AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional Exam Journey

I had an interesting view about IT certifications. In the very early days, I disliked it and thought it had no place in real world compare to problem skill set a person can have and somehow certification alone doesn’t represent it. I had what I thought were good reasons at the time but came to realize that I may be a little bit judgmental towards it. Why not take certification as a tool/guide towards structured learning? More importantly, I reviewed my thinking and now I am more positive towards these.

Earlier this year, I started with AWS certification journey, I had practical experience of building cloud applications, however it was very focused on particular business domain and most of things we were doing because we were asked to do those in a certain way.

However, along the way I started exploring more AWS Cloud services and started sharing my experience and learning. I found it very easy to start with cloud journey and then planned for AWS certifications.

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional is the latest exam I passed recently and I though to write a short post to share the experience with you. I hope it is useful for anyone who is planning taking this exam.

Exam Preparation and Background

If you have read my earlier posts, there I’ve shared my exam experience, learning methods and general exam tips in details. I followed exactly same pattern and resources from previous exams, once again, I got the exam voucher as being part of AWS community builder and exam mode selection was online with Pearson VUE. Cloud Academy and AWS Skill Builders platform for learning videos, free exam question set and AWS white papers.

You can check my post about AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Professional) Exam Journey and Tips for details of about above mentioned resources.

Furthermore, my previous preparation for AWS Solutions Architect (Professional) exam already covered a wide percentage of learning path for DevOPS exam as well. So I had to study a little less this time, compare to previous exam, because topics were already fresh in my memory. But regardless I completed the learning path from the CloudAcademy platform. By the way, if you are using some other source for preparation, try to complete it fully, you don’t have to switch to other resources as long as you are completing the path.

Exam Day

This time, I scheduled my exam for 02:45am slot, which is not the time I usually select for the exam. The main reason was that I can expect very quite at that time. During summer, it was easier for kids to go outside to play and I could take the exam. But now winter is started in Düsseldorf and its not ideal for kids to stay longer outside in cold.

Just like in previous exam, I stopped studying at all 1 day before the exam. I find it very helpful to sit in exam without any last minute preparation stress and tiredness.

So, at exam time, I went through the usual check-in process, uploaded the pictures of workspace and at completion of that step was greeted by a VUE personnel. The process was identical to previous exams, so this time it just felt like a normal way of living 🙂

So check-in process was completed, examiner was satisfied with visual inspection of workspace and I was given the ok signal and exam to proceed.

I started with the first question, it was a simple one and I was happy with my answer. The second question, a little bit difficult, but still I am positive with my answer choice, the third question I marked with review flag and moved to the next question.

I have to admit, questions were not lengthy as compared to Solutions Architect Professional exam and due to my background in development and all the previous preparations for other AWS exams, I was more relaxed and confident this time.

I was on question 16 then suddenly application stopped responding and I noticed that my internet connection was lost.

Internet Connection Issue and Resume Exam

Well, this was the first time I was experiencing this issue. VUE website suggests to use a wired ethernet connection and other tips. I saw these warnings earlier on the their website, but you know, nothing much I could do about it at this time of the night.

So, the exam application exited due to no internet connection, and after few minutes, the internet connection was established again and I tried to relaunch the exam app.

Once reconnected, I noticed that the exam code/connection-id was not changed and looked like I was in the same session but nothing was appearing on the screen. There was an online help button, I clicked it and waited couple of minutes more and a chat message appeared in the exam application and a different examiner was with me this time. He didn’t said much about anything and just asked me for visual inspection of workspace and then told me that they are launching my exam.

However, application kind of stuck there and nothing came through, no UI updates and then another person from tech team joined the chat, for some reason, exam was not successfully being loaded and they were not able to see my cam video. So I was asked to restart the application and then they tried again and this time exam was loaded successfully and examiner asked me what happened earlier, I told him that I lost internet connection and he said in a calm way that its ok and now I can resume my exam and shortly I was on the same question where the exam was interrupted.

This all took around 40 minutes, however the exam clock was readjusted and it seemed like nothing lost from exam total time.

I was surprised by support of VUE personnel and to be honest, I was not expecting much due to some negative stories on their website about support staff. My personal experience with them was very nice and I found them very helpful.

Hopefully, you do not experience any interruption during your exam, but if this happen, stay calm, do not leave your place and try to reach out to examiner, or they will call you, tell them the situation and it will all work out.

Exam Completion and Result

So I followed my previous pattern this time as well, which I used for Solutions-Architect professional exam, mainly that I tried not to flag every question for review, instead focus was more to read the question slowly, with concentration, evaluate the answers and tried to select the answer in first try and if I am in doubt, flag for review later, but focus was not to have too may questions for review.

For couple of questions, I had no idea at all, so I went with a reasonable choice and did not mark those for review either. There will be some questions wrong, so don’t worry much about those if you are not sure about few answers.

So, I went through all 75 questions, took micro pauses during questions and then reviewed the flagged questions at the end. It is a long 3 hours exam but when I was done I still had some time left but it was already a lengthy exam due to internet connection issue and I was also satisfied with my answer choices. So I didn’t waited longer and submit the exam by click of the button. There is also a small survey at end of the exam and after that a notification appeared to inform me that exam results will be available later and for professional level exam, it can take around 12-24 hrs. before you get your exam results.

But it didn’t took much longer and some time during next day, I got an email from credly about a new badge issued to me and with that I’ve passed the AWS Certified DevOPS Engineer exam.

Summary

AWS Certified exam requires proper preparation and you shall plan accordingly. Take your time to get ready and once feel confident, go for the exam. It surely is a difficult exam but once you spend some time studying for it you will be able to answer exam questions and pass it with ease.

Also check my earlier posts on these topics as there I covered in details the learning resources, exam tips and other useful information.

Let me know if you have some questions or comments. Till next time, Happy Learning!