My tips for passing the AWS Networking Specialty

I made a post earlier discussing how I passed the AWS Networking Specialty exam. This was my second attempt at the exam, and despite holding all of the associate level certifications, the Security Specialty and the Solutions Architect Pro, I can undoubtedly say that the AWS Networking exam was the most difficult one I've taken.

As far as study resources I utilized the following:

• AWS Networking Specialty Official Study Guide
• Tia Williams course from LinuxAcademy
• Zeal Vora's course on Udemy
• Ryan K.'s course on ACloudGuru
• WhizLabs practice exams
• BrainCert practice exams (as close to the real exam as I've seen)
• Several Re:Invent Deep Dive videos on Direct Connect, VPN, Route 53 and Hybrid Networking

All of these resources were critical to passing the exams. The courses helped break the topics down, the practice exams helped cement the concepts and the labs integrated in LinuxAcademy coupled with real-world experience with many of the services proved very helpful.

Some of the most critical services/concepts for the exam are Direct Connect, VPN, R53/DHCP and Elastic Load Balancers. (Read the PDF User Guide for Direct Connect!)

You need to have a deep understanding of complex networking architectures. This includes:

• VPC Peering (all of the nuances, transitive routing, selecting peering scenarios)
• Resilient Infrastructure Design (Direct Connect with VPN as a backup, Multi-Direct Connect) Active/Active Configurations, Active/Passive Configurations, Route Propagation, AS-Prepending, Local Preference etc.
• R53/DNS - Public and Private Hosted Zones, Resolving Domains from AWS to on-premise and vice versa (e.g. DNS Resolvers/Endpointers/Forwarders)
• VPC Endpoints - Interface and Gateway Endpoints, routing, access control and utilization
• Transit Gateway
• Direct Connect Gateway
• Network Access Control Lists (NACL)s, Security Groups (SG)s

There's definitely much more but these are the key items that are at the top of my mind. The questions aren't nearly as verbose as what you'll face on the Professional level exams, however the scenarios provided require you to have a strong understanding of networking, routing and designing/managing resilient, optimized architectures.