This article serves as a comprehensive guide for individuals aspiring to attain the AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification. It focuses on the fundamental concepts and core services outlined in the certification’s syllabus, providing practical insights, examples, and best practices essential for aspiring AWS developers. With a strong emphasis on exam readiness, the content aligns with the certification exam’s scope and requirements, equipping readers with the skills and knowledge necessary to develop and deploy applications on AWS. By bridging theoretical knowledge with real-world scenarios and use cases, this guide ensures the relevance of the content in professional settings beyond the certification exam.
AWS Developer – Associate Exam Overview
The AWS Developer – Associate exam is designed for individuals who want to demonstrate their expertise in developing and deploying applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. This comprehensive certification exam covers a wide range of topics and concepts essential for aspiring AWS developers. By earning this certification, you can validate your skills and knowledge, proving that you are capable of building and maintaining applications using AWS services.
Exam Format
The AWS Developer – Associate exam consists of multiple-choice and multiple-response questions. The exam duration is 130 minutes, during which you will have to answer a total of 65 questions. The passing score for this exam is 720 out of 1000 points. To prepare for the exam, it is essential to have a solid understanding of the exam objectives and the core AWS services covered in the certification. Let’s explore the exam objectives in more detail.
Exam Objectives
The AWS Developer – Associate exam covers a range of topics related to AWS fundamentals and core services. These exam objectives provide a framework for studying and preparing for the certification. Understanding each topic and subtopic is crucial for success in the exam:
AWS Fundamentals
This section of the exam focuses on understanding the AWS global infrastructure, AWS service models, and AWS management tools. It is important to have a strong foundation in these fundamental concepts as they form the basis for working with AWS services.
AWS Global Infrastructure
In this subtopic, you will learn about the global infrastructure of AWS, which comprises regions, availability zones, and edge locations. Understanding how AWS infrastructure is geographically distributed allows you to design and deploy applications that are highly available and scalable.
AWS Service Models
AWS provides various service models, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). This subtopic covers the characteristics and purposes of each service model, enabling you to choose the appropriate AWS services for your application’s requirements.
AWS Management Tools
AWS offers a range of management tools to help you provision, configure, and monitor your AWS resources. This subtopic explores tools such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS CloudFormation, and AWS CloudTrail. Familiarizing yourself with these tools is essential for effectively managing your AWS environment.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM is a critical component of AWS security, allowing you to manage user access and permissions to AWS resources. This section of the exam focuses on IAM users and groups, IAM policies, and IAM roles.
IAM Users and Groups
You will learn how to create and manage IAM users and groups, granting them appropriate permissions to access and interact with AWS services. Understanding IAM user and group management is essential for controlling access to your AWS resources and ensuring secure application development.
IAM Policies
IAM policies enable you to define and enforce fine-grained permissions for your IAM users and groups. This subtopic covers the syntax and structure of IAM policies, allowing you to control access to individual AWS resources and actions.
IAM Roles
IAM roles provide temporary security credentials for applications running on AWS resources. This subtopic explores how to create and manage IAM roles, which are essential for granting permissions to applications without embedding access keys or passwords.
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
Amazon S3 is a scalable object storage service offered by AWS. This section of the exam focuses on creating and managing S3 buckets, versioning and lifecycle policies, and S3 encryption.
Creating and Managing S3 Buckets
You will learn how to create and configure S3 buckets, specifying properties such as region, access control, and logging. Understanding the various bucket settings allows you to effectively store and retrieve data using S3.
Versioning and Lifecycle Policies
This subtopic covers versioning and lifecycle policies in S3. You will learn how to enable versioning for objects stored in S3 and define lifecycle policies to automatically transition objects between different storage classes based on predefined rules.
S3 Encryption
Data security is crucial when working with S3. This subtopic explores different encryption options available in S3, including server-side encryption and client-side encryption. Understanding how to encrypt data stored in S3 ensures the confidentiality and integrity of your data.
Amazon DynamoDB
DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service offered by AWS. This section of the exam focuses on data modeling in DynamoDB, primary keys and indexes, and DynamoDB capacity modes.
Data Modeling in DynamoDB
You will learn how to design and create tables in DynamoDB, considering factors such as access patterns, primary key selection, and attribute data types. Understanding data modeling in DynamoDB is essential for efficient and scalable NoSQL database design.
Primary Keys and Indexes
This subtopic covers the concept of primary keys in DynamoDB, including partition keys and sort keys. You will also learn about secondary indexes, which enable querying data using attributes other than the primary key.
DynamoDB Capacity Modes
DynamoDB offers two capacity modes: provisioned and on-demand. This subtopic explores the differences between these modes and helps you choose the appropriate capacity mode based on your application’s workload and performance requirements.
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that allows you to run code without provisioning or managing servers. This section of the exam focuses on creating and deploying Lambda functions, event sources and triggers, and monitoring and troubleshooting Lambda functions.
Creating and Deploying Lambda Functions
You will learn how to create Lambda functions using various programming languages and deploy them to AWS. Understanding the different configuration options and deployment mechanisms enables you to build serverless applications efficiently.
Event Sources and Triggers
This subtopic covers the various event sources and triggers that can invoke Lambda functions. Examples include Amazon S3 events, Amazon DynamoDB streams, and Amazon API Gateway. Understanding event-driven architecture and how to configure event sources is crucial for building scalable and event-driven applications using Lambda.
Monitoring and Troubleshooting Lambda Functions
Monitoring and troubleshooting are essential aspects of building and maintaining resilient serverless applications. This subtopic explores different tools and techniques for monitoring and troubleshooting Lambda functions, helping you identify and resolve performance issues.
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queuing service offered by AWS. This section of the exam focuses on SQS message queues, FIFO (First-In-First-Out) queues, and message visibility and retention.
SQS Message Queues
You will learn how to create and manage SQS message queues, which act as a buffer between message producers and consumers. Understanding the characteristics and behavior of SQS queues enables you to build scalable and decoupled applications.
FIFO Queues
FIFO queues guarantee the order in which messages are processed, ensuring strict message ordering. This subtopic explores the concept of FIFO queues and how to use them effectively in your applications.
Message Visibility and Retention
This subtopic covers message visibility timeouts and retention periods in SQS. You will learn how to control the visibility of messages in the queue and set the retention period for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain period.
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Amazon SNS is a fully managed pub/sub messaging service offered by AWS. This section of the exam focuses on publishing and subscribing to SNS topics, mobile push notifications, and fanout and filtering.
Publishing and Subscribing to SNS Topics
You will learn how to create SNS topics and publish messages to these topics. This subtopic also covers how to subscribe to topics and receive notifications across different protocols such as HTTP, email, and SMS.
Mobile Push Notifications
AWS provides support for sending push notifications to mobile devices through SNS. This subtopic explores how to configure and send push notifications to mobile devices using SNS, enabling you to engage with your users effectively.
Fanout and Filtering
SNS supports fanout and filtering capabilities, allowing you to send messages selectively to subscribers based on predefined criteria. Understanding how to configure fanout and filtering rules ensures efficient and targeted message delivery to your subscribers.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a fully managed service for deploying and managing applications. This section of the exam focuses on creating and deploying applications on Elastic Beanstalk, environment configurations, and scaling and load balancing.
Creating and Deploying Applications on Elastic Beanstalk
You will learn how to create and deploy applications on Elastic Beanstalk, which simplifies the deployment and management of your application infrastructure. Understanding the different deployment options and supported platforms enables you to deploy your applications effortlessly.
Environment Configurations
This subtopic covers environment configurations in Elastic Beanstalk, including modifying settings, managing environment variables, and creating custom configurations. Understanding how to customize and configure your Elastic Beanstalk environments ensures that your application is tailored to your specific requirements.
Scaling and Load Balancing
Elastic Beanstalk supports automatic scaling and load balancing, ensuring that your applications can handle varying traffic loads. This subtopic explores how to configure scaling policies and load balancers in Elastic Beanstalk, enabling your application to scale horizontally and maintain high availability.
Amazon API Gateway
Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service for creating, deploying, and managing APIs at scale. This section of the exam focuses on creating and managing APIs, API methods and integrations, and authentication and authorization.
Creating and Managing APIs
You will learn how to create RESTful APIs using Amazon API Gateway. This subtopic covers configuring API resources, methods, and stages, allowing you to expose your application functionality securely and efficiently.
API Methods and Integrations
This subtopic delves into API methods and integrations in Amazon API Gateway. You will learn how to define request and response models, set up integrations with backend services, and handle authentication and authorization for API requests.
Authentication and Authorization
Securing your APIs is vital to protect against unauthorized access. This subtopic explores different authentication and authorization mechanisms supported by Amazon API Gateway, including API keys, IAM roles, and custom authorizers. Understanding how to implement secure access control ensures that your APIs are protected from malicious traffic.
By understanding and mastering the topics and subtopics outlined in this article, you will be well prepared to take the AWS Developer – Associate exam. Remember to leverage the provided resources and explore additional study materials to enhance your knowledge and practical skills. Best of luck on your exam preparation journey!