AWS can be overwhelming for beginners due to the multitude of services available from the cloud provider. However, I was able to overcome this with the AWS Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner, and in this article, I will be explaining what the process was like for me.
What is AWS Cloud Quest?
First, let us look at what AWS Cloud Quest is; AWS Cloud Quest is a 3D role-playing game offered by AWS that is aimed at teaching you how to build Cloud Solutions based on real-world scenarios.
Cloud Quest offers interactive role-playing games for various roles like:
Cloud Practitioner
Solutions Architect
Serverless Developer
Machine Learning
Security
Data Analytics
Networking
Get started with AWS Cloud Quest here. Note that Cloud Practioner is the only option you can try for free.
How Did I Know About AWS Cloud Quest?
I am part of an AWS Community in my local area, and we once had an online event where Veliswa Boya, a Senior Developer Advocate at AWS was invited as a guest speaker to discuss what individuals can do after becoming AWS certified. Towards the end of the event, she made a special announcement for those who were just starting their cloud journey. For three months, we will receive a monthly challenge. The first three people to complete each challenge will receive extra perks such as a one-on-one mentoring session. Our first challenge was to complete the AWS Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner and that is how I got to learn about AWS Cloud Quest.
What Did I Learn from the Cloud Quest Challenge?
Before taking this challenge, I had barely gotten any hands-on experience with AWS services. The most I'd done was probably create an IAM user, S3 bucket, and maybe an EC2 instance. AWS Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner has 11 modules that cover the following topics:
S3
Amazon EC2
AWS Calculator
VPC
VPC Peering
Amazon RDS
DynamoDB
Amazon EFS
AWS IAM
Auto Scaling Groups
Load Balancers
In each module, there is a tutorial that teaches you about a particular service, and a lab you have to do to complete that module. With all these modules, I was pushed to learn and practice with new AWS services I hadn't tried before and also how they could be used to solve real-world problems. A great example of such a problem could be;
Q) A company using Amazon S3 to store large files. They are incurring high fees from the S3 service and need a cheaper solution. These files are usually not accessed 30 days after they have been uploaded and always need to be available. What solution will you propose to this company to keep their costs low?
A) Using S3 Lifecycle rules to transition the data from S3 standard to Glacier after 30 days will be a good solution for this problem. Glacier storage is cheap and it's great for data archiving.
AWS Cloud Quest exposed me to some of the most common AWS services used in Cloud Solutions, the features they come with, and their use cases.
Conclusion
Cloud Quest helped me get to my "aha moment" with cloud computing and I would recommend it to beginners or anyone who just wants to learn. Also, I was among the first three people to complete this challenge and I earned the chance to get a one-on-one mentorship call with Veliswa where she gave me valuable career advice that I follow religiously. It was such an amazing experience and I would do it again if I had to start over.
Are you interested in trying AWS Cloud Quest too? You can use the link below to do so.
https://aws.amazon.com/training/digital/aws-cloud-quest/
Also, check out my post on LinkedIn from when I completed the challenge and connect with me😊
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ajimbong_cloud-aws-activity-7054731355540066305-lX1A