AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations 2020 Associate
Certifications on Cloud Computing Fundamentals – Triumvirate: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations 2020 Associate.
I completed the Fundamentals of the three major Cloud platforms in order to understand the basics of what the platforms offer. Given that many of the fundamentals are alike, it is also helpful to clear the exams close to each other, as you can easily slice off some of the preliminary concepts. I hope this will be a useful source of information.
https://github.com/moulinath/Cloud-Certifications
Exam # 1: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
1. Fundamentals
– Given this was the first Cloud certification I was going for, I deemed it essential to go through a full round of fundamental materials
– The APN (Amazon Partner Network) courses were helpful for this. I went through Introduction to the AWS Cloud, AWS Architecture, AWS Core Services, AWS Integrated Services, AWS Security, Pricing and Support
– I then went through a formal course on Udemy. There are many AWS CCP courses on Udemy, and you can pick up anyone. I completed the one imparted by Qasim Shah. Irrespective of your access to APN materials, it will be a good idea to go through a Udemy course as these courses are structured, and most of them would provide you with a preliminary idea of the basics
– At this point, I also got set up on AWS so that I could start playing around a little
2. AWS White Papers
– Even though the Certified Cloud Practitioner exam is more on the Fundamentals, it will be very beneficial to go through the AWS White Papers. These are very informative, and if you have experiences of Legacy Migration/Modernization initiatives, you will be able to relate to these significantly. And even if you do not, still very helpful. I went through all these White Papers multiple times
– List of the White Papers that I went through (all of these are available on AWS site): AWS_Cloud_Adoption_Framework, AWS_Pricing_Overview, AWS_Security_Best_Practices, AWS_Well-Architected_Framework, AWS-Cloud-Best_Practices, AWS-Migration-Whitepaper, AWS-Overview, AWS-TCO-Web-Applications, Change_Management_in_the_Cloud
3. Other Reference Materials
– I went through the AWS CCP Training Notes offered by Neal Davis from Digital Cloud Training
– A few Mind Maps hosted by peers in the Cloud Computing space. These are useful tools for last-minute look-ups
4. Practice Tests
– The AWS CCP Practice Test program offered by Neil Davis on Udemy is an exhaustive one that I took quite a few times
– One approach worth considering is to take the tests once very early into your studying phase – it will tell you where you stand. Then, as you take the tests multiple times, see which areas most of your knowledge gaps lie in. You can focus more on those in the days leading up to the actual exam
– I also went through the AWS CCP questions on examtopics.com a few times
5. My Own Notes
– I created a reference document for my own use (uploaded in Github) while going through the many sources as above. This helped me do a last-minute look-up.
Exam # 2: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
1. Fundamentals
– I completed the entire Foundational Course for Azure Fundamentals on Microsoft Learn.
This has 12 modules: Cloud Concepts – Principles of cloud computing, Create an Azure account, Core Cloud Services – Introduction to Azure, Core Cloud Services – Azure architecture and service guarantees, Core Cloud Services – Manage services with the Azure portal, Core Cloud Services – Azure compute options, Core Cloud Services – Azure networking options, Security responsibility and trust in Azure, Apply and monitor infrastructure standards with Azure Policy, Control and organize Azure resources with Azure Resource Manager, Predict costs and optimize spending for Azure
– This is a structured course and really helps to develop a broad understanding.
– I then took the Udemy course on Azure Fundamentals offered by Alan Rodrigues. This course covers more on Azure than what you would need for the Azure Fundamentals exam.
– At this point, I also got myself set up on Azure to explore some of the services
2. Microsoft White Papers
– There is a vast amount of Azure documentation that you can go through on Microsoft site.
– I focused on the ones on Architecture, Security, and Pricing. I did also go through the high-level write-up on the Azure products and services
– Given I went for Azure Fundamentals right after AWS CCP, I found the AWS to Azure services comparison pretty useful. You can just do a search for that on the Microsoft Azure documentation site.
3. Other Reference Materials
– A few Mind Maps hosted by peers in the Cloud Computing space. These are useful tools for last-minute look-ups
4. Practice Tests
– The Udemy Azure Fundamentals course by Alan Rodrigues that I took had two sets of practice exams that were quite useful
– I also took the Azure Fundamentals practice tests offered by Scott Duffy on Udemy.
– I also took the Azure Fundamentals practice tests on Whizlab
– I did also take the Azure Fundamentals practice tests on examtopics.com. Some of the discussions on the threads were quite useful
5. My own notes
– I created a reference document for my personal use (uploaded on Github) while I was going through the many sources as above. This helped me do a last-minute look-up
– I did also create my own spreadsheet mapping of the AWS and Azure services (uploaded on Github)
Exam # 3: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations 2020 Associate
1. Fundamentals
– Given this is a new course that Oracle has come up with, there are not too many materials that are available on this yet
– That said, the online training material conducted by Rohit Rathi from Oracle is comprehensive for the purpose of clearing this exam. I went through this material a few times
2. OCI White Papers
– Oracle offers many comprehensive White Papers on their website. Obviously, the materials around the database services are robust. I did also find the following ones quite informative: OCI_User_Guide, OCI_Getting_Started, Cloud_MAA_Overview, best-practices-deploying-ha-architecture-oci, paas-iaas-pub-cld-srvs-pillar-4021422
3. Other Reference Materials
– Not much available yet, unlike AWS and Azure
– On medium.com, you can find one by Balaji Ashok Kumar who has done a very helpful job of curating notes from the OCI Online training program
4. Practice tests
– The only one I could find when I was studying for this exam was the one comprising of 20 questions offered as part of the OCI Online training program
5. My own notes
– I did curate module-specific notes from the OCI material. It would not be very different from the one I referred to, as published on medium.com by Balaji Ashok Kumar. Mine is a set of notes for the separate modules, and his is a consolidated version. You might want to go through his version.
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Author: Moulinath Chakrabarty is a Digital Transformation leader and Insurance solution specialist with 20+ years of global experience in developing solutions architecture, delivering aggressive business growth and managing large-scale complex programs for Fortune-500 brands. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
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Related: OCI Foundation Certification, Azure Fundamentals
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Thanks for all your hard work and providing pathways for those who are struggling on where to start and motivation. Have a heavy technical background, however, all onsite. Looking at possibly, after, AZ-900, AZ-400, Administration. Should I pursue Azure Associate? Move to AZ-400 Administrator, get more insight with AWS Foundations? Google Foundations?
I believe the answer depends on what is you want to do and what is it that you are looking for. The major cloud players in the market are AWS, Azure and GCP. The foundation/entry level certification for Azure and AWS is very basic and if you have a technical background, it should be a walk in the park for you. Once you have the foundations, you can then choose what cloud provider interests you more. IMHO, Azure and AWS have a lot of similarity in terms of services offered. These days everyone is trying to be multi-cloud certified. Even some top companies are going for multi-cloud strategy because of the vendor lock-in fear. Happy to discuss more if you have more questions.
Great stuff there. I want to add on OCI Foundations, yes the videos by Rohit Rahi are okay but there is a lesson on OCI Service Level Agreement(SLA) and Support which was omitted. The exam has got questions on that part.
You can contact me on +263773920526 if you need the official 11 pdf guides that were used.
Agree. I made a note of this as I was studying and made sure to look up the Oracle documentation on SLAs. There is a comprehensive list there and , assuming one has built up a good sense of cloud-related SLAs and at this time of the prep, has also understood Oracle’s specific focus areas, becomes easy to prioritize which SLAs to look more closely up.