How difficult is the AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam?

The AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam is a challenging certification that validates your expertise in designing, operating, and migrating databases on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. This exam is specifically designed for individuals who have a deep understanding of database technologies and their integration with AWS services. It covers a wide range of topics, including database design, deployment, migration, performance optimization, monitoring, and security. Passing this exam can enhance your credibility as a database professional and open up new career opportunities.

However, many individuals wonder how difficult this exam actually is and what it takes to pass it. In this blog, we will explore the various aspects of the AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam and provide insights into how to prepare for and successfully pass this challenging certification exam.

AWS Database Specialty Glossary

Database: A collection of data that is organized in a specific manner to facilitate data access, retrieval, and management.
Relational Database: A database that organizes data into one or more tables with a unique key identifying each row.
Non-Relational Database: A database that organizes data in a way that is not based on the relational model. It is also known as NoSQL.
SQL: Structured Query Language is a programming language used to manage and manipulate relational databases.
NoSQL: Non-relational databases that use a variety of data models, such as key-value, document-oriented, or graph-based.
ACID: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability are the four properties that guarantee the reliability of transactions in a database system.
Scaling: The process of increasing the resources of a database system to handle more data and users.
Replication: The process of copying data from one database to another to improve availability, reliability, and performance.
Partitioning: The process of dividing a large database into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Sharding: A type of partitioning that distributes data across multiple servers to improve performance.
Backup and Recovery: The process of creating copies of a database to protect against data loss and restoring data to a previous state in case of failure.
High Availability: The ability of a database system to remain accessible and operational in case of hardware or software failure.
Disaster Recovery: The process of restoring a database to a previous state after a catastrophic event such as a natural disaster or cyber attack.
Data Warehousing: The process of collecting, storing, and managing data from different sources to support business intelligence and decision-making.
ETL: Extract, Transform, Load is the process of extracting data from different sources, transforming it into a suitable format, and loading it into a target database.
OLTP: Online Transaction Processing is a database architecture designed for handling transaction-oriented applications that require real-time processing.
OLAP: Online Analytical Processing is a database architecture designed for handling analytical applications that require complex queries and data analysis.
Query Optimization: The process of improving the performance of database queries by selecting the best execution plan.
Indexing: The process of creating indexes on database tables to improve the performance of queries.
Caching: The process of storing frequently accessed data in memory to improve query response time.

Preparation resources for the AWS Database Specialty exam

Here are some official preparation resources for the AWS Certified Database Specialty exam:

Exam Guide: The exam guide provides a detailed overview of the exam format, topics covered, and recommended preparation resources. You can find the exam guide at the following link: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-database-specialty/
AWS Training: AWS offers a range of training courses and resources to help you prepare for the exam. Some of the key training courses include:

AWS Certified Database – Specialty Exam Readiness Workshop: This workshop covers key concepts and topics that are likely to be covered in the exam. You can find the workshop at the following link: https://aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/cert-dbs/
AWS Certified Database – Specialty Exam Readiness: This online course provides an overview of the exam format and covers key topics in depth. You can find the course at the following link: https://aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/certification-exam-readiness-database-specialty/

Sample Questions: AWS provides a set of sample questions that you can use to test your knowledge and prepare for the exam. You can find the sample questions at the following link: https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs/AWS-Certified-Database-Specialty_Sample-Questions.pdf
Practice Exam: AWS offers a practice exam that simulates the actual exam experience. This can be a useful tool for assessing your readiness and identifying areas where you need to focus your studies. You can find the practice exam at the following link: https://aws.amazon.com/training/course-descriptions/certification-exam-practice-database-specialty/

About AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam

The AWS Database Specialty certification is intended for candidates who work in a database-centric role. This exam verifies an examinee’s general knowledge of databases, including design, deployment, migration, access, automation, monitoring, maintenance, security, and troubleshooting. It will assess the candidate’s ability to recommend, design, and maintain the best AWS database solution for improving performance, lowering costs, and enabling innovation.

Knowledge and Experience Requirements

Amazon has recommended the following knowledge and experience for the AWS database specialty exam:

A minimum of five years’ experience with common database technologies is required.
At least two years of hands-on AWS experience is required.
Working knowledge and experience with on-premises and AWS Cloud-based relational and NoSQL databases.

Now that we’ve covered the fundamentals of the AWS database specialty exam, let’s go over the other details in depth.

Exam Format

The AWS Certified Database Specialty exam consists of 65 questions that must be answered in 180 minutes. You must plan your time accordingly. Furthermore, because there are 65 questions in total, it is recommended that you spend no more than 1 minute 30 seconds on each question. If you complete your exam in 150 minutes, you will have 30 minutes to revise and recheck your answers.

Furthermore, the exam contains a variety of question types such as case studies, short answers, multiple-choice, mark review, and so on. Because there are different types of questions, you can start with the case study questions. As a result, they are the most time-consuming. Following that, you can choose between short answers and multiple-choice questions. Keep in mind that you must score 750 or more points to pass the exam. In addition, the exam will cost you $300 USD. Last but not least, the exam is offered in English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.

AWS Certified Database Specialty Course Outline

The syllabus has been divided into sections by AWS. The course outline serves as a blueprint for an AWS Certified Database – Specialty. It contains the exam’s objectives and sub-topics. The following is a detailed course outline:

AWS Database Specialty Updated Course Outline

The AWS Certified Database Specialty exam covers the latest and updated course outline –

Module 1: Explain Workload-Specific Database Design (26%)

1.1 Learn to select suitable database services for specific types of data and workloads.

Understand the differences between ACID vs. BASE workloads
Understand suitable uses of types of databases including relational, key-value, document, in-memory, graph, time series, ledger (AWS Documentation: Database)
Understand and identify use cases for persisted data vs. ephemeral data (AWS Documentation: Amazon EC2 instance store)

1.2 Learn about the strategies for disaster recovery and high availability.

Understanding and selecting Region and Availability Zone placement to optimize database performance (AWS Documentation: Choose Regions and Availability Zones to minimize latency)
Understanding and determining implications of Regions and Availability Zones on disaster recovery/high availability strategies (AWS Documentation: Disaster recovery options in the cloud)
Understanding and differentiating use cases for reading replicas and Multi-AZ deployments (AWS Documentation: Multi-AZ deployments for high availability)

1.3 Learn to design database solutions for performance, compliance, and scalability.

Understanding and recommending serverless vs. instance-based database architecture (AWS Documentation: Understanding database options for your serverless web applications)
Understanding and evaluating requirements for scaling read replicas (AWS Documentation: Working with MySQL read replicas, Working with read replicas)
Understanding and defining database caching solutions (AWS Documentation: Database Caching, Caching strategies)
Understanding and evaluating the implications of partitioning, sharding, and indexing (AWS Documentation: Sharding with Amazon Relational Database Service, Choosing the Right DynamoDB Partition Key)
Understanding and determining appropriate instance types and storage options (AWS Documentation: Amazon EC2 Instance Types)
Understanding and determining auto-scaling capabilities for relational and NoSQL databases (AWS Documentation: Managing throughput capacity automatically with DynamoDB auto scaling, AWS Management Console with DynamoDB auto scaling)
Understanding and determining the implications of Amazon DynamoDB adaptive capacity (AWS Documentation: Best practices for designing and using partition keys effectively)
Understanding and determining data locality based on compliance requirements (AWS Documentation: Addressing Data Residency with AWS)

1.4 Learn to compare the costs of database solutions

Understanding and determining cost implications of Amazon DynamoDB capacity units, including on-demand vs. provisioned capacity (AWS Documentation: Read/write capacity mode, Pricing for Provisioned Capacity, Pricing for On-Demand Capacity)
Understanding and determining costs associated with instance types and automatic scaling (AWS Documentation: Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling)
Understanding and designing for costs including high availability, backups, multi-Region, Multi-AZ, and storage type options (AWS Documentation: Multi-AZ deployments for high availability, Amazon RDS Multi-AZ)
Understanding and comparing data access costs (AWS Documentation: Analyzing your costs with AWS Cost Explorer)

Module 2: Explain Deployment and Migration (20%)

2.1 Learn to automate database solution deployments.

Understanding and evaluating application requirements to determine components to deploy (AWS Documentation: Evaluate your applications)
Understanding and choosing suitable deployment tools and services (e.g., AWS CloudFormation, AWS CLI) (AWS Documentation: Using the AWS Command Line Interface, AWS CloudFormation best practices)

2.2 Learn to determine data preparation and migration strategies.

Understanding and determining the data migration method (e.g., snapshots, replication, restore) (AWS Documentation: Restoring from a DB snapshot, Restore an Amazon RDS DB instance from a DB snapshot)
Understanding and evaluating database migration tools and services (e.g., AWS DMS, native database tools) (AWS Documentation: Migration with native database tools and AWS DMS)
Understanding and preparing data sources and targets (AWS Documentation: Configuring data target nodes, Creating a dataset from a database)
Understanding and determining schema conversion methods (e.g., AWS Schema Conversion Tool) (AWS Documentation: AWS Schema Conversion Tool)
Understanding and determining heterogeneous vs. homogeneous migration strategies (AWS Documentation: Heterogeneous database migration, Homogeneous database migration)

2.3 Learn to execute and validate data migration.

Understanding and designing and script data migration (AWS Documentation: Best practices for AWS Database Migration Service, Database Migration Step-by-Step Walkthroughs)
Understand and run data extraction and migration scripts (AWS Documentation: Extracting data from on-premises databases, Migrating data from an on-premises data, Database Migration Step-by-Step Walkthroughs)
Understanding and verifying the successful load of data (AWS Documentation: Verifying that the data loaded correctly)

Module 3: Explain Management and Operations (18%)

3.1 Learn to determine maintenance tasks and processes.

Understanding and accounting for the AWS shared responsibility model for database services (AWS Documentation: Shared Responsibility)
Understanding and determining appropriate maintenance window strategies (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Maintenance Windows, Maintenance window scheduling and active period options)
Understanding and differentiating between major and minor engine upgrades (AWS Documentation: Upgrading a DB instance engine version)

3.2 Learn to determine backup and restore strategies.

Understanding and identifying the need for automatic and manual backups/snapshots (AWS Documentation: Comparing Automatic and Manual Snapshots, Amazon EBS snapshots)
Understanding and differentiating backup and restore strategies (e.g., full backup, point-in-time, encrypting backups cross-Region) (AWS Documentation: Creating backup copies across AWS Regions)
Understanding and defining retention policies (AWS Documentation: Implement data retention policies for each class, Work with retention rules)
Understanding and correlating the backup and restore to recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) requirements (AWS Documentation: Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR), Disaster recovery options in the cloud)

3.3 Learn to manage the operational environment of a database solution.

Orchestrate the refresh of lower environments (AWS Documentation: Updating compute environments, Orchestrating database refreshes for Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora)
Implement configuration changes (e.g., in Amazon RDS option/parameter groups or Amazon DynamoDB indexing changes) (AWS Documentation: Working with parameter groups, Best practices for configuring parameters for Amazon RDS)
Automate operational tasks (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Automation, Working with runbooks)
Take action based on AWS Trusted Advisor reports (AWS Documentation: Get started with AWS Trusted Advisor)

Module 4: Explain Monitoring and Troubleshooting (18%)

4.1 Learn to monitor and alert strategies.

Understanding and evaluating monitoring tools including Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon RDS Performance Insights, database native (AWS Documentation: Overview of monitoring metrics in Amazon RDS, Monitoring DB load with Performance Insights on Amazon RDS)
Understanding and determining appropriate parameters and thresholds for alert conditions (AWS Documentation: Working with threshold alerts in Amazon QuickSight, Working with alerts)
Understanding to use tools to notify users when thresholds are breached including, Amazon SNS, Amazon SQS, Amazon CloudWatch dashboards) (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon CloudWatch alarms)

4.2 Learn to troubleshoot and resolve common database issues.

Understand and identify, evaluate, and respond to categories of failures including troubleshooting connectivity; instance, storage, and partitioning issues) (AWS Documentation: Troubleshoot instances with failed status checks)
Understanding and automating responses when possible (AWS Documentation: Options for Automating Response)

4.3 Learn to optimize database performance.

Understanding and troubleshooting database performance issues (AWS Documentation: Troubleshooting for Amazon RDS)
Understanding and identifying suitable AWS tools and services for database optimization (AWS Documentation: Best practices for Amazon RDS)
Understanding and evaluating the configuration, schema design, queries, and infrastructure to improve performance

Module 5: Explain Database Security (18%)

5.1 Learn to Encrypt data at rest and in transit.

Understand to encrypt data in relational and NoSQL databases (AWS Documentation: Encrypting Amazon RDS resources, Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB instance)
Understand to apply SSL connectivity to databases (AWS Documentation: Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB instance)
Understand to implement key management (e.g., AWS KMS, AWS CloudHSM) (AWS Documentation: AWS Key Management Service, AWS CloudHSM)

5.2 Learn to evaluate auditing solutions.

Understand to determine auditing strategies for structural/schema changes (e.g., DDL) (AWS Documentation: Database audit logging, Handling schema updates)
Understand to determine auditing strategies for data changes (e.g., DML) (AWS Documentation: DML auditing for Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility))
Understand to determine auditing strategies for data access (e.g., queries) (AWS Documentation: Database audit logging)
Understand to determine auditing strategies for infrastructure changes (e.g., AWS CloudTrail) (AWS Documentation: AWS CloudTrail)
Understand and enable the export of database logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs (AWS Documentation: Exporting log data to Amazon S3)

5.3 Learn to determine access control and authentication mechanisms.

Recommend authentication controls for users and roles including IAM, native credentials, Active Directory (AWS Documentation: Security best practices in IAM, Using the AWS Directory Service identity provider)
Recommend authorization controls for users including policies (AWS Documentation: Policies and permissions in IAM)

5.4 Learn to identify potential security vulnerabilities within database solutions.

Understand to determine security group rules and NACLs for database access (AWS Documentation: Controlling access with security groups, Control traffic to subnets using Network ACLs)
Understand to identify relevant VPC configurations (e.g., VPC endpoints, public vs. private subnets, demilitarized zone) (AWS Documentation: VPC with public and private subnets (NAT), Amazon VPC)
Understand to determine appropriate storage methods for sensitive data (AWS Documentation: Best practices for securing sensitive data in AWS data stores)

Since the exam is not at the associate level, it should be more difficult than the three associate certification exams. The exam is also not at the professional level, where the questions are too long and there are too many distractions. According to many AWS training instructors, the exam is at the mid-level and easier than the machine learning certification exam.

You will have a better chance if you are well prepared. This will necessitate the use of learning resources as well. Selecting genuine resources, on the other hand, is a critical step. As a result, we’ve compiled a list of resources that you can use to confidently prepare for and take the exam. Let us have a look at some of the resources now.

AWS Certified Database Specialty Preparation Guide

We are here to provide you with the best learning resources to help you pass the exam. Furthermore, we will illustrate a detailed description to assist you in preparing for the exam –

AWS Certified Database – Specialty Training

The candidate may also choose to participate in AWS training programs. The AWS provides training programs for each exam. The training programs for a specific exam contain all exam information such as the description, intended audience, delivery method, duration, and so on. To gain knowledge and skills for AWS Certified Database Specialty, the candidate should enroll in a training program.

Online Tutorials

Online tutorials supplement your knowledge and provide a thorough understanding of exam concepts. They also go over exam specifics and policies. Nonetheless, these online tutorials provide detailed information about the exam. As a result, you will be better prepared for the exam. As a result, learning with Online Tutorials will help you prepare better.

Amazon RDS Online Documentation

The exam is similar to others, and you should familiarise yourself with AWS’s online database documentation. There are numerous database services available on AWS, so if you have limited time, please go through the following page by page.

Practice Tests

AWS Database Specialty Practice Exams are what ensure the candidate’s preparation. The practice test will assist candidates in identifying their weak points so that they can work on them. There are numerous practice tests available on the internet these days, so the candidate can select which one they prefer.

Expert Corner

The best approach toward success is to put what you’ve learned into practice. Taking a practice test is also an excellent way to diversify your study strategy and ensure the best possible results on the real thing. Furthermore, analyzing the practice test is critical for ensuring complete preparation. We provide free sample papers to help you succeed in the exam. Furthermore, these free practice exam papers will simulate a real-time examination. As a result, begin planning now!

Anandita Doda

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