The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is the entry point into AWS certifications. It validates that you understand cloud concepts, core AWS services, security, and the billing model, without requiring hands-on engineering depth.
The four domains
- Cloud concepts (the value of the cloud, the AWS Well-Architected Framework, and the shared responsibility model).
- Security and compliance (IAM, the shared responsibility model, and compliance programs).
- Cloud technology and services (compute, storage, networking, databases, and analytics).
- Billing, pricing, and support (cost tools, pricing models, and support plans).
Services worth knowing
You do not need to build anything, but you must recognise what each service is for: EC2 for virtual servers, S3 for object storage, RDS and DynamoDB for databases, Lambda for serverless functions, VPC for networking, and CloudFront for content delivery. Learn the difference between a Region and an Availability Zone.
Understand the shared responsibility model
AWS secures the cloud; you secure what you put in it. Questions often describe a scenario and ask who is responsible for a given control. Practise separating "security of the cloud" from "security in the cloud".
Pricing and support
Know the pay-as-you-go, save-when-you-reserve, and pay-less-by-using-more models, and the tools that help you manage spend (Cost Explorer, Budgets, the Pricing Calculator). Learn the tiers of AWS Support and what each includes.
Suggested two-week plan
- Days 1-3: Cloud concepts and the Well-Architected pillars.
- Days 4-6: Core compute, storage, and networking services.
- Days 7-9: Security, IAM, and the shared responsibility model.
- Days 10-12: Databases, analytics, and the pricing model.
- Days 13-14: Timed practice sets and review of every wrong answer.
Use the free practice questions on the CLF-C02 exam page to check your baseline, then move to full sets once the concepts feel familiar.
