This AWS Questions and Answers blog is for a reader who has a fair amount of curiosity and interest in technology but does not have any background in it. Each question addresses a high-level understanding of the cloud ecosystem and the steps to explore the ecosystem. We will also explain to you how to navigate this abstruse world of computer jargon and put it to good use. It serves as a guide for someone who wants to learn about several AWS and cloud terminologies, wants to know about the most asked questions, and learn how to make money off this cash-spewing mythical beast called the Amazon Web Services (AWS) (here's some resource to help you navigate through the types of cloud services).
Top 15 of the most frequently asked AWS questions
So here are the top 15 of the most frequently asked AWS questions:
1. What is the cloud, and what is the AWS cloud? Why is cloud computing important to learn? How can it be useful for a small or a large company to scale websites, apps, games, or any digital solutions?
Cloud is a digital infrastructure that we create as an abstraction or a facade to take away several capacities of digital computing, infrastructure, and systems and present them to the user as an easy to use plug and play system to work upon without worrying about the underlying nitty-gritty and have global scale, reach and cost-effectiveness.
AWS: Amazon Web Services is Amazon's cloud offering across the globe.
The cloud is useful for large as well as small organizations, as well as individuals who wish to build, store, process, and stream digital content or set up digital infrastructure. Most of the issues of dynamic scaling, hardware maintenance, complex digital systems integration, backend, frontend hosting solutions, and software maintenance are as easy as plug-and-play in cloud-architected solutions.
2. What are the benefits of being a cloud architect, especially an AWS cloud architect?
Most organizations wish to cut costs and operate on a global scale with minimal effort. With skilled human resources becoming more expensive and the cloud making solutions from scratch available. A new generation of talented individuals called cloud architects has emerged. Equipped with deep knowledge, expertise, and understanding in developing a solution on these platforms, these are individuals who can create solutions of scale for several businesses.
Amazon provides the AWS Cloud Certification. They have pioneered the cloud market and have the most global penetration across geographies. It is also the most used and most profitable cloud solution out there. An AWS cloud certification is a must-have for a 21st-century IT professional who seeks good jobs in the competitive landscape of technology (also consider checking out this career guide for cloud computing jobs).
3. What are the various types of AWS cloud certification?
AWS has the following types of certifications:
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AWS Certified Solutions Architect [ Associate, Professional ]
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AWS Certified Developer [ Associate, Professional ]
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AWS Certified SysOps Admin [ Associate, Professional ]
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AWS Certified Networking Specialist
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AWS Certified Big Data Specialty
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AWS Certified Security Specialty
Image Source: AWS open source documentation
4. What is the exam cost and format for each AWS Certification?
5. Does AWS offer a free account subscription for its cloud-like Facebook service?
Yes, AWS offers a one-time free subscription for all its services for 1 year. All you need to do is create an AWS account registration using your email and fill out your details. Once you create an account, you will receive all the AWS free tier services for an entire year. This is more than enough to become a cloud architect and clearing the AWS certifications.
6. Does an individual get a certified copy from AWS on completing the certification, and what is the validity of this certificate?
On successful completion of AWS certification, individuals receive a certificate that is valid for a period of 2 years. After this, you would need recertification.
Sample Certificate:
Image Source: AWS Sample Certificate
7. What happens if I don't pass the AWS exam? When can I retake the exam?
In a scenario where the candidate is unable to clear the exam, he or she is eligible to re-attempt the exam after a duration of 14 days. In case you don't clear the exam, there are no refunds, but a provision to retake it again after two weeks is always there.
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8. What are various other benefits of getting AWS certified? Does it have any added advantages, for example, can I use Amazon's AWS branding etc.?
Yes, an AWS certification is not only a certification, but it also lets you brand yourself and helps you showcase your achievements and excellence globally. Here are the AWS benefits checklists and branding insignia:
Image Source: AWS
9. Apart from AWS, what other cloud service providers are there? Who are the top players in the Indian ecosystem?
AWS is one of the most globally well-known cloud solutions providers, as it has pioneered this space, but definitely, it has huge competition from other providers as well. Big tech companies have a similar offering like AWS and provide cloud services. Microsoft provides vis-a-vis solution called Azure, Google provides its own cloud called Google Cloud.
There are several local players too, apart from the big three, that specialize in several verticals in the cloud market in India. Cisco, IBM, OrangeScape, and SaasIndia are a few examples.
10. If I am an individual who wishes to build an internal cloud solution for my own company, are there any free and open source alternatives out there?
Yes, in case you wish to start your own cloud company there are several open-source and available tools in the market using which a well-integrated solution can be set up to offer a competitive cloud offering for a niche or large market. Several of these tools like "OpenStack", Redhat based KVM hypervisor, "Opennebula", and "Cloudstack" community editions, are available. A good example of building a google drive like open-source cloud storage system is well illustrated here - Google Drive Like Cloud Solution.
11. Is an AWS Certification only useful for technical engineers? Can people from different fields like teaching, writing, product managers, and designers also enjoy cloud technologies?
Learning AWS is useful not only for engineers but also for people from different fields. You can become part of the AWS Hero Community, where you can act as a facilitator, content creator, AWS youtube blogger, AWS podcast speaker, interpreting and deciphering complex technical lingo for other enthusiasts. You can also become a community organizer, organizing hackathons, tech meetups, and events. For your contribution to this vibrant community, you stand to get recognized from Amazon and make a dent in the ecosystem.
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12. What do the acronyms SAAS, PAAS, IAAS stand for?
SAAS is an acronym for Software As A Service. What it means is that any program that you write or any software you create is first hosted on the cloud. Once it's where you can license it out to your customers from there as a service which can be free if you are benevolent, but generally you charge a licensing fee for it. For example, imagine that you are Bill Gates and you created a new Windows magical, now, you host this on the cloud and distribute this service which the users can run from there browsers and access all the features of windows in a browser. It's one of the central most tenets of a cloud and this is how most people ship software solutions to a global audience.
PAAS is an acronym for Platform As A Service. Consider yourself a small or a mid-sized company where you have a bunch of programmers working on creating cutting-edge software solutions. But you don't have people from networking, IT supports, hardware engineers etc. So you need a solution already configured for you to go ahead and run your software. Teething issues of a firewall, networking, operating systems, databases are all taken care of by the platform. As a user, your job is to make use of this platform and deploy your software solution.
IAAS is an acronym for Infrastructure As A Service. This means you get access to computing resources like servers, IP addresses, routers, data centers, CPUs etc. , all the components inside many data-centers based on how much compute, storage, network bandwidth etc your product needs.
Image Source: www.thecloudinfographic.com
13. Are there AWS teachers or companies that provide consultancy or training for completing AWS certifications? Do they also provide technical consulting?
Whenever you build solutions on AWS, you get full technical support about how to architect solutions on AWS from Amazon's internal AWS specialists and support staff. You can also requisition priority 24/7 support by paying an extra fee.
Also available to you is the huge AWS Hero Community and developer forums which contain updated information on common problems people face while using this ecosystem.
Several local Indian institutes have also sprung up that cater to the ever-evolving demand for AWS certification training.
14. Is AWS used within Amazon? Do they hire AWS-certified architects?
AWS is the main bread and butter of Amazon, amounting to almost 70% of revenue from their technical products. Inside Amazon, people use, develop and maintain AWS services to build and scale amazon products. It is one of the key reasons why Amazon innovates faster than any company in the world. Getting certified as an AWS architect doesn't entitle you to a job in Amazon, but it definitely increases your chances of getting in by 50% or more.
15. Can I do fancy engineering stuff like Big Data, Machine Learning, AI, and Robotics on AWS?
Yes, AWS supplies most of the Big Data platforms as a PAAS platform solution. You get access to EMR ( Elastic Map Reduce, Spark, Spark SQL, Hive, Sqoop, HDFS, Yarn, etc, as services). You can also deploy a third-party Big Data solution of Cloudera or Hortonworks on AWS instances and set up your own cluster. You get access to Amazon's cutting-edge GPU servers to train you in neural network models. You can also train or build bots using AWS Lex, Code skills for voice assistant Alexa.
AWS also has its own Internet of Things cloud offering as part of the AWS offering for users to integrate AWS with the internet of things and make this world even more connected and smart.
When it comes to robotics, companies have built humanoid robots using AWS.
