AWS Journey
The Journey of Learning AWS
Amazon Web Service (AWS) offers a course called AWS Academy Cloud Foundation to provide teachings of cloud computing to anyone who signed up for this course. The course covers the basics
of AWS services and technologies and allow anyone to learn how to use cloud computing to support businesses globally. Since UTM arranged us students to take AWS Academy Cloud Foundation, I accepted the invitation to participate in this course on 8th of November 2021. There are 10 modules in total that I need to learn in order to obtain my AWS badge. The outline of modules are the following:
- Module 1 - Introduces Cloud Computing, AWS, discussing about moving to AWS cloud and the advantages of the cloud
- Module 2 - Learn about fundamentals of AWS pricing, total cost of ownership, AWS Organization, AWS Billing & Cost Management and Technical Support Models
- Module 3 - Get an overview regarding AWS Global Infrastructure and AWS Services & Service Categories
- Module 4 - Learn how AWS Cloud maintains security with AWS Identity and Access Management, while learning the responsible through AWS Shared Responsibility Model and how secure a new AWS Account and data and also working to ensure compliance
- Module 5 - Study about the basics of networking, how to use Amazon VPC, AWS Route 53, AWS CloudFront, how does VPC networking work and how it maintains security.
- Module 6 - Learn about the compute services that AWS provides. Those include Amazon EC2, Container Services, AWS Lambda and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
- Module 7 - Learn about the storage services that AWS provides. Those include AWS EBS, AWS S3, AWS EFS and AWS S3 Glacier
- Module 8 - Learn about the database services that AWS provides. Those include Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift and Amazon Aurora
- Module 9 - Explore the structure of a cloud architecture by first learning the AWS Well-Architected Framework Design Principles. Learn about the 5 pillars which are Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency and Cost Optimization. Learn about the difference of Reliability and High Availability and an explanation of AWS Trusted Advisor
- Module 10 - Learn about the auto scaling and monitoring services that AWS provides. Those include Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
The time I took to complete the course is 20 hours. Initially, I thought this course would be boring, but after the first section, I find myself getting interested in cloud computing as it is completely new to me. The process is long because there are demonstration for certain services and labs to simulate the set up of the service to complete in order to progress throughout the course. The knowledge check for some modules are harder than others and thus I have to retry the knowledge check as I do not achieve the marks to progress to the next module, which is 80%. Although the course is hard, as long as I take my time to study, I realize that this course will benefit me greatly as I start to understanding the services that AWS provides. After I completed the 10 modules, I got the AWS Badge as a token to prove that I completed the AWS Academy Cloud Foundation course.
AWS Reflection
Throughout the AWS course, I have learned the function of each component in a cloud architecture. There’s also labs for some modules to teach me how to set up and use the service. My motivation for completing this course is I will be able to implement the knowledge about the cloud technology in my future career. The badge itself is quite difficult to get. The hardest module would be module 6 as there are many sections that require to be learned in order to finish this module. First of all, after completing the video recordings of each section, I need to revise the topics I learned in the section by studying the notes I made while watching the videos. The topics are quite hard and need time to break down what has been taught. The knowledge check at the end of each module is also quite hard as the question requires some thinking outside the box.The badge is a proof that I finish the AWS Academy Cloud Foundation course. This will increase my value when job searching as expertise in the field is needed as cloud computing is making it’s influence globally. The journey of getting the AWS badge is the knowledge and skills on cloud computing and I will say it is very worth it. Solely getting the badge without learning anything does not make me satisfied as I gain nothing in return. I learned a lot of interesting topic from the AWS Academy Cloud Foundation course as it is new to me and making me more knowledgeable and skillful in cloud computing and prepare for the future. From my perspective, not every company should be shifting to cloud computing right now. This is because some companies do not possess the necessary expertise to implement the cloud computing. It takes time to train people to excel in cloud computing implementation. In my opinion, every computer science student should learn cloud computing. This is because as time goes on, cloud technology has made its impact in the world and expertise are required to implement cloud technology in companies that need them. Thus, making the AWS Academy Cloud Foundation course a must to every computer science student will surely maintain the expertise needed for the future. If my friend have not finish the AWS badge, I would encourage to finish the badge as it will be helpful in the future when it comes to job searching. My direction after competing the badge is I would refer back to the notes I made while learning the modules so I can maintain my knowledge and skills on cloud computing. I would take more course related to cloud computing in order to deepen knowledge in cloud computing as I only learn the surface of the topics I studied before. Although making the AWS badge a main part in SECP1513 course would be more stressful for the students, but it would make student more knowledgeable and more skillful in handling problems and issues in a company when they graduate and get employed.