Zero to One - the better way of Learning AWS?

So you’ve decided that you want to learn about AWS(or some other cloud ecosystem) but you don’t know how to start your learning journey. Maybe you’ve seen people posting their certifications/projects/achievements but it would be nice to follow someone who’s learning now and to see the in-between steps in getting there.

It can be a challenge to take on the learning process because there’s a lot of advice online but each individual person has their own background in IT or maybe very little knowledge and experience in it.

Chances are you probably do have some IT experience while knowing there are areas that you’ve never explored. You could be very comfortable in a specific programming language but you find networking to be quite daunting for example.

There are several tips that I’ve noticed online when it comes to starting your own cloud learning journey. I would summarise the recommended process like this.

1. Learn the core concepts well. There are some fundamental concepts when it comes to the cloud and also specifically to AWS. It’s important to know those. It’s also important to know what the different services are and how they can connect to each under within the parameters of these fundamental concepts.
2. Build skills by hands on use of the services. Theory is an important aspect of learning but still that, an aspect. You simply need to build things. Only watching youtube tutorials is bad. Hands-on labs is helpful. Doing projects is the best.
3. Learn to fill the gaps. As mentioned your specific roadmap to learning will be unique because of your particular background. You will need to put some extra effort in to learn what may be considered pre-requisites for the cloud for example operating systems or virtual machines. One generally learns about gaps they need to fill after they start learning or taking on projects so this is an as needed basis.
4. Don’t focus only on certification. An often debated topic is one on certifications.

The negatives are:

• It costs money to take an exam
• You will have to study pretty hard and intensely to briefly hold the knowledge needed to pass the exam (This does not reflect real life or your day to day problem solving activities)

The positives are:

• It provides a structure to your learning
• You get some recognition for your skills. (this can mean nothing or be the key to you getting a job)

That being said the 2 certifications that one should do. They are the AWS Cloud Practitioner and the other is the AWS Solutions Architect Associate. The cloud practitioner is theory only and basically just Amazon propaganda on why you should use it. The Solutions Architect is more detailed and more practical. The recommendations are to do the Cloud Practitioner first and Solutions Architect second.

Practical hands on experience is essential whether you decide to pursue a certification or not.

To help you along with all of this I’m going to document my journey as I go along learning these things myself. I can tell you that I’ve already messed up with the first step. One of my personal problems with learning things is sometimes going too deep into topics. I have almost rewritten the AWS technical essentials course in it’s entirety while retaining very little info in my head.

I think learning the concepts and acquiring the depth later on is a better way of going about things. Hopefully the summary of my learning can contribute to everyone else that is trying to learn.

My approach is going to be 2 fold from this point. One is going to be the project based learning and the other is going to be the structured learning working from the certification curriculum.

Stay tuned for more AWS learning content. I’ll try to share some resources and guides I use along the way. Are you an expert in this field? What are your thoughts on the approach? Are you getting started with learning? Do you have some beginner friendly project ideas you’d like to work on? Feel free to share in the comments.