AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Study Guide 2023

Exam Overview

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam is a certification exam offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that test an individual’s understanding of the AWS Cloud. The exam covers various topics, including AWS services, architecture, security, and pricing.

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification is helpful for individuals who want to demonstrate their understanding of the AWS Cloud to potential employers, customers, or partners. It is also a good starting point for those who wish to progress to more advanced AWS certifications. This certification can also help increase one’s marketability and potential for career advancement in the cloud computing industry.

Level	Foundational
Length	90 minutes
Cost	100 USD (Visit Exam Pricing Page for more information)
Format	65 multiple-choice or multiple-response questions
Delivery Method	Pearson VUE testing center or online proctored exam.
Passing Score	700/1000
Passing Percentage	70%
Renewal period	Every three (3) years

Note: The exam includes 15 unscored questions that do not affect your score. AWS collects information about candidate performance on these unscored questions to evaluate these questions for future use as scored questions. These unscored questions are not identified on the exam.

For more details about the exam, how to schedule the exam, and what to expect before, during, and after the exam, follow the link below to the exam details page.

Exam	Link
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam	Exam Details
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Guide	Exam Guide

Exam Content Outline

Domain 1: Cloud Concepts

1.1 Define the AWS Cloud and its value proposition

• Define the benefits of the AWS cloud including:
  • Security
  • Reliability
  • High Availability
  • Elasticity
  • Agility
  • Pay-as-you go pricing
  • Scalability
  • Global Reach
  • Economy of scale
• Explain how the AWS cloud allows users to focus on business value
  • Shifting technical resources to revenue-generating activities as opposed to managing infrastructure

1.2 Identify aspects of AWS Cloud economics

• Define items that would be part of a Total Cost of Ownership proposal
  • Understand the role of operational expenses (OpEx)
  • Understand the role of capital expenses (CapEx)
  • Understand labor costs associated with on-premises operations
  • Understand the impact of software licensing costs when moving to the cloud
• Identify which operations will reduce costs by moving to the cloud
  • Right-sized infrastructure
  • Benefits of automation
  • Reduce compliance scope (for example, reporting)
  • Managed services (for example, RDS, ECS, EKS, DynamoDB)

1.3 Explain the different cloud architecture design principles

• Explain the design principles
  • Design for failure
  • Decouple components versus monolithic architecture
  • Implement elasticity in the cloud versus on-premises
  • Think parallel

Domain 2: Security and Compliance

2.1 Define the AWS shared responsibility model

• Recognize the elements of the Shared Responsibility Model
• Describe the customer’s responsibility on AWS
  • Describe how the customer’s responsibilities may shift depending on the service used (for example with RDS, Lambda, or EC2)
• Describe AWS responsibilities

2.2 Define AWS Cloud security and compliance concepts

• Identify where to find AWS compliance information
• Locations of lists of recognized available compliance controls (for example, HIPPA, SOCs)
  • Recognize that compliance requirements vary among AWS services
• At a high level, describe how customers achieve compliance on AWS
  • Identify different encryption options on AWS (for example, In transit, At rest)
• Describe who enables encryption on AWS for a given service
• Recognize there are services that will aid in auditing and reporting
  • Recognize that logs exist for auditing and monitoring (do not have to understand the logs)
  • Define Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Config, and AWS CloudTrail
• Explain the concept of least privileged access

2.3 Identify AWS access management capabilities

• Understand the purpose of User and Identity Management
  • Access keys and password policies (rotation, complexity)
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
    • Groups/users
    • Roles
    • Policies, managed policies compared to custom policies
  • Tasks that require the use of root accounts Protection of root accounts

2.4 Identify resources for security support

• Recognize there are different network security capabilities
  • Native AWS services (for example, security groups, Network ACLs, AWS WAF)
  • 3rd party security products from the AWS Marketplace
• Recognize there is documentation and where to find it (for example, best practices, whitepapers, official documents)
  • AWS Knowledge Center, Security Center, security forum, and security blogs
  • Partner Systems Integrators
• Know that security checks are a component of AWS Trusted Advisor

Domain 3: Technology

3.1 Define methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud

• Identify at a high level different ways of provisioning and operating in the AWS cloud
  • Programmatic access, APIs, SDKs, AWS Management Console, CLI, Infrastructure as Code
• Identify different types of cloud deployment models
  • All in with cloud/cloud native
  • Hybrid
  • On-premises
• Identify connectivity options
  • VPN
  • AWS Direct Connect
  • Public internet

3.2 Define the AWS global infrastructure

• Describe the relationships among Regions, Availability Zones, and Edge Locations
• Describe how to achieve high availability through the use of multiple Availability Zones
  • Recall that high availability is achieved by using multiple Availability Zones
  • Recognize that Availability Zones do not share single points of failure
• Describe when to consider the use of multiple AWS Regions
  • Disaster recovery/business continuity
  • Low latency for end-users
  • Data sovereignty
• Describe at a high level the benefits of Edge Locations
  • Amazon CloudFront
  • AWS Global Accelerator

3.3 Identify the core AWS services

• Describe the categories of services on AWS (compute, storage, network, database)
• Identify AWS compute services
  • Recognize there are different compute families
  • Recognize the different services that provide compute (for example, AWS Lambda compared to Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), or Amazon EC2, etc.)
  • Recognize that elasticity is achieved through Auto Scaling
  • Identify the purpose of load balancers
• Identify different AWS storage services
  • Describe Amazon S3
  • Describe Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
  • Describe Amazon S3 Glacier
  • Describe AWS Snowball
  • Describe Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
  • Describe AWS Storage Gateway
• Identify AWS networking services
  • Identify VPC
  • Identify security groups
  • Identify the purpose of Amazon Route 53
  • Identify VPN, AWS Direct Connect
• Identify different AWS database services
  • Install databases on Amazon EC2 compared to AWS managed databases
  • Identify Amazon RDS
  • Identify Amazon DynamoDB
  • Identify Amazon Redshift

3.4 Identify resources for technology support

• Recognize there is documentation (best practices, whitepapers, AWS Knowledge Center, forums, blogs)
• Identify the various levels and scope of AWS support
  • AWS Abuse
  • AWS support cases
  • Premium support
  • Technical Account Managers
• Recognize there is a partner network (marketplace, third-party) including Independent Software Vendors and System Integrators
• Identify sources of AWS technical assistance and knowledge including professional services, solution architects, training and certification, and the Amazon Partner Network
• Identify the benefits of using AWS Trusted Advisor

Domain 4: Billing and Pricing

4.1 Compare and contrast the various pricing models for AWS (for example, On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances, and Spot Instance pricing)

• Identify scenarios/best fit for On-Demand Instance pricing
• Identify scenarios/best fit for Reserved-Instance pricing
  • Describe Reserved-Instances flexibility
  • Describe Reserved-Instances behavior in AWS Organizations
• Identify scenarios/best fit for Spot Instance pricing

4.2 Recognize the various account structures in relation to AWS billing and pricing

• Recognize that consolidated billing is a feature of AWS Organizations
• Identify how multiple accounts aid in allocating costs across departments

4.3 Identify resources available for billing support

• Identify ways to get billing support and information
  • Cost Explorer, AWS Cost and Usage Report, Amazon QuickSight, third-party partners, and AWS Marketplace tools
  • Open a billing support case
  • The role of the Concierge for AWS Enterprise Support Plan customers
• Identify where to find pricing information on AWS services
  • AWS Simple Monthly Calculator
  • AWS Services product pages
  • AWS Pricing API
• Recognize that alarms/alerts exist
• Identify how tags are used in cost allocation

Additional resources

Below is the list of additional resources you can use in your study.

Best of Luck, and share your results with the community once you get certified! 😊💪

Resource

• Pluralsight Learning Path - AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C01)
• AWS Skill Builder
• AWS Certification exam preparation