Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the leading public cloud service providers. It provides a highly scalable, reliable, and inexpensive cloud infrastructure platform. AWS continues to lead the current cloud market by a market share of 32 per cent of total cloud infrastructure services spend in Q3 2021. On an annual basis, AWS grew 39 per cent. The top three cloud service providers AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud accounted for 61% of the total cloud spend in Q3 2021.
AWS is one of the fastest-growing cloud service providers. The impact of Covid-19 has accelerated the adoption of AWS. AWS helped organizations to maintain agility even in the sudden shift of working norms. The shift from in-house servers to adopting a more flexible, scalable cloud-based system increased the demand for cloud computing professionals, especially AWS.
In recent years, Cloud Computing has become inevitable for IT organizations due to the adoption of cutting-edge technologies such as AI and ML. Due to the rapid adoption of the cloud and AWS is the fastest growing cloud service provider, Certified AWS professionals are in high demand. Let us go through the AWS certifications.
AWS Certifications
AWS certifications showcase and validate credibility, cloud-based expertise, and AWS skills. AWS skills are one of the most in-demand skills in the cloud computing industry. AWS provides various certifications for different cloud-based roles such as cloud engineers, architects, and administrators.
AWS provides six core certifications and five specialty certifications.
The AWS core certifications include:
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (Foundational)
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
The AWS specialty courses include:
- AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty
- AWS Certified Security – Specialty
- AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty
- AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Specialty
Prerequisites for the certification levels
To get the foundational level certification, six months of fundamental AWS Cloud and industry knowledge is recommended to clear the exam.
For an associate-level certification, one year or more experience in solving problems and implementing solutions using the AWS Cloud is required.
For professional-level certification, two years or more of comprehensive experience designing, operating, and troubleshooting solutions using the AWS Cloud is required.
The core certifications are grouped based on the four main learning paths based on cloud-based job roles.
- Foundational (Cloud Practitioner)
- Architect
- Operations
- Developer
Foundational (Cloud Practitioner):
The foundational certification path is ideal for those who want to validate their fundamental knowledge on AWS Cloud concepts, core AWS services, security, architecture, pricing, and support. In this learning path, there is a single exam, the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner initiates the implementations related to AWS cloud services. The exam details are as follows:
Certification Name: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Exam level: Foundational
Duration: 90 minutes
Number of questions: 65
Question format: Multiple choice or multiple responses
Cost: 100 USD
Architect Path
The architect path is an ideal learning path for professionals deploying, managing, and operating workloads on AWS as well as implementing security controls and compliance requirements. The architect path includes 2 certifications:
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
AWS Certified Solutions Architect- Associate is an associate-level certification that validates the professional’s ability to design and deploy highly scalable systems in AWS along with the understanding of cloud security and troubleshooting concepts. The exam details are as follows:
Certification Name: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Exam level: Associate
Duration: 130 minutes
Number of questions: 65
Question format: Multiple choice or multiple responses
Cost: 150 USD
According to PayScale, an Average Salary for Certification in India: AWS (Amazon Web Services) Certified Solutions Architect – Associate is ₹1,194,642/year
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional is designed for professionals who deal with complex AWS applications. This certification validates the knowledge of AWS best practices in terms of migration of applications to AWS and optimizing AWS architecture to an enterprise level. The exam details are as follows:
Certification Name: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
Exam level: Professional
Duration: 180 minutes
Number of questions: 75
Question format: Multiple choice or multiple responses
Cost: 300USD
An Average Salary for Certification in India: AWS (Amazon Web Services) Certified Solutions Architect – Professional is ₹1,899,222/year
Operations Path
In the operations path, the professionals validate their knowledge of operations and development in the AWS environment. This path includes one certification AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification is designed for system administrators in cloud operation roles to validate technical skills. This certification validates the knowledge of operations and application deployment of AWS services. The exam details are as follows:
Certification Name: AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
Exam level: Associate
Duration: 180 minutes
Number of questions: 65
Question format: Multiple choice or multiple responses
Cost: 150 USD
According to PayScale, Salary for Certification in India: AWS (Amazon Web Services) Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate is ₹901,974/year
Developer Path
The developer path is designed for software developers who create cloud applications on AWS. There are two certifications in this path.
AWS Certified Developer – Associate
This certification validates the proficiency in developing, deploying, and debugging cloud-based applications using AWS and also, knowledge of writing codes for serverless applications.
Certification Name: AWS Certified Developer – Associate
Exam level: Associate
Duration: 130 minutes
Number of questions: 65
Question format: Multiple choice or multiple responses
Cost: 150 USD
According to PayScale, Salary for Certification in India: AWS (Amazon Web Services) Certified Developer – Associate is ₹884,892/year
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
This certification validates the knowledge on automation of testing and deployment of AWS infrastructure and applications. The exam details are as follows:
Certification Name: AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
Exam level: Professional
Duration: 180 minutes
Number of questions: 75
Question format: Multiple choice or multiple responses
Cost: 300 USD
According to PayScale, an average salary for certification in India: AWS (Amazon Web Services) Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional is ₹1,306,774/year
AWS skills are one of the top-paying skills. According to Indeed.com, the salary according to AWS skills are listed below:
|
AWS Skill |
Salary |
| DynamoDB | $141,813 |
| Elastic MapReduce (EMR) | $136,250 |
| CloudFormation | $132,308 |
| Elastic Cache | $125,625 |
| CloudWatch | $121,980 |
| Lambda | $121,481 |
| Kinesis | $121,429 |
| Key Management Service | $117,297 |
| Elastic Beanstalk | $114,219 |
| Redshift | $113,950 |
Conclusion:
To conclude, AWS certifications are one of the most in-demand and top paying skills. Pursue AWS certification from top-notch institute SpringPeople. With a well-defined learning path, SpringPeople- Authorized Training Partner of AWS offers a wide range of AWS Certifications and Exam Readiness Courses. Get certified now to excel in your career. Happy Learning!
