DEV Community: cheesiong

How to Deliver Engaging and Impactful Presentations

cheesiong — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 14:07:59 +0000

It is often said that a Solutions Architect acts as a bridge between the business users and the technical team. To effectively play that role well, there is a need for Solutions Architects to explain complex technical concepts in a simple and non-technical way that business users can understand.

I recognise there are some occasions that I could get too focused on the technical details that I forget to explain them in a simplified manner. What appeared to be some straightforward concepts of Cloud Computing for the technical folks can become very complex topics for business users to digest and understand.

I know I must do something. I started to use analogies such as the game of Snake and Ladders, and the evolution of retail stores to explain cloud migration and migration strategies respectively. I have also begun writing articles since last year to improve my writing skills in demystifying those difficult-to-understand technical concepts.

To improve my presentation skills, I attended a 2-day training course with Daniel Hudson Liu in early Feb 2023. Daniel's course was on 2 Fridays (3 Feb and 10 Feb 2023), instead of 2 consecutive days and I thought that was brilliant as we were given ample time to digest what we learned during the lesson, and then to prepare and rehearse for our oral presentation the following week.

On the first day of the course, before we started the actual lesson, we were asked to do an impromptu presentation and our presentations were recorded. Daniel then gave his feedback and offered suggestions for improvements.

During the lesson, Daniel generously shared his tips and techniques for delivering a high-impact presentation and we were told to incorporate these techniques for our assignment. We were given a week to prepare our second presentation on the following Friday. All of us could see the vast improvement within a week when we watched the 2 video recordings.

During his course, Daniel shared many valuable techniques with us and explained them well with illustrations and group exercises. Here is my pick for the 3 best techniques I like the most:

The Rule of 3

The Rule of 3 simply means presenting information in groups of 3 instead of other numbers, as it seems that our brains can remember things better in that manner. Steve Jobs often used the Rule of 3 in many of his presentations. For instance, when he introduced the iPhone in 2007, he talked about 3 revolutionary products that changed everything - A) Macintosh (which changed the entire computer industry), B) iPod (which changed the music industry) and finally C) iPhone, which would change the mobile phone industry.

When he unveiled the iPhone, it was about 3 distinct products rolled into one - A) Widescreen iPod with touch controls, B) a Revolutionary mobile phone, and C) a Breakthrough Internet communicator.

Similarly, when he gave the commencement speech for Stanford University in 2005, it was about sharing his 3 personal stories — A) connecting the dots, B) love and loss, and C) death.

https://youtu.be/D1R-jKKp3NA

His successor, Tim Cook did exactly the same when he introduced the Apple Vision Pro, as the third innovation of computing - C) Spatial Computing, after the other 2 types of computing - A) Personal and B) Mobile Computing.

https://youtu.be/5SHMDMJPuwM

I find the Rule of 3 to be very simple and yet effective. I no longer present my points in any other numbers, but just 3 of my most compelling points (choosing quality over quantity). It becomes very easy to remember the 3 points for my presentations - it's always this point, then that point and finally my last point.

Fake it until you make it

When I first heard about this principle - "Fake it until you make it", I would be honest to admit that I didn't quite like it, as I believe that any presenters should not fake or pretend to know things that they do not know. But I was wrong - nothing could be further from the truth.
Instead, this principle is about having the confidence to carry out the presentation with conviction and move the audience, and that is only possible after many rounds of practice. Granted, there would still be some nervousness when we do the presentation, but when we remember this principle well, we can trick our brain and influence our body language, and tone to give a sense of credibility and authority. And it simply works like magic!

Storytelling

Remember the times we loved listening to the bedtime stories by parents and we can still remember the entire storylines after so many years that we can repeat them for our children? We may not use the exact words or sentences each time we tell the story but we never miss a single plot. This is the power of storytelling.
When we do presentations, storytelling is a technique we can use as it captures the audience's attention, creates an emotional connection and communicates information in a memorable and impactful way. And with storytelling, we never stumble with words or forget our lines, exactly the same manner we tell the same bedtime stories to our children without using the exact words each time.

This is something I can resonate with it when I explained the 6R Cloud Strategies to clients. I find it useful to use the analogy of the evolution of retail stores to explain the impact of each strategy, as I can easily remember each point of the 6R Cloud strategies without memorising them, and at the same time make my content more engaging and relatable.

I learned a lot from Daniel and am excited to apply the new knowledge in my professional life. After the course, I rewatched all of Steve Jobs's presentations and begin to see things I did not notice earlier, no matter how many times I had watched them before. I probably only saw the trees instead of the forest in those presentations previously, and thanks to Daniel, I managed to see the forest now.

Daniel gave me much insightful feedback on my second presentation, so I went back to the office during the weekend to redo the presentation a few more times. As I watched my own recording, it was way much better after I incorporated his suggestions.

What I shared in this article is just the tip of the iceberg and there are many other techniques that Daniel taught during his course. This includes knowing your personality mix - DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness) and that of your audience so that you can tailor the delivery of your presentation to make a stronger impact. It is quite impossible for me to cover all the wonderful things he taught in this article, and I think I should not reveal all of his secret sauce as well. You should attend Daniel's course to find out all the techniques.

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

My Re-certification Journey for AWS Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02)

cheesiong — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 12:57:16 +0000

3 years have passed in the blink of an eye, and it is time to re-certify my AWS Solutions Architect Professional (SA Pro).

AWS SA Pro is a very tough nut to crack. There is no doubt that it is the most difficult one among all the 12 AWS certifications I have achieved. If fact I would rate it to be tougher than the Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Solutions Architect certification at the same Professional or Expert level.

SAP-C01 vs SAP-C02

The AWS SA Pro exam I passed 3 years ago was SAP-C01, and the version I took for re-certification is the new one — SAP-C02. A few factors contributed to the difficulty of SAP-C01:

SAP-C01 tests the candidates on both the breadth and depth of the AWS services. There are a lot of AWS services covered and each of them is tested at a depth not seen for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate level.
Many questions are extremely long and you need to keep scrolling beyond the screen to read the entire questions and options given. It is difficult to digest these questions quickly and select your answer. At the end of the day, you will find yourself a lack of time to complete the 75* questions within 180 mins. (* Note: only 65 questions are scored to determine if you have the minimum 750 passing score).
There are some difficult networking and security questions that one would normally see in the Advanced Networking and Security Specialty certifications. Hence I previously suggested that one should pass both the AWS Advanced Networking and Security Specialty certifications before attempting the AWS Solutions Architect Professional exam.

3 years ago, I have less than 3–5 mins for the last 3–4 questions. In the end, I had to randomly pick the answers for those questions and press the submit button. Unlike the many certifications that I had taken before, I did not know whether I could pass SAP-C01 or not. Fortunately, I passed after patiently for the results to be released to me over the next few days.

Forward 3 years later — SAP-C02 is much easier than SAP-C01 for the following reasons:

Questions are much shorter. Not a single question requires you to scroll the screen beyond what is initially displayed. Each of the 75 questions can be shown within 50–75% of the monitor screen.
Networking and Security questions are easier than before. In SAP-C01, for networking questions, you could have questions with the exact route tables and other networking configurations given. It is no longer the case for SAP-C02.

For SAP-C02, it is more like picking the right networking services out of all the available options, whereas for the previous SAP-C01, there are at least 2–3 similar networking services, and you need to pick the right one with the correct route tables or configurations.

As a result, I was able to complete the 75 questions with about an hour to spare. I used that hour to carefully review flagged questions and revisit some other questions to ensure that I do not misread the questions.

When I pressed the submit button this time, I was confident that I would pass, which was unlike 3 years ago.

Resources used

Here are the 3 key resources I used to prepare for my re-certification

AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Professional Certification Service Summary Cards by Ashish Prajapati.
Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional 2023 by Stephane Maarek.
Some hands-on using the AWS console and also completed some labs at AWS SkillsBuilder.

Conclusion

This newer version (SAP-C02) is way easier than the previous one (SAP-C01) I took 3 years ago. For SAP-C02, questions are much shorter and less complex and it does not include those types of difficult networking and security questions that one would normally see in Advanced Networking and Security Specialty certifications.

In a nutshell, it is 30% easier than the previous version.

That said, I do not mean that it is an easy exam that one can pass easily. A skinny lion is still a lion, nevertheless.

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

How to win the Snakes & Ladders Game for your AWS Learning Journey

cheesiong — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 02:23:38 +0000

Sometimes, I feel that our AWS learning journey is like playing a game of Snakes and Ladders.

The Snakes and Ladders is a classic board game that is played by two or more players. The game is played on a square board divided into a grid of squares with a series of "ladders" and "snakes" drawn on it.

Each player starts at the bottom square of the board and takes turns rolling a dice to move their game piece forward a certain number of squares. If a player lands on a square with a ladder, he can move his game piece up to the top of the ladder. If he lands on a square with a snake, he must move his game piece down to the end of the snake's tail. The first player to reach the top square of the board wins the game.

These constant back-and-forth movements were exactly what many of us were facing when we first started to learn about AWS services many years ago.

We might enjoy some quick wins in the beginning period (like moving up to the top of the ladder with some beginner's luck), and then found ourselves struggling to understand the subtle differences among different AWS services, resulting in making the wrong choices for our architecture designs - as if we landed on a square with snake resulting in taking a few steps backward.

How best it would be - if we can have some "Snake Experts" to help us removing the snakes, and at the same time, we can have as many ladders as we want? Sure win, right?

Enter the AWS Community Builders Program.

AWS Community Builders Program

The AWS Community Builders program is an Amazon Web Services initiative designed to support and recognize individuals actively contributing to the AWS community. It offers members mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to AWS resources, including early information on services. Participants, typically developers and IT professionals, share their AWS expertise through blogs, social media, and events. The program provides AWS credits and fosters a collaborative environment for skill growth and community engagement.

Here come the Ladders

So, besides the chance to know many "Snake Experts", there are many "Ladders" for you too.

Networking Opportunities: The program connects members with a global network of like-minded professionals, enhancing knowledge exchange and professional connections.
Learning Resources: Access to exclusive webinars, training sessions, and educational materials to stay updated with the latest AWS technologies and best practices.
AWS Promotional Credits: Members are typically awarded AWS credits ($500), which can be used to explore and build on the AWS platform without incurring costs.
Professional Development: Achieving an AWS certification demonstrates expertise and commitment to mastering AWS technologies, enhancing a professional's marketability and career prospects. You'll be provided with 1 free voucher for AWS Certification, and a 12-month free access to the Cloud Academy.
Recognition and Visibility: Being part of the program raises a member's profile in the AWS community, which can lead to increased visibility and career opportunities.

and many more benefits such as 50% off AWS re:Invent Tickets, free AWS Swags and so on.

So what are you waiting for?

Application to become an AWS Community Builder is open until 28th Jan 2024. Apply now.

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

Future of DevOps is FinOps

cheesiong — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 01:15:00 +0000

DevOps has significantly changed the way companies approach developing and deploying applications. DevOps is a philosophy that combines Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) to provide a collaborative and simpler approach to delivering software. This is very different from the traditional Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), also known as the “Waterfall” model, where development and operations are usually two different teams.

Technologies such as Cloud, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), Containers, etc provide great flexibility and agility to the Development teams. The Developers can now easily provision infrastructure rapidly at scale using scripts or automation tools and this can result in unnecessary cloud spending. This leads to the emergence of FinOps, which offers a new perspective on optimising software delivery in terms of cost-efficiency and financial transparency.

In this article, I will talk about the future path of DevOps and the critical role that FinOps will play in that trajectory.

Why DevOps

In the past, the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) was largely following the “Waterfall” model. In such SDLC, each phase would take a few weeks (or even months) to complete before the next phase could effectively be commenced. Some Project Managers might have “optimised” the project schedule, by compressing the timeline with overlapping of the phases, but by and large, the phases were stacked like a waterfall.

The limitations of Waterfall SDLC are three-fold:

Firstly, the implementation timeline is typically long by today’s standards — a few months and if there are some changes in the requirements, you could not effectively handle that unless you roll back to the prior phases.

Secondly, because it would take a few months, sometimes as long as 9–12 months, before the end users could actually see the actual system, the failure rates are high as the systems are deemed to be very different from the expected outcomes.

Thirdly, the Development and Operations teams are usually two separate teams. The Development team may not have enough motivation to ensure the systems they developed to have as few bugs as possible or are easy to maintain when they are not the ones maintaining the systems post-production. The Operations team see these systems as entirely black-box and does not have as much knowledge about them as the Development team.

This gives rise to DevOps, which is a philosophy that combines Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) to provide a collaborative and simpler approach to delivering software. Together with the Agile software development approach, DevOp resolves the “Waterfall” SDLC problems by promoting cooperation among the cross-functional teams, and their work is supported with automation, and Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD).

This enables companies to expedite software delivery and encourage innovation where incremental software value is generated in each Sprint cycle, which typically lasts 2–3 weeks, by pushing teams to explore, fail rapidly, and iterate quickly.

Hence, it is not difficult to imagine that teams practising DevOps are building software with improved quality control, less downtime, and at a pace not possible with the “Waterfall” model. This naturally resulted in increased customer satisfaction.

FinOps = Finance + DevOps

DevOps resolves many of the issues from a traditional “Waterfall” approach for software development and delivery. However, the power of DevOps creates some problems that could be better resolved by FinOps.

As companies scale their DevOps practices, they often struggle with the financial implications of increased infrastructure usage. Developers can easily spin off cloud resources using IaC, but such cloud spending may not be properly optimised. In many situations, cloud spending could be reduced by a significant percentage while fully meeting the same business and technical requirements, with a better solution design.

Similarly, there is little visibility in cost allocation and cloud spending. Current DevOps practices promote tagging and labelling as best practices, but this may provide little help in some situations where granular cost allocations are needed. For instance, Sprint cycles in Agile delivery allow products to be developed and launched at a fast pace, but it is difficult to know and tie back each product feature launched to the actual cloud spending.

Product owners do not know whether it makes business sense to release such product features, and even if they do, whether these features provide an optimum Return-on-Investment (ROI). Would it cost more than $100 to implement a product feature that gives the business value of just $1?

Why FinOps

FinOps is the natural next step in the DevOps journey as companies want to strike a balance between innovation, speed, and cost efficiency. FinOps incorporate financial management practices into DevOps processes, and more importantly allows the Finance, Operations and Engineering teams to work together hand-in-hand to manage and optimise cloud spending.

The key point to note is “optimise cloud spending”, and not “reduce cloud spending”. For instance, when your business is growing at scale, naturally your cloud spending will be increased significantly, and that is not an issue, but a happy problem. What matters more is whether such an increase in cloud spending helps the business reach its goals.

Moreover, a culture of accountability is promoted when everyone involved in the SDLC is aware of the financial implications of their choices. This would encourage various IT, finance, and business stakeholders to work together and assume shared responsibility for cost optimisation.

Conclusion

The path towards FinOps is inevitable as more companies embrace DevOps. DevOps changes the way we deliver software and similarly, FinOps would change the way we approach DevOps. The future lies in integrating financial considerations seamlessly into DevOps so that each dollar invested is optimised for the best ROI.

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

How I refactor my 3-tier application to Serverless Architecture - Part 2

cheesiong — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 13:16:29 +0000

In Part 1, I shared my journey as a Social Entrepreneur and how I refactored my 3-tier architecture design for SociallyClick from monolithic to a more loosely coupled design using AWS Lambda. That said, there were a couple of issues that made the architecture less than ideal.

In this Part 2, I will talk about the Serverless Architecture, and share why it is a better architecture than any of my previous designs.

Cons of Monolithic Architecture

One of the earliest designs of SociallyClick was a 3-tier architecture using EC2. Although 3-tier design separates the presentation, application and data logic so that they can be developed and maintained separately without impacting the other tiers, there are a couple of issues, such as:

Monolithic - It is a single unified application, and you cannot scale individual components easily. For instance, within the application tier, even if it is just one component that needs to be scaled to handle the load, the entire application is scaled as well. This is wasteful and not lightweight, when I need to spin off another EC2 instance(s) to handle the spike in some components and not the entire application.

Affects Entire Application - Since it is monolithic, if there is error in one component that leads to a crashing, it would bring down the entire application as well.
Less Flexible - I was constrained by the same technology stack for the 3-tier architecture. For example, I need to use the same programming language for the application logic for the entire application, even there are better options for certain parts of the application.
Tightly Coupled - Changes in one module could impact the other modules or the rest of application drastically.
Single Deployment - A change in one of the components would usually result in the deployment of the entire application. But why do I need to deploy those codes that I did not modify?

Cons of my Lambda-based Architecture

Likewise, there were also a couple of issues for my architecture based on Lambda, such as:

Chaining of Lambda - My design chained a number of Lambda functions together as I need to orchestrate the workflow. This is an anti-pattern for Lambda. This can be resolved using AWS Step Functions, which was launched in Dec 2016 (about 2 years after I was no longer with SociallyClick Pte Ltd).
Lack of Asynchronous flow - I did not design for a more scalable architecture. Some functions can be made asynchronous so that they do not block further execution while one or more functions are in progress.

How the new Serverless Architecture be looked like for SociallyClick

For the new architecture, I would use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate the workflow, instead of chaining the Lambda functions.

AWS Step Functions is an AWS service that allows you to coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. It uses a visual workflow editor to build and execute state machines, which are made up of a series of steps that can include tasks, conditions, and error handling. With Step Functions, you can create workflows that are easy to understand, debug, and update, making it a useful tool for building and deploying complex, multi-step applications and microservices on AWS.

Blue Ocean Strategy

If we evaluate the key attributes for successful application development, you will find that Serverless Architecture hits a sweet spot for the Blue Ocean Strategy. It eliminates or reduces the undifferentiated heavy lifting parts such as capacity planning of the servers, and the management of them, and elevate it with greater flexibility, able to scale massively and on a pay-as-you-use model.

In summary, Serverless Architecture allows you to create and run applications without the need to manage the underlying infrastructure. This enables you to develop applications with greater speed and efficiency, as well as lower costs (e.g., no more idling EC2 instances). By eliminating the need to maintain infrastructure, developers can focus their time and resources towards creating high-quality, scalable, and reliable products.

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

Curated Resources for learning AWS Serverless Computing

cheesiong — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 15:12:37 +0000

Serverless Architecture allows you to create and run applications without the need to manage the underlying infrastructure. This enables you to develop applications with greater speed and efficiency, as well as lower costs. By eliminating the need to maintain infrastructure, developers can focus more on creating scalable, reliable products rather than spending time and energy on infrastructure management.

Serverless vs Traditional Approach

There are a number of key benefits for adopting serverless approach.

It can be more cost-effective than traditional approaches. Because you only pay for the specific amount of compute time you use, rather than for a fixed amount of server capacity, you can save money if your application does not have a consistent workload. Additionally, because you do not have to worry about maintaining servers, you can save on the cost of system administration.
It is easier to build and deploy applications. With traditional approaches, developers often have to spend a lot of time setting up and configuring servers, but with hashtag#serverlesscomputing, they can focus on writing code and can deploy their applications more quickly.
Serverless computing can be more scalable than traditional approaches as you can automatically scale your application up or down based on demand. You can handle sudden increases in traffic without having to manually add more capacity. This can be particularly beneficial for applications that have unpredictable workloads or that experience sudden spikes in traffic.

Here are some resources that I found useful when I started learning about serverless computing.

Articles on Serverless Architecture

Courses at Coursera

Last but not least, AWS has many useful resources, including blog posts and videos, to help you learn about serverless computing. AWS also provides a Serverless Learning Plan that allows you to earn a digital badge upon completing an assessment with a score of at least 80%.

I hope you find the resources helpful. If you have any recommendations, feel free to share them in the comments. I will review them and update the list, giving you credit for your suggestion.

Thank you!

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

How I refactor my 3-tier application to Serverless Architecture - Part 1

cheesiong — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 05:54:05 +0000

I was a Social Entrepreneur in 2013 after I started a social enterprise known as SociallyClick Pte Ltd (UEN: 20145992E as at https://www.bizfile.gov.sg/) to provide one-stop e-commerce solution to other social enterprises. It was one of the 4-5 companies that I have setup between 2010 to 2014.

My vision for SociallyClick was "To nurture shopping for a good cause. One social enterprise, one shopper, and one click at a time”, hence the name "SociallyClick".

SociallyClick was a social business founded on the basis of providing a one-stop e-Commerce platform such that various charity organisations and social enterprises could simply leverage it instead of reinventing the wheel themselves. In a nutshell, it was like the "Shopify for social enterprises". The key motivation was to reduce the duplication of work among these organisations and hence save significant IT and manpower costs so that these organisations could focus on their key competencies or businesses to fulfil their social obligations in a greater manner.

3-tier Architecture

I first started work in the 1990's and many of the systems I implemented for my professional career were typically using 3-tier architecture design. 3-tier architecture basically separates the presentation, application and data logic so that they can be developed and maintained separately without impacting the other tiers. For instance, you can update the look and feel of the website without necessarily changing the business logic or data access modules.

The first release of SociallyClick was implemented in 2013 using PHP, and subsequently, I refactored the 3-tier architecture design using AWS services such as EC2, and RDS. Multiple Availability Zones were used to protect the platform from the failure of a single location.

The solution was refactored a few times when newer AWS services were launched. Web servers were also moved to the private subnet for better security.

AWS Lambda, Lambda and Lambda

While my solution was running in AWS, and it could scale when there was a sudden spike in web traffic, the 3-tier architecture design was less than ideal. It was a monolithic application. Period. Moreover, the application would still be incurring costs for the idling EC2 instances doing nothing productive at all.

So, when AWS Lambda was launched in 2014, I refactored the architecture once again. This refactoring allowed me to adopt a microservice architecture where I could achieve a lesser coupled design than the 3-tier architecture. I could also have some cost-savings as well since I would not have any idling EC2 instances anymore.

I would be honest to admit that at that time I was new and learning Lambda, Microservices, and Event-driven architecture, hence I was probably not doing a great job for the refactoring. Granted, the architecture was based on Lambda, but I ended up creating a spider web cob of Lambda functions and chaining many of them together.

Yucks, this was ugly. And I think I did not understand Event-driven architecture enough then to incorporate AWS services as such Amazon SQS in my architecture design.

Serverless Architecture

I was no longer running SociallyClick by early 2015, when a few months ago, I became the IT Assistant Director for a small and mid-size enterprise (SME) specialising in providing hardware and software solutions to some Travel Agencies in Singapore. Fair enough, I was not allowed to hold another Director position in another company as there could be a conflict of interests.

But I always love to reflect on my past projects to see how I can correct the past mistakes, learn from them and improve and simplify the solutions. Certain implementations may not be possible previously due to technical limitations but are no longer the issues today.

SociallyClick is always on my mind all these years. If I were managing it now, I would adopt the Serverless Architecture using AWS Step Functions, Amazon EventBridge etc., to name a few. This would overcome some of the limitations in my Lambda-based architecture for SociallyClick. I shall share the design and rationale behind it in Part 2.

Stay tuned!

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.

My tips for passing the AWS Certified: SAP on AWS - Specialty certification

cheesiong — Sun, 07 Jan 2024 13:31:32 +0000

Last year, I published an article to share my view of how to achieve the 12 AWS certifications efficiently. At that time, I was planning to take the AWS Certified: SAP on AWS exam on the last day of March 2023, and that means a good 6 months of preparation.

By mid-February, I had a hunch that I was ready for the exam, so I decided to bring forward the exam date by a month. I am glad that I passed this exam on 22 February 2023 and shall share my experience on this certification here.

Scope of the Exam

From the official exam guide, we can see that a majority of the questions is on how to design and migrate the SAP workloads to AWS. The least weightage is on how to operate and maintain these workloads.

What does this mean to you? It means in order for you to clear this exam confidently, besides the core SAP knowledge, you must be very similar with the following key areas:

Networking
Compute
Storage
Security

Besides working experiences over the years on AWS, it still certainly helped me a lot that I have passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Advanced Networking - Specialty and Security - Specialty certifications before I took this SAP on AWS - Specialty exam.

Many questions tested my knowledge and understanding of these non-SAP areas - Networking, Compute, Storage and Security. I do have some limited SAP knowledge on SAP Hana, but I would be honest to admit that these SAP experiences are not as extensive as those from my other AWS and GCP implementation projects.

Essentials areas for strong understanding

You need to be very familiar with things such as how best to design and implement networking to support all kinds of SAP workloads for the Hybrid Cloud, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the least amount of downtime and other important factors.

You need to know in-depth of each different network topology using Transit Gateway, Site to Site VPN, Direct Connect etc., and why one is used over the other and how it affects the security design and implementation.

You must also know the differences of Homogeneous vs Heterogeneous migration for SAP workloads, the set of tools required for each type and why one tool is chosen over the other, even for the same type of migration.

All these are very important as each question is scenario-based and there could be more than one valid answer among the 4 to 5 given options. You need to fully understand the context of the question for you to choose the right answer.

If you know the 4 key areas well (Networking, Compute, Storage & Security), then the correct answer should appear naturally right in front of you. Otherwise, you may have a hard time in deciding which one, as all the given options can look very similar, or all seem to be a plausible answer.

How about SAP topics

Yes, you still need to be familiar with SAP Hana, SAP NetWeaver, SAP S/4HANA, SAP BW/4HANA and SAP Fiori, though not to the extent of extensive knowledge required for Networking and Security. An intermediate level (Level 200) of understanding on these SAP topics should be sufficient. Instead, you need more of the Level 300 (Advanced) or perhaps up to Level 400 (Expert) knowledge for Networking, Compute, Storage and Security.

You should also read the SAP Note 1656099 and SAP Note 1656250 before you sit for the exam. You will find them very useful for answering some of the questions.

Resources for my preparation

I mainly used the white papers recommended by AWS (reproduced here for your easy reference):

I found the following resources to be very useful when I was searching for documentations and user guides to improve my #SAP knowledge. I read each of them at least twice.

I am forever grateful to Christopher Hong for recommending the below resources to me a few days before my actual exam. I only have the time to complete the #Udemy course, but the other resource (practice exam) looks very promising as well.

https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-sap-on-aws-specialty/ - This is a very direct and straightforward course from Udemy. I like the way Riyaz Sayyad conducted the lesson - very concise and informative. It certainly helped me a lot in improving my SAP knowledge over a short period of time.
https://www.whizlabs.com/sap-on-aws-certification-exam-training/ - I only have the time to do the free test of 15 questions from Whizlabs (There are 2 full tests of 65 questions each at very reasonable price). When I first attempted the free test, I found the questions to be pretty decent, with clear explanation on why the other options are wrong. After my exam, I would attest that these questions are quite similar in terms of the length and level of difficulty as compared to the actual exam.

How does SAP on AWS - Specialty stack up against the other Specialty exams

I would say while it is not an easy exam like Solutions Architect - Associate, it is definitely not as difficult as the Advanced Networking and Security Specialty exams. I would rank each Specialty certification as follows:

AWS Specialty Certifications (in descending order of difficulty)

Advanced Networking (most difficult)
Security
SAP on AWS
Database and Machine Learning (both are comparable)
Data Analytics

Do note that individual career and experience vary. What I deemed as challenging, for instance, networking and security, could be considered very easy by others, and vice versa.

In my previous article, I suggested an order of taking each AWS certification, and I think the order still remains unchanged. You can swop the order of Solutions Architect - Professional with SAP on AWS - Specialty though, as it should not matter much. Not at all.

Finally for the golden jacket
Finally, I am in the position of getting the AWS golden jacket! That is after answering 800 questions, over a total of 32 hours.

This pretty sums up my AWS Certified SAP on AWS certification journey. I hope this article is useful for your journey as well.

Good luck and be #AWSome!

About the Author

Chan Chee Siong is an AWS Community Builder with many years of IT professional experience. He can be connected at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancheesiong.