This repository contains resources from my work on the AWS Developer Associate certification. The freeCodeCamp course was helpful, but I decided against taking the certification exam.

Potential exam questions, as reported by the freeCodeCamp course instructor, are indicated with (potential exam question).

• AWS certifications overview
• AWS training
• freeCodeCamp: Pass the AWS Developer Associate exam with this free 16-hour course
  • Video 1 on YouTube
  • Video 2 on YouTube
  • If you would like to watch the videos offline, see youtube-dl.
  • Code

• AWS docs home
• AWS What the Cloud (recommended in the freeCodeCamp article)
  • YouTube
• Bart Castle (recommended in the freeCodeCamp article)
  • YouTube
  • CBT Nuggets courses

• Bart Castle IAM playlist
• New IAM course "Getting Started with AWS Security, Identity, and Compliance"

• Background
  • Werner Vogels Blog 20071002: Amazon's Dynamo (introduction to DynamoDB by Amazon CTO)
  • Werner Vogels Blog 20171002: A decade of Dynamo
• Docs
  • AWS DynamoDB docs
  • AWS CLI v2 docs: DynamoDB
  • AWS Boto3 v1 docs: DynamoDB - Boto3 is the Python SDK (Software Development Kit)
• Alex DeBrie
  • AWS reinvent 2019: Data modeling with Amazon DynamoDB, Alex DeBrie
  • Full Stack Radio podcast episode 139 2020-05-08
  • DynamoDB Guide by Alex DeBrie
  • DynamoDB Book by Alex DeBrie
  • Jeremy Daly's blog post on the DynamoDB book

• Wikipedia: Infrastructure as code
• AWS CloudFormation docs
• AWS CloudFormation docs: How does AWS CloudFormation work?
• AWS CloudFormation docs: CloudFormation template anatomy
• AWS Quick Start (AWS, GitHub): CloudFormation templates for common AWS use cases
• GitHub: awesome-cloudformation
• CloudFormation VSCode extension
• AWS Boto3 v1 docs: CloudFormation
• Ansible docs: AWS
• Terraform docs: Terraform vs. CloudFormation

• AWS Toolkit VSCode extension: has features for Lambda and SAM
• AWS Toolkit for VSCode docs
• AWS Serverless home
• AWS Lambda
• AWS Lambda docs
• AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) docs
• AWS SAM GitHub
• AWS SAM GitHub: cookiecutter-aws-sam-pipeline
• AWS SAM Serverless CI/CD workshop GitHub
• Chalice is a Python serverless microframework for AWS. It's like Flask + Boto3 + Lambda. It has one of the more impressive quickstarts I've tried, as you can see from the terminal recording on the homepage. They deploy a REST API on Lambda and access the API over the public internet in one minute.

• AWS reinvent 2019: Creating life at scale with AWS, Dave Treff, Ginkgo Bioworks
• AWS reinvent 2019: High-throughput production of mRNA, Dave Johnson, Moderna Therapeutics

• Exam lasts 130 minutes.
• 72% is passing.
• Associate level exam fees:
  • $20 USD for a practice exam
  • $150 USD for the full exam (per attempt, so if you don't pass you have to pay another $150)
• The aws.training site is basically just a teaser. The actual testing portal is provided through CertMetrics, "a third-party service provider," which is apparently now called Alpine Testing Solutions. You have to log in through your normal Amazon account, not your AWS account, and it may not allow login over VPN.
• Exams are administered through other third-party proprietary platforms, either PSI or Pearson VUE. It's unclear why they have two options, but it's probably for international availability reasons. Either way, you will be recorded on video and audio during the exam, and you have to agree to privacy-invading terms of service. Pearson VUE has an additional "Facial Comparison Policy" in which you agree to let them perform arbitrary facial recognition on you, to "further develop, upgrade, and improve this application."
• As described in the AWS certification docs and the CertMetrics portal, once you complete and pass the exam, you have to sign up for yet another proprietary platform, Acclaim by Credly, just to get a certification badge. Apparently CertMetrics used to provide badges, but "CertMetrics digital badges were retired on October 1st, 2020."