Alex de Pablos
Software engineering

AWS Cloud Practitioner certification

Alex de Pablos Lopez4 min

I have planned to prepare for the AWS Cloud Practitioner (CCP) certification, which is the most basic level, and I am going to tell you about it here.

I hope that the repository of information and links can be useful to you. Go for it!

What is the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification

It is the certification that AWS offers as a gateway to obtain any other more specific certification.

You will gain knowledge about:

  • The fundamentals of the cloud.

  • Basic concepts, cloud architecture and development models

  • AWS core services in detail

  • The rest of AWS services without going into so much detail

  • Cloud security Billing, pricing and support of AWS services.

It is known as CCP (Certification Cloud Partitioner) although its code is CLF-C01.

Why to do the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification

You can prove that you have some basic Cloud Computing concepts, from Amazon Web Services.

It is necessary if you want to qualify for any other certification that AWS offers.

What you should not expect being certified

It’s not recognized as an important certification, so don’t expect job offers to be showered on you for displaying it on your LinkedIn profile.

How much time the certification is valid

The certification is valid for 3 years. Upon passing that point, you will have to re-pass the exam.

Exam information

Here is some useful information so that you know what the exam you are going to face is like and the necessary resources to know how to prepare it properly, and for free.

How is the exam

It consists of 4 areas:

  • Cloud concepts.

    • 26%. 16-17 questions.

  • Safety.

    • 25%. 16-17 questions.

  • Technology.

    • 33%. 21-22 questions.

  • Billing and prices.

    • 16%. 10-11 questions.

In the official exam guide you can find the main characteristics of the certification exam in English:

  • What are the tasks that someone certified is supposed to control

  • What knowledge are you supposed to have before doing the certification

  • How the results are calculated

  • Areas that are touched and the weight they have in the exam

  • Tools, technologies and concepts that are covered.

From the moment you schedule the exam, you have a total of 30 days to take it.

How much is it

$100.

How does it long

90 minutes.

How many questions does it have

65 questions. 50 are scorable and 15 of them do not score.

The questions you answer wrong do not subtract.

Up to 15 questions are allowed to be wrong.

The format is multiple choice and multiple selection.

What do you need to pass

70% of success answers.

Where do you do the exam

Today you can take the exam both online and in person, by going to an AWS certification center.

If you decide to do it online, you will first have to create an account in AWS training, in order to then be able to schedule the exam. You will have a supervisor checking that everything is ok. So you will need webcam.

Exam preparation

How much I need to study to pass the Cloud Partitioner certification

This is a question of those who have that unwanted depends as an answer. Anyway, if what you are looking for is an orientation, keep reading.

A while ago this certification was practically a procedure and just by watching a couple of videos and asking some exam questions, you usually passed.

Today Amazon has raised the bar somewhat and it is highly recommended that you have some experience with AWS and practice with exam questions that you can find on the Internet.

If you are already a developer with some experience: One day may be enough.

If you are a recent graduate: About 1 week of study.

If you have no idea what AWS is or what it is for: About 2 weeks of study.

Sample questions to prepare the exam

Sample questions. AWS offers this example of 10 questions you can ask yourself. If you answer these questions well, you are already on the right track.

Here are 2 other platforms that today offer the possibility of preparing, for free, by solving exam questions.

Resources to study

Free and official AWS course. About 6 hours long. Although the page is in Spanish, the course is in English.

Andrew Brown, from www.exampro.co, goes over the basics of preparing for certification in his recently updated 14-hour YouTube course.

Fandom.com Wiki . Concepts summarized and well outlined.

If you want to learn more about how pricing works in AWS, you can read this official AWS paper.

Amazon Web Services overview. An 85-page paper for an overview of AWS.

My notes as I studied

Perhaps it would be interesting to include a section as notes as you studied.

I will update the post and post it when I have it ready.