AWS Solutions Architect - Professional Certification is "the" Journey not "the" Destination

Last year in Feb'19, when I was failed to clear the SAP-C01 exam, I clearly realized few things - 1) I was conceptually right on scenarios, but missing proficiency 2) Time management in reading & understanding lengthy questions ( spending too much time in reading the question and using paper and pencil to draw a rough architecture).

In 2018, I blogged the Journey of SE, which moves around a person -who is always ready to re-skill and learn new things moving ahead naturally with the flow. But things usually move around business needs in an organization. I moved with the flow to undertake the role of Technical Program Manager in May'19, but after spending 9/10 months, I realize that TPM role was wrapped more around solving people and process challenges and I started missing the technical ignite specially Cloud & AWS. So, I decided to change the flow and wrote a script to move back to technical role. (I will cover it in separate blog) But my "Go with the Flow" Philosophy meant killing my 18 months for successfully completion of SAP-C01 exam.

So Why One More Blog?

You may ask -why another blog... actually, I have spent many hours searching the internet reading articles by various authors and numerous blog posts to prepare a strategy for achieving this certification, so I feel obligated to help my fellow travelers in the quest to achieve this cloud certification and hope they learn from my experience to choose wisely where to invest their energy.

How did I prepare? Thoughts!! and Suggestions!!

• A Cloud Guru — covers all important areas in depth and go through all available material to understand the topics rather than just memorizing them. The Cloud Guru sessions highlight all important topic from exam point. It is useful to join the discussion forums where people share latest reviews on the exam, practice questions and doubts.
• White Papers — AWS white papers are a great set of resource to follow best practices and clear all doubts. Please don't go for the exam without going through AWS White Papers.
• This is My Architecture — This is an excellent knowledge resource on YouTube to understand all required deep concepts and industry trends running on AWS architecture.
• Re:Invent Videos — re:Invent videos also on YouTube gives insightful information and cover every single topic in-depth and with hands-on demos and also discuss few real-life scenarios.
• Exam Day Tip —The exam has 75 questions, 190 mins and costs $300. It means, we have roughly 2.5 mins for each $4 question. Most of the questions are scenario based described in 7/8 lines. Please ensure that you read them carefully and pick up the keywords like “Cost Effective”, “High Availability”, “Disaster Recovery”, "High Resilience", "Security" etc.
• No Scripting knowledge —Familiarity with a IaC scripting language is not mandatory.
• Can I skip some content, if have AWS hands-on experience — Strongly advice not to skip any topic. The 75 questions in the exam cover almost all the topics and the questions are very deep diving so having surface knowledge will not be sufficient.

Scheduling the Exam

Due to COVID-19, both testing partners, PSI and Pearson VUE, are providing home exam delivery option for AWS Certification. While scheduling it perform a quick pre-check to verify compatibility of your device and network before planning to take the exam in your home or office.

So what next?

There is always something new to learn with AWS, that's why its really fun! I always try to keep myself up-to-date with the latest and greatest from AWS and maybe I'll see some of you virtually at 2020 re:Invent.

This certification may or may not help you to reach to your "Destination" of a desired job or be qualified as a Solution Architect. But I like to see this certification as a "Journey" because going through the certification preparations help you deep dive in the concepts. Trust me, you will enjoy this dive.