What is New in the world of AWS Certifications?
(This section is more of a context or background – feel free to skip to the next section if you would rather jump straight into the topic of AWS certified Data Engineer - Associate)
About an year ago, in late 2022, we talked about some changes to the AWS Certification exams (my blog post). It is apparently that time of the year again.
In early November 2023 AWS announced that they will be retiring the AWS Certified Data Analytics specialty certification.
(Update 20-Jan-2024 : Their recent blog post describes the various other upcoming changes in AWS Certification Exams.)
A bit of history: AWS Big Data Specialty split into AWS Machine Learning Specialty and AWS Data Analytics Specialty a few years ago. So the current Data Analytics Specialty exam is already a product of an iterative refinement of scope and aligning them more closely with prevalent job roles in the industry.
AWS usually updates the existing exams in two ways:
(1) minor content updates on a continuous basis – where newly announced features, changes, or brand new services are incorporated into the exam through new questions or modifications to existing question bank.
One thing to note is that any new service or feature needs to be in “general availability” for at least six months before the exam will test you on that. So anything that is in beta / preview or even just announced to be ‘generally available’ will NOT appear in your exam. (As an extreme example, “Amazon Honeycode” service never came out of BETA and a sunset of this service has been announced recently. Such services would never appear in any AWS Exam since they were never ‘generally available’.)
There will be no separate announcements when new services or features are added to an exam. The exam guides or sample question sets are also not updated this regularly to reflect these minor content updates.
(2) significant updates to the exam content – where there is a restructuring of exam domains, exam topics, usually a change in the exam code (For example: SAA-C02 to SAA-CO3 in the case of the Solutions Architect - Associate exam)
To stay up to date on changes around AWS Certification I would recommend these resources:
- AWS Training and Certification Blog : https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/training-and-certification/
- AWS Certification “Coming Soon” page: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/coming-soon/
Beyond what is already covered in the official blog post there are a few hints and speculations about what to expect in coming days:
- New types of questions in AWS Certification Exams (my blog post)
- Possible update to the AWS Machine Learning Specialty exam (the exam has not seen any major updates in last 4 years, it is still on version MLS-C01 while the world has zoomed ahead with breathless updates in this space) . Also a possible GenAI certification in the works.
The AWS Data Engineering associate exam
Soon after announcing the sunset of AWS Data Analytics specialty, AWS announced a brand new certification : the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) and launched the beta version of the exam.
(UPDATE: In their blog post that came a little later (link) they explained the reasoning behind the changes.)
Topics Covered in the Exam
- Domain 1: Data Ingestion and Transformation (34% of scored content)
- Domain 2: Data Store Management (26% of scored content)
- Domain 3: Data Operations and Support (22% of scored content)
- Domain 4: Data Security and Governance (18% of scored content)
All exams have a few unscored questions for testing purposes – so the actual number of questions you might see on any exam might slightly vary for these weights, if you are keeping track.
Comparing this with the AWS Data Analytics specialty whose exam domains were:
- Domain 1: Collection (18% of scored content)
- Domain 2: Storage and Data Management (22% of scored content)
- Domain 3: Processing (24% of scored content)
- Domain 4: Analysis and Visualization (18% of scored content)
- Domain 5: Security (18% of scored content)
You will notice that “Analysis and Visualization” does not feature in the Data Engineer’s role - which is understandable. This means that areas like Business intelligence solutions (AWS Services like Amazon Quicksight) and Data Analytics (Aws Services like Kinesis Data Analytics) will not feature heavily on the new exam. However, it is a good idea to have a general understanding of what these services do – so you can spot them and eliminate them if they appear as distractors in the answer choices in on your exam.
Instead there is more emphasis on – knowledge and skills needed in the area of data transformation through ETL, and the operations, support and management of data pipelines and data stores.
If you already have the Data Analytics Specialty certification and have been using those skills hands-on then you would be able to take this new exam very easily. The only additional tips I would have for you in the form of exam prep are –
- Brushing up on regular expression syntax (RegEx)
- Reviewing SQL syntax
- Making sure you are sound on data partitioning and data transformation / ETL scenarios and common patterns
Exam Prep Resources
Here are some valuable resources for you to prepare for the new DEA-C01 exam.
Udemy.com Course: AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate 2024 - Hands On!
By Stephane Maarek & Frank Kane
URL: https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-data-engineer/
Duration: 21 hours +
My review:
- If you are familiar with the style of Stephane Maarek or Frank Kane then this will be very approachable to you
- You should know that this course is very similar to the Data Analytics specialty course, and to an extent the Machine Learning specialty course, that is co-authored by the same to gentlemen – both good and bad
- The good – between the two authors, they cover a vast array of topics relevant to the exam
- The not so good - the course structure is disjointed, and coverage of topics feels both patchy and shallow
- You will definitely need to supplement this course with additional reading of AWS product documentation and FAQs, re-invent videos, whitepapers, and most importantly your own hands-on
- Some of the newly added videos to the course try to distill the topics seen on the exam but not covered in earlier versions of the course – in that sense they offer very crisp and byte sized lessons that may just save you on that one or two obscure questions that you might otherwise miss
CloudAcademy.com Course: AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) Certification Preparation for AWS
Length: 54 hours + including hands-on labs
My review:
- I had only briefly skimmed this course so take my review with a pinch of salt
- The lessons seem well organized and in-depth – but you will need to invest a lot of time in completing these lengthy courses. if you come with prior experience in this space then this might feel too slow for you – or you may do well to skip some of the topics base don your comfort level
- The hands-on labs are a great feature especially if you do not want to risk trying some of the costly services in your own AWS account – or you are in a hurry and cannot always cleanup resources that cost money after your experiments
AWS Skill Builder | Free Course: Exam Prep Standard Course: AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01)
Duration: 6 hours
My review:
- AWS official exam prep courses are always a favorite of mine - they explain in plain English the mindset and knowledge areas expected of a successful candidate for the exam.
- They spend quality time explaining the exam outline and domains – then do a deep dive into the type of scenarios we might see posed on the real exam, with sample questions and walkthroughs
If you work for a AWS Partner organization you will have access to a few more training materials via Skill Builder login using your AWS partner credentials. Some of the courses are available only through a paid skill builder subscription.
Practice Exam
The official AWS Sample Question set – linked from the official page for this exam – should definitely be consulted and attempted.
Tutorials Dojo is a well-known name in AWS practice exams. They have launched their offering for this specific exam more recently – link below. I have not tried it myself but can still recommend it based on my experience with other AWS practice exams they offer.
Earlier Material - Data Analytics Specialty Exam
If you have purchased any courses for the earlier Data analytics specialty exam – rest assured that much of that material will still be relevant for this new exam.
My earlier blog post covered the exam prep resource sand tips for the Data Analytics Specialty exam. Please take a look at that for some useful links to AWS videos and resources that are still a.pplicable.
Other Tips
- If you have previously passed an AWS Exam you would have a 50% off voucher in your AWS Certification portal that you can use
- For non-native speakers of the English language there is an exam accomodation of additional 30 minutes available upon request. Just remember to request this accomodation and get it approved before booking the exam.
Good Luck!