Initial Strides with Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I've finished my work provided LMS video series last week and now I'm powering through CBT Nuggets at a fairly fast clip. I estimate that within two weeks I'll be complete with the Nuggets training as well. What's great about learning Cloud is how quick you can ramp up a lab environment as mentioned in my last post. It's really supercharging the time it usually takes to pick up a new technical skill.


To be honest, I'm most excited about the Udemy course as I hear it's very hands on and closely relates to the exam itself. That's also the main reason that I'm saving that piece for last. But using books on Safari always allows me to deep dive into the technology at hand which is why it's included in my study plan.

This is all perfect timing as I'm getting thrown into a few interesting AWS projects. One is how to get around some of the AWS networking limitations. We're needing to communicate between potentially dozens if not hundreds of VPC's due to our engineering testing. How do we accomplish this at scale? How do we limit the time for deployment? How can we make it simple to implement along with using our own proprietary instances? There's a lot of questions to be solved for and this isn't including business aspect of things such as cost (of course) and personnel resource requirements.

VPC Example:

I would love to hear other opinions on rather you think the "Cloud" is hear to stay? If you think so, what are you doing to prepare for it? Talk to you all soon

Beginning AWS Studies

As our company begins to swiftly move services to the cloud, specifically AWS I'm now in a great position to pick up this technology. This will require a paradigm shift on my part, not just on learning the tech but also how I learn and study this info as well.

Before with traditional networking, you could pick up a book or 3, setup a small scale lab if necessary, and be on your way. Since Cloud technology moves so quickly, reading books that are only 2 years old can be out of date already! Not only that but there's so much to cloud services you need a very good grasp on what tools are available to you. The best way is to of course setup your own account with the cloud service and play around with everything available. This is a nice change as in the past with labs, it took dozens of hours planning, purchasing, and setting up hardware before you could even begin labbing.

My AWS study plans will focus on the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate cert. This seems to be the initial starting point everyone recommends. I'm not sure how deep I need to go yet with this material but it's for sure a mile wide the material that I need to learn. Once this cert is completed, I'm most likely going to take a look at the AWS Certified Advanced Networking specialty exam as it makes the most sense to me. For the first exam I plan on using the current studying plan in this order:

• Internal company LMS (Learning Management System) web learning for the AWS course: This will provide me with a very high level overview, I'll begin basic labs as well
• CBTNuggets AWS Associate videos: I'll begin taking notes at this point before moving on. Still debating on older 2013 videos that they have, may be very outdated at this point.
• Safari Books - AWS Certified Solutions Architect Official Study Guide: Associate Exam: This will perform as my deep dive (hopefully) into the AWS material. I will continue note taking along as implementing flashcards using Anki at this point
• Udemy (CloudGuru) course: I'll then prep for the exam itself by going through this course if affordable and available to finish up any lingering topics. I'll also deep dive into labs during this time.

Looking into the future...Cloud

For the past year our family have experienced a lot of new things, challenges, and overall growth. We have a new addition and now we're a family of three! You really do learn to survive on less hours of sleep, very rarely do I sleep for my than 6 hours a day now, less for my wife unfortunately.  Even with that considered we wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm still at it here and there with Python scripting but my big focus for the last year was completing the Cisco Certified Design Professional (CCDP). This exam was absolutely tough and I barely squeaked by but I made it through. Even though I'm not playing much with Cisco at the moment, the concepts hold true for many other vendors as well. The most difficult topics were new tech that I just don't get to play with along with security. Be sure you understand Cisco ACI at a high level and Cisco security IDS best practice designs at a low level.

Next up for me is most likely Sec+ but I've also been taking a hard look at cloud infrastrucure. Our enterprise is heavily focused on moving as much as we can to cloud or at the very least, a hybrid infrastructure. Not much as landed in our Networking team's laps but it's coming down the line fast. Most likely I'll dive into AWS to get a good sense on what it's all about. Because I'll be honest physically racking less equipment is not anything I'll ever complain about!

Stay tuned for further updates and don't forget to check out my Github to the right -->