Hello, and welcome to this final lecture within the Cloud Practitioner Certification Preparation for AWS learning path. The aim of this lecture is to simply review and summarize the key points that we learned from each of the previous courses. Before we do this, I just want to quickly recap on the requirements of knowledge and understanding that passing this certification requires, which is, as we know, split between four different domains.

Domain one, cloud concepts, where you need to define the AWS Cloud and its value proposition, identify aspects of AWS Cloud economics, and list the different cloud architecture design principles.

In domain two, we need to define the AWS shared responsibility model, define the AWS Cloud security and compliance concepts, identify AWS access management and capabilities, and identify resources for security support.

In domain three, technology, we need to define methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud, define the AWS global infrastructure, identify the core AWS services, and identify resources for technology support.

And in the final domain, four, billing and pricing, we need to compare and contrast the various pricing models for AWS, recognize the various account structures in relation to AWS billing and pricing, and identify resources available for billing support.

This learning path consisted of nine courses, to fulfill the requirement of the domains I just mentioned. I started off by explaining what cloud computing actually is, and the basic principles and concepts of it that make it so desirable to a lot of organizations. I also looked at the different deployment and service models and how each of these differ from one another. In this course, we gained a clear definition of what cloud computing is, an understanding of cloud computing benefits and key concepts, and an understanding on when and why cloud computing should be used and which models to implement.

Following this, I began to focus on the core components of AWS, starting with the compute fundamentals. This course introduced you to services such as Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and AWS Lambda. It also looked at how auto-scaling and elastic load balancing can help you incorporate high availability of your solutions. In this course, we learned how to describe the basic functions that each compute service performs within a cloud environment, and how to recognize basic components and features of each compute service, and how compute services can be used in conjunction with auto scaling and load balancing.

Next, a review of the storage fundamentals of AWS was given. We had to explain the features and benefits of services such as Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Block Store, EBS, and Amazon Cloudfront, and many more. By the end of this course, you were able to describe the differences between each of the storage services, recognize basic components and features of each storage service, identify which storage service would be most appropriate for different use cases, and understand how each utilizes the benefits of cloud computing, such as scalability and elasticity.

Moving on from storage, we then look to AWS databases, and this primarily focused on three different database services, these being the Relational Database Service, DynamoDB, and Aurora. This provided you with an understanding of managed database solutions, the basic structure and function of Amazon's RDS service, high availability configurations of RDS, and understanding of DynamoDB and Aurora.

The next lecture had a focus on AWS networking and the different components and concepts surrounding the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. These VPCs act as your own private section of the AWS Cloud, allowing you to provision all the resources that you need. On completion of this course, you were able to describe the basic functions of different networking services within AWS and recognize basic components and features of a VPC.

Following networking, I dived into some of the security services of AWS. Security is a number one priority for AWS, and so getting a full understanding of concepts and mechanisms used to secure your data and resources is essential. This lecture focused on understanding responsibilities in services, such as identity and access management, AWS organizations, Amazon Inspector, among others. This enabled you to understand what each security service is utilized for, recognize basic components and features of each service, understand how each offers a layer of security to the AWS cloud, how to summarize the Shared Responsibility Model, and apply the Shared Responsibility Model to different components of the AWS cloud.

Next up was a course that looked at how to manage and monitor your AWS environment to ensure it was operating as expected. Using services such as AWS Cloud Trail, AWS Config, and Amazon CloudWatch, it explained how you are able to maintain a certain level of compliance from an auditing perspective, while at the same time tracking your resources, their configuration, and potential issues using health dashboards. This course allowed you to identify the primary function of each service highlighted within the management course, recognize basic components and features of each AWS management service, and understand the role each service plays to maintain and operate an application within AWS.

Following the management fundamentals course, I introduced the AWS architecture, and here I looked at the foundations of the AWS global infrastructure, as well as the Well-Architected Framework, which looked at best practices. Also, disaster recovery in business continuity was also discussed, showing how to use the infrastructure to benefit, depending on your RTO and RPO requirements. Following this course, you were able to understand the different components of the AWS global infrastructure and how they can impact your AWS solutions. We were able to list and describe the five pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, and summarize the standard disaster recovery methods, and how a business would select a method based on its service needs.

The final course in this learning path was dedicated to cost management and support within AWS. This introduced a number of different methods and features of tracking and monitoring your cloud spend, in addition to explaining the different levels of support that are available. In this course, you learned how to identify the different cost management services and support and plans in AWS, describe the unique features and benefits of each service and support plan provides, and summarize each service and support plan's use case.

You should know have a greater understanding of all the elements required to help you pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification. Prior to taking the certification, I would also recommend using the following AWS whitepapers as outlined in the exam guide, which can be found here. The whitepapers are as follows. The Overview of Amazon Web Services whitepaper, Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices, How AWS Pricing Works, The Total Cost ofOwnership of Web Applications in the Cloud, and Comparing the AWS Support Plans. All of these whitepapers and more can be found using the link on screen.

That now brings me to the end of this course, and to the end of this learning path. If you have any feedback on this learning path, positive or negative, please do contact us at support@cloudacademy.com. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time, and good luck with your certification. Thank you.

Summary: Cloud Practitioner Certification Preparation for AWS