Preparing for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam and couldn’t find all the learning resources under one roof? With so much noise on the internet, one may find it difficult regarding the same. So, for your convenience, we have curated a study guide for all the candidates who wish to qualify for the exam on the very first attempt. You may also go want to check – How hard is the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam?
Before going through the study guide, if you wish to view all the details related to the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam, you can check out it here!
Step by Step AWS Cloud Practitioner Study Guide
Just to clarify, the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam is not a difficult exam. But not preparing for the exam will definitely lead to a bad outcome, for clear reasons. So, we strongly advise following our step-by-step plan for a great result.
Review all Exam Objectives
Before starting any journey, it’s important to know what you’re getting into. In the same way, going through every exam goal is a crucial part of preparing. So, be sure to check out the Official website of AWS for a clear understanding. It’s the most reliable source for information about the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam. Once you’ve covered the basics, it’s time to dive into the exam guide.
- Explain what AWS Cloud is and the global setup.
- Basic principles of AWS Cloud design.
- Understand why AWS Cloud is valuable.
- Describe important AWS services and when to use them (like computing and data analysis).
- Explain the fundamental security and compliance aspects of AWS and how security is shared.
- Define how billing, managing accounts, and pricing work.
- Find where to get more information or help (like whitepapers or support).
- Describe the main aspects of working in the AWS Cloud.
Download the Course Outline
Use the Cloud Practitioner tutorial to get a complete course outline!
The second most important thing to do is get the Course Outline, also known as the Exam Guide. It has all the areas and subjects that will be on the exam. So, be sure to get the Course Outline. It helps you get ready for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam by showing you what to study.
Domain 1: Cloud Concepts 24%
1.1: Define the benefits of the AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:
- Value proposition of the AWS Cloud
Skills in:
- Understanding the economies of scale (for example, cost savings) (AWS Documentation: Understand the fundamentals of pricing)
- Understanding the benefits of global infrastructure (for example, speed of deployment, global reach) (AWS Documentation: Global infrastructure)
- Understanding the advantages of high availability, elasticity, and agility (AWS Documentation: High availability and scalability on AWS)
Task Statement 1.2: Identify design principles of the AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
Skills in:
- Understanding the pillars of the Well-Architected Framework (for example, operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, sustainability) (AWS Documentation: The pillars of the framework)
- Identifying differences between the pillars of the Well-Architected Framework
Task Statement 1.3: Understand the benefits of and strategies for migration to the AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:
- Cloud adoption strategies
- Resources to support the cloud migration journey
Skills in:
- Understanding the benefits of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) (for example, reduced business risk; improved environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance; increased revenue; increased operational efficiency) (AWS Documentation: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF), Benefits management, An Overview of the AWS Cloud Adoption)
- Framework
- Identifying appropriate migration strategies (for example, database replication, use of AWS Snowball) (AWS Documentation: Best practices for AWS Database Migration Service)
Task Statement 1.4: Understand concepts of cloud economics.
Knowledge of:
- Aspects of cloud economics
- Cost savings of moving to the cloud
Skills in:
- Understanding the role of fixed costs compared with variable costs (AWS Documentation: Key principles)
- Understanding costs that are associated with on-premises environments (AWS Documentation: AWS Outposts)
- Understanding the differences between licensing strategies (for example, Bring Your Own License [BYOL] model compared with included licenses) (AWS Documentation: Simplified Bring-Your-Own-License experience using AWS License Manager)
- Understanding the concept of rightsizing Tips for Right Sizing)
- Identifying benefits of automation (for example, provisioning and configuration management with AWS CloudFormation) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS CloudFormation?)
- Identifying managed AWS services (for example, Amazon RDS, Amazon Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS], Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service [Amazon EKS], Amazon DynamoDB) (AWS Documentation: Choosing an AWS container service)
Domain 2: Security and Compliance 30%
2.1 Define the AWS shared responsibility model
Knowledge of:
- AWS shared responsibility model
Skills in:
- Recognize the elements of the Shared Responsibility Model (AWS Documentation: Shared Responsibility Model)
- Describe the customer’s responsibility on AWS
- Describe AWS responsibilities (AWS Documentation: Shared Responsibility Model)
- Describing responsibilities that the customer and AWS share
- Describing how AWS responsibilities and customer responsibilities can shift, depending on the service used (for example, Amazon RDS, AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2)
2.2 Understand AWS Cloud security, governance, and compliance concepts.
Knowledge of:
- AWS compliance and governance concepts
- Benefits of cloud security (for example, encryption)
- Where to capture and locate logs that are associated with cloud security
Skills in:
- Identifying where to find AWS compliance information (for example, AWS Artifact) (AWS Documentation: Viewing compliance information)
- Understanding compliance needs among geographic locations or industries (for example, AWS Compliance)
- Describing how customers secure resources on AWS (for example, Amazon Inspector, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Shield) (AWS Documentation: Security, identity, and compliance)
- Identifying different encryption options (for example, encryption in transit, encryption at rest) (AWS Documentation: Encrypting Data-at-Rest and Data-in-Transit)
- Recognizing services that aid in governance and compliance (for example, monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch; auditing with AWS CloudTrail, AWS Audit Manager, and AWS Config; reporting with access reports) (AWS Documentation: Logging and events)
- Recognizing compliance requirements that vary among (AWS Documentation: AWS services Compliance)
2.3 Identify AWS access management capabilities
Knowledge of:
- Identity and access management (for example, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM])
- Importance of protecting the AWS root user account
- Principle of least privilege
- AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On)
Skills in:
- Understanding access keys, password policies, and credential storage (for example, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Secrets Manager?)
- Identifying authentication methods in AWS (for example, multi-factor authentication [MFA], IAM Identity Center, cross-account IAM roles) (AWS Documentation: Using multi-factor authentication (MFA) in AWS)
- Defining groups, users, custom policies, and managed policies in compliance with the principle of least privilege (AWS Documentation: Security best practices in IAM)
- Identifying tasks that only the account root user can perform (AWS Documentation: Tasks that require root user credentials)
- Understanding which methods can achieve root user protection (AWS Documentation: Root user best practices for your AWS account)
- Understanding the types of identity management (for example, federated) (AWS Documentation: Overview of AWS identity management: Users)
2.4 Identify components and resources for security
Knowledge of:
- Security capabilities that AWS provides
- Security-related documentation that AWS provides
Skills in:
- Describing AWS security features and services (for example, security groups, network ACLs, AWS WAF) (AWS Documentation: Security group policies)
- Understanding that third-party security products are available from AWS Marketplace (AWS Documentation: Security Products in AWS Marketplace)
- Identifying where AWS security information is available (for example, AWS Knowledge Center, AWS Security Center, AWS Security Blog)
- Understanding the use of AWS services for identifying security issues (for example, AWS Trusted Advisor) (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor)
Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services 34%
3.1 Define methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud
Knowledge of:
- Different ways of provisioning and operating in the AWS Cloud
- Different ways to access AWS services
- Types of cloud deployment models
- Connectivity options
Skills in:
- Deciding between options such as programmatic access (for example, APIs, SDKs, CLI), the AWS Management Console, and infrastructure as code (IaC) (AWS Documentation: Grant programmatic access)
- Evaluating requirements to determine whether to use one-time operations or repeatable processes
- Identifying different deployment models (for example, cloud, hybrid, onpremises) (AWS Documentation: Selecting the right cloud for workloads – differences between public, private, and hybrid)
- Identifying connectivity options (for example, AWS VPN, AWS Direct Connect, public internet) (AWS Documentation: Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Connectivity Options)
3.2 Define the AWS global infrastructure
Knowledge of:
- AWS Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations
- High availability
- Use of multiple Regions
- Benefits of edge locations
- AWS Wavelength Zones and AWS Local Zones
Skills in:
- Describe the relationships among Regions, Availability Zones, and Edge Locations (AWS Documentation: Regions and Zones, Regions and Availability Zones)
- Describe how to achieve high availability through the use of multiple Availability Zones
- Describing when to use multiple Regions (for example, disaster recovery, business continuity, low latency for end users, data sovereignty) (AWS Documentation:Multi-Region Application Architecture)
- Describing at a high level the benefits of edge locations (for example, Amazon CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator) (AWS Documentation:AWS for the Edge)
3.3 Identify AWS compute services
Knowledge of:
- AWS compute services
Skills in:
- Recognizing the appropriate use of different EC2 instance types (for example, compute optimized, storage optimized) (AWS Documentation: Compute optimized instances)
- Recognizing the appropriate use of different container options (for example, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS) (AWS Documentation: Choosing an AWS container service)
- Recognizing the appropriate use of different serverless compute options (for example, AWS Fargate, Lambda)
- Recognizing that auto scaling provides elasticity (AWS Documentation: Auto Scaling group for your Elastic Beanstalk environment)
- Identifying the purposes of load balancers (AWS Documentation: What is an Application Load Balancer?)
3.4 Identify AWS database services.
Knowledge of:
- AWS database services
- Database migration
Skills in:
- Deciding when to use EC2 hosted databases or AWS managed databases (AWS Documentation: Choosing between Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS)
- Identifying relational databases (for example, Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora) (AWS Documentation: What is Amazon Aurora?)
- Identifying NoSQL databases (for example, DynamoDB) (AWS Documentation: Types of NoSQL databases)
- Identifying memory-based databases
- Identifying database migration tools (for example AWS Database Migration Service [AWS DMS], AWS Schema Conversion Tool [AWS SCT]) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Database Migration Service?)
Task Statement 3.5: Identify AWS network services.
Knowledge of:
- AWS network services
Skills in:
- Identifying the components of a VPC (for example, subnets, gateways) (AWS Documentation: What is Amazon VPC?)
- Understanding security in a VPC (for example, network ACLs, security groups) (AWS Documentation: Control traffic to subnets using network ACLs)
- Understanding the purpose of Amazon Route 53 (AWS Documentation: What is Amazon Route 53?)
- Identifying edge services (for example, CloudFront, Global Accelerator) (AWS Documentation: AWS services for edge computing)
- Identifying network connectivity options to AWS (for example AWS VPN, Direct Connect) (AWS Documentation: Network-to-Amazon VPC connectivity options)
Task Statement 3.6: Identify AWS storage services.
Knowledge of:
- AWS storage services
Skills in:
- Identifying the uses for object storage (AWS Documentation: Amazon S3 objects overview)
- Recognizing the differences in Amazon S3 storage classes (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon S3 storage classes)
- Identifying block storage solutions (for example, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS], instance store) (AWS Documentation: Storage options for your Amazon EC2 instances)
- Identifying file services (for example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon FSx) (AWS Documentation: What is Amazon Elastic File System?)
- Identifying cached file systems (for example, AWS Storage Gateway) (AWS Documentation: Managing local disks for your gateway)
- Understanding use cases for lifecycle policies (AWS Documentation: Managing your storage lifecycle)
- Understanding use cases for AWS Backup
Task Statement 3.7: Identify AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) services and analytics services.
Knowledge of:
- AWS AI/ML services
- AWS analytics services
Skills in:
- Understanding the different AI/ML services and the tasks that they accomplish (for example, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Lex, Amazon Kendra) (AWS Documentation: Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI))
- Identifying the services for data analytics (for example, Amazon Athena, Amazon Kinesis, AWS Glue, Amazon QuickSight) (AWS Documentation: Overview of Amazon Web Services)
Task Statement 3.8: Identify services from other in-scope AWS service categories.
Knowledge of:
- Application integration services of Amazon EventBridge, Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
- Business application services of Amazon Connect and Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES)
- Customer engagement services of AWS Activate for Startups, AWS IQ, AWS Managed Services (AMS), and AWS Support
- Developer tool services and capabilities of AWS AppConfig, AWS Cloud9, AWS CloudShell, AWS CodeArtifact, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeStar, and AWS X-Ray
- End-user computing services of Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon WorkSpaces, and Amazon WorkSpaces Web
- Frontend web and mobile services of AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync
- IoT services of AWS IoT Core and AWS IoT Greengrass
Skills in:
- Choosing the appropriate service to deliver messages and to send alerts and notifications (AWS Documentation: Mobile text messaging (SMS))
- Choosing the appropriate service to meet business application needs (AWS Documentation: Business applications)
- Choosing the appropriate service for AWS customer support (AWS Documentation: Getting started with AWS Support)
- Choosing the appropriate option for business support assistance
- Identifying the tools to develop, deploy, and troubleshoot applications (AWS Documentation: Developer tools)
- Identifying the services that can present the output of virtual machines (VMs) on end-user machines (AWS Documentation: Compute services)
- Identifying the services that can create and deploy frontend and mobile services (AWS Documentation: Front-end web and mobile services)
- Identifying the services that manage IoT devices (AWS Documentation: Managing devices with AWS IoT)
Domain 4: Billing and Pricing 12%
Task Statement 4.1: Compare AWS pricing models.
Knowledge of:
- Compute purchasing options (for example, On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, Savings Plans, Dedicated Hosts, Dedicated Instances, Capacity Reservations)
- Data transfer charges
- Storage options and tiers
Skills in:
- Identifying and comparing when to use various compute purchasing options (AWS Documentation: Instance purchasing options)
- Describing Reserved Instance flexibility (AWS Documentation: How Reserved Instances are applied)
- Describing Reserved Instance behavior in AWS Organizations (AWS Documentation: Reserved Instances)
- Understanding incoming data transfer costs and outgoing data transfer costs (for example, from one Region to another Region, within the same Region) (AWS Documentation: Understanding data transfer charges)
- Understanding different pricing options for various storage options and tiers
Task Statement 4.2: Understand resources for billing, budget, and cost management.
Knowledge of:
- Billing support and information
- Pricing information for AWS services
- AWS Organizations
- AWS cost allocation tags
Skills in:
- Understanding the appropriate uses and capabilities of AWS Budgets, AWS Cost Explorer, and AWS Billing Conductor (AWS Documentation: Cloud Financial Management)
- Understanding the appropriate uses and capabilities of AWS Pricing Calculator (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Pricing Calculator?)
- Understanding AWS Organizations consolidated billing and allocation of costs (AWS Documentation: Consolidated billing for AWS Organizations)
- Understanding various types of cost allocation tags and their relation to billing reports (for example, AWS Cost and Usage Report) (AWS Documentation: Using AWS cost allocation tags)
Task Statement 4.3: Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options.
Knowledge of:
- Resources and documentation available on official AWS websites
- AWS Support plans
- Role of the AWS Partner Network, including independent software vendors
and system integrators - AWS Support Center
Skills in:
- Locating AWS whitepapers, blogs, and documentation on official AWS websites
- Identifying and locating AWS technical resources (for example AWS Prescriptive Guidance, AWS Knowledge Center, AWS re:Post) (AWS Documentation: AWS Prescriptive Guidance Patterns)
- Identifying AWS Support options for AWS customers (for example, customer service and communities, AWS Developer Support, AWS Business Support, AWS Enterprise On-Ramp Support, AWS Enterprise Support)
- Identifying the role of Trusted Advisor, AWS Health Dashboard, and the AWS Health API to help manage and monitor environments for cost optimization (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor)
- Identifying the role of the AWS Trust and Safety team to report abuse of AWS resources
- Understanding the role of AWS Partners (for example AWS Marketplace, independent software vendors, system integrators) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Marketplace?)
- Identifying the benefits of being an AWS Partner (for example, partner training and certification, partner events, partner volume discounts) (AWS Documentation: Benefits for AWS Specialization Partners)
- Identifying the key services that AWS Marketplace offers (for example, cost management, governance and entitlement)
- Identifying technical assistance options available at AWS (for example, AWS Professional Services, AWS Solutions Architects)
Exploring AWS Learning Paths
Now that you’ve got the course outline, it’s time to explore the AWS Learning Paths. This step helps you build a strong foundation before diving into the deeper learning. Think of it as laying the groundwork with some initial knowledge. So, be sure to check out the following AWS Cloud Practitioner training paths:
AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (Classroom)
This is a basic-level, one-day, instructor-led classroom course. In this course, you will learn:
- What the cloud is and how it functions.
- How to tell the difference between cloud computing and deployment models.
- The value of the AWS Cloud.
- The basics of the global cloud infrastructure.
- Different ways to interact with AWS.
- How to describe and distinguish between AWS service categories.
- How to choose the right solution using AWS Cloud services.
- The Well-Architected Framework.
- Basic principles of AWS Cloud architecture.
- The Shared Responsibility model.
- Security services within the AWS Cloud.
- Billing, account management, and pricing models for the AWS platform.
- Upcoming services and advancements in cloud technology.
AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (Second Edition)
This is a free digital course to understand the fundamentals of the AWS Cloud, build cloud skills, and prepare for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. After this, the candidate will learn to do the following-
- Firstly, define what the AWS Cloud is and the basic global infrastructure
- Secondly, describe the key services on the AWS platform and their common use cases
- Thirdly, describe basic AWS Cloud architectural principles
- Subsequently, describe basic security and compliance aspects of the AWS platform and the shared security model
- Consequently, define the billing, account management, and pricing models
- And, identify sources of documentation or technical assistance (e.g., whitepapers, support tickets)
- Also, describe the AWS Cloud value proposition
- Furthermore, describe basic/core characteristics of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud
Recommended AWS Knowledge
It’s advisable for candidates to have at least 6 months of experience with the AWS Cloud in any job. This applies to various types of candidates, including those from traditional and non-traditional backgrounds, educators, and people who are just getting familiar with the AWS Cloud. This also includes individuals in roles like project managers, IT managers, sales managers, decision-makers, marketers, and those in finance, procurement, and legal departments.
Apart from this, a candidate must have a general IT Knowledge. This includes having a basic understanding of IT services and their uses in the AWS Cloud platform.
AWS Cloud Practitioner Cheat Sheet
Online Courses
If you want to take an online course for this, there are plenty of options on the internet. There’s a wide variety of courses out there. Just make sure to pick one that fits your budget. These courses offer video lessons you can watch online, which are easy to understand. They also give you practice papers to help you prepare.
So, you can try them out AWS Cloud Practitioner Online Course.
Read AWS Whitepapers
Next, you should read AWS Cloud Practitioner whitepapers. These papers provide technical information about the cloud and AWS. You’ll find various technical documents, guides, and reference materials with diagrams. We’ve made it easier for you by selecting the following ones. Be sure to check them out:
- Overview of Amazon Web Services
- Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
- How AWS Pricing Works
- Compare AWS Support Plans
AWS Reference Books
There are many reference books that are available for the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification Exam. And, the few good ones are,
- The Beginners Guide to Amazon Web Services book by Dennis Hutten
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Study Guide book by Ben Piper, David Clinton
- AWS Basics: Beginner’s Guide book by Gordon Wong
- Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification Guide book by Todd Montgomery
- Amazon Web Services for Dummies-by Bernard Golden
Join the Community/ Online Forum
Using online forums and study groups can be a helpful way to get ready for the certification exam. You can connect with other candidates and ask questions about topics you find challenging. However, joining these groups is optional, and it depends on your preference. These online groups also keep you connected with others who are on the same journey as you. You can also ask questions about AWS Cloud Practitioner practice exams if you need help with certain topics.
Self-evaluation Time
Now, we’re at the final step of the preparatory guide. This step helps you see where you might need more work. After you’ve covered all the topics in the syllabus, be sure to take sample tests. These tests mimic the real exam conditions. Practice papers can come from different places, but the key is to test yourself as much as possible. The more you practice, the better you’ll get. SO START PRACTICING NOW!
