After a lot of studying, I now have my first AWS certification, YAY! First things first -- the exam is tougher than it should be, because instead of focusing on the already challenging core of cloud (compute, storage, networking along with managing scale and doing orchestration) you also have to know a dozen or more peripheral AWS services, which might pop up for a question or two. For my exam, I had to find a quiet spot which fit the criteria they asked -- a room where you could be isolated and alone. The checkin seems like they didn't closely think through how to do it. For instance, one part they ask if you have a mobile phone, but they assume its a smartphone, and they text you a URL. Mine wasn't, but I was able to hop on one and complete the process. Later on they wanted me to show the room with my "webcam", but mine is built into the laptop, which is like most people's nowadays? Last bit on the setup -- after the checkin person signed me in, the actual proctor made me rearrange the way I was sitting. I don't mind getting set up, but I assumed things were ready for the test after the check in and I had to move everything around (I had external keyboard and mouse, and had to reroute all the wires). And had to stay with my face on camera during all of this. The test itself was more varied, and my sample tests made me a bit too confident -- a lot of the questions were nuanced and required a bit of thinking. For most questions, I was able to eliminate two of the answers right away, so I'm at a 50/50 shot right away. From the sample exams I would then consider all the info given in the question. Was there something specific we were looking to achieve, like high availability or minimal cost? Sometimes security or IPv6 is a factor, and those can be the clues. Having practiced quite a bit, I got through all the questions once with about an hout to spare. I first reviewed the questions I flagged, and then I went back through all the questions, and still had a bit of time left. I submitted and then got pushed into a survey before being told my result, which took a couple minutes to get through. Finally, it announces that I passed. In anticlimactic fashion, there is no e-mail or note to say I've passed, and the mark doesn't come through for a few days. The only artifact right now is the note that the exam was "successfully delivered", meaning that I was able to sit for it. I did learn a lot in the courses that was helpful. The sample exams were awesome in getting timing and feel, but beware of getting too confident with just the samples. My exam came with access to an exam simulator, which would draw 65 qs out of a pool of 300 something, which was helpful. I'm happy to add this to my skills and accomplishments, the question is what is next? Stay tuned! ):