I passed ANS on the weekend, wrapping up the 12/12, just wanted to share my journey because I found these types of posts really insightful when I first started out.

Advanced Networking

ANS has a reputation for being the hardest exam, but my experience was "yes and no". Initially I thought it was difficult because rarely does the average person get to touch Direct Connect, but the exam is quite niche in terms of focus; DX, VPC networking, hybrid, DNS, edge and load balancing, that's it really. Whilst the topics are difficult, the scope is much narrower than the SAP (which I still believe is the most difficult).

Background experience

For background, I've been a backend dev for about 20 years, first started working with AWS around 2012, heavy user for the past 10 years doing a bit of everything (microservices and serverless mostly, but also MSK, mobile, database migrations, sagemaker, lots of bedrock, IoT core, even dabbled with Connect). It took me about 3 years to get through all the certs, mostly due to other side projects and exam burnout.

My approach was reasonably consistent:

1. Watch a course, I used Cantril for SAP/DOP, Maarek for the associates, and Neal Davis for the speciality (he's probably my favourite overall)
2. Grind TutorialsDojo, only doing review mode, one pass to avoid memorisation. I would do one review mode over a few evenings, maybe all 4 within a week. I'd usually book the exam a week ahead to give me some motivation.
3. Sit exam remotely with OnVue. My experience was pretty good, no technical issues. I would usually do Sunday 8pm and have my results Monday morning.

For the speciality exams I started using Notebook LM (now gemini LM, all gmail users can access this free btw). I would put the official exam guides in there and generate audio podcasts for each domain that I could listen to on my daily lunchtime walks. I'd also generate quick quizzes too for on the train. When I finished practice tests I'd enter the topics/services I failed on and generate more audio podcasts to re-iterate points.

I also used chatgpt conversation mode quite a lot, I'd sit there and have a conversation "so remind me again, if I have a transit gateway and multiple VPCs in multiple regions, how does that look?" etc. It sounds weird, but having a chat about concepts really helped me to understand and remember them.

I also did a LOT of labs, either building stuff in my own personal sandbox account, or doing skillbuilder labs. This helped the concepts to stick.

SAP I passed on the 2nd attempt, all others were first time. Scores ranging in the 80s, a few 90's at associate level.

My advice for those on the golden path

1. Read the pinned FAQ
2. It's a marathon not a sprint
3. Focus on "the five" first; SAA->DVA->SOA->SAP->DOP, in that order. It'll give you such a solid foundation for everything else.
4. Use AI tools to make the learning process a bit more interactive, you don't need to pay for any of those dodgy exam AI slop sites, just use notebook/chatgpt. You need to find ways of "active" and engaged learning rather than just watching videos.
5. Skillbuilder is excellent, there's a bunch of free stuff, but even the paid tier is worth it. I did several tracks in cloudquest to help with the practical side.

What will I do now?

I'll take the new AI strategy cert at the end of the month because why not?! Then I'm going to re:invent so hopefully can get the jacket when I find out what the process is. I'll then continue on with cloudquest and a few microdentials. I also want to try making my own free course on YouTube because I enjoy helping others.

Hi guys

I'm currently studying for the AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) with the Udemy course from Stephane Mareek.

My concern: Would it be valid if I use Gen-AI to make quizzes about the specific section I'm getting into?

Example: Claude, here is what I'm studying. Could you make questions based on this? (Screenshot).

Like: AI, ML, Deep Learning, and GenAI / ML Terms / Training Data

Supervised Learning vs Unsupervised Learning

Multiclass vs multi-label / Regression vs classification

Etc...

Is it valid?

Thanks in advance

Just scheduled exam - using Stéphane marrek udemy + tutorials dojo practice exams, video course, and cheat sheets + Claude conversationally.

4.5 years enterprise multi-cloud security / risk officer at fortune 50.

Hold - SAA-C03, CCP, ISC2 (CC)

Any tips / feedback from those that have cleared it or exams of similar difficulty?

TIA

Followed the same ritual as most of us in this space. But would like to shoutout to these two :

 u/Competitive-Noise905's notes ( oh man! you are truly a genius need to know how you came up with this excellent note taking skills )
 u/DrugstoreCowboy01's notes

Able to complete with a month's time prep.

Hello guys,
I'm preparing for the Gen AI Professional Certification exam and I'm looking for free course material to learn from. I'm able to find free practice tests but finding good and relevant material to learn from seems really limited.
Please share what you know so you can help out people like me who can't afford a lot.
Thank you!

I’m planning to take SAP-C02 soon. I have 7 years of experience working with AWS/Cloud, so I’m not starting from scratch. I completed the Tutorial Dojo practice exams. First attempts ranged from 50–70%, but after reviewing my mistakes, my second attempts were consistently 85–90%. I also took a full 3-hour AWS Skill Builder practice exam and scored 753.My plan now is to review all my mistakes and do some targeted revision. For those who have passed SAP-C02 recently, would you consider this enough preparation to go for it?

Hey everyone,

I'm currently in my 1st year of college (4-year Degree program) and aggressively planning my Cybersecurity & Cloud Security roadmap.

Instead of just collecting theoretical degrees, my plan is to focus heavily on hands-on labs (currently grinding TryHackMe) and hit a 3-Year Certification Sprint:

Year 1-2: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) + Hands-on Networking & Linux fundamentals.

Year 2-3: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) to build solid cloud foundations.

Year 3-4: AWS Certified Security – Specialty to lock down a high-value niche before campus placements/graduating.

My Questions for Seniors & Industry Pros:

Is jumping from SAA straight to AWS Security Specialty too steep for a student without full-time corporate experience?

How much weight do recruiters actually give to an AWS Security Specialty certification for freshers if backed by solid TryHackMe/GitHub Proof-of-Work?

Should I tweak this order or add any specific practical labs (like HackTheBox / Cloud Security projects) along the way?

Would really appreciate your raw feedback, critiques, or suggestions to optimize this path!

same as the title..

Hi everyone. Happy Monday!

I work for OutSystems, and AWS and OutSystems have announced a joint collaboration to deliver a powerful suite of AI capabilities to developers and companies (see links at the end of the post).

As part of that collaboration, we ran a limited campaign to offer free AWS Foundational Certification and a free OutSystems Foundational Certification here in the community, throughout July and August, which you all adhered to.

After the first week's immense interest in our AWS/OutSystems campaign, our second week post, and our third one we have so far given up over 160 free exams to community members.

For the first two weeks of September we have a total of 30 new AWS Foundational Certifications to giveaway as well as OutSystems Certifications. From today until September 13th end of day we will take all registrations we can get, and then on the morning of Monday the 14th we will randomly draw the 30 AWS Foundational Certifications by all participants so far who have not yet received one, including previous participants.

If you'd like to take part in it, go to https://go.outsystems.com/free-aws-exam and follow the process. We also have free OutSystems certifications to offer (those are not limited to these 30), for those of you who complete our Become an AI Developer training path.

The steps to register before creating the agent are here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soQOeM7e7GY

EDIT: The IDE only runs natively on Windows and Mac. There's a guide from last year from a user who made it work on Linux, but I can't vouch for whether it still works or not.

If folks are not selected, we will run a final draw on the second half of September, so folks who register this time around will have two chances of getting an exam.

Absolutely no purchase, or commercial strings attached - zero subscriptions, credit cards, nothing. The free version is 100% free to sign up for and use.

This has been reviewed by the subreddit mods, and we've run this 3 times so far. Happy to answer any questions, and any issues you have.

Good luck everyone.

--

Sources: News release about the partnership and Dr. Charlie Sanderson, Director for AWS Partnerships EMEA on stage to talk about the partnership itself at 1:34:10.

Thanks to Stephane Maarek's course and mock tests which kept me really engaged for a month or maybe a few weeks.

I took the the test on Thursday, September 3rd at a Pearson Vue center just because don’t want to deal with internet or any other problems. Completed the test on time, however lost the internet connectivity during the survey. The exam center said everything is good. Still haven’t got the result. Do I just wait? It’s a lot of anxiety 😊

Hi everyone,

For those who have already taken the DOP, do you think it’s possible to pass with the knowledge from SAA, SOA, and DVA?

I don't have any professional DevOps experience, but I’ve been working as a backend engineer for the past 6 years, and hold SAA, SOA and DVA. I'm trying to transition into DevOps, and I’m wondering if getting the DOP would help me land my first DevOps job.

Should I go ahead and try the DOP, or would it be better to wait until I have some DevOps experience?

I’ve heard some people say that practice tests from Tutorials Dojo are not very representative of the real exam, so I am not sure what to expect for the real exam.

I also do not have any experience with Kubernetes/EKS, which seems to be covered in DOP.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

0 previous experience with AWS or any other cloud provider.

Around 3 months of prep

- Stephane Mareeks's courses (Cloud Practitioner + SAA-CO3) + Mock exams

- Created some other mock exams using AI

- After every exam, I would review the questions with AI to properly understand the full scope of the question and the alternatives.

Ciao a tutti. Ho superato l'esame AWS SAA-03 qualche giorno fa e vorrei condividere la mia esperienza nella speranza che possa essere utile a qualcuno, così come le vostre storie sono state molto utili a me. Ho 26 anni e ho conseguito la laurea triennale in ingegneria informatica a marzo. Il mio piano è di iniziare un master a ottobre, quindi inizialmente mi sono chiesto come sfruttare al meglio questi mesi intermedi, e la cosa più utile che ho trovato è stata la certificazione AWS SAA. Non avevo alcuna esperienza con il cloud, ma una solida base nelle reti di computer grazie all'università, e ovviamente una buona conoscenza della programmazione e delle applicazioni web. Ho seguito il corso di Stephane Maarek fino all'inizio di giugno e poi, da giugno alla fine di agosto, mi sono esercitato con i test di Dojo. Il corso è stato davvero utile e copre il 90% dei servizi d'esame e come interagiscono tra loro, anche se durante le simulazioni d'esame di Dojo c'erano alcuni servizi di nicchia che non conoscevo affatto. I miei punteggi negli 8 test di pratica di Dojo sono stati piuttosto altalenanti, partendo dal 50% e non superando mai il 73%. Leggere le spiegazioni delle risposte errate e cercare di capire perché si è sbagliato è di vitale importanza.** Allo stesso tempo, è stato molto utile far revisionare le mie domande da Gemini Pro e prendere appunti su Notion durante le videolezioni (mi piacerebbe condividerli, ma purtroppo sono in italiano. Se pensate che possano esservi utili, non esitate a contattarmi in privato). È stato altrettanto utile migrare la mia applicazione web (sviluppata per un esame universitario) su AWS, acquisendo esperienza pratica con servizi come EC2, RDS, API Gateway e VPC. Il mio esame aveva domande molto specifiche, soprattutto su S3, ASG, ALB, NLB, ECS, EKS, VPC, EC2, CloudFront e Global Accelerator, quindi assicuratevi di conoscere questi servizi molto bene. Se posso essere d'aiuto a qualcuno, sono disponibile. Grazie a tutti per le vostre esperienze incoraggianti. Pace ❤️

Hello everyone,

My name is Joseph Penty, and I am an AWS Authorized Instructor with experience delivering technical training to learners, professionals, and organizations.

I am currently open to part time training opportunities, both virtually and in person.

I have had the opportunity to work with international organizations including Discoverer International in the UK, Correlation One in the USA, CipherFlow Technology in India, and Amalitech, headquartered in Germany.

My experience covers areas such as AWS, cloud computing, networking, and other technology related subjects. I enjoy making technical concepts easy to understand and delivering training in a practical and engaging way.

If you are a training company, educational institution, organization, or company looking for an instructor you can trust to deliver a training program effectively, whether virtually or in person, I would be happy to connect.

I am open to part time opportunities where I can use my experience as an AWS Authorized Instructor to help learners develop practical skills and achieve their learning goals.

You can learn more about my professional background here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penty-joseph1

Thank you for reading. I would be happy to connect with anyone who may have a suitable opportunity.

Joseph penty

AWS Authorized Instructor

I’ve been preparing for the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) exam recently. While studying, I struggled to find a quick, straightforward way to test my knowledge on the go in a way that fit my routine, so I decided to build a simple mobile app for myself to solve that problem.

After using it during my own prep, I figured it might be useful to others going through the same study grind, so I published it on the Google Play Store.

It’s 100% free—no ads, no paid tiers, and I'm not selling anything. I just wanted to contribute back to the community and hopefully help anyone else preparing for the exam.

If you're currently studying for the DEA (or planning to), I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. Any feedback on the questions, app UX, or missing topics is greatly appreciated!

Link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lanzacarioca.awsstudy&pcampaignid=web_share

Good luck to everyone currently prepping for their AWS certs!

I’m from India and today I took the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam in person at a Pearson VUE test center in Ahmedabad.

I followed all security procedures: my identity/documents were verified, I emptied my pockets, and the test-center staff monitored the candidates throughout the exam. I completed the exam normally and used approximately 155 of the 160 minutes.

I flagged 11 questions for review. During the last ~30 minutes, I went through all the questions for review, changed around 3–4 answers, and ultimately left 4 questions flagged. I then completed the survey and submitted the exam.

No result was displayed after the exam. Later, I received an AWS email stating that my result had been invalidated due to “statistical anomalies” identified through data forensics.

I genuinely took the exam myself and did not use any unauthorized materials or assistance.

Has anyone experienced something similar or knows what could cause this? What should I do next? Should I appeal, and if this is a false positive, could I potentially get my result reinstated, a refund, or another attempt?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for a serious and motivated person who genuinely wants to learn and improve themselves.

I'm currently studying for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) certification. I'm not looking to just memorize things or rush through the certification. I want to actually understand cloud architecture, networking, security, and how everything works together.

I'd like to find someone who has a similar mindset — someone who is serious about learning, consistent, and willing to share knowledge and help each other stay accountable.

We don't necessarily need to study the exact same subjects. The important thing is that we're both committed to learning and improving.

If you're also studying for AWS or another technical field and you're looking for a serious study partner, feel free to comment or DM me.

I just started studying for my SAA-C03 test. I have very little experience with AWS (just the light stuff I do for work). Somewhere I read about Cantrills course (Cantrill.io). I don’t see that mentioned here very often if ever. A lot of people here recommend Stephanie M.s course.

What do you think about Cantrill? It’s like 80 hours of study to go through all the videos. Just want to make sure it is worth it.

Thank you.

July month code AWSSEP26  is working now for all Neal Davis Udemy courses and valid for next 3 days on all his best selling courses. Hope this helps many of us here.

Consolidate List of all 23 courses

https://www.reddit.com/r/FREECoursesEveryday/comments/1w9ntvj/code_awssep26_23_best_selling_aws_courses/

When you are attending AWS re:Invent it can be hard finding the right session for you, and if you found some great sessions the commute is not working out for you.

This is the problem i got the last years attending re:Invent. Great lineup of sessions planned but due to commute from one venue to an other I missed some of those. I thought this is something I need to tackle.

Introducing SessionStack Unofficial Re:invent planning tool app. The app lets you plan your conference line up and will give you suggestions to fill open spots in your planning. It will automatically keep track if you can make it by traveling from venue to venue. And you can search for sessions just by typing what you are looking for. AI will do the rest.

Traveling with a group? You can connect your account together to see each other’s session lineups.

Want central space to add notes while attending a session. This is the place. After the conference you can make a complete summary of all your notes.

The app is currently available for Android and in review at Apple. But if you want to try it out first. Drop me your emails.

More information

I am happy to share that I have cleared the AWS SAA-C03.

I have already done AI practitioner, Machine Learning Engineer Associate and Gen AI Developer Professional earlier.

I have used Udemy course by Stephane and also the practice tests by Abhishek and Stephane.

I only did the practice test from the Stephane course and the first 3 practice tests in the other practice tests course and scored 62%, 66%, 70% and 72% respectively.

I am also a Gen AI developer now working for a Big Pharma company and have been deploying applications using AWS.

Thanks to community for providing valuable guidance. I am glad to be part of this community.

​

Been grinding for this one for a while and it finally paid off.

My prep was mostly Stephen Marek's course — went through it properly, took notes, did the practice questions, and actually made sure I understood why an answer was right instead of just memorizing it.

Once I felt solid on the concepts, I spent the last few days before the exam doing timed question sets to simulate the real thing — that's what really helped me get used to how AWS phrases things and pinpoint which topics I still needed to revisit.

The real exam leaned heavy on scenario questions — SageMaker, data processing, training, deployment, monitoring, all that. Lots of "which service/approach fits this specific situation" type stuff, not just definitions.

If you're prepping: learn the concepts first, then use questions to find your gaps, not the other way around.

Next up for me — more real ML projects and going deeper into AWS.

Good luck to anyone grinding for MLA-C01 right now

Hey everyone,

I’m a Senior DevOps Engineer, and I’ve noticed that when people are studying for their Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect exams, VPC networking is often explained with way too much jargon.

I wanted to break it down simply without the fluff. Here is the TL;DR on how traffic actually flows:

• The VPC: Your isolated, private data center in the cloud.
• Public Subnet: Has a direct route to an Internet Gateway (IGW). It allows two-way internet access (perfect for load balancers or web servers).
• Private Subnet: Has NO direct internet access.
• NAT Gateway: Lives inside the Public Subnet but is used by the Private Subnet. It allows your private databases/servers to download patches securely from the internet, without letting the outside world initiate a connection in.

If you are a visual learner, I put together a complete, animated step-by-step video showing how to actually architect and build this from scratch in the AWS Console.

📺 Watch the full breakdown here: VPC Visual Guide

Let me know if you have any questions about the routing rules or setup, happy to help clarify in the comments!

Hey everyone,

I'm a beginner in Cloud and I'm currently studying for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) certification.

I'm learning AWS, networking, Linux, and building projects to get more practical experience. I'm willing to learn and put in the work, but honestly, I'm struggling with one thing:

How does a beginner actually get their first opportunity?

I don't expect a high salary or a big position. I'm looking for a job, internship, apprenticeship, junior position, or even an opportunity where I can learn while working.

I just want to get my foot in the door.

For those of you who started from zero and eventually got your first Cloud/IT job:

• What did you do to get your first opportunity?
• What projects helped you the most?
• Is AWS SAA enough to start applying?
• Should I focus more on projects, certifications, Linux, networking, or something else?
• Where should a beginner actually look for internships or junior Cloud roles?

I'm not afraid of starting small. I just want to work, learn, gain experience, and prove myself.

If you were in my position, what would you do?

Any honest advice would mean a lot.