How to prepare and pass the AWS Database Specialty Exam (and chill)?
“There’s no compression algorithm for experience.” — Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon
Disclaimer : This post is written as a personal experience and are my own views and do not represent my employer or anything official.
If you’re aspiring to appear and prepare for the AWS Database specialty exam, this quote holds quite true (and pretty much in life as well), especially, if you have few years of database administrator (DBA) or developer experience under your belt, but don’t let that discourage you. Even if you’re new to the cloud or AWS in general, with certain dedicated effort in preparation and practice, you’ll sift right through the exam.
I will be sharing certain tips and tricks about passing the AWS Database Specialty exam which was released recently, and as of today you can book the exam starting from 6th April 2020. I had appeared for the beta exam on the last good day of the year and thankfully passed.
Without further ado, let’s jump right into what is required for you to prepare. Let’s take a look at AWS’ official say on this certification:
AWS Certified Database — Specialty:
Validate your ability to recommend, design, and maintain the optimal AWS database solution to improve performance, reduce costs, and enable innovation.
If you pay attention to the above headline, it pretty much gives away the crux of the things that you’d be tested on during the exam, they’re not just buzz words, you’d be expected to understand how to fit the right use case, database workload, design, maintain, improve performance of new/existing architecture whilst reducing the cost too. AWS is now having 15 purpose built databases under it’s kitty. Here’s what it looks like-
The best way to approach them is one at a time, most of you may have good experience in the Relational and In-Memory database domain but others (at least for me) are new or aren’t that familiar in general. If you’re new to all of them, it’s recommended that you take up this free course called as “AWS Database Offerings” available on AWS training website here.
For this exam you’re expected to —
- Understand and differentiate the key features of AWS database services
- Analyze needs and requirements to recommend and design appropriate database solutions using AWS services
And to have,
Recommended knowledge and experience —
- At least 5 years of experience with database technologies
- At least 2 years of hands-on experience working on AWS
- Experience and expertise working with on-premises and AWS-Cloud-based relational and non-relational databases
As you can see, the exam is pretty much ideal for professionals who are already working or aspiring to become cloud database experts wanting to validate their knowledge and earn AWS credential.
Here’s the exam coverage from the official exam guide —
This is the tip of the iceberg, to start with you’re expected to know about the AWS basics like EC2, VPC, it’s networking, and other services like S3, RDS, CloudFormation etc. If you’re unsure of basics of AWS services ecosystem itself, this free course -AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials is a fantastic start.
Exam Specs :
- Exam costs USD 300, quick tip here, if you’ve passed any AWS exam before, you can get 50% discount straight up, you can avail a token (voucher code) by going to your AWS Certification account, go to Benefits tab and then by clicking “Claim Benefit” link, you’ll get a voucher code which can be applied while payment check out.
- You’re supposed to be scoring 750+ on the band of 1000.
- Time allocated for the exam is 3 hours (180 minutes).
Following is the service coverage for the AWS Database Specialty Exam and it’s related features — this is not an exhaustive list :
Relational Database Service (RDS) — All flavors of supported databases in RDS, Amazon Aurora, DynamoDB, Neptune, Redshift, DocumentDB, TimeStream, QLDB, Elasticache, AWS Database Migration Service, Schema Conversion Tool, AWS CloudFormation, AWS Key Management Service etc. and many more.
Exam will test your understanding on following —
(again, not exhaustive)
Migration use cases and best practices — from on-premise to AWS, how to migrate from RDS to Aurora,best practices and pros/cons, how to maintain high availability, importance of read replicas, how to design around performance and what are the features that you can avail to optimize your architecture around data, using logs for monitoring and event logging with multiple other services.
Amazon RDS and Aurora — Multi-AZ deployments, understanding of RTO and RPO, how to design for multi-region, new features released in the last year like performance insights, exporting data, migrating snapshots to multiple regions etc.
Amazon DynamoDB — Global tables, on-demand vs provisioned throughput, how to calculate the right RCU and WCU as per the scenario, DynamoDB streams and DAX and it’s specific use cases.
Amazon DMS and SCT — How to choose between heterogeneous and homogeneous migration, what are the best practices and their pros and cons, when to use DMS vs SCT.
A lot more questions on KMS service like encrypting data in transit vs at rest, copying snapshots, how to load data to Amazon Neptune, best use cases for Amazon Redshift distribution styles etc.
Now, given the NDA I’ve signed before the exam, I cannot share much.
How to prepare?
As of today, there are no dedicated courses or even practice tests available specifically for this exam but thankfully, AWS has a free course called as “Exam Readiness Course for Database Specialty” available on AWS training website here. It’s quite exhaustive, and gives you a wonderful overview of multitude of database service offerings, practice exam questions, how to go about question structure and it’s interpretation techniques and finally, what you might expect from the exam.
Here’s what you need to read up apart from the exam readiness part —
- FAQs — I know, you might just be clenching your teeth when you read this , because it’s so vast in itself. But, like I said, take it one at a time, start with basic services and then go deep. Here are the links —
Amazon Aurora || Amazon DocumentDB (with Mongo Compatibility) || Amazon DynamoDB || Amazon Elaticache || Amazon Neptune || Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) || Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) || Amazon Redshift | Amazon Database Migration Service
- Whitepapers — This is one more area where you need to put some effort and read through a ton of documentation. But, given the white papers go very deep into the technicalities, I like how specific they are and how multiple architectures are explained with an easy to understand diagram. It’s definitely a good investment. Here are the one’s you need to read up -
Configuring Amazon RDS as an Oracle PeopleSoft Database || Determining the IOPS Needs for Oracle Database on AWS || Comparing the Use of Amazon DynamoDB and Apache HBase for NoSQL || Best Practices for Deploying Microsoft SQL Server on AWS || Migrating Oracle Database Workloads to Oracle Linux on AWS || Migrating Applications Running Relational Databases to AWS || Modernizing the Amazon Database Infrastructure || Strategies for Migrating Oracle Databases to AWS || AWS Database Migration Service Best Practices || Migration Strategy for Relational Databases || Best Practices for Running Oracle Database on AWS || Deploying Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon Web Services || Getting Started with Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB Compatibility)
- re:Invent Videos — If you can’t take the drab reading of white papers and FAQs then videos are a fantastic resource. A lot of AWS customers and partners share their journey on using multiple purpose built databases for their use cases. It’s quite fascinating. Also, to find all the database related videos on re:Invent under one roof — try searching here with a keyword of your choice and if it’s not sufficient there’s always the official AWS YouTube channel for everything else.
- AWS Console — Many of us get used to the theory part so much so that we often forget to even visit the console. Please ensure you know what are the options available for each service in the console, thoroughly. This itself will save a lot of reading from the FAQs at least.
- Mind Map —Let’s face it, we all easily forget stuff. Given the breadth of the services and it’s features, there are so many options and settings available now that it’s extremely difficult to remember them all. You’d be like :
A better way to solve this problem is actually create a nice mind map of all the features a service has to offer, just the way Jerry Hargrove does it on AWSgeek, here’s a sample of his artwork on RDS — isn’t it brilliant? These mind maps are perfect to sift through just before the exam to brush up on what all you’ve learned.
Final Thoughts (no, this isn’t my last will) -
Well, if you sincerely take an effort to do them all at your own pace, it’s (almost) guaranteed that you’ll definitely pass the exam in flying colours.
Please do the following just before the exam —
- Get enough sleep. Given how much it takes to prepare, you mind and body will need enough rest to be able function properly. Remember, it’s a 3 hour long exam. Please don’t go against your body and mind and work so hard that you exhaust yourself on the day of the exam.
- Do not sweat through it all, trust yourself that you’ll be able to remember all the points during the exam. To be more confident in this arena, read up more and practice all the way more.
- Use humour — Watch a funny episode of The Office, FRIENDS, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, Shriman Shrimati, Game of Thrones (just kidding) whatever helps to keep your calm and spirits high. Please do not underestimate the power of humour, it works wonders!
- Relax, it’s just an exam — If you’re appearing for it as a part of your professional or a personal goal, remember that it’s an ounce of the things you’re responsible for doing in life. Embrace the journey if things don’t go as planned.
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Thank you!
P.S. — Whatever I’ve shared here are my personal view points and do not represent my employer.
