AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Exam Prep

What's inside

1. Level 1: Exam Orientation: How CLF-C02 WorksFree
   [Cloud Concepts] Sets out the exam facts (65 questions of which 50 are scored, 90 minutes, passing scaled score of 700), the four domains and their weightings, the multiple-choice and multiple-response formats, the exam guide version this independent, non-AWS course follows, and the fact that no pass is promised.
2. Level 2: What Cloud Computing Is and the AWS Value PropositionFree
   [Cloud Concepts] Explains from first principles what cloud computing is (on-demand delivery of IT resources over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing) and the value proposition of the AWS Cloud, including trading fixed expense for variable expense and no longer guessing capacity.
3. Level 3: Benefits of the AWS Cloud: Agility, Elasticity, Reach
   [Cloud Concepts] Separates the benefit terms the exam contrasts: high availability, elasticity, scalability and agility, plus the global-infrastructure benefits of speed of deployment and global reach.
4. Level 4: Well-Architected: Operational Excellence and Security
   [Cloud Concepts] Introduces the AWS Well-Architected Framework and its six pillars, then studies the operational excellence and security pillars and their design principles.
5. Level 5: Well-Architected: Reliability and Performance Efficiency
   [Cloud Concepts] Covers the reliability and performance efficiency pillars and the design principles that distinguish recovering from failure from using resources efficiently.
6. Level 6: Well-Architected: Cost Optimization and Sustainability
   [Cloud Concepts] Completes the framework with the cost optimization and sustainability pillars, then practises telling all six pillars apart in 'which pillar' questions.
7. Level 7: The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
   [Cloud Concepts] Explains the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework: its six perspectives (business, people, governance, platform, security, operations) and the benefits the exam guide attributes to it, such as reduced business risk, improved ESG performance, increased revenue and increased operational efficiency.
8. Level 8: Migration Strategies and Migration Resources
   [Cloud Concepts] Teaches the migration strategies AWS describes (retire, retain, rehost, relocate, repurchase, replatform, refactor) and the idea of matching resources such as database replication or AWS Snowball offline data transfer to a migration need.
9. Level 9: Cloud Economics: Fixed vs Variable Costs and Licensing
   [Cloud Concepts] Introduces cloud economics: fixed versus variable costs, the costs that come with on-premises environments, licensing strategies (Bring Your Own License compared with included licences), and rightsizing.
10. Level 10: Cloud Economics: Economies of Scale and Managed Services
    [Cloud Concepts] Finishes cloud economics with economies of scale, the cost benefits of automation, and how AWS managed services reduce operational overhead, closing with a mixed Domain 1 review.
11. Level 11: The AWS Shared Responsibility Model
    [Security and Compliance] Explains the AWS shared responsibility model from first principles: AWS is responsible for security of the cloud, the customer for security in the cloud, and some controls are shared.
12. Level 12: How Responsibility Shifts Across Service Types
    [Security and Compliance] Shows how the customer's share of responsibility changes with the service used, comparing Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and AWS Lambda as the exam guide does.
13. Level 13: Compliance: Programs, AWS Artifact and Audit Manager
    [Security and Compliance] Covers AWS compliance concepts: where to find AWS compliance information, how compliance needs vary by geography, industry and AWS service, AWS Artifact for on-demand compliance reports and agreements, and AWS Audit Manager for collecting audit evidence.
14. Level 14: Governance and Monitoring: CloudTrail, CloudWatch, Config
    [Security and Compliance] Teaches the governance and monitoring services by the question each answers: AWS CloudTrail (who did what through the API), Amazon CloudWatch (how resources are performing, with alarms and logs) and AWS Config (how resource configuration has changed and whether it complies with rules).
15. Level 15: Encryption: KMS, CloudHSM and Certificate Manager
    [Security and Compliance] Explains encryption at rest and in transit from first principles and the services behind them: AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) for managed keys, AWS CloudHSM for dedicated hardware security modules, and AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) for SSL/TLS certificates.
16. Level 16: Protecting the AWS Account Root User
    [Security and Compliance] Focuses on the AWS account root user: what it is, the tasks only the root user can perform, and how to protect it with multi-factor authentication (MFA) and by not using it for everyday work.
17. Level 17: IAM Building Blocks: Users, Groups, Roles, Policies
    [Security and Compliance] Introduces AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): users, groups, roles and policies, the difference between managed policies and custom policies, and the principle of least privilege.
18. Level 18: Workforce and Customer Identity: Identity Center, Cognito
    [Security and Compliance] Covers identity beyond single-account IAM: AWS IAM Identity Center for single sign-on across accounts and applications, federation and cross-account IAM roles, Amazon Cognito for application users, AWS Directory Service for managed Microsoft Active Directory, and AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM) for sharing resources between accounts.
19. Level 19: Managing Credentials and Secrets
    [Security and Compliance] Teaches authentication methods and credential hygiene: password policies, MFA, access keys and their rotation, and storing secrets in AWS Secrets Manager or AWS Systems Manager rather than in code.
20. Level 20: Detection Services: GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie and More
    [Security and Compliance] Contrasts the detection and investigation services the exam asks learners to tell apart: Amazon GuardDuty (threat detection), Amazon Inspector (vulnerability scanning), Amazon Macie (sensitive data discovery in Amazon S3), Amazon Detective (root-cause investigation) and AWS Security Hub (aggregated findings and security posture).
21. Level 21: Network Protection: Security Groups, NACLs, WAF, Shield
    [Security and Compliance] Learn the AWS features that filter and absorb unwanted traffic (security groups, network ACLs, AWS WAF, AWS Shield and AWS Firewall Manager) and tell them apart in 'which protection fits' scenarios.
22. Level 22: Where to Find Security Information and Help
    [Security and Compliance] Learn where AWS says security information and extra protection can be found: AWS Trusted Advisor security checks, third-party security products in AWS Marketplace, and AWS documentation resources such as the AWS Knowledge Center, AWS Security Center and AWS Security Blog.
23. Level 23: Ways to Deploy and Operate in AWS
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn the ways of accessing and provisioning AWS (AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, SDKs and APIs, and infrastructure as code with AWS CloudFormation) and the cloud, hybrid and on-premises deployment models.
24. Level 24: AWS Global Infrastructure: Regions, AZs, Edge
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn how AWS Regions, Availability Zones and edge locations relate, and how they deliver high availability, low latency, disaster recovery and data sovereignty.
25. Level 25: Compute: Amazon EC2 and Its Companions
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn Amazon EC2 instance types, AWS Auto Scaling and load balancing, and when Amazon Lightsail, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Batch or AWS Outposts is the better fit.
26. Level 26: Containers and Serverless Compute
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn from first principles what containers and serverless mean, and what Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, Amazon ECR, AWS Fargate and AWS Lambda are each for.
27. Level 27: Database Services and Database Migration
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn when to use a managed database rather than a database hosted on EC2, what each in-scope database service is for (Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon DocumentDB, Amazon Neptune), and the database migration tools AWS DMS and AWS SCT.
28. Level 28: Amazon VPC: Building Blocks of a Private Network
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn the components of Amazon VPC (subnets, internet gateways and NAT gateways) and how AWS Transit Gateway and AWS PrivateLink connect VPCs and services privately.
29. Level 29: Connecting to AWS and Delivering to Users
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn the connectivity options to AWS (AWS VPN with AWS Site-to-Site VPN and AWS Client VPN, and AWS Direct Connect) and the edge and delivery services Amazon Route 53, Amazon CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon API Gateway.
30. Level 30: Object Storage: Amazon S3 and Its Storage Classes
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn what object storage is, how Amazon S3 stores data, and how to choose among S3 storage classes, including Amazon S3 Glacier for archives, and lifecycle policies.
31. Level 31: Block, File, Hybrid Storage and Backup
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn the difference between block and file storage and what Amazon EBS, instance store, Amazon EFS, Amazon FSx, AWS Storage Gateway, AWS Backup and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery are each for.
32. Level 32: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Services
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn to recognise each in-scope AI/ML service by task: Amazon SageMaker AI, Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Textract, Amazon Transcribe, Amazon Translate and Amazon Q.
33. Level 33: Analytics Services
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn what each in-scope analytics service is for: Amazon Athena, Amazon EMR, AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon OpenSearch Service, Amazon Quick Sight and Amazon Redshift.
34. Level 34: Application Integration and Business Applications
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn how applications are decoupled with Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, Amazon EventBridge and AWS Step Functions, and what the business applications Amazon Connect and Amazon SES do.
35. Level 35: Developer Tools, Frontend, End User Computing, IoT
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn to recognise the remaining customer-facing categories: AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodePipeline and AWS X-Ray; AWS Amplify; Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon WorkSpaces and Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser; and AWS IoT Core.
36. Level 36: Migration Services and Operational Governance Tools
    [Cloud Technology and Services] Learn the migration and transfer services (AWS Application Discovery Service, AWS Application Migration Service, Migration Evaluator, AWS Migration Hub) and the management and governance tools for day-to-day operations (AWS Systems Manager, AWS Service Catalog, AWS License Manager, Service Quotas, AWS Health Dashboard).
37. Level 37: Compute Purchasing Options Compared
    [Billing, Pricing, and Support] Learn to compare On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, Savings Plans, Dedicated Hosts, Dedicated Instances and Capacity Reservations by commitment, flexibility and interruption risk, without specific prices.
38. Level 38: Data Transfer, Storage Pricing and the AWS Free Tier
    [Billing, Pricing, and Support] Learn how AWS charges beyond compute (inbound versus outbound data transfer, transfer between Regions and within a Region, and storage options and tiers) and how the current AWS Free Tier works with its Free plan, Paid plan and always-free offers.
39. Level 39: Billing, Budgeting and Cost Management Tools
    [Billing, Pricing, and Support] Learn which tool answers which cost question (AWS Budgets, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Pricing Calculator, AWS Cost and Usage Reports and cost allocation tags) and how AWS Organizations consolidated billing combines accounts and shares discounts.
40. Level 40: AWS Support Plans Compared
    [Billing, Pricing, and Support] Learn the AWS Support plans as AWS currently names them (Basic Support, Business Support+, Enterprise Support and Unified Operations), how they differ, and the legacy names Developer, Business and Enterprise On-Ramp that older study material and exam questions may still use.
41. Level 41: AWS Support Plans, Trusted Advisor and Technical Resources
    [Billing, Pricing, and Support] Task Statement 4.3: identify the AWS Support options as the current exam guide and AWS documentation name them (Basic Support, AWS Business Support+, AWS Enterprise Support, AWS Unified Operations), and learn where else help comes from, including AWS Trusted Advisor, the AWS Health Dashboard and AWS Health API, AWS Support Center, official technical resources, the AWS Partner Network and AWS Marketplace, and the AWS Trust and Safety team.
42. Level 42: Timed Mock Exam: 65 Questions in 90 Minutes Timed mock
    A timed mock exam of 65 original multiple-choice and multiple-response questions in 90 minutes, with a 70% pass mark, testing all four CLF-C02 domains in proportion to their weightings (Cloud Concepts 24%, Security and Compliance 30%, Cloud Technology and Services 34%, Billing, Pricing, and Support 12%).

Access

The first 2 levels are free with a free account. Every level, the podcast edition and the AI tutor come with All Access at £4.99/month or any Creator plan — see pricing.

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