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Udemy Course Review: AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional - Hands-On!

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional - Hands-On 2024​

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional - Hands-On course cover image

Link to the Course on Udemy

Overview​

This Udemy course by Stephane Maarek and Fillipe Barreto is designed to help you prepare for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional certification exam. It provides hands-on experience with key DevOps concepts and AWS services relevant to the exam. This review is based on the course as offered in 2024.

Content Breakdown​

The course covers a wide range of topics essential for the AWS DevOps Engineer certification, including:

  • Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Deep dive into AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, and CodeCommit.
  • Configuration Management: Using AWS CloudFormation, AWS OpsWorks (Chef & Puppet), and Ansible.
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): CloudFormation best practices and advanced techniques.
  • Monitoring & Logging: Implementing comprehensive monitoring solutions using AWS CloudWatch, X-Ray, and CloudTrail.
  • Security: Security best practices for DevOps on AWS, including IAM, KMS, and CloudHSM.
  • High Availability & Disaster Recovery: Designing and implementing highly available and resilient architectures.
  • Automation: Automating infrastructure and application deployments using various AWS services.
  • Microservices and Containers: Working with Amazon ECS, EKS, and AWS Fargate.
  • Serverless: Overview and application of lambda functions, API Gateway, Serverless Application Model (SAM).

Pros:​

  • Comprehensive Coverage: Covers virtually all of the domains and services needed for the DOP-C02 exam.
  • Hands-On Labs: Excellent hands-on labs that allow you to gain practical experience with AWS services but often need to be updated reflecting changes in the AWS UI over time.
  • Experienced Instructors: Stephane Maarek is a well-known and respected AWS instructor, and Fillipe Barreto brings significant real-world experience.
  • Up-to-Date Content: While updates are often required, the course is regularly updated to reflect changes in AWS services and the exam.
  • Practice Exams: Includes practice exams designed to simulate the real exam environment.
  • Detailed Explanations: Clear and concise explanations of complex concepts.

Cons:​

  • Fast-Paced: Can be challenging for those without prior AWS experience. A solid understanding of AWS fundamentals is highly recommended.
  • Lengthy: The course is quite long (typically over 50 hours of video content) if you watch all modules. If your DevOps knowledge is strong in some areas, you can likely skip modules and just review specific sections.
  • Cost: The course can be somewhat expensive at full price, but it is frequently offered at a discounted price on Udemy. (Wait for a sale!).
  • Labs Require AWS Account: You will need an AWS account, and while the labs are designed with the free tier in mind, you may incur costs if you exceed free tier limits.

Tools & Technologies Covered​

This course heavily utilizes a variety of AWS services and related technologies, including:

  • AWS CLI: Command-line interface for managing AWS services.
  • AWS CloudFormation: Infrastructure as Code service.
  • AWS CodePipeline: Continuous integration and continuous delivery service.
  • AWS CodeBuild: Fully managed build service.
  • AWS CodeDeploy: Automated application deployment service.
  • AWS CodeCommit: Fully-managed source control service.
  • AWS CloudWatch: Monitoring and observability service.
  • AWS CloudTrail: Audit logging service.
  • AWS X-Ray: Distributed tracing service.
  • AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management): Managing access to AWS resources.
  • AWS KMS (Key Management Service): Managing encryption keys.
  • AWS ECS (Elastic Container Service): Container orchestration service.
  • AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service): Managed Kubernetes service.
  • AWS Lambda: Serverless compute service.
  • AWS API Gateway: Service for creating, publishing, maintaining, monitoring, and securing APIs.
  • Ansible: Automation and configuration management tool (covered to a lesser extent than CloudFormation).

Rating​

I would give this course a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars. It's an excellent resource for preparing for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional exam, offering a comprehensive and practical learning experience. The hands on labs are incredibly valuable. Be sure to take advantage of Udemy sales to minimize the cost.

Who should take this course?​

This course is ideal for:

  • AWS Certified DevOps Engineers looking to achieve the Professional certification.
  • DevOps engineers with experience working with AWS services.
  • Solutions Architects and SysAdmins who want to deepen their DevOps skills on AWS.
  • Anyone looking to implement CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, and automated monitoring solutions on AWS.

Tips for Success​

  • Have prior AWS experience: This isn't a beginner course. A strong foundation in AWS fundamentals will be crucial. Consider completing an AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate level course first.
  • Take detailed notes: The amount of information is considerable.
  • Work through all the labs: Don't just watch them. Actively participate in the hands-on labs to reinforce your learning. Be patient and adaptable to UI updates made by AWS.
  • Use the practice exams: Take the practice exams to assess your readiness and identify areas where you need to improve.
  • Supplement with AWS documentation: Refer to the official AWS documentation for in-depth information on specific services.
  • Join the online community (if one exists): Engage with other students to ask questions and share knowledge.