what are some good resources to use to study for the CCP? I don't want to only study the material to pass the exam, I actually want to learn it and be able to apply it. submitted by /u/Few-Power-5092 [link] [comments]

Hey everyone, I just passed the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (SOA-C03) exam today (Nov 8) with a score of 877, and I wanted to share my experience in case it helps others who are preparing. https://preview.redd.it/55ujwv2zj10g1.png?width=973&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d167ef83810ec8842ce1c073f8f832326e755fd About Me I’m a junior software engineer who started working with AWS about 5 months ago. I’ve mostly been using the core services — EC2, S3, RDS, IAM, and some CloudWatch/CloudFormation basics. I decided to start my AWS certification journey earlier this year to strengthen my fundamentals: Passed SAA-C03 (Solutions Architect Associate) after around 2 months of study – scored 848. Then passed DVA-C02 (Developer Associate) about a month later – scored 851. Two weeks after that, I scheduled the SOA-C03 (CloudOps Engineer Associate) — and here we are! Study Plan for SOA-C03 Since I had already completed Stephane Maarek’s SAA and DVA courses (and did all the hands-on labs), I didn’t want to spend another full course worth of time on videos again — plus I still retained most of the knowledge. So this time, I took a more focused approach: Week 1: Focused entirely on Tutorial Dojo (Jon Bonso) SOA-C03 practice exams. Scored between 70–90% on each set. Reviewed every mistake carefully and read the AWS official docs for services I wasn’t confident about. Week 2: Moved on to Neal Davis’ CloudOps practice exams on Udemy. Scored consistently above 80%. Reviewed all mistakes and did a few quick hands-on experiments in the AWS console (mainly CloudWatch, Systems Manager, and Config). That’s it — no video courses this time, just practice → review → docs → quick labs (for some services). Also, I personally felt that Neal Davis’ practice exams were closer in difficulty to the real exam, while Tutorial Dojo’s were slightly harder. Exam Day Took the exam at 5 AM today (remote proctor). Got the result email around 7 PM — 877/1000. The exam felt very fair if you’ve done some hands-on labs and gone through both Tutorial Dojo and Neal Davis practice sets. To be honest, I actually found DVA-C02 to be the hardest of the three Associate-level exams. It dives deep into service-specific features that you really have to memorize in detail — general AWS concepts alone won’t save you there. In contrast, SOA-C03 feels much more practical and operations-focused. A solid grasp of core AWS concepts (like IAM, monitoring, automation, and cost optimization) goes a long way here. My Tips Use the Tutorial Dojo + Neal Davis practice exam combo. Read AWS docs for the services you keep missing. If you already passed SAA/DVA, expect a lot of overlap, especially around IAM, Lambda, CloudFormation, and networking basics. Overall, this was a fun and manageable exam — definitely more “real-world ops” focused than DVA or SAA. As a non-native English speaker, I did find it a bit challenging to read some of the long, wordy questions — it takes extra effort to stay focused and catch all the details. Because of that, I think I’ll stop at the Associate level for now. The Professional-level exams look really text-heavy. Still, I’m super happy with the journey so far — from SAA → DVA → CloudOps! submitted by /u/Expensive_Test8661 [link] [comments]

I want to do CLF 02 and for the examination i think i will have to take the online option, since the examination center is far away from my city. What is your opinion on the online test? I tend to look everywhere when i think, and I would not like that the examiner thinks that Im cheating if i were to do that during the exam... submitted by /u/NachoDPirate [link] [comments]

This new feature for exporting the private key of a TLS cert got me thinking: how resilient are the exams to new announcements? A frequent question in the tests is about using third-party TLS with EC2 and generally unmanaged services, which was true for a long time until now. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-certificate-manager-introduces-exportable-public-ssl-tls-certificates-to-use-anywhere/ But if I'm taking, say, the Security Specialty exam now and this question comes up, I'd clearly pick the wrong answer. I'm guessing the exams aren't manually checked for updates until they're officially refreshed. Does anyone have experience with this? submitted by /u/preichl [link] [comments]

Two months after passing SAA-CO3 (check my post here), I have finally made it! Although the preparation didnt feel THAT difficult, the exam felt painfully difficult. It felt like all my prep was wasted halfway through the exam. Prep material: I purchased Zeal Vora's SCS course on Udemy immediately after passing my SAA. The course felt great initially, later kind of felt lengthy and it lacked many details which could've been covered in the course. I felt like purchasing Stephane's course but didn't want to spend extra, so I didn't. Used Notion for note-taking throughout. Practice tests: After finishing the video course along with the hands-on, I moved onto practice tests. Luckily, Zeal's video course has domain-wise practice tests at the end, which helped to some extent. Later I purchased Tutorials Dojo bundle for AWS SCS. Felt disappointed as there are only 4 sets each of timed & review mode as compared to 8 sets each in SAA bundle. I felt the questions were too easy and not Specialty exam level, so I purchased Neal Davis' and Stephane Maarek's practice tests on Udemy. These tests were super difficult and reached my expectations. I was barely getting 60% correct in these, and kept on learning why I was wrong. I frequently switched between Neal Davis' and TD's for some mix-up. I was not passing most of the time. Scores: Zeal Vora: 8/12, 29/43, 32/48, 20/36 TD: Section-based: 9/14, 19/22, 22/30, 19/30, 4/6 Review mode: 65/70, 54/70, 47/65, didnt finish set 4 as questions repeated from timed mode. Timed mode: 62/65, 54/65, 50/65, 49/65 Neal Davis: 17/25, 18/25, 17/25, 18/25, 17/25, 19/25 Stephane Maarek: 37/65, 38/65 AWS free official practice test on skill builder: 16/20 Additional prep: I tried to do hands-on whenever possible, as security services in AWS are very expensive. Using them for few mins might give a fat bill, so I didnt practice few of the services like WAF, Network Firewall, Shield Advanced etc. I went through AWS security blogs (link) as regularly as possible and tried noting them at a high level. These were super helpful. Repeatedly went through AWS documentation everyday for security services like KMS, IAM as the amount of corner use-cases they have is crazy. Day before the exam, I revised the SAA notes just to cover other services in general. Exam: I was not fully confident going into the exam. I sort of want to get it over with as I have been seeing AWS for the last 6 months lol. First few questions were not that difficult but the difficulty upped so quickly it was unbelievable. I was able to eliminate 2 wrong options immediately. But deciding between remaining 2 options felt like a battle. It was like this for almost half the questions. With around 1 hour left, I thoroughly reviewed my 20 flagged questions and submitted the exam. Was not at all expecting to pass but here we are I guess. Turns out my intuition was correct. Conclusion: Just like my previous post, understand the "why's" of choosing the right option that satisfies AWS's security best practices. Take notes as much as possible and make sure you don't get distracted when preparing. One video course for prep and TD's bundle did not feel enough for this exam. Try to purchase more and learn as much as possible. Whats next for me: I think I am done with AWS. As few people pointed out in this subreddit, AWS tests some nuances that I dont think anyone uses. You can easily look them up or ask AWS support but I get it they do it for exam difficulty. No further certification plans for me as of yet, will figure it out as I explore. Ciao!! submitted by /u/Key-Rough3411 [link] [comments]

Hi everyone, today I did AWS ANS-01 and SOA-003And I passed.Yes, networking certification is quite demanding. To be honest, I do a fair amount of networking work; I may never use DX or more advanced tools, in my job (as a partner)I do recommend getting the SA Pro first, since they felt somewhat similar but obviously focused on networking, but having a Pro helps a lot. submitted by /u/MarcoFdez01 [link] [comments]

Thanks to all who shared their study recommendations and test experiences. It helped me tremendously. I figured I'd share my experience and what I did to prep as well in case it helps out someone else. How long I studied and my thoughts on the difficulty of the test I studied for 17 days and passed the test first time. I have a very full schedule and also work a full time job so I could only devote around 1-2 hours a day to study; with a little more on Saturdays. There were maybe two days in the middle of that 17 days that I really didn't have time to do much of anything except just review a few flash cards. I also haven't taken a cert test in several years so it took a few days for my brain to get back in "cert mode." I had seen a bunch of people on YouTube or Reddit calling this test easy or simple and that they just studied for a couple of days and knocked it out. More power to them for being able to learn it so quickly, but the test was far from easy IMO. It wasn't what I'd call really hard either. To borrow a phrase from Brian Regan, I'd say it was "extra medium." What I found most difficult about the exam wasn't necessarily the concepts, it was just the sheer volume of services that AWS offers that you had to study, and the fact that several of the products seemed to overlap a bit in function and name. Inspector, Detective? Cost Explorer, Cost and Usage Report, Pricing Calculator? Sheesh, it makes the head spin. How I studied TL;DR for below: Watched CBT Nuggets videos Read Kaplan Learn's concise study guide Took 4 Kaplan Learn practice tests Viewed an Anki Deck of flash cards in my free time Listened to a 3-hour YouTube video course while on a road trip Skimmed through Tutorials Dojo video course Took 4 Tutorials Dojo practice tests (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) Reviewed the Tutorials Dojo e-book (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) I am a big fan of CBT Nuggets, which has helped me pass several CompTIA exams in the past. The way most of their training is presented helps me to really understand the exam concepts. However, at least in my experience over 4 certs, their video training needs to be supplemented to cover all of the test material. I do find that watching videos first and then following up with more in depth reading after works best for my brain to grasp what I'm reading. I first watched their AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Course, which was 15 lessons (or skills as they call them) that are normally about an hour each. I viewed the videos at double speed, so with the included reading and quiz questions it typically took me just a little over 30 minutes to complete each skill. I tried to knock out 2 skills a day, so that took me right around 8 days. CBT Nuggets also includes practice tests and some supplemental materials for some of their courses, and this was one of them. They give you access to Kaplan Learn's practice testing platform as well as their downloadable study guide and flash cards. I really liked the study guide as it was very concise and had several "what service to use when" tables and a few pages that just listed all of the AWS services that were available at the time of printing that might be covered on the test. Even though the guide was just 30 pages, it was packed with info and I read it slowly to try to absorb the info. I probably spent about 3 days going through it. I then took the Kaplan Learn practice test 4 times, usually one a day. First time I scored a 61%, but the next 3 times I averaged over 80%, topping out at around 90% correct. IMO the Kaplan tests were good and their question explanations were thorough, but the question bank the randomized test pulled from only had 255 total questions, so I was getting a lot of repeat questions on my later tries. Some may view this as a positive for reinforcement, but some may not. Whenever I had some down time, which really wasn't that much, I would review flash cards on my phone from this Anki Deck ***LINK REMOVED**\* One day in the middle of my studies I had a trip to a city 3 hours away, so during my drive I listened to this 3-hour training course on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsmhEgIV1mQ . It was pretty good for review but IMO it doesn't need to be your only resource. I went ahead and scheduled my test 3 days out and then decided to take the advice of a lot of Redditors and purchase Tutorials Dojo/Jon Bonso practice tests. At first I purchased the ones that are offered on Udemy but I found that the tests on their own website had a few more testing options (Timed, Review mode, Randomized mode, Section-based) and were cheaper, so I got a refund on the Udemy ones. I bought the video course, the e-book, and the practices tests for right at $20 vs around $23 (with a coupon) for the Udemy tests. The Udemy tests might have had a link to the exam guide too, not sure. I skimmed through the Tutorials Dojo video course, hitting up on some subjects I felt I was weak on, but didn't use it much. The secret sauce that brought everything together for me was the Tutorials Dojos practice tests and e-book. VERY glad I bought these tests and the e-book. The tests were similar to the Kaplan tests but covered some info that I NEVER saw on any of my other training materials. I took 4 of the practice tests and feel like I filled in gaps with each one, making sure to read the explanations, especially for each missed question or ones I guessed at. The e-book was great because it had a lot of charts and cheat sheets that answered the exact concepts I was struggling with and gave vital information right at your fingertips that you didn't have to search through hundreds of pages of AWS whitepapers to find. For example, all of the differences in support plans - response times, which ones had phone support, concierge, etc. There were also charts comparing the similar products, much like the Kaplan study guide, but much more in depth. Both the Kaplan and Tutorials Dojo tests were actually a little harder than the actual test, but IMO that helps to solidify your knowledge of the subject matter. Topics or Concepts I'd recommend spending a little extra time on Really get a good understanding of the AWS Well-Architected Framework (WAF), what goes under which pillar, and the general design principles. Make sure you know the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and what falls under each perspective. Know the advantages of cloud computing. If you get the Tutorials Dojo e-book pay attention to everything listed in the "what to review" section and the charts he provides, especially the ones listed in the and cheat sheets section. What I would have done differently I probably would have skipped the Kaplan tests all together and just concentrated on the Tutorials Dojo ones. The study guide from Kaplan was nice, and was helpful where it listed all of the AWS Services to learn, but I wouldn't have spent as much time reading that guide and would have sunk a lot more time into the Tutorials Dojo study guide, which was a lot longer (283 pages). The video I watched on YouTube was helpful, and since I had that road trip I had the time to listen to it, but if I didn't go on that trip I probably wouldn't have spent the time with it and just devoted that time more to the Tutorials Dojo material. A few notes on some test day expectations A few questions seemed way out of left field to me that covered subjects I barely saw much, if any, training material on. This of course could have been because of my prep techniques, but it's also possible they were some of the questions that didn't get scored. AWS includes 15 questions in the exam for evaluation purposes that don't get scored and don't affect your pass/fail. Don't let yourself get psyched out if you see a few oddball questions. I opted to take my test at a testing center. If you do that, remember to bring two forms of ID. What I took was my Driver's License and a debit card that was signed on the back, since the second form had to have my name and signature on it. There was a little bit of initial orientation that they did, including taking my picture and having me sign a few forms, but it didn't take long. Also, if you need to use the restroom during the test, you're allowed to just walk to the restroom, but the timer will keep going. I haven't had to leave a test in the middle of it yet, but it was good to know there was an option to use the restroom if I had to. At least this was an option at the Pearson VUE center I took it at. Not sure if that's standard policy. After the test was complete, I didn't immediately receive my results. I had to answer an 11 question survey first about my testing experience, THEN I was told I passed. So that was a little nerve wracking. Also, it said I passed, but it said I wouldn't receive my official results with my actual score and my certification badge until later, up to 5 business days. I didn't even get a printout. So, just keep that in mind that there will possibly be a wait if you're needing to prove your certification for a job or college credit. submitted by /u/redpants22 [link] [comments]

Used Stéphane Maarek’s course + TD practice tests. Studied ~3 weeks. Practice scores 60–70%, hit 83% on randomized, then took the real one — scored 822! Felt like my head was about to explode during the exam 😂 Questions looked like TD’s but options were shorter. Thanks everyone here for the help! submitted by /u/Warm_Region_4500 [link] [comments]

honestly, preparing for SAA seems like a lot of time and i think its mainly catered for Cloud Engineer and not the cloud support roles. Do you think studying for Sysops Administrator - Associate, helps me better prepared for the role of Cloud support Engineer? submitted by /u/LochLesMonster [link] [comments]

Thank toy guys!!! Thank you guys for all your help!!! If you want to check how I learned, check out the post on my blog: https://blog.huszcza.dev/p/aws-mla-c01-en/ submitted by /u/New-Introduction-593 [link] [comments]

Passed SAA-C03 today. I'm relieved! Primary form of prep was Stephane Maarek's course. If you read this, Stephane, thanks so much. You're the man! I also did daily Anki flashcards. They didn't hurt, but I'm not sure how much they helped. They probably helped me commit some things to memory that I otherwise wouldn't have. Also did the 6 practice exams on Udemy. Those were super helpful. Some of those questions appears on the real test verbatim. As I've heard other people here say -- you will probably get better at the practice exams with each one you take. I started out at 68%, finishing at 89%. Going over the answers you missed (and even some of the ones you guessed correctly on) is important. I started preparing in July, spending about an hour a day. submitted by /u/SalusaPrimus [link] [comments]

What was a subject that you wish you studied more of when taking the exam? I plan to shoot for my first attempt at the Solutions architect exam in a week or 2. I plan to carefully go over the TD exam in review mode. I just wanted to get a well rounded view on what wasn't covered in Stephane Maarek and Neal Davis courses. submitted by /u/jaydaba [link] [comments]

i am preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam i am an student i cant afford that much submitted by /u/Jolly-Nebula4069 [link] [comments]

It seems like all AWS training/prep is SO bulky. Are there not pdf study guides that just focus on the material covered on the exams? AWS Skill Builder is really terrible. submitted by /u/DankPalumbo [link] [comments]

Starting today, VPC Lattice allows you to specify a custom domain name for a resource configuration. Resource configurations enable layer-4 access to resources such as databases, clusters, domain names, etc. across VPCs and accounts. With this feature, you can use resource configurations for cluster-based and TLS-based resources. Resource owners can use this feature by specifying a custom domain for a resource configuration and sharing the resource configuration with consumers. Consumers can then access the resource using the custom domain, with VPC Lattice managing a private hosted zone in the consumer’s VPC. This feature also provides resource owners and consumers control and flexibility over the domains they want to use. Resource owners can use a custom domain owned by them, or AWS, or a third-party. Consumers can use granular controls to choose which domains they want VPC Lattice to manage private hosted zones for. This feature is available at no additional cost in all AWS Regions where VPC Lattice resource configuration is available. For more information, please read our blog or visit the Amazon VPC Lattice product detail page and Amazon VPC Lattice documentation.

Planning on taking the upcoming GenAI beta exam. Normal professional exams are $300 but the beta exam is half that. So will I be able to use my pass voucher on the beta exam that is already half the price? submitted by /u/thejsaddict [link] [comments]

First Stephen Marek cource is too good and should be the starting point of preparation . I still dint feel confident so went through "data engineering associate" cource of Marek and it changed things for me. I started to feel confident on those aws specific things like redshift, glue athena ,sqs,kinesis, dynamo db etc. Turorials dojo practice tests helped me revise finer points and I got low marks as I missed very aws specific details but understanding the concepts got me through. submitted by /u/DeConditioned [link] [comments]

Long time lurker. Had been postponing this for a year now! Finally made a promise to my SO that i will finish this before Nov end. (Because she sees me lurking here) I think that gave me the needed push, “a promise”. I work on server less application as part of my job, basic services like lambda. But this exam needed much more than just the surface level knowledge. I took stephen’s course on Udemy and it was a great intro to everything. But what helped me the most was the practice exam. I would have never expected the level of question or the deepth of question by just going through the course. I would definitely suggest to take as many practice test as possible. And if u get something wrong, really sit with it and deep drive as to why your understand is wrong about that concept. Try to apply it to your job architecture scenario or just pick a simple application and see how can your knowledge help make it better. The application of the knowledge will help strength it. What also helped me catch half information was, talking about these services to my colleague, because then u deep drive into the services, its cons and pro . Just my two cents. submitted by /u/Witty_Artichoke_4749 [link] [comments]

Big news for AWS security pros! AWS is rolling out an updated version of the AWS Certified Security – Specialty exam (SCS-C03) to reflect the fast-evolving cloud security landscape. Based on my review - here’s what’s changing --------------------------------------------- Expanded coverage on Generative AI & ML Security: New focus areas to match today’s real-world threats. Revised exam structure: New domains for Detection and Incident Response to better align with modern security operations. Key Dates: Registration for SCS-C03 opens: November 18, 2025 Last date for current SCS-C02: December 1, 2025 These updates show AWS’s push toward equipping security teams for the next-gen cloud environment, especially around securing AI workloads. 🔗 More details will be on the AWS Training and Certification Blog. submitted by /u/Few-Engineering-4135 [link] [comments]

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced .NET Data Provider Driver is now generally available for Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and MySQL-compatible databases. This advanced database driver reduces RDS Blue/Green switchover and database failover times, improving application availability. Additionally, it supports multiple authentication mechanisms for your database, including Federated Authentication, AWS Secrets Manager authentication, and token-based authentication with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). The driver builds on top of Npgsql PostgreSQL, native MySql.Data, and MySqlConnector drivers to further enhance functionality beyond standard database connectivity. The driver is natively integrated with Aurora and RDS databases, enabling it to monitor database cluster status and quickly connect to newly promoted writers during unexpected failures that trigger database failovers. Furthermore, the driver seamlessly works with popular frameworks like NHibernate and supports Entity Framework (EF) with MySQL databases. The driver is available as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license. Refer the instructions on the on the GitHub repository to get started. 

Amazon Cognito user pools now supports AWS PrivateLink for secure and private connectivity. With AWS PrivateLink, you can establish a private connection between your virtual private cloud (VPC) and Amazon Cognito user pools to configure, manage, and authenticate against your Cognito user pools without using the public internet. By enabling private network connectivity, this enhancement eliminates the need to use public IP addresses or relying solely on firewall rules to access Cognito. This feature supports user pool management operations (e.g., list user pools, describe user pools), administrative operations (e.g., admin-created users), and user authentication flows (sign in local users stored in Cognito). OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow (Cognito managed login, hosted UI, sign-in via social identity providers), client credentials flow (Cognito machine-to-machine authorization), and federated sign-ins via SAML and OIDC standards are not supported through VPC endpoints at this time. You can use PrivateLink connections in all AWS Regions where Amazon Cognito user pools is available, except AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. Creating VPC endpoints on AWS PrivateLink will incur additional charges; refer to AWS PrivateLink pricing page for details. You can get started by creating an AWS PrivateLink interface endpoint for Amazon Cognito user pools using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), AWS Software Development Kits (SDKs), AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), or AWS CloudFormation. To learn more, refer to the documentation on creating an interface VPC endpoint and Amazon Cognito’s developer guide. 

AWS Key Management Service (KMS) announces support for the Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA). With this new capability, you can create an elliptic curve asymmetric KMS key or data key pairs to sign and verify EdDSA signatures using the Edwards25519 curve (Ed25519). Ed25519 provides 128-bit security level equivalent to NIST P-256, faster signing performance, and small signature size (64 bytes) and public key sizes (32 bytes). Ed25519 is ideal for situations that require small key and signature sizes, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices and blockchain applications like cryptocurrency. This new capability is available in all AWS Regions, including the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and the China Regions. To learn more about this new capability, see Asymmetric key specs section in the AWS KMS Developer Guide.

My project has an AWS requirement. When I asked my colleague about it, he said we’ll be using core services at the associate level. They also said the company will sponsor certifications. I’ve started Stephen Marek’s AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CCP) course on Udemy, but it covers too many services. I’m not sure whether all those will actually be useful for our project — maybe not now, but possibly in the future. Honestly, I’m not very interested in it right now, but I need to learn it properly within the next two months. Can you suggest a good course that’s not boring but interesting and straightforward? Notes are also fine — I just want to learn effectively. My goal is to complete both the CCP and SAA (Solutions Architect Associate) certifications within the next three months and actually gain real knowledge, not just rely on dumps. submitted by /u/splunklearner95 [link] [comments]

I am trying to understand what the difference is between AWS Database Migration Service and AWS Schema Conversion Tool. I have not used both before, but based on my reading AWS DMS also does schema migration. So where is AWS SCT adding value? submitted by /u/Disastrous-Prune-101 [link] [comments]

I am planning to book my exam, is there any discount expected to come up? I know one just expired, I am also a student submitted by /u/jxm020202 [link] [comments]

Just got the official confirmation that I passed the AWS Certified AI Practitioner exam! 🎉 Funny thing — it didn’t show my results right away after I finished. My dashboard said “scheduled” for a few hours, so I was stressing a bit before it finally updated to PASS 😅. It’s a solid exam — covers AI/ML basics, AWS services like Bedrock and SageMaker, and responsible AI. Next up: Solutions Architect – Associate! 💪 submitted by /u/Temporary_Speech_895 [link] [comments]

So I just recently passed the scs-c02 with Cantrill's course and wanted to move on and attempt the devops pro. Anybody has any piece of advice for me ? I would appreciate it a lot. Thanks ! submitted by /u/Popular-Indication20 [link] [comments]

I don't have much experience in Cloud, I passed the Cloud practitioner in July thanks to a scholarship they gave me and now I took advantage of the discount because I have done some work with AI and I just wanted the AI ​​badge... Use Joan Amengual's Udemy courses and mock exams. I also took the entire IA practitioner Skill Builder course I passed with a score of 752 after preparing for 1 month with 1 - 2 hours of studying every time I remembered... Yeah, I didn't feel prepared for the exam at all, I scheduled the exam at 00:12 on November 4 and my only motivation was the possibility of the trip to Las Vegas for F1. And I also did the Amazon Q developer prior to all this because I did some work with this AI based on Claude. They gave me a voucher for the associate level AWS SAA, and I have done few labs in AWS in general. But at this moment I find myself taking advantage of the fact that Cloud Quest GenIA is free and the labs are good to practice all those concepts that I learned. What rabbits would it give me to pass this SAA exam? Will I stick with Udemy resources? Is it worth paying for the Skill Builder subscription? I have no experience in anything in IT so, if I achieve that certification and some portfolio? What can I expect from the job market in Mexico? Recommendations? submitted by /u/RepresentativeFan356 [link] [comments]

Today, Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio announced new capabilities allowing SageMaker projects to add custom tags to resources created through the project. This helps customers enforce tagging standards that conform to Service Control Policies (SCP) and helps enable cost tracking reporting practices on resources created across the organization. As an Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio administrator, you can configure a project profile with tag configurations that will be pushed down to all projects using the project profile. Project profiles can be setup to pass Key and Value tag pairings or pass the Key of the tag with a default Value that can be modified during project creation. All tag values passed to the project will result in the resources created by that project being tagged. This provides administrators a governance mechanism that enforces project resources have the expected tags. This first release of custom tags for project resources is supported only through application programming interface (API). Custom tags for project resources capability is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio is supported, including: Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Ireland), US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Europe (Frankfurt), South America (São Paulo), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Europe (London), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Europe (Paris), Europe (Stockholm) To learn more, visit Amazon SageMaker then get started with the custom tag API documentation.

Hi guys, I'm in the endphase of learning all the stuff for the SAA-003 cert. Since I will finish/take the same at the same time about when Black Friday hits, I was wondering if there are any websites which will have some kind of special offers regarding the exam which a high certainty. Upon on browsing I saw there were some offers like a free 2nd trial or something like that in the past. Do you guys now any sites which I should look out for? Does AWS itself do some kind of black friday offers regarding certifications? submitted by /u/DifficultyWest5819 [link] [comments]

So far this week I knocked out CP, AIP and SAA. Spent about 2 days studying for SAA. Just curious if there’s any other AWS vets out there that have knocked out the SAA and SAP in the same week. I’m already an enterprise solutions architect in AWS and use a lot of the material that I’m reading about that’s in the SAP. Any thoughts on this? submitted by /u/Independent_Top_8210 [link] [comments]

Today, AWS announced a new tool called AWS Capabilities by Region in Builder Center. This tool helps you discover and compare AWS services, features, APIs, CloudFormation resources across AWS Regions. You can explore service availability through an interactive interface, compare multiple Regions side-by-side, and view forward-looking roadmap information. This detailed visibility helps you make informed decisions about global deployments and prevent project delays due to service unavailability. In addition to this tool, AWS also enhanced the AWS Knowledge Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server to include information about Regional capabilities in an LLM-compatible format. MCP clients and agentic frameworks can connect to the AWS Knowledge MCP Server to get real-time insights into regional service availability and suggestions for alternative solutions when specific services or features are unavailable. You can begin exploring AWS Capabilities by Region in AWS Builder Center today. The Knowledge MCP server is also publicly accessible at no cost and does not require an AWS account. Usage is subject to rate limits. Follow the getting started guide for setup instructions. 

Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) now supports mounting Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes to containers running as non-root users. With this launch, ECS automatically configures the EBS volume’s file system permissions to allow non-root users to read and write data securely, while preserving the root-level ownership of the volume. This enhancement simplifies security-first container deployments by removing the need for manual permission management or custom entrypoint scripts. This feature enhances container security by allowing tasks to run as non-root users, reducing the risk of privilege escalation and unauthorized access to data. Previously, for a container in a task to write to a mounted Amazon EBS volume, it had to run as the root user. ECS now automatically manages EBS volume permissions, simplifying workflows and ensuring that all containers within a task — regardless of user ID — can securely read and write to the mounted volume. This feature is now available in all AWS Regions where Amazon ECS and Amazon EBS are supported, for EC2, AWS Fargate, and ECS Managed Instances launch types. To learn more, see Use Amazon EBS volumes with Amazon ECS in the Amazon ECS Developer Guide.

Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) is now available in the Middle East (UAE) Region, allowing customers in the Middle East to build Cassandra-compatible applications with lower latency while keeping their data within the Region to meet data residency requirements. Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) is a scalable, highly available, and managed Apache Cassandra–compatible database service. Amazon Keyspaces is serverless, so you pay for only the resources that you use and you can build applications that serve thousands of requests per second with virtually unlimited throughput and storage. The Middle East (UAE) Region provides the same Amazon Keyspaces features available in other AWS Regions, including point-in-time recovery, Multi-Region replication, CDC streams, and IPv6 support. This regional expansion enables organizations in the Middle East to build highly scalable, low-latency applications using familiar Cassandra Query Language (CQL) without the operational burden of managing Cassandra clusters. To learn more about on Keyspaces, visit the Amazon Keyspaces documentation.

Amazon DynamoDB Streams now supports AWS PrivateLink for all available Amazon DynamoDB Streams Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) endpoints in US and Canada commercial AWS Regions. With this launch, you can establish a private connection between your virtual private cloud (VPC) and Amazon DynamoDB Streams FIPS endpoints instead of connecting over the public internet, helping you meet your organization's business, compliance, and regulatory requirements to limit public internet connectivity. Amazon DynamoDB Streams support for AWS PrivateLink FIPs endpoints is available with Amazon DynamoDB Streams in the US and Canada commercial AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Canada (Central), and Canada West (Calgary). To learn more about Amazon DynamoDB Streams support for AWS PrivateLink FIPs endpoints, visit the Amazon DynamoDB Stream documentation. For more information about AWS PrivateLink and its benefits, visit the AWS PrivateLink product page. 

AWS Backup now supports encrypting backups in logically air-gapped vaults with AWS Key Management Service (KMS) customer managed keys (CMKs). This enhancement provides additional encryption options beyond the existing AWS-owned keys, helping organizations meet their regulatory and compliance requirements. You can now create logically air-gapped vaults using your own customer managed keys (CMKs) in AWS KMS, giving you more control over your backup protection strategy. Whether you want to use keys from the same account or across accounts, you maintain centralized key management while preserving the security benefits of logically air-gapped vaults. This integration works seamlessly with your existing logically air-gapped vaults and other AWS Backup features, ensuring no disruption to your backup workflows. AWS KMS customer managed key support with logically air-gapped vaults is available in all AWS Regions where logically air-gapped vaults are currently supported. You can get started with logically air-gapped vault support for CMKs using the AWS Backup console, API, or CLI. When creating a new logically air-gapped vault, you can now choose between an AWS-owned key or your own CMK for encryption. For more information about implementing this feature, visit the AWS Backup product page, documentation, and blog.

AWS announces the release of AWS IoT Greengrass v2.16, introducing new core components for nucleus and nucleus lite. AWS IoT Greengrass is an Internet of Things (IoT) edge runtime and cloud service that helps customers build, deploy, and manage device software at the edge. The latest version 2.16 release includes enhanced debugging capabilities through the system log forwarder component. This component uploads system log files to AWS Cloud Watch, making it easier for developers to troubleshoot IoT edge applications. The AWS IoT Greengrass v2.16 release also features a new nucleus lite version (v2.3) with TPM2.0 specification support, enabling developers to manage edge device security for their resource constrained devices using hardware-based root of trust modules. The implementation helps developers to scale their IoT deployments with confidence while providing secure storage for secrets and streamlined device authentication. AWS IoT Greengrass v2.16 is available in all AWS Regions where AWS IoT Greengrass is offered. To learn more about AWS IoT Greengrass v2.16 and its new features, visit the AWS IoT Greengrass documentation. Follow the Getting Started guide for a quick introduction to AWS IoT Greengrass.

Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals expands its availability to AWS GovCloud (US-East) and AWS GovCloud (US-West) Regions, enabling government customers and regulated industries to automatically monitor and improve application performance in these regions. CloudWatch Application Signals provides comprehensive application monitoring capabilities by automatically collecting telemetry data from applications running on Amazon EC2, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS and AWS Lambda, helping customers meet their compliance and monitoring requirements while maintaining workload visibility. With CloudWatch Application Signals, customers in AWS GovCloud (US) regions can now monitor application health in real time, track performance against business goals, visualize service relationships and dependencies, and quickly identify and resolve performance issues. This automated observability solution eliminates the need for manual instrumentation while providing detailed insights into application behavior and performance patterns. The service automatically detects anomalies and helps correlate issues across different AWS services, enabling faster problem resolution and improved application reliability. CloudWatch Application Signals will be available in AWS GovCloud (US-East) and AWS GovCloud (US-West). For pricing information, visit the Amazon CloudWatch pricing page. To get started, visit the Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals documentation.

Customers in AWS Europe (Ireland) Region can now use AWS B2B Data Interchange to build highly customizable, scalable and cost-efficient EDI workloads. AWS B2B Data Interchange automates validation, transformation, and generation of EDI files such as ANSI X12 documents to and from JSON and XML data formats. With this launch, you can use AWS B2B Data Interchange to process your EDI documents in AWS Europe (Ireland) Region, which enables you to meet your compliance and data sovereignty obligations while modernizing your B2B integration workloads. As part of this launch, the AWS B2B Data Interchange generative AI mapping capability will also become available in AWS Europe (Ireland) Region, simplifying mapping code development and ultimately expediting trading partners onboarding. To learn more about AWS B2B Data Interchange visit our product page, user-guide or take our self-paced workshop. See the AWS Region Table for complete regional availability.

AWS announces expanded instance family support in Deadline Cloud, adding new 6th, 7th, and 8th generation EC2 instances to enhance visual effects and animation rendering workloads. This release includes support for C7i, C7a, M7i, M7a, R7a, R7i, M8a, M8i, and R8i instance families, along with additional 6th generation instance types that were previously unavailable. Deadline Cloud is a fully managed service that helps customers run visual compute workloads in the cloud without having to manage infrastructure. With this enhancement, studios can utilize a broader range of AWS compute technology to optimize their rendering workflows. The compute-optimized (C-series), general-purpose (M-series), and memory-optimized (R-series) instances provide tailored options for different rendering workloads - from compute-intensive simulations to memory-heavy scene processing. The inclusion of latest-generation instances like M8a and R8i enables customers to access improved performance and efficiency for their most demanding rendering tasks. These instance families are available in all 10 AWS Regions where Deadline Cloud is offered. The specific instance types available in each Region depend on the regional availability of the EC2 instance types themselves. To learn more about the new instance types supported in Deadline Cloud and their regional availability, see the AWS Deadline Cloud pricing page.

Today, we're announcing that Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Amazon EVS) is now available in all availability zones in the Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central) and Europe (Paris) Regions. This expansion provides more options to leverage the scale and flexibility of AWS for running your VMware workloads in the cloud. Amazon EVS lets you run VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) directly within your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on EC2 bare-metal instances, powered by AWS Nitro. Using either our step-by-step configuration workflow or the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) with automated deployment capabilities, you can set up a complete VCF environment in just a few hours. This rapid deployment enables faster workload migration to AWS, helping you eliminate aging infrastructure, reduce operational risks, and meet critical timelines for exiting your data center. The added availability in the Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central) and Europe (Paris) Regions gives your VMware workloads lower latency through closer proximity to your end users, compliance with data residency or sovereignty requirements, and additional high availability and resiliency options for your enhanced redundancy strategy. To get started, visit the Amazon EVS product detail page and user guide. 

submitted by /u/Dull-Background-802 [link] [comments]

https://preview.redd.it/916uz310ylzf1.png?width=1912&format=png&auto=webp&s=81df21324cf68c2c94ad7e4633913b9384d204b6 I just took the security specialty exam yesterday, and received the results this morning! Thank you very much y'all for the tips and pieces of advice. Studied for it for exactly a month with Adrian Cantrill's course, Tutorials Dojo, and AWS official questions sets. The exam definitely had questions I was not expecting but I would say they were variations of the questions out there in TD and AWS official questions, I had 3 that were exactly like TD still. And really understanding the concepts is key here I'd say. The pressure was big (not because of questions length, although that played a part), but because time concerns. Finished with over 1h left on the clock though. submitted by /u/Popular-Indication20 [link] [comments]

Starting today, AWS End User Messaging customers can now lookup carrier information related to a phone number including the country, number type, dialing code, and mobile network and carrier codes. With Carrier Lookup, you can increase deliverability by checking important information about a phone number before you start sending messages, avoiding sending messages to the wrong destination, or to incorrect phone numbers. AWS End User Messaging provides developers with a scalable and cost-effective messaging infrastructure without compromising the safety, security, or results of their communications. Developers can integrate messaging to support uses cases such as one-time passcodes (OTP) at sign-ups, account updates, appointment reminders, delivery notifications, promotions and more. Support for Carrier Lookup is available in all AWS Regions where End User Messaging is available, see the AWS Region table. To learn more, see AWS End User Messaging. 

Amazon S3 now supports tags on S3 Tables for attribute-based access control (ABAC) and cost allocation. You can use tags for ABAC to automatically manage permissions for users and roles accessing table buckets and tables. This helps eliminate frequent AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) or S3 Tables resource-based policy updates, simplifying how you govern access at scale. Additionally, you can add tags to individual tables to track and organize AWS costs using AWS Billing and Cost Management. Amazon S3 supports tags on S3 Tables in all AWS Regions where S3 Tables is available. You can get started with tagging using the AWS Management Console, SDK, API, or CLI. To learn more about using tags on S3 Tables, visit the S3 User Guide.

Amazon CloudFront announces cross-account support for Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) origins, enabling customers to access VPC origins that reside in different AWS accounts from their CloudFront distributions. With VPC origins, customers can have their Application Load Balancers (ALB), Network Load Balancers (NLB), and EC2 Instances in a private subnet that is accessible only through their CloudFront distributions. With the support for cross-account VPC origins in CloudFront, customers can now leverage the security benefits of VPC origins while maintaining their existing multi-account architecture. Customers set up multiple AWS accounts for better security isolation, cost management, and compliance. Previously, customers could access origins in private VPCs from CloudFront only if CloudFront and the origin were in the same AWS account. This meant customers who had their origins in multiple AWS accounts, had to keep their accounts in public subnets to get the scale and performance benefits of CloudFront. Customers then had to maintain additional security controls, such as access control lists (ACL), at both the edge and within regions, rather than benefiting from the inherent security of VPC origins. Now, customers can use AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM) to allow CloudFront access to origins in private VPCs in different AWS accounts, both within and outside their AWS Organizations and organizational units (OUs). This streamlines security management and reduces operational complexity, making it easy to use CloudFront as the single front door for applications. VPC origins is available in AWS Commercial Regions only, and the full list of supported AWS Regions is available here. There is no additional cost for using cross-account VPC origins with CloudFront. To learn more about implementing cross-account VPC origins and best practices for multi-account architectures, visit CloudFront VPC origins.

Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights now detects anomalies on additional metrics through its on-demand analysis experience. Database Insights is a monitoring and diagnostics solution that helps database administrators and application developers optimize database performance by providing comprehensive visibility into database metrics, query performance, and resource utilization patterns. The on-demand analysis feature utilizes machine learning to help identify anomalies and performance bottlenecks during the selected time period, and gives advice on what to do next. The Database Insights on-demand analysis feature now offers enhanced anomaly detection capabilities. Previously, database administrators could analyze database performance and correlate metrics based on database load. Now, the on-demand analysis report also identifies anomalies in database-level and operating system-level counter metrics for the database instance, as well as per-SQL metrics for the top SQL statements contributing to database load. The feature automatically compares your selected time period against normal baseline performance, identifies anomalies, and provides specific remediation advice while reducing mean time to diagnosis. Through intuitive visualizations and clear explanations, you can quickly identify performance issues and receive step-by-step guidance for resolution. You can get started with on-demand analysis by enabling the Advanced mode of CloudWatch Database Insights on your Amazon Aurora or RDS databases using the AWS management console, AWS APIs, or AWS CloudFormation. Please refer to RDS documentation and Aurora documentation for information regarding the availability of Database Insights across different regions, engines, and instance classes.

Amazon FSx now integrates with AWS Secrets Manager, enabling enhanced protection and management of the Active Directory domain service account credentials for your FSx for Windows File Server file systems and FSx for NetApp ONTAP Storage Virtual Machines (SVMs). Previously, if you wanted to join your FSx for Windows file system or FSx for ONTAP SVM to your Active Directory domain for user authentication and access control, you needed to specify the username and password for your service account in the Amazon FSx Console, Amazon FSx API, AWS CLI, or AWS CloudFormation. With this launch, you can now specify an AWS Secrets Manager secret containing the service account credentials, enabling you to strengthen your security posture by eliminating the need to store plain text credentials in application code or configuration files, and aligning with best practices for credential management. Additionally, you can use AWS Secrets Manager to rotate your Active Directory credentials and consume them when needed in FSx workloads. You can now use AWS Secrets Manager to store your domain join service credentials for all FSx for Windows file systems and FSx for ONTAP Storage Virtual Machines in all AWS Regions where they are available. For more information, see Amazon FSx for Windows File Server documentation and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP documentation.

Amazon GameLift Streams is now integrated with AWS Health and will provide automated notifications about aging stream groups. Customers are sent regular reminders via AWS Health to re-create their stream groups starting as early as the 45th day to the 335th day from the stream group creation date. Stream groups older than 180 days are restricted from adding new applications and automatically expire after the 365th day. This feature strengthens our customer’s security posture by helping customers manage the lifecycle of stream groups and prevent the use of outdated resources that might be missing updates. While the customer focuses on their game development, the service helps maintain the health of their resources. AWS Health will send a reminder to the linked account on the 45th day and on the 150th day from the stream group creation day, informing customers that the stream group will be restricted from adding new applications after the 180-day. A last reminder to re-create the stream group will be sent on 335th day informing customers that the stream group will expire on the 365th day. This feature is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon GameLift Streams is offered at no additional cost. Maintenance warnings or the expiration date of a stream group can be viewed on the Stream group details page on the service console, or by using the ExpiresAt field in the GetStreamGroup API response. To learn more about managing your stream groups and configuring notifications, visit the Amazon GameLift documentation on Stream group lifecycle.

Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) now supports Multi-Region Replication in the Middle East (Bahrain) and Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Regions. With this expansion, customers can now replicate their Amazon Keyspaces tables to and from these Regions, enabling lower latency access to data and improved regional resiliency. Amazon Keyspaces Multi-Region Replication automatically replicates data across AWS Regions with typically less than a second of replication lag, allowing applications to read and write data to the same table in multiple Regions. This capability helps customers build globally distributed applications that can serve users with low latency regardless of their location, while also providing business continuity in the event of a regional disruption. The addition of Multi-Region Replication support in Middle East (Bahrain) and Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) enables organizations operating in these regions to build highly available applications that can maintain consistent performance for users across the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Customers can now replicate their Keyspaces tables between these regions and any other supported AWS Region without managing complex replication infrastructure. You pay only for the resources you use, including data storage, read/write capacity, and writes in each Region of your multi-Region keyspace. To learn more about Amazon Keyspaces Multi-Region Replication and its regional availability, visit the Amazon Keyspaces documentation.