My experience passing the AWS Certified Advanced Networking — Specialty Exam
One of my goals for the year was to pass the AWS Certified Advanced Networking — Specialty Exam. I started my studies at the end of last year but did not spend that much time until the last couple of months. Intending to take the exam before going on summer vacation, I had the exam scheduled for Monday this week.
The last few weeks have been quite stressful; wanting to study more than I could. Busy work days, and none work-related, taking up my time. But as the exam was scheduled, I made the best of it, and it worked out!
About 24 hours after completing the exam, I got the email.
Congratulations!
Jens, you just earned a badge from Amazon Web Services Training and Certification 🎉!
AWS Certified Advanced Networking — Specialty
The exam has the reputation of being one of the most difficult AWS Speciality exams, and yes, it was very difficult. I have worked with networking on and off during my 13 years working in the IT area.
BGP, routing, etc., wasn’t that big of a concern of mine.
What I found the most difficult was the questions related to Direct Connect, Direct Connect Gateways, Transit gateways, and how all of these interact. As Direct Connect is a physical connection between a physical location and the AWS Cloud, it’s difficult to do any actual labs since it requires real hardware.
But from my time working at AWS, I have seen and worked with Direct Connects, which gave me some advantage of actually having seen the hardware and fiber connections.
About the exam
You will have 170 minutes to complete the exam of 65 questions. If you are a non-native English speaker, you can request an additional 30 minutes (and 200 minutes to complete the exam).
The 65 questions consist of either single or multi-answer questions. Some answers seem correct, but there might be a “more” correct answer. So make sure to read the question and answers multiple times to make sure you choose the right answer.
The cost of taking the exam is USD 300. If you have passed an AWS exam before this one, you might have a voucher in your account! This could save you 50% of the exam cost.
I took the exam at home, online delivered via Pearson VUE. This wasn’t my first time taking an exam from home, but it was my first time experiencing some problems before being able to start the exam. Everything looked good from my end, but the person monitoring the exam could not see me through my camera. After a reboot of my computer, the issue was resolved.
They suggested canceling or rescheduling the exam, so a good reminder is to ALWAYS reboot your computer just before taking the exam to avoid being in a similar position.
Here is some information from AWS about the exam: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-advanced-networking-specialty/
And the exam guide that provides important information about the exam and the domains you will be tested on: https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-advnetworking-spec/AWS-Certified-Advanced-Networking-Specialty_Exam-Guide.pdf
Preparations
I started by taking the AWS Certified Advanced Networking — Specialty 2020 course from A Cloud Guru. Unfortunately, I realized it was quite outdated and missing important parts since AWS updated the exam from ANS-C00 to ANS-C01 in July 2022. A note: it seems like A Cloud Guru has now added a new chapter, “ANS-C01 Updates”, meaning the course might not be as outdated as before.
What I ended up choosing as my main source of information for my studies was the course from Udemy, AWS Certified Advanced Networking Specialty 2023. An excellent course with a great instructor that covered all topics.
The practice exam from Udemy is also really good, unfortunate it’s only two tests (one with 15 questions and one with 65 questions). But for me, a perfect way of testing my knowledge and getting feedback on what to improve on. Reviewing the questions explains why the correct option is correct and why the incorrect option is incorrect, including links to official documentation from AWS covering the topic.
As a last-minute study help, I purchased the practice exams from Whizlabs, I have used them before, and they are built similarly to the ones from Udemy (providing you feedback on the correct and incorrect answers).
Recommendations
Here are some links to AWS documentation that I came back to reading multiple times.
- Routing policies and BGP communities
- Direct Connect gateways
- Active/Active or Active/Passive Direct Connect connection
- Active/Passive Direct Connect connection
- Direct Connect and VPN failover with Transit Gateway
- Which type of Direct Connect virtual interface should I use
- Virtual private gateway associations
- Configure Site-to-Site VPN tunnel preference
- Dual-stack IPv6 architectures
- Customer gateway configurations for static routing
- Site-to-Site VPN routing options
Wrap-up
I hope this will inspire you to take the exam! Even if it was very difficult, I have learned a lot and would recommend it to anyone working with networking in AWS.
You can find me on LinkedIn if you have any questions about the exam or how to prepare for it.
