CLF-C02 is the current version of the entry-level exam for anyone who wants to begin working with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. With 90 minutes to answer 65 questions, you might be tempted to think that the questions themselves aren’t very challenging. But, thinking that all entry-level exams are quite easy and straightforward is a very common misconception—one that can cost you if you underestimate the tricky nature of the AWS Practitioner exam.
In order to properly prepare for a certification exam, it’s generally considered best practice to review any exam-related material provided by the vendor. AWS’s official Exam Guide is quite detailed, and it’s a good place to begin your studies. AWS provides two frameworks for understanding and implementing cloud-based decisions: AWS Well-Architected Framework and AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF). You should familiarize yourself with not only each framework’s main purpose but also more detailed information. For example, Well-Architected Framework consists of six sections known as pillars, general design principles, and a set of additional design principles for each of the pillars.
Similarly, CAF consists of six sections known as perspectives, a set of foundational capabilities for each of the perspectives, and four phases that form a transformation path on your journey from traditional to cloud computing. You should be able to easily recognize each of the aforementioned elements of each framework from its brief description and thus keep a clear understanding of the two frameworks. However, keep in mind that overlap between the two frameworks does exist. For example, both frameworks include a section with the same name—Security—but with different constituent items.
In addition to learning about a few core services, such as EC2, S3, RDS, VPC, CloudWatch, and CloudTrail, you should acquire at least a perfunctory knowledge of at least a couple dozen of lesser-known services, such as the ones related to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and various aspects of security.
Just knowing a little bit about each service mentioned in the Exam Guide may not be enough, though. Many of the services overlap or have similar functionalities.
- S3 Select and Athena
- Kendra and Comprehend
- Cost Explorer and Cost and Usage Reports
- Single Sign-on (SSO)/Identity Center and Cognito
- the four Kinesis services
Some very different services have very similar names, such as the ones in the following list:
- CloudFront and CloudFormation
- Direct Connect and Amazon Connect
- Amazon Managed Services and the services that are fully managed by AWS
- Application Discovery Service and Application Migration Service
- Application Migration Service and Database Migration Service
- Global Accelerator and S3 Transfer Accelerator
- Application Load Balancer and Network Load Balancer
- A variety of gateways:
- Internet Gateway
- Egress-Only Gateway
- NAT Gateway
- API Gateway
- the four types of Storage Gateway
Often, many of the services’ names provide no direct clues regarding their purposes. Therefore, you should be sure that you can clearly differentiate between similar services and between different services with similar names. In addition, you should study the typical use cases for each service.
Despite all of the aforementioned tricky points, you can still sail through the AWS Practitioner exam—but only if you properly prepare for it. ExSim-Max for AWS CLF-C02 simulates the difficulty and variety of question types on the live exam so closely that we offer a No Pass, No Pay Guarantee.
