Category: Education

It’s unbelievable that 2017 has flown by so quickly, yet here we are already in the month of July. A little-known fact about the 7^th month of the year is that its name, July, is in honor of the Roman general, Julius Cæsar. The Roman State named the month on his behalf since it the month of his birth. Prior to this designation, the month of July was called Quintilis.

I, also, thought it was interesting to learn that in the month of July, several countries celebrate their Independence Day. These countries are the United States, Bahamas, Kiribati, São Tomé, Príncipe, Liberia, Maldives, Algeria, Cape Verde, Venezuela, Burundi, Rwanda, and Somalia. Seems that the month of July was ripe for freedom and independence for all parts of the world.

Therefore, there is a lot to celebrate in the month of July and you are free to add the celebration of learning to your July festivities with AWS Online Tech Talks. This month’s sessions brings you great technical information about Serverless Compute, Security and Identity, as well as, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence running on Amazon Web Services.

July 2017 – Schedule

Below is the upcoming schedule for the live, online technical sessions scheduled for the month of July. Make sure to register ahead of time so you won’t miss out on these free talks conducted by AWS subject matter experts. All schedule times for the online tech talks are shown in the Pacific Time (PDT) time zone.

Webinars featured this month are:

Tuesday, July 11

Compute

9:00 AM – 9:40 AM: Managing WordPress on Amazon Lightsail

Big Data

10:30 AM – 11:10 AM: Building a Metadata Catalog for your Data Lakes using Amazon Elasticsearch Service

Databases

12:00 Noon – 12:40 PM: Convert and Migrate Your NoSQL Database or Data Warehouse to AWS

Wednesday, July 12

IoT

9:00 AM – 9:40 AM: Essential Capabilities of an IoT Cloud Platform

Storage

10:30 AM – 11:10 AM: Deep Dive on Amazon S3

Security & Identity

12:00 Noon –12:40 PM: Secure your Web Applications with AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) and AWS Shield

Thursday, July 13

Enterprise & Hybrid

9:00 AM – 9:40 AM: Decouple and Scale Applications Using Amazon SQS and Amazon SNS

Mobile

10:30 AM – 11:10 AM: Driving User Engagement with Amazon Pinpoint

Security & Identity

12:00 Noon – 12:40 PM: Integrating Security Assessments Into Your DevOps Cycle with Amazon Inspector

Tuesday, July 25

Hands On Lab

8:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Hands-on Lab: Windows Workload

Enterprise & Hybrid

10:30 AM – 11:10 AM: SAP Solutions on AWS for Large Enterprises and Mission Critical Applications

Serverless

12:00 Noon – 1:00 PM: Security Best Practices for Serverless Applications

Wednesday, July 26

Hands On Lab

8:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Hands-on Lab: Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server in AWS

Artificial Intelligence

10:30 AM – 11:10 AM: Deep Learning for Data Scientists: Using Apache MXNet and R on AWS

Thursday, July 27

Big Data

9:00 AM – 9:40 AM: Embrace Streaming Analytics and Transform Your Business (AWS Webinar featuring Forrester’s Mike Gualtieri)

Compute

10:30 AM – 11:10 AM: Serverless Orchestration of AWS Step Functions

Artificial Intelligence

12:00 Noon – 12:40 PM: Exploring the Business Use Cases for Amazon Polly

The AWS Online Tech Talks series covers a broad range of topics at varying technical levels. These sessions feature live demonstrations & customer examples led by AWS engineers and Solution Architects. Check out the AWS YouTube channel for more on-demand webinars on AWS technologies.

– Tara

As we see more customers transition their business to the cloud, we are also seeing increased demand in the market for skilled IT professionals who are capable of designing, deploying, and operating applications and infrastructure on AWS. IT certifications are considered a gold standard for validating technical proficiency and one’s ability to perform on the job. Obtaining certification is often a pathway for IT professionals to move into roles offering expanded responsibilities. Training that leads you toward earning IT certification is becoming more important as individuals look to grow their careers and customers build institutional knowledge and skills within their organizations.

Global Knowledge recently released their 2016 IT Skills and Salary Report (registration required). The report is based on input from more than 10,000 IT and business professionals in North America who responded to Global Knowledge’s ninth annual IT Skills and Salary Survey, one of the largest of its kind. Global Knowledge’s findings highlight the importance of training and also show the value of AWS Certifications for AWS Certified individuals.

Top 5 Findings
I’d like to highlight the top 5 findings that stood out in this year’s report:

1. Three-fourths of respondents said they participate in some form of professional development to build new skills, and half said preparing for a career certification or specialist exam is a top motivator.
2. Overall, 59% of IT professionals are currently working on, or plan to pursue, some form of certification within the current year.
3. Of respondents who pursued certification in the preceding year, 73% noted an increase in their job effectiveness because of related training.
4. 21% of those who reported a significant raise (11 percent or greater) attribute it to the development of new skills that were of added value.
5. Employees in organizations with training plans in place reported being less likely to leave their companies (78 percent versus 73 percent for those without a plan and 69 percent for those who were unsure if such plans exist).

These are some really interesting findings; here’s a summary in infographic form (please feel free to share it):

AWS Training & Certification
As a reminder, AWS currently has 5 certifications spanning roles of Solutions Architect, SysOps Administrator, Developer, and DevOps Engineer. AWS also offers several ways to help you prepare for exams, including a portfolio of technical training courses. Whether you’re looking to take a self-paced and online lab or dive deep with a technical instructor, we have training for everyone’s needs.

Global Knowledge is one of our many APN Training Partners which are authorized to deliver AWS Training around the globe.  You can find available classes in our Global Class Schedule or contact us to arrange for onsite training.

— Jeff;

We want to do our part to help educational institutions all over the world train and graduate students who are ready, willing, and able to power the cloud-powered world of tomorrow! The AWS Educate initiative will provide students and educators with four important resources:

• Grants of AWS credits for use in courses and projects.
• Free content to embed in courses or to use as-is.
• Access to free and discounted AWS Training resources.
• Online and in-person collaboration and networking opportunities.

Membership in AWS Educate is open to AWS-approved, accredited educational institutions, educators, and students.  Simply click here to apply!

School administrators (generally faculty or a member of the IT department) can sign up for AWS Educate and appoint themselves or another individual within the organization as the Central Point of Contact. This person is responsible for providing a list of valid domains that can be used to identify current students and faculty. They may also be asked to help verify student and/or educator participation in the program.

Benefits for Educators
All educators are eligible for the following benefits:

• Free access to the AWS Educate Educator Collaboration Portal.
• Free access to AWS Essentials eLearning.
• 50% discount on instructor-led training.
• 50% discount on AWS Certification.
• Access to free Online Labs.

Institutions that have joined AWS Educate are eligible for a grant of $200 in AWS credits per educator. If the institution has not joined, each educator is eligible for a grant of $75 in AWS credits (all amounts are in USD).

Benefits for Students
All students have access to the AWS Educate Student Portal and free Online Labs, along with a grant of USD $35 in AWS credits. If the student is a member of an organization that has joined AWS Educate, they are eligible for a grant of $100 in AWS credits.

AWS Educate on Campus
We are planning to conduct large-scale training, hackathons, and other on-campus events at some of the organizations that join AWS Educate.  The AWS Evangelists will also be opening up time on their calendars to visit and speak to events at these organizations.

Apply Today
As I noted above, this is a world-wide program; students and educators from all over the world are more than welcome to apply to the program today.

— Jeff;

We have recently broadened the AWS Training portfolio in order to do an even better job of meeting your needs. Here are the newest offerings:

• AWS Business Essentials is a new workshop for IT business decision makers.  It’s designed to help you understand the benefits of cloud computing and how a cloud strategy can help meet your business objectives.  We also address financial benefits of AWS and provide examples of successful cloud adoption frameworks.  AWS Business Essentials complements AWS Technical Essentials (formerly AWS Essentials) which introduces technical end users to core AWS services for compute, storage, database, and networking.
• Advanced Architecting on AWS builds on concepts covered in Architecting on AWS and replaces Architecting on AWS – Advanced Concepts.  We cover how to build solutions incorporating data services, governance, and security on AWS, and also discuss specialized AWS services, such as AWS Direct Connect and AWS Storage Gateway, which you can use as part of a hybrid architecture.  This new course will help you to prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam.
• DevOps Engineering on AWS – this new course covers core principles of the DevOps methodology and common DevOps patterns to develop, deploy, and maintain applications on AWS.  We also cover the core principles of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. This course replaces Advanced Operations on AWS and helps you prepare for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional exam.

You can learn more about available AWS Training Courses and then consult our Global Schedule of Classes to find one near you.

— Jeff;

AWS Marketplace makes it easy for you to find, buy, and immediately start using software and services in a wide variety of categories including Software Infrastructure, Developer Tools, and Business Software.

Today we are enhancing AWS Marketplace with a brand new Education & Research software category. The products in this category are designed to meets the needs of the Education and Research industries, with solutions targeted at K-12 and higher education. Students, academic administrators, instructors, and researchers can now purchase software that has been tested, vetted, and approved. With free trials and hourly and monthly pricing models, launching and testing products for applicability is easy and cost-effective.

We’re starting out with a portfolio tracking and social networking tool (Mahara), a pair of Learning Management Systems (Canvas and Moodle), three virtual labs (MIMIC Virtual Lab, Cloud vLab, and MATLAB/Simulink), and three video collaboration and conferencing tools (Adobe Connect, Zoom Cloud Meetings, and Collaaj). Over time we hope to add additional categories such as e-portfolio systems, content management platforms, massively open online course platforms, student information systems, and all sorts of learning tools. If you are the developer or distributor of educational tools that fit one of these categories (or one that we didn’t think of), consider selling on AWS Marketplace.

— Jeff;

PS – Don’t forget the Education page on the AWS site or the AWS Education Grants Program.