AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

How to Prepare Your Business and Technical Teams on AWS

Erik Farr is a Partner Solutions Architect (SA) with the AWS Partner Network (APN). 

My Amazon Web Services (AWS) journey started in late 2012, when I opened a cloud consulting practice at a firm that was an AWS Partner Network (APN) Premier Partner. As an APN Partner, I found AWS training courses and certifications invaluable, augmenting them with additional AWS resources and tools to ensure that my team was properly prepared.

Now that I work at AWS as a Solutions Architect, APN Partners often ask me how—and when—to start training their staff. AWS has a wealth of great resources. Business and Technical Partner Learning Plans, for example, are designed to help you and your team ramp up on the AWS platform, deepen your knowledge and skills, and better serve your customers in your first weeks and months.

What follows is my own unique learning plan, designed to cater to the full lifecycle of AWS enablement from entry level to global expert. Remember, this is just one way to grow. Think of this plan as a template to augment your own personalized approach. While I focus mostly on AWS skills, it’s important to supplement these with traditional IT skills like Linux/Windows OS management, networking, scripting, and development. This plan also focuses on stages, not titles (although you could map it to roles), and doesn’t include familiar “time in stage” because everyone starts at a different place and grows at a different pace.

The early stage is meant to provide a baseline level of knowledge of AWS; all people on your team should have this foundation to ensure future success. The middle stage is relevant for the bulk of your workforce. It focuses on gaining certifications and real world experience, expanding knowledge of AWS into fringe cases, and beginning a professional relationship with AWS Solution Architects, Partner Development Managers, and/or Account Managers your company is already working with. The advanced stage is the peak tier and where your top employees should strive to be. Completing activities outlined in the advanced stage allows real differentiation for both your company and for the individual.

Early Stage

This stage of the journey is for people with little or no exposure to the AWS cloud.  Typically these are people new to your organization or team (i.e. fresh from school or transfers from a non-cloud team), and ready to begin the AWS enablement process.  Having your entire staff complete this stage ensures teams will have a solid understanding of the AWS cloud and its value proposition.

Recommended Activities to Complete

In the table below, I’ll link to a number of webpages to direct you to introductory information on training courses and resources. Be sure to register for all training activities through the APN Portal training tab. APN Partners can take online accreditation courses at no cost and receive a 20% discount on AWS-delivered public classes registered through the APN Portal.

 Recommended Activity Notes/Links
Sign up for the APN Portal, an exclusive online resource for APN Partners
  • Go to APN Portal
  • Follow the link to create a new account and be sure to sign up with your company email (e.g. name@company.com)
Complete Business or Technical Partner Accreditation based on role, followed up by the TCO Accreditation course, and other online Courses.
Create a personal AWS account
  • Sign up using the AWS Free Tier
  • Learn the layout and functionality of the console
Enroll in One Day Essentials and similar courses as they pertain to your role An instructor led introduction to AWS products, services, and common solutions providing the person with basic fundamentals to become more proficient in identifying AWS services.
Identify AWS official blogs, presentations and videos specific to your role
or interests to gain insights into new services, architectures and whitepapers
Gain foundational knowledge about key AWS services with our Introduction to AWS series. These free online videos and self-paced labs help you get started with core AWS services, terminology, and key concepts such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Elastic Load Balancing. We also have more than 75 lab topics available to help you get hands-on practice working with AWS services and use cases Gain experience either during your normal daily role or with self-study using online labs.
Learn how to setup a new VPC, creating private and public subnets (creating the CIDR blocks), modifying routing tables and adding routes for internal and external routes to/from the Internet with a NAT Server
Learn how to create Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances (multiple OS’s) with Elastic Block Storage (EBS) attached, how to put them private and public subnets and how to log into the various operating systems (Linux and Windows)with keys and passwords. Assign Elastic IP’s to instances and troubleshoot when/why these can be accessed externally
Understand how to create/modify/deploy Amazon Machine Images (AMI) of existing instances
Set up Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) Buckets and put/get objects from Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances and local PCs
Set up Elastic Load Balancer (ELBs) and load traffic between Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, ensure Security groups are understood and setup using good security practices
Understand the basics of AWS CloudFormation, and how to create (JSON), execute and stop CloudFormation scripts
Install, configure, and execute AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) on both Windows and Linux Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances

Middle Stage

The middle stage of the journey focuses on certifications and specialization.  The people in this stage aren’t new to cloud, and typically already have a strong understanding of AWS, either because they completed the Early Stage training or have previous cloud experience.  After an individual has completed this stage, they should feel highly capable of using AWS services and be an anchor resource for a new or complex cloud project.

Recommended Activities to Complete

In the table below, I’ll link to a number of webpages to direct you to introductory information on training courses and resources. Be sure to register for all training activities through the APN Portal training tab. APN Partners can take online accreditation courses at no cost and receive a 20% discount on AWS-delivered public classes registered through the APN Portal.

Recommended Activity Notes/Links
Act as a mentor for early stage employees Help early stage employees with AWS use cases and best practices.
For Solution Architects: take the architecting on AWS course and prepare for AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam Architecting on AWS: This training is designed to teach Solution Architects how to optimize the use of the AWS Cloud by understanding AWS services and how these services fit into a cloud solution.
Study for “AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate” certification and take/pass the exam
For Operations:  Enroll in Systems Operations on AWS and prepare for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate exam System Operations on AWS – System Operations on AWS is designed to teach those in a Systems Administrator or Developer Operations (DevOps) role how to create automatable and repeatable deployments of networks and systems on the AWS platform.
Study for “AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate” certification and take/pass the exam
For Developers:  Enroll in Developing on AWS and prepare for AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam Developing on AWS – The Developing on AWS course is designed to help individuals design and build secure, reliable, and scalable AWS-based applications.
Study for “AWS Certified Developer – Associate” certification and take/pass the exam
Become proficient in the sales cycle for an AWS cloud engagement
  • Assist with the development of proposals and capture of reusable content for AWS bids
  • Conduct AWS discussions/workshops with current or prospective technical customers, develop and own proposal content, and identify lessons learned from previous proposals or engagements
Develop skills relevant to an area of specialty within AWS
  • Identify your passion for an area of specialty, where applicable, on AWS. For example: Big Data, IoT, Mobility, Managed Services, DevOps, Security, etc.
  • Establish a core competency in an area of specialty
    • Attend internal and external community events (e.g., AWS Meet-ups)
    • Publish blog content and comment on online communities related to the chosen competency
    • Work on projects and proposals associated with the chosen competency
Begin to individually make relationships with AWS professional and link minded individuals
Begin to identify ISV solutions that integrate with, or are built on, the AWS platform that address specific customer use cases
  • We recommend that you take a look at our AWS Competency Partners. APN Partners who’ve attained an AWS Competency have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in specialized solution areas

Advanced Stage

The advanced stage of the journey moves past associate certifications and focuses on thought leadership and specialization at local, regional, and global levels. These people are already considered subject matter experts on AWS and typically have vast amounts of real world AWS experience over many years. The people in this stage are very technically proficient on the AWS platform and have effectively devoted their career to working with the AWS cloud. They will continually learn new services as they come out, and develop solutions using AWS cloud native architectures.

Recommended Activities to Complete

In the table below, I’ll link to a number of webpages to direct you to introductory information on training courses and resources. Be sure to register for all training activities through the APN Portal training tab. APN Partners can take online accreditation courses at no cost and receive a 20% discount on AWS-delivered public classes registered through the APN Portal.

Recommended Activity Notes/Links
Act as a role model for all employees and in some cases external people Provide mentorship on AWS use cases, best practices, and areas of specialties for all levels of employees
Enroll in Advanced training courses and Study for Professional certification exams as applicable to your role
Be the go-to person with the sales and/or delivery for a cloud engagement
  • Lead AWS Discussions with current or prospective technical or business customers, drive AWS sales and lead proposal processes locally/regionally
  • Act as Lead Cloud Architect on large and complex engagements in your local/region
  • Be a Pre-Sales and delivery expert with AWS
    • Be able to drive sales conversations from inception to SOW
    • Technical lead on multi-year global datacenter transformation projects
Create thought leadership within area of specialty with AWS
  • Solidify reputation as an expert with AWS and within the chosen area of specialty
    • Run a blog on the specialty; post often, and comment on other blogs to establish thought leadership
    • Publish whitepapers on solutions or concepts related to specialty
    • Participate in and host internal speaking engagements to drive agenda and help win additional work
    • Lead or be heavily involved in local AWS communities and meet-ups
  • Stretch into additional areas of specialties and gain credibility by showing thought leadership
Collaborate with AWS professionals and link minded individuals
  • Identify topics for joint blog/whitepaper writing with AWS professionals
  • Develop and deliver content for AWS local/regional events (such as regional AWS Summits)
  • Develop and deliver content for AWS global events (such as AWS re:Invent)

In summary, this guide is meant to assist you when developing a training and growth path for your employees who are AWS-focused.  In following these recommendations, I’m confident that you can build a solid foundation for your team that is AWS-focused, whether your company has tens or thousands of people delivering AWS projects.

Best of luck, and feel free to contact me for additional information or clarifications: erikfarr@amazon.com