AWS Training and Certification Blog

New courses and certification updates from AWS Training and Certification in September 2023

We’re back with the September course launches and certification updates from AWS Training and Certification to equip you and your teams with the skills to work with AWS services and solutions.

This month we launched 16 digital training products on AWS Skill Builder, including six AWS Builder Labs—two of which focus on skills development for generative AI—and two new AWS Jam Journeys focused on security challenges from AWS re:Inforce 2023. We have a new AWS Certification exam, currently in beta: AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate. For new-to-cloud learners, ages 18+, dive into a new six-course series to help you build professional skills.

Plus, learning about AWS just got easier, whether you’re new to cloud or an experienced builder. Take advantage of the 7-day free trial of AWS Skill Builder Individual subscription to experience our most immersive, hands-on trainings, including 150+ AWS Builder Labs, enhanced Exam Prep resources, AWS Cloud Quest, AWS Industry Quest, AWS Jam Journeys, and more. *terms and conditions apply

New AWS Skill Builder subscription features

AWS Builder Labs

Fundamental labs for technical learners

EC2 Instance Right Sizing (60 min.) demonstrates how to enact specific cost savings measures with Amazon EC2, including which tools can be of greatest benefit, how they can be implemented, and what to expect.

Becoming a 10X Developer using Amazon CodeWhisperer (60 min.) demonstrates how a unified IDE and use of Amazon CodeWhisperer can increase developer productivity by providing code recommendations in real time based on plain English comments and existing code.

Intermediate labs for technical learners

Build a Question-Answering Bot Using Generative AI (75 min.) demonstrates how to build a question-answering chatbot that uses stateless, retrieval-augmented generation to provide answers to your questions about common AWS services. The solution incorporates LangChain and a foundation model from Amazon SageMaker JumpStart.

Troubleshooting Website Reachability behind a Load Balancer (60 min.) demonstrates how to configure a webserver behind an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB).

Building Your First Quantum Circuit with Amazon Braket (30 min.) introduces creating a quantum circuit using a full state-vector simulator (SV1) and a tensor-network simulator (TN1) device.

Migrating an On-Premises NFS Share to the AWS Cloud (60 min.) teaches how to configure an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket to act as a network file system (NFS) share and use AWS Storage Gateway and AWS DataSync to migrate data to that bucket.

AWS Jam Journey

AWS Jam Journey provides a gamified, experiential learning path to build your AWS skills with real-world challenges, available in both AWS Skill Builder Individual and Team subscriptions. This month, we’ve launched two new AWS Jam Journeys:

AWS Jam Journey: Best of re:Inforce Security is comprised of 10 highly-rated hands-on security challenges so you can test your skills working with AWS security services such as Amazon S3, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), AWS CodePipeline, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, AWS Identity and Access Management for Amazon DynamoDB, and more.

AWS Jam Journey: Best of re:Inforce All-In is comprised of five hands-on challenges that allow you to test your AWS skills across content domains created by AWS experts and AWS services including Amazon CloudFront, Amazon VPC, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Relational Database Service, Amazon Macie, Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, and AWS Identify and Access Management.

AWS Certification preparation courses and updates

New AWS Certification in beta

AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate is a new AWS Certification that validates skills and knowledge in managing an organization’s enterprise data management framework and providing high-quality data to enable informed business decision making. The beta exam, available in English only, is available to take November 27, 2023 – January 12, 2024 at a 50% discount of 75 USD. Registration for the beta exam opens October 31, 2023.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam

The updated AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam (CLF-C02) is now available for candidates to take. Follow the recommended steps on the exam page to prepare for the exam.

Exam prep resources in new languages on AWS Skill Builder

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Official Practice Exam is now available in English, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (LatAM).

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Practice Question Set (SCS-C02) is now available in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (LatAm), French, Italian, Korean, and Portuguese.

Free digital trainings on AWS Skill Builder

Fundamental training for business leaders

AWS Cloud Essentials for Business Leaders – Healthcare and Life Science (HCLS) (90 min.) is designed for business leaders, line of business owners, and information technology leaders to learn fundamental concepts of cloud computing and how a cloud strategy can help companies in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry meet business objectives.

Fundamental training for technical learners

Deploying Applications with AWS Elastic Beanstalk (45 min.) introduces AWS Elastic Beanstalk service capabilities and functionality and provides a demo of the service so you can learn how to use it to deploy applications.

Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2) – Automate Your Infrastructure (150 min.) teaches automating EC2 infrastructure, automation techniques for lifecycle management of EC2 workloads, and the user journey starting with Amazon Machine Images (AMI) creation, building and launching EC2 instances at scale, automation of inventory, patching and auditing, and finally managing and securing instance configuration data.

Amazon Inspector – Getting Started (60 min.) teaches the fundamental concepts of Amazon Inspector, including typical use cases and how to activate Amazon Inspector in the AWS Management Console. You’ll also learn its dashboard components, how to manage its findings, and how to tear it down.

Amazon Transcribe – Getting Started (90 min.) teaches the fundamental technical concepts of Amazon Transcribe and how to review and further adapt an architecture for a transcription solution. You’ll learn how to conduct real-time and batch transcription in your own AWS account.

Microsoft on AWS – Porting Assistant for .NET (45 min.) introduces Porting Assistant for .NET, an analysis tool that scans .NET Framework applications and generates a .NET Core compatibility assessment, helping you port your applications to Linux faster. You’ll learn how to use this tool to reduce the manual effort involved in modernizing applications.

Intermediate training for technical learners

Designing and Deploying SAP Workloads on AWS (60 min.) teaches the basics of SAP and AWS, the different SAP workload deployment options on AWS, and storage architectures. You’ll identify commonly used architecture patterns for both single Availability Zone and multiple Availability Zone deployments and the storage architecture and configuration of SAP HANA on AWS.

Advanced training for technical learners

Migrating from Elasticsearch to Amazon OpenSearch Service (3.5 hours) teaches the technical skills, operational considerations, and advanced concepts to successfully migrate from Elasticsearch to Amazon OpenSearch service for log analytics, trace analytics, and search solutions.

AWS Training for Partners

AWS Partner: Sales Essentials (1 day) is designed to help AWS Partners understand and communicate the AWS value proposition for effective sales conversations with customers. The first part of this one-day course is AWS Partner: Sales Accreditation (Business), which covers basic concepts of cloud services, how to articulate its business value, common customer objections, and how to co-sell with AWS. The second part, AWS Partner: Sales Essentials – Part 2, covers pricing and licensing, security and compliance, migrations, and selling into the public sector. The lead generation workshop is available in classroom training only and helps partners successfully address customer requirements. Upon passing the assessment, learners will earn the AWS Partner Sales Accredited and Migrations Ambassador digital badges.

AWS Educate for new-to-cloud learners

AWS Educate offers hundreds of hours of barrier-free, self-paced online training resources and the opportunity for hands-on practice on the AWS Management Console for new-to-cloud learners as young as 13 years old. As learners complete courses, they can earn digital badges that demonstrate their skills. Learners 18 years old and up can search the job board to find employers looking to hire for in-demand roles and join the Emerging Talent Community to connect with other early career talent.

Prepare for the Workforce professional skills series

Prepare for the Workforce is a professional skills series comprised of six self-paced, e-learning courses for adult learners (18 years old+), available in AWS Educate. The series offers interactive modules, video presentations, and assessments to help learners digest and practice useful tools and mental models to improve productivity and career development. The courses can be taken in any order and require no pre-requisite knowledge. Register for AWS Educate to start the series.

  • Introduction to Professional Skills provides an overview of the importance of professional skills for career development and why they are essential to job attainability and durability.
  • Resume Creation teaches you how to create an effective resume. You’ll review how to avoid common mistakes and format your resume to highlight your skills and experience.
  • Communication focuses on building effective communication skills, recognizing verbal and non-verbal cues, and the importance of giving and receiving professional feedback.
  • Problem-Solving Process helps you learn tools to think through and approach challenging problems in the workplace.
  • Goal Setting focuses on why and how to set and achieve goals using the S.M.A.R.T goal-setting methodology.
  • Networking covers the importance of networking and teaches effective tools to build your professional network.