Forem: Jonas Singbo

AWS Jedi Mode Unlocked: 7x Certified

Jonas Singbo — Sat, 20 Aug 2022 08:24:17 +0000

Disclaimer: The title is a click bait. Nothing like an AWS Jedi (yet). I just happen to be an AWS fan as well as an imaginary Star Wars shareholder. Thanks for coming though.

Getting certified

Certifications define a learning path, demonstrate a certain level of understanding of a platform or tool, show your ability/capacity to learn and represent a way to validate knowledge. However, there is no value in certification alone. They need to be accompanied with practical experience.

I am Jonas, Software Engineer, based in Cape Town. My love languages are Javascript and Java. I also speak fluent mandarin (in my sleep 😴).

Cloud Computing & AWS

Over the past years, cloud computing has become a core competency requirement in the workplace, from startups to government agencies to big enterprises. Titles such as "AWS/Azure Developer" has become a thing as employers from various industries hunt for skilled and competent engineers with cloud computing skills to design, build, deploy, monitor and maintain workloads in the cloud.

AWS, which calls itself the "world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform", has established itself as the market leader in the space. According to studies by the Synergy Research Group, Amazon's market share in the worldwide cloud computing market in the Q2 of 2022, exceeds the combined market share of the two other big players in the space, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

When it comes to certifications, AWS is known for rigorious, thorough, brain melting and brain frying certification exams that require a certain level of both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience depending on the certification you are after.

Going Pro

I wrote my AWS associate level exams back in 2020 and after 18 months of hands-on and practical experience architecting, designing, maintaining and monitoring workloads on both personal and work level, I decided to go pro aka beast mode.

Certification Shopping Time

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

One of the most challenging and well-respected certifications in IT, requires multi-dimensional mastery of cloud architecture. Geared towards Cloud Architects, it demonstrates the depth and breadth of your cloud-computing knowledge. I respect this cert so much that I dressed formally to sit for the exam.

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional

Best for devops engineers experienced in developing CI/CD pipelines, monitoring and managing workloads in AWS. Even though the focus is narrowed compared to the Solutions Architect Professional, it is really a tough one.

AWS Certified Security Specialty

Geared towards Cloud Security, it covers how to design, build, and troubleshoot a secure network infrastructure, how to respond to security breaches, how to design and implement security monitoring systems, and more.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Cheapest ($100), easiest, completely geared towards beginners and requires minimal technical AWS cloud knowledge. It focuses on AWS fundamentals, financial values as well as basics of the well architected framework and security features.

I actually wrote it first so I could get the 50% discount voucher benefit AWS gives you for your next exam after you pass an exam. Benefits for AWS Certified Individuals
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The Pro and Specialty level exams cost $300. Everytime I pass an exam, I save $150 on the next by using the 50% off benefit. Starting off with the Cloud Practitioner exam makes it even cheaper. Do the maths.

Preparation

Courses

I mainly use Adrian Cantrill courses to study. He does a phenomenal job at teaching, breaking down and explaining IT concepts & AWS services. His ability to teach is simply amazing. I, sometimes, marvel at how much I understand something after he has explained it.

His courses have multiple relevant hands-on lessons, demos and labs which depict and demonstrate real world scenarios and usage and consequently translate into practical experience.

Moreover, the courses are not the "just get certified" type. They actually impact AWS knowledge on you for daily real life application. Check out his platform here.

Practice Exams

My preferred practice exam platform is Jon Bonso's Tutorial Dojo.

They simulate the actual certification exam and provide feedback to each question, why an answer is correct or incorrect as well as additional links to documentation for further reading.

To supplement for the pro level exam certifications, I also used Stephane Mareek practice exams which I truly enjoyed as well. You can find them on Udemy.

Projects & Labs

Here is a list of a few solutions I developed with AWS services that gave me an edge and deepen my understanding as well as how they benefitted the stakeholders involve.

Solution	Main AWS Services Used	Benefits
Data Analytics Application	- Kinesis Firehose - S3 - AWS Glue - AWS Athena	- Near real time application data querying and analysis using SQL - Cost saving as audit log data is saved on S3 and not in database which in turn leads to improved database performance
Building automated CI/CD Pipelines	- ECS - ECR - CloudFormation	- Improved and automated CICD pipeline with a manual approval only when deploying to production - Improved compatibility and cost efficiency as applications are containerised - Improved Security as container images are stored on ECR and access control is managed by IAM
Image Generating and File Processing Applications	- SQS - SES - S3 - AWS Lambda	- Event driven application - Reduced management overhead, serverless solution - Cost efficient and Highly Available
Adding Content Delivery & Caching to existing application	- Cloudfront - ACM - R53 - S3	- Faster performance as CloudFront ensures quick delivery of content to users - Improved security with AWS Shield against DDOS attacks - Eliminate manual process of managing SSL/TLS certificates as ACM takes care of that
Developing a Rest API	- API Gateway - AWS Lambda - CloudWatch Logs - DynamoDB	- Elastic and multi region available API - Reduced API management overhead as scaling activities are dynamic - Built-in caching, logging, throttling, bursting and monitoring functionality as well as distributed tracing support with AWS X-RAY

I work daily with AWS so the list goes on. Adrian Cantrill has standard and advanced demos I have completed as well.

Here are a few:

Highly Available Dynamic VPN
Hybrid Active Directory
Hybrid DNS with R53 Endpoints
Patching EC2 instances at scale with SSM
DB Migration Using DMS
Web Identity Federation

They can be freely accessed here.

What's next

One of my goals is to have multi cloud practical knowledge and I intend to look into Microsoft Azure as the secondary cloud platform.

Additionally, I am working towards achieving the "Kubernetes Trilogy" within the next 8 to 10 months.

Conclusion

You can find my badges here.
Thank you for stopping by. Grab some snacks at the door.

3x AWS Certified: Scoring a hat-trick

Jonas Singbo — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 08:39:19 +0000

Up until a year ago, my entire knowledge of AWS could have been summarized into one sentence "it is one of Jeff Bezos money trees".

I am Jonas Singbo, full stack engineer at Yoyo Wallet, Cape Town, South Africa and my love languages are (Java) (1 + Script).

Welcome to my ted talk.

Triggers

I was tasked with developing a gateway solution that sits between a front-end app and a number of api/backend services.
Language: Java, ok 😎💪🏾
Compute Platform: AWS Lambda, what ? what's that. 👀🤷🏾
A colleague at work made me fall in love with the role of solution architect with his ability to design architectures for our solutions and provide strategic guidance during the development process.

Immediately I knew I wanted to become one when I grow up.😊

Road

Working on the gateway service piqued my interest in AWS. Further research into AWS services blew my mind and I decided to get certified.

Cloud computing has grown into a complex universe and AWS is leading it with up to 175 products and services by 2020.

As of October 2020, Canalys reports that the worldwide cloud market grew 33% this quarter to $36.5 billion. AWS has 32% of the market and generated more revenue than the next three largest combined, Azure is at 19% of the market, Google Cloud at 7%, Alibaba Cloud close behind at 6%, and other clouds with 37%. Jay Chapel

I decided to ditch the foundation level cloud practitioner cert, kick off my journey at the associate level and get myself all associate certs for my birthday instead of a tesla (😂 I am literally laughing in USD right now and you won't understand why).

Exams

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02)

It requires you to have a comprehensive understanding of AWS services and technologies as well as the ability to build secure and robust solutions using architectural design principles based on customer requirements.

An associate solution architect is expected to deploy hybrid systems (comprised of on-premises data center and AWS services), strategically design well-architected distributed systems that are scalable, resilient, efficient, and fault-tolerant.

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate

You have a comprehensive understanding on how to deploy, manage, and operate IT systems on the AWS Cloud. You are able to migrate on-premises workloads to AWS and monitor, scale, and secure systems on the AWS platform.

Moreover, you should be in a position to provide guidance on implementing best practices for cloud operations. Passing this exam requires both technical expertise and conceptual knowledge of the operational aspects of the AWS platform.

AWS Certified Developer – Associate

Here it is all about demonstrating proficiency in writing applications with AWS service APIs, AWS CLI, and SDKs; using containers; and deploying with a CI/CD pipeline.

You are expected to have a comprehensive understanding of application life-cycle management. A developer is able to develop, deploy, and debug cloud-based applications that follow AWS best practices.

At the associate-level exams the passing score is 720/1000 and my scores were:

Solution Architect: 861
SysOps Administrator: 914
Developer: 947

Materials used

Solution Architect

SysOps Administrator

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate 2020

Developer

Ultimate AWS Certified Developer Associate

For my practice exams, I use a bit of Whizlabs but I heavily practiced with Jon Bonso's Tutorials Dojo Tests, highly recommended resource.

Future plans

Besides diving into popular devOps tools such as docker, jenkins, terraform, ansible and kubernetes, I have decided to pursue the *AWS Solution Architect Professional *certification.

The AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional, one of the most challenging and well-respected certifications in IT, requires multi-dimensional mastery of cloud architecture.

It requires an extensive understanding of designing technical strategies to accomplish specific business goals.

A professional solution architect has the ability to balance best practices and trade-offs based on business context as well as designing solutions across multiple platforms and cloud providers.

After days of research, I have enrolled in Adrian Cantrill's AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional course which is hands down the best AWS course I have ever enrolled myself in. His associate level courses also seems to be the bomb.

Additionally, I have always wanted to write and publish technical articles and I guess now is a good time and place to start. I intend to architect, design simple to complex real world solutions and code them when necessary.

Who knows maybe I get to sell one of those one day and get myself a Tesla, a second hand private jet or rent an island. Anyways we will see.

Bonus

I recommend reading this awesome article written by Liz Percak Dennett, a Solution architect at AWS on Slay imposter syndrome while prepping for AWS Certification exams

Conclusion

Oh I am on Linkedin Jonas Singbo. Let's connect.