What is the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification?
The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is the entry-level AWS certification. It is designed for individuals who want to demonstrate foundational knowledge of cloud concepts and AWS services — without requiring hands-on technical experience.
It is the ideal starting point if you are new to cloud computing, switching careers to IT, or want to add cloud credentials to a non-technical role in business, sales, marketing, or management.
Exam Details: CLF-C02
- Exam Code: CLF-C02
- Duration: 90 minutes
- Number of Questions: 65
- Passing Score: 700 out of 1000
- Exam Fee: $100 (approximately ₹8,300)
- Validity: 3 years
- Prerequisites: None
Exam Domains
| Domain | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Cloud Concepts | 24% |
| Security and Compliance | 30% |
| Cloud Technology and Services | 34% |
| Billing, Pricing and Support | 12% |
Domain 1: Cloud Concepts (24%)
The 6 Advantages of Cloud Computing
- Trade capital expense for variable expense
- Benefit from massive economies of scale
- Stop guessing capacity
- Increase speed and agility
- Stop spending money running and maintaining data centres
- Go global in minutes
Cloud Service Models
- IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): EC2, VPC — you manage OS and above
- PaaS (Platform as a Service): Elastic Beanstalk — you manage only the application
- SaaS (Software as a Service): Amazon WorkMail — fully managed, you just use it
Cloud Deployment Models
- Public Cloud: Resources on AWS infrastructure, shared with others
- Private Cloud: Dedicated on-premises infrastructure
- Hybrid Cloud: Combination of on-premises and cloud (AWS Direct Connect, VPN)
Domain 2: Security and Compliance (30%)
The Shared Responsibility Model
This is one of the most important concepts for the Cloud Practitioner exam:
- AWS is responsible for: Security OF the cloud — physical infrastructure, hardware, networking, hypervisor
- You are responsible for: Security IN the cloud — data encryption, IAM configuration, OS patching, network security
Key Security Services
- IAM: Manage user access and permissions
- AWS Shield: DDoS protection (Standard is free, Advanced is paid)
- AWS WAF: Web Application Firewall — protects against common web exploits
- Amazon Inspector: Automated security assessment for EC2 and containers
- AWS CloudTrail: Logs all API calls made in your AWS account
- AWS Config: Tracks configuration changes to AWS resources
- Amazon GuardDuty: Intelligent threat detection using ML
Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services (34%)
Core Services You Must Know
Compute:
- EC2 — virtual machines in the cloud
- Lambda — serverless functions, run code without managing servers
- ECS/EKS — container orchestration
- Elastic Beanstalk — deploy web applications without managing infrastructure
Storage:
- S3 — object storage, used for static files, backups, data lakes
- EBS — block storage attached to EC2 instances
- EFS — managed file system for Linux workloads
- Glacier — archival storage for infrequently accessed data
Databases:
- RDS — managed relational database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server)
- DynamoDB — managed NoSQL database
- Redshift — data warehouse for analytics
Networking:
- VPC — Virtual Private Cloud, your private network on AWS
- Route 53 — DNS service
- CloudFront — Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Direct Connect — dedicated private connection from on-premises to AWS
Domain 4: Billing, Pricing and Support (12%)
- AWS Free Tier: 12 months free for new accounts on select services
- On-Demand: Pay per use, no commitment
- Reserved Instances: 1 or 3 year commitment, up to 75% discount
- Spot Instances: Up to 90% discount, can be interrupted
- Support Plans: Basic (free), Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, Enterprise
- AWS Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs before deployment
- AWS Cost Explorer: Analyse and forecast AWS spending
Study Plan: Pass in 3 Weeks
- Week 1: Cloud concepts, Global Infrastructure, IAM, EC2, S3
- Week 2: All remaining services, Shared Responsibility Model, pricing
- Week 3: 3 full practice exams + review all wrong answers
Conclusion
The AWS Cloud Practitioner is achievable in 3–4 weeks of consistent study. It opens the door to higher-level AWS certifications and demonstrates cloud literacy to employers. Focus on understanding concepts over memorisation — the exam tests your ability to choose the right service for a given scenario, not recite specifications.