Best AWS Online Courses and Resources
Amazon has an unparalleled cloud network infrastructure spanning the globe. Even technology titans like Google struggle to keep up with Amazon's reach and dominance in the cloud storage, computing, and app delivery space.
Underneath the AWS umbrella, Amazon has versatile and powerful suites of cloud applications that don't just improve the way business is done – they reimagine it all from the ground up.
In addition to making and maintaining those cloud technologies, Amazon has over a dozen AWS certifications. Those certifications cover familiarity with their technologies and the ability to turn those technologies into useful, profitable business solutions.
Companies rely on AWS certifications to point them toward the right cloud practitioners, DevOps managers, and solutions architects to hire. That's why the right AWS online course is so important: with it, you learn how to master AWS and earn the AWS certification that can help you land your dream job.
What Makes AWS So Good?
There's a commercial from the 80s for a hair loss prevention company called Hair Club for Men that gained decades of pop culture notoriety for the line that gets delivered in the last few seconds of the ad. The spokesperson (with a full head of hair) says (weirdly unemotionally), "I'm not just the President, I'm also a client."
Amazon channeled that mindset when they developed AWS. In the early 2000s, Amazon was one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. As an e-commerce platform, they needed server farms, vast data storage capabilities, and reliable computing power to handle their expanding operations. Amazon was faced with a choice: find a company to entrust their entire business model to — or just build it themselves.
To paraphrase the Hair Club, Amazon doesn't just sell great cloud infrastructures, they're also a client. They have a great cloud infrastructure they have because they were the first client. After they built it, they realized they had a product other companies needed. For companies who want to innovate, scale operations, and push competition in the digital landscape, AWS is an obvious choice.
Now thousands of companies, from startups that need fast and scalable computing services to established enterprises looking to modernize their infrastructure, use AWS tools and resources as a fundamental part of their business.
And IT professionals who take AWS courses and learn the tools and technologies of modern business are valuable assets those companies compete for.
5 Top AWS Tools and Technologies
AWS tools and technologies unlock capabilities for companies. Scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, reliability, and innovation are buzzwords but also the selling points for many companies.
Storing and processing data, developing and delivering apps, starting and running servers from the cloud – skills like that qualify you for great AWS jobs. In no particular order, here are the five most popular and powerful AWS tools and what they do:
Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): EC2 provides cloud servers on demand. From running applications to entire websites, EC2 is a flexible and convenient way of accessing all the computing power you need and only paying for what you use.
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service): S3 is a data storage solution that scales up or down instantly, and provides access to data objects of nearly any size, anywhere in the world.
Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service): RDS is a scalable database management service that supports all the most popular database engines. You run your database on RDS and all the patching, updates, and support happens automatically.
AWS Lambda: Lambda is what's called a serverless computing service. Users can run code without provisioning a server. It's a simple, straightforward service that scales based on demand – only charging for the compute time used.
Amazon DynamoDB: DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service that's especially good at providing high-performance, low-latency data retrieval. Mobile and web apps, gaming, and Internet of Things apps all benefit from its scalability and automation potential.
What really makes AWS so powerful is that it's a force multiplier – taking existing data, code, servers, and applications and making them available anywhere while only charging for the actual storage or power used.
Being able to use AWS effectively requires online AWS courses that teach familiarity with the many different apps, tools, and services that are available. Those AWS online courses lead to AWS certifications that prove you know how to incorporate your business needs into the right AWS tool, successfully migrate operations, and then monitor and maintain them moving forward.
12 AWS Certifications and Online Training
At the time of this writing, AWS offers 12 certifications in four different categories, ranging from entry-level to advanced and including specializations. First and foremost, all AWS certifications focus on a deep familiarity with AWS tools and services to accomplish job tasks related to a particular role.
Below, we explore the 13 certifications and provide links to the best AWS online courses to prepare you for the certifications. These AWS online courses can also just teach you how to work with AWS – you don't have to be pursuing the cert to benefit from the courses.
AWS offers one entry-level certification: AWS Cloud Practitioner - Foundational. Cloud Practitioner online courses teach baseline familiarity with cloud technologies generally and AWS services specifically. It's a useful cert for IT beginners or non-technical professionals who have to use AWS regularly.
At the associate level, AWS offers four certifications:
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate: SysOps Administrator online training teaches how to deploy, manage, and operate scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on the AWS platform, ensuring efficient and reliable cloud operations.
AWS Certified Developer - Associate: Online AWS training for app developers shows how to develop and deploy cloud-based applications on the AWS platform.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate: An online AWS solutions architect course prepares someone to design distributed systems on AWS following best practices of architecture, scalability, reliability, and cost optimization.
AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate: A data engineer uses AWS tools to design, build, and maintain scalable data processing systems, emphasizing analytics, collection, transformation, and storage. Automating AWS database services is an important component of data engineering.
AWS offers two professional-level certifications:
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional: A certified AWS professional solutions architect can design and deploy entire AWS cloud architecture solutions that are dynamic, scalable, and secure. One key skill is knowing enough PowerShell to automate compute and AWS EC2 resources.
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional: A DevOps engineer has mastered continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and optimizing performance on the AWS platform for streamlined development and operations workflows. Key skills include automating container services in AWS and automating AWS management and governance with Python.
AWS offers six specialty certifications, though several are set to retire soon:
AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty: This certification applies to people who design and implement complex networking architectures on AWS, covering topics such as VPCs, VPNs, Direct Connect, and network optimization for high-performance cloud environments.
AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty: The Machine Learning AWS certification covers developing, deploying, and maintaining machine learning models on AWS. It includes topics like data preprocessing, model training, deployment, and optimization for real-world applications.
AWS Certified Security - Specialty: AWS online training courses for the Certified Security - Specialty will emphasize securing AWS environments, covering identity and access management, encryption, monitoring, and incident response, using AWS cloud tools to maintain a robust security posture across cloud deployments.
AWS Certified Database - Specialty: The Database specialty certification from AWS retires in April 2024.
AWS Certified SAP on AWS - Specialty: The SAP specialty certification from AWS retires in April 2024.
AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty: The data analytics specialty certification from AWS retires in April 2024.
Additional AWS Online Courses and Resources
The best online AWS courses don't just prepare you for a certification exam; they also teach you important lessons about actually using AWS tools. Even better is when they give you virtual sims to practice in or ways to get real-world experience with the tools.
If you're getting started in AWS administration, head to CBT Nuggets' YouTube channel. They have tons of free videos that explain different parts of IT, from beginner to advanced levels. The CBT Nuggets AWS training YouTube playlist has several dozen videos that teach individual skills related to using, managing and troubleshooting the different tools and services on AWS.
To get the most out of AWS online certification courses from CBT Nuggets, it takes focus and a really good use of your time. First, research what AWS tools and resources you need to know. Then, figure out which AWS certification is right for you.
Watch CBT Nuggets' videos on YouTube to better understand each tool and the basics of using AWS. Then, learn what AWS Certification Training CBT Nuggets has to offer!
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