What is the AWS Cloud Practitioner?
The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is Amazon's entry-level cloud certification. It validates a foundational understanding of AWS Cloud services, architecture, security, and pricing — without requiring hands-on technical experience.
It's often compared to Microsoft's AZ-900. Both are excellent starting points; the one you choose depends on whether your employer or target industry uses more AWS or Azure.
Exam facts: - Cost: $100 USD - Passing score: 700 out of 1000 - Format: 65 questions (multiple choice and multiple response) - Duration: 90 minutes - Valid for: 3 years
Exam Domains
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Cloud Concepts | 24% |
| Security and Compliance | 30% |
| Cloud Technology and Services | 34% |
| Billing, Pricing and Support | 12% |
Key Concepts: Cloud and AWS Fundamentals
The 6 Advantages of Cloud Computing (AWS version): 1. Trade capital expense for variable expense 2. Benefit from massive economies of scale 3. Stop guessing capacity 4. Increase speed and agility 5. Stop spending money running and maintaining data centres 6. Go global in minutes
AWS Global Infrastructure: - Regions: Geographic areas (e.g. us-east-1, eu-west-2) — 30+ globally - Availability Zones (AZs): Isolated locations within a region — typically 3 per region - Edge Locations: Used by CloudFront CDN for low-latency content delivery
AWS Well-Architected Framework — 6 Pillars: 1. Operational Excellence 2. Security 3. Reliability 4. Performance Efficiency 5. Cost Optimization 6. Sustainability
Core AWS Services to Know
Compute: - EC2: Virtual servers — the AWS equivalent of Azure VMs - Lambda: Serverless functions — run code without servers - Elastic Beanstalk: PaaS — deploy web apps easily - ECS / EKS: Container orchestration services - Lightsail: Simple VPS for small applications
Storage: - S3 (Simple Storage Service): Object storage — store anything - EBS (Elastic Block Store): Block storage attached to EC2 instances - EFS (Elastic File System): Managed file system - S3 Glacier: Long-term archival storage (very cheap)
Databases: - RDS: Managed relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle) - DynamoDB: Managed NoSQL key-value database - ElastiCache: In-memory caching (Redis, Memcached) - Redshift: Data warehousing for analytics
Networking: - VPC: Virtual Private Cloud — your private network in AWS - Route 53: DNS and domain management - CloudFront: Content delivery network - API Gateway: Create and manage APIs - Direct Connect: Dedicated private connection from on-premises to AWS
Security and Compliance (30% of Exam)
The Shared Responsibility Model (most important concept): - AWS responsible "of" the cloud: hardware, facilities, network, virtualisation layer - Customer responsible "in" the cloud: operating systems, data, access management, encryption
Identity and Access Management (IAM): - Users: Individual people or services - Groups: Collections of users - Roles: Temporary permissions assigned to services or users - Policies: JSON documents defining permissions - Key principle: Least privilege access — give only the permissions needed
Security Services: - AWS Shield: DDoS protection (Standard is free) - AWS WAF: Web Application Firewall - AWS Inspector: Automated security assessments - Amazon Macie: Discovers and protects sensitive data in S3 - AWS KMS: Key Management Service for encryption - AWS CloudTrail: Logs all API calls (audit trail) - AWS Config: Tracks configuration changes
Billing, Pricing and Support (12% of Exam)
EC2 Pricing Models: - On-Demand: Pay per hour/second. No commitment. Most expensive per unit. - Reserved Instances: 1 or 3 year commitment. Up to 72% discount. - Spot Instances: Bid on unused capacity. Up to 90% discount. Can be interrupted. - Savings Plans: Flexible alternative to Reserved Instances.
| **Support Plans (know these for the exam):** | ||
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Starting Price | Use case |
| Basic | Free | AWS documentation, forums only |
| Developer | $29/month | Development and testing |
| Business | $100/month | Production workloads |
| Enterprise On-Ramp | $5,500/month | Business-critical systems |
| Enterprise | $15,000/month | Mission-critical systems |
Cost management tools: - AWS Cost Explorer: Visualise and analyse costs - AWS Budgets: Set cost and usage alerts - AWS Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs before deploying - AWS TCO Calculator: Compare on-premises vs AWS costs
Best Resources for AWS Cloud Practitioner
- Stephane Maarek on Udemy ($20): The most popular course, constantly updated
- freeCodeCamp YouTube (free): Complete 14-hour course, completely free
- AWS Skill Builder (free): Official AWS training platform
- Tutorial Dojo practice exams ($15): The closest to the real exam
- AWS free tier account: Try services hands-on for free
Exam Strategy
- Security questions make up 30% — prioritise IAM and the Shared Responsibility Model
- Many questions are scenario-based: "A company needs X — which service should they use?"
- Know the difference between similar services: EC2 vs Lambda, S3 vs EBS, RDS vs DynamoDB
- Aim for 85% on Tutorial Dojo practice exams before booking
- The exam is $100 and you can retake it — but preparation beats retaking