping your organization benefit even more from the use of such technologies.

Several companies are now offering cloud computing services, with the most notable one being Amazon through its AWS offerings. Whilst it is perhaps most knows for its shopping portal, Amazon is an industry giant when it comes to computing services counting companies like Netflix and Lockheed Martin amongst its many clients.

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services and is the cloud computing arm of Amazon. The Cloud Practitioner Certification covers a lot of the important aspects of managing such systems from the most basic tenets to the more complex ones including best practices.

Once the basics of cloud computing have been covered, including the fundamentals of AWS, platform and services, and regions and availability zones, you will learn about the AWS IAM which is the Identity and Access Management of the AWS platform. The module covers the principles of this very important aspect of AWS including roles, users, credentials and access keys. Policies are an important factor that is also covered in the course which, along with the hands-on lab exercises will not only help you understand these important topics but get you on your way to acing the exam!

The EC2 is perhaps what ties everything together and this is well-covered within the course. EC2 stands for Elastic Compute Cloud (hence the C2) and it is how the actual servers are set up. AMIs (Amazon Machine Images) allows users to quickly deploy new machines whilst the Elastic Block Store provides persistent block-level storage for machines created via the EC2 platform. To this extent, Volumes and Types are covered along with the ever so important encryption to ensure better security throughout your infrastructure.

The AWS VPC is another important aspect of cloud infrastructures, which allows administrators to set up a logically isolated network on AWS cloud the functionality of which is covered in the course. You will learn how to define your own IPs and subnets, routing tables, and gateways – giving you complete control over your own virtual network environment.

AWS also offers Elastic Load Balancing which is covered in the course curriculum. Elastic load balancing is one of the biggest features of cloud computing, allowing for highly-available systems. Whilst AWS offers three flavors of ELB, the course covers the two most commonly used – classic and application. Classic load balancing provides load balancing across a number of EC2 instances and is used for scalable and secure performance of applications built on the EC2 classic network environment whilst also boosting performance.  The Application load balancer, on the other hand, is used for balancing HTTP and https traffic along with advanced request routing.

Complimenting ELB is Amazon’s AWS Auto Scaling which allows users to build applications that are fault-tolerant as well and boasting high availability. The AS functionality monitors the capacity of installed applications and can automatically adjust resources’ availability to maintain performance whilst keeping costs to a minimum. The curriculum covers how to build networks that benefit from the autoscaling functionality, allowing you to maximize the ROI from using AWS cloud computing.

The AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Database Services are important aspects which are also well covered in the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification curriculum. Databases and storage are the cruces of most applications, with big data making this aspect of applications as crucial as it is sensitive.

Last but not least, AWS CloudWatch offers a comprehensive view of both applications and resources usage with monitoring and management services designed for stakeholders from developers to IT managers. This important aspect of cloud computing can ensure that SLAs are met and any issues are caught well ahead of time before becoming a full-blown crisis.

AWS Best Practices are also covered as a separate topic including best practices for migration, storage, and security. By learning all about best practices you can ensure that what you learn and eventually have the pleasure of implementing is done the right way thus putting your mind at ease that the implementation is as secure and stable as it can be.

As one can see, the extent of this certification is as wide as it is deep- providing practitioners a very good understanding as well as practice in managing AWS infrastructures. Furthermore, the course also covers billing and pricing models – helping you better manage costs which can make or break a system.

The importance of such certification for IT professionals in various fields cannot be underestimated. As more and more companies move their infrastructure to cloud, an AWS certification can be of huge benefit for those looking to improve their career prospects. By following this course, students can put their mind at rest knowing that what they have learned is certified by the industry-leading enterprise at the forefront of the cloud technology revolution.