Recently, I passed the AWS Developer associate certification and with that, I achieved all three AWS associate level certifications. This blog post will cover the journey starting from the cloud practitioner certification and the resources I used to pass.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Back in 2017, I didn’t have much hands-on experience with AWS. Hence, I had signed up for ACG’s Solutions Architect associate course on Udemy. I completed the course, but didn’t feel confident. A few months passed and the Cloud Practitioner certification got announced later that year. I decided to take this certification instead of SAA as I didn’t have any AWS experience. In March 2018, I achieved my first AWS certification by passing the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam.

Resources used -

  • AWS documentation & ACG’s Solutions Architect associate course.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

Life happened and I couldn’t prepare for my next AWS certification after the success in the AWS CCP exam. In March 2020, I read a blog online which described that the AWS SAA exam was going to get updated later in the year. Since I was studying on and off in the last few month of 2019, I wanted to take the exam before the new version was released. I then searched online and on reddit to know about the best study materials for the exam. Many recommended Stephane Maarek’s AWS SAA course and Tutorial Dojo’s practice exams as the best combo. I then went through the Maarek’s course along with a course from Andrew Brown on YouTube and then attempted the Jon Bonso’s practice exams. The scores on the first try were not great, but I then took a lot of notes of the topics which I didn’t get right on the exams. My confidence about tackling the exam slowly started to build up and I passed the AWS SAA exam in May 2020.

Resources used -

  • Stephane Maarek’s AWS SAA course on Udemy
  • Andrew Brown’s AWS SAA course on YouTube
  • Tutorials Dojo AWS SAA practice tests on Udemy

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate

It had been a year since I passed the SAA-C01 and I was planning to work on my next AWS certification. Around the same time, I read an AWS certification update blog describing a change in the SOA certification. As I had planned to take this certification as my next AWS certification, I wanted to pass it before the release of the new exam version. As I worked on most of the services covered in SOA in my daily job, I only decided to buy TD’s practice tests for my preparation. I had a free subscription of ACloud Guru (ACG) through my employer so I completed their video course and then practiced with TD’s practice tests. I successfully passed the SOA-C01 in July 2020.

Resources used -

  • Andrew Brown’s AWS SOA course on YouTube
  • Tutorials Dojo AWS SOA practice tests on Udemy
  • ACloud Guru AWS SOA course

AWS Certified Developer Associate

As I had completed 2 out of 3 AWS associate level certifications, I wanted to complete the trifecta of AWS associate level certifications. After the holiday break in Dec 2021, I decided to properly study for the DVA exam. I read several blogs and posts on reddit about the resources to use for the DVA certification. Many recommended using the Maarek and Tutorials Dojo combo which was the same recommendation I got for the SAA exam. Hence, I decided to use these resources as my primary sources of preparation. I completed Maarek’s course in a month and then focused on TD’s practice tests. I took notes as I learned important or new things and referred to them during the final week of preparation. I also browsed through ACG’s DVA course and Whizlab’s practice tests as I had subscriptions to these platforms through my employer. On the final day of Feb 2022, I successfully passed the DVA exam and achieved the trifecta of AWS associate certifications.

Resources used -

  • Stephane Maarek’s AWS DVA course on Udemy
  • Andrew Brown’s AWS DVA course on YouTube
  • Tutorials Dojo AWS DVA practice tests on Udemy
  • ACloud Guru AWS DVA course
  • Whizlab practice tests for DVA C01

Here are a few things that I learned while preparing for all AWS certifications I achieved so far:

  • I believe in overpreparing for an exam to get the expected result on the exam day. Also, it’s not a race, but a marathon so take your time and attempt only when you feel confident.
  • Figure out which resources work for you based on your experience and stick with those resources as your main resources to prepare for an exam. In my case, I used multiple resources while preparing for all 3 exams, but Maarek’s course and Jon Bonso’s practice tests remained constant in my preparation.
  • Once you constantly get more than 80% on Jon Bonso’s practice tests, you would be in a good position to schedule an exam.
  • I prefer taking a test at a testing center as I didn’t have a good experience when I took tests from home in 2020. Also, I don’t want any external factors such as problems about - electricity, internet connectivity, technical issues with laptop to affect my performance on a test.
  • Don’t worry about the difficulty level of an exam. I believe the level of difficulty is subjective. Focus on your preparation with the right resources and the difficulty level of an exam wouldn’t matter on the exam day.

This was my journey of achieving 4 AWS certifications. If you are also preparing for any cloud certification, then good luck and happy cloud computing.