Obtaining the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CCP) Certification

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification is a foundational (entry-level) examination to demonstrate a basic understanding of cloud concepts specific to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment. As of December 2020, it’s a 90 minute, 65 question exam (multiple choice, multiple answer) that can either be taken in-person at an exam center or proctored online. A passing score is a minimum of 700 out of 1000.

I didn’t feel this was a difficult exam, but it did require a decent amount of studying and memorization. Although I was familiar with general cloud concepts, I didn’t have specific knowledge of the AWS environment and its available products/services at the time I started studying. While the official exam guide recommends at least 6 months of experience with the AWS Cloud, I didn’t have any direct experience working in AWS. As with other exams, the amount of study time you will need to pass the exam will depend entirely on your background and prior experience. For reference, I spent approximately 25 hours studying.

Study Resources

The following are the study resources I found most valuable to pass the exam.

AWS Training

The AWS Training and Certification site has a substantial volume of free resources (videos, white papers, etc.) available to study for any of the AWS certifications.

AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (6 hours): Consists of mixed content study resources including video presentations, demonstrations, links to resources, and knowledge checks.

AWS White Papers (5 hours): There are many white papers available on the AWS Training and Certification site. The documents are fairly dense and I skimmed most of this list to get the important points. The white papers to focus on are:

  • Overview of Amazon Web Services
  • How AWS Pricing Works
  • Compare AWS Support Plans
  • AWS Well-Architected Framework
  • An Overview of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework
  • AWS Migration Whitepaper

freeCodeCamp

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Training 2020 (4 hours): This is a full course covering all topics necessary to pass the exam.

Tutorials Dojo

Tutorials Dojo Study Guide eBook – AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (4 hours): This eBook condenses important points from other study materials into a single, more readable document.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Practice Exams (6 hours): Practice exam questions that mimic the style and difficulty of the actual exam. The explanations of why an answer is correct/incorrect are very helpful to identify weak points in your studying. There are many options available to simulate timed exams or to focus on particular subject matter domains.