New AWS certification offerings

It’s been a busy few weeks on the AWS certification front with some important developments in security, good news for Alexa developers and a raft of new exam readiness courses.

Firstly, there’s a new version of AWS Security Fundamentals. The second edition of this self-paced introductory digital course features updated, streamlined content to help candidates better understand security in the cloud for their organisations.

The course is intended for IT business-level professionals and security professionals who may not be familiar with security in the AWS Cloud, and covers key issues such as identifying the access control and management features of AWS, understanding the different data encryption methods to secure sensitive data, and determining which AWS services can be used for security logging and monitoring.

The new AWS Certified Security – Specialty course is a welcome addition for those professionals with greater experience and a more detailed knowledge of security. It’s aimed at those with at least two years of hands-on experience securing AWS workloads (and a recommended minimum of five years of IT security experience designing and implementing security solutions).

The new certification requires an understanding of the specialised data classifications and AWS data protection mechanisms, along with data encryption methods and the AWS mechanisms to implement them.

It also validates a working knowledge of AWS security services and features of services to provide a secure production environment; at a more general level, it requires an understanding of security operations and risk.

Meanwhile, there are also exciting developments on the Alexa front, with the general availability of the AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Speciality certification.

This new offering, the industry’s first and only certification that validates the ability to build, test and publish Amazon Alexa skills, is aimed at voice developers. Its potential importance  can clearly be seen in the fact that there are more than 100 million customers using Alexa-enabled devices.

AWS recommends that developers taking this exam have at least six months of hands-on experience designing and building Alexa skills, proficiency with a programming language and have published at least one Alexa skill.

The exam itself will address a number of key requirements, including how to design the user experience, follow security best practices and develop, test, validate and troubleshoot the specific skill.

Elsewhere, AWS has also been busy launching a range of new exam readiness courses to help candidates prepare for certification. The new courses complement the technical training courses, with the coverage including how to interpret exam questions, apply concepts that are being tested by the exam and allocate appropriate study time.

These latest additions include two aimed at the new certifications we’ve described above, namely AWS Certified Security – Speciality and the AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Speciality.

In addition, seven other new exam readiness courses have also been released:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (which is an updated course)
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (also an updated course)
AWS Certified Developer – Associate
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Speciality
AWS Certified Big Data – Speciality

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