DevonPatrick AdkinsGood day to all my fellow Aspiring Cloud Network Engineers, Network Architects and Network Engineers.
Whether you are taking this exam to validate your skills or looking to enhance your skillset, the AWS ANS-C01 will definitely boost your ability and allow you to stand out in terms of Career Progression or Getting into a Cloud Network Engineering Role.
Background
I have been in the Cloud Industry now for close too 4 years and the AWS Advanced Network Specialty has always been on my radar since day 1 of my AWS Cloud Practitioner. I always have loved Networking having passed my CompTIA Network + at the young age of 17, I have always been inquisitive of both the capabilities of home networking via hosting LAN parties, all the way to building VPNs to communicate as Hub and Spoke Businesses. Personally I hold my CCNA, CCNP Enterprise Networking & CCNP Security, however even with my strong Networking Background, this course is quite demanding and definitely deserves a solid 4 - 6 months of your time to best Prepare, Tackle and Pass your AWS Networking Specialty.
Tips
So I believe in a 3 Step Golden Rule, Step1: Enhance your Knowledge with a Good Video Course, I have become accustomed to Cloud Academy, they offer a robust course, easy even for Beginners to Jump in and get started. I would advise though that you should have completed your AWS Solutions Architect Associate Prior to Tackling this course, as its just easier to digest and follow along with having built a good foundation.
Cloud Academy
Cloud Academy is my preferred training partner due to its comprehensive approach to learning. The platform begins with in-depth theoretical lessons, followed by question sets and knowledge checks that evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. This initial assessment ensures that you have a clear understanding of where you excel and where you may need further review before moving on to the hands-on labs.
The labs, which are integrated at the end of each section, provide practical, real-world experience. These labs allow you to revisit instructional videos and take additional notes in areas where improvement is needed, while also enabling you to skip sections where you have demonstrated proficiency. This method not only reinforces the theoretical concepts taught but also helps to solidify your understanding through practical application, ensuring a well-rounded grasp of the subject matter.
Right at the end of the course you will provided with a Practice Exam, this practice exam is aimed at matching the level of the actual exam's difficulty. Each time you attempt the exam a different question set will be provided to you. I recommend you take these at least 5 times and score and average of 90% before taking on the real exam.
Lastly they provide you a Certificate of Excellence once passing and a Badge you can attach to your LinkedIn page, now I feel that's real value for money.
Step 2
Adrian Cantrill's course whilst it maybe a little costly I definitely recommend to anyone seeking to gain Professional Real-World Application Labs, whilst I do prefer Cloud Academy's Teaching Style, Adrian Cantrill is second to none when it comes to his professional experience and in-depth level labs. Here are a few examples below:
Multi-Cloud - Site-to-Site VPN Configuration (AWS & Azure) - All running on Free Tier Services (Azure Jumpbox can communicate and RDP to Private Instance in AWS)
1.) Azure: Configured Necessary Resource Group, Virtual Private Gateway, Azure Local Network GW Configs, Azure VNETs, Configured Route Tables, Generated VM Windows 10 Instance. (IPSEC VPN)
2.) AWS: Customer Gateway Configuration, attached to VPC, Configured Route Tables, VPN with Static routing, Configured Security Groups, Configured Site-to-Site VPN IPSEC VPN, used Generic Configuration, Launched PVT Instance Windows Server 2022.
The above is just one of the amazing Labs Adrian walks you through, for more examples check out https://github.com/acantril, if you cannot afford the course, I definitely recommend asking your employer purchasing the course for yourself and your team. It definitely made the difference for me, especially when answering some of the exam questions.
Step 3
To round everything up, I would definitely recommend Tutorial Dojo's Practice questions, I personally felt like their Practice exams were actually more difficult than the actual exam itself, the content was spot on and gave me the confidence I needed to evaluate my Exam Readiness. Furthermore the Question sets provide not just the correct answers should review your results, it often provides actual Architectural Diagrams, to make you think like a Cloud Architect but it even Provides Video's to their Content for those Visual Learners whom like Practical Examples.
These are coupled with Links to AWS Documentation as well as to further motivate the correct answer.
Lastly they boast AWS Cheats which are notes on the important Aspects of each domain.
https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-cheat-sheets-networking-and-content-delivery/
Extras
Should time permit, I would absolutely recommend you check out AWS Power Hour Series, I was lucky that the series was hosted whilst I was preparing for the exam and it allowed me to speak with AWS's Trainers and Engage with Like Minded Peers Around the world.
These Videos are available on Demand for you to watch, so head over to https://www.twitch.tv/aws (https://pages.awscloud.com/GLOBAL_TRAINCERT_T2-Twitch-AWS-Power-Hour-Specialty-Certification.html?did=tc_card&trk=tc_card#undefined) and make the best of the series.
I really hope my training Strategy helps better equip you for exam success, best of luck to you all!!!
