Reaping Advantages in IT By Earning AWS Certification

Whether you want to fly high in your career in cloud computing or are looking for a higher salary, an AWS certification can be your ticket to achieve your set goals. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has emerged as the dominant player in cloud segment having 33% market share and an expected growth rate of 43%, as per the Statista.com. Unsurprisingly, its capability to offer a trustworthy, scalable and highly inexpensive cloud platform covering 200+ cloud services has made it the first choice for 100,000+ customers across 190 countries. Hence, it becomes significant to earn an AWS Certification that can give you an edge in the competition along with numerous opportunities of achieving your goals. 

AWS Certification is a testament to the cloud skills needed to get a job. It also opens up new possibilities for working in cloud computing.

What is an AWS certificate?

AWS Certifications is an industry-leading cloud certification that validates candidate AWS skills to current and future employers. When you will have AWS Certification it will simply mean that you will own the most in-demand skills and expertise which is required to work on cloud projects efficiently. 

There are a total number of 12 different AWS Certification exams, all focused on hands-on best practices and experience in a cloud computing field or specialty.

These certifications are: 

• AWS Certified Machine Learning- Specialty

• AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder-Specialty

• AWS Certified Advanced Networking-Specialty

• AWS Certified Security Essential

• AWS Certified Data Analytics-Specialty

• AWS Certified Database-Specialty

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional

• AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate 

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

• AWS Certified Developer Associate

Below are the benefits of having AWS Certifications for Cloud professionals: 

Certification creates higher paying jobs chances: 

There is a high demand for AWS Certification Professionals and Candidates. The average AWS certified professional’s salary ranges between US $105K to $187K, according to PayScale. In contrast to it, the median salary for an uncertified professional is at least $20,000 less.

The certificate not only guarantees you qualify for a high-paying job, but it can also help you showcase your qualifications to your current or future employer. An AWS certification can help you grab more work in the market because certification ensures your clients can work with AWS technology, if you are a freelancer. 

Certification ensures your technical expertise and core skills on AWS: 

As you learn by experience, AWS certificates enable you with a competitive edge over candidates with similar experience who do not hold a certificate. Therefore, even if you have minimal experience with AWS, having a certificate will give you an edge. 

If you are already a professional executing tasks with AWS Cloud Infrastructure, obtaining AWS certification can boost your AWS services knowledge. You can easily explore various aspects of the platform such as cost, security and scalability to help you acquire the skills you need to make the best use of AWS in your organization. Certifications certify AWS-related skills for new cloud professionals that companies may prefer over your previous job experience.

Certification enhances opportunities of getting positions with AWS partners: 

AWS Premier and Advanced Partners are expected to support a variety of certified professionals at various levels. They are very interested in hiring additional employees with qualifications that are professional in nature. 

The more certified employees they have in the workforce, the more benefits partners receive. It is crucial to maintain the partner and competitiveness status with AWS as it opens up various chances you might have not received without AWS Credential. 

Certification entitles you to join the AWS Certified Global Community: 

Earning an AWS Certification qualifies you to join the AWS Certified Network as well as online community, where AWS Certified individuals can see and connect with other AWS Certified professionals across the globe. This gives you access to global events and invitations to AWS conferences, study materials, hands-on exams, live technical coding demonstrations, and launch events that can initiate you to make yourself prepare for add-on exams for certification or AWS projects. Once you become an AWS community member, you are also eligible to use the Amazon certified digital logo and badge to identify and market your expertise. Your badge can act as a digital signature for marketing segments along with social media utilization. It will also make you eligible for AWS Summit, and exclusive AWS Certification events at the annual re:Invent conference. This will benefit you a lot in your career. 

Certification enable you to become an expert in many things: 

AWS Certified individuals become automatically eligible for the AWS Subject Matter Expert Program. The SMB program expands the applicant's knowledge of AWS services and their capabilities. In addition, you can participate in exam development programs, seminars and conferences as an SME. 

Which certificate should you go for?

Which among the 12 AWS Certificates is right for you? First, you need to decide what position you want to work in and what experience you already have. Getting an AWS Cloud Practitioner Certificate should be the initial step. This certificate is needed before you can obtain certain or related certificates. In addition, AWS Developer Associate Certification requires one year or more of experience to develop and maintain AWS applications.

For SysOps Administrator Certification, you must have a minimum of 1-2 years of work experience in a system administrator position that includes deploying, managing, and executing tasks related to AWS. Certificate seekers in Solutions Architects Associate must have more than 1 year of experience as a Solutions Architect and must build a cost-effective, flexible system on AWS which is scalable and secured. 

Solution Architect Professional Certificate seekers must have more than 1 years of hand-on experience in management and operations related to the AWS system. For example, you want to get AWS DevOps Engineer Professional Credential. So, in this situation, you must first obtain an associate-level certificate and 2+ years of engineering experience in DevOps and managing AWS environments.

All certificates of specialization require a minimum of 1 to 2 years of work experience in the specialization. The AWS Certified Database Expertise includes a minimum of 5 years of experience in handling technologies related to common databases, AWS working for two years, relational databases and AWS Cloud-based NoSQL. 

How do I prepare for the AWS Certification exam?

The only pathway to get a certificate is via proper training and preparation. AWS certification training courses and exams are tough and assess platform-related skills before candidates are offered validation via certification. Preparing for certification needs key and clear knowledge related to AWS concepts as well as basic skills and understanding. Therefore, you need to invest a lot of time and effort into learning and understanding all that AWS has to offer.

While preparing for the AWS Certification examination, you can go through mock exams online, read blogs related to the topics of AWS, and take online video courses. AWS Online Training Course enables cloud professionals to understand everything about AWS'200 services in-depth and streamlined. Whether you benefit from training materials, online third-party guides, or paid instructor-leadership courses on the AWS website, it will take approximately 80 hours to prepare for the AWS Certificate. For a newcomer to AWS, the study will take about 120 hours.

AWS certificates have an expiry of two years. You can renew the certification by a less expensive, shorter version of the actual exam or upscaling to the next professional certification level. So, in addition to the time and money you spent getting your initial AWS certification, you need to know all the AWS updates and trends to be eligible for re-certification. 

How can Vinsys help you to earn certification?