Top 10 Reasons to Learn AWS

The demand curve for Cloud Computing services continues to flourish and is a critical element in business. According to IDC, spending on public cloud services and infrastructure across the world will increase by 23.8-percent from 2018, reaching a total spend of $210-billion in 2019. The forecasted five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2017 to 2022 is projected to be 22.5-percent to reach $370 billion.

Figure 1: AWS leads in the cloud computing space

In terms of total Cloud Computing service and infrastructure market share, Amazon Web Services (AWS) currently leads and continues to grow. Notable companies committed to using AWS include:

• Lyft spent, $300 million between 2019 and 2021
• Pinterest will spend around, $750 million between 2019 and 2023 and
• Apple spends over, $360 million per year for iCloud and other services

With such names using this dominating platform, let’s first take a closer look at what is AWS and what it has to offer.

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What Services Does AWS Offer?

AWS avails its services to businesses through dozens of data centers in Availability Zones (AZs) that are spread in different regions across the world. Each area has multiple AZs, which in turn have several physical data centers. The regions and AZs are all connected by low-latency network links that create a pool of highly reliable infrastructure resources that are resistant to failures of entire data centers or individual servers.

Some of the services in the AWS portfolio by category include:

• Storage

  Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon S3 Glacier, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), AWS Snowball and Snowmobile, and AWS Storage Gateway.

• Compute 

  Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Lightsail, AWS Lambda, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

• Networking

  Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), AWS Route 53, Cloudfront, API Gateway,  and AWS Direct Connect.

• Mobile Development 

  AWS Mobile Hub, AWS Device Farm, AWS Amplify, AWS AppSync, and Amazon Pinpoint.

• Messages and Notifications 

  Amazon Simple Queue Service, Amazon Simple Email Service, and Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).

• Databases 

  Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), which includes options for SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Amazon Aurora.

• Migration
  

  AWS Migration Hub which contains several tools to help users migrate data, databases, applications, and servers.

• Management and Governance
  

  AWS Config, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS CloudFormation, AWS OpsWorks, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Personal Health Dashboard.

• Development Tools and Application Services

  AWS Command Line Interface, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon Elastic Transcoder, AWS Step Functions, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeStar AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, Amazon Athena for S3, and Amazon QuickSight.

• Big Data Management and Analytics

  Amazon Elastic MapReduce, Amazon Kinesis, and Amazon Elasticsearch Service

• Artificial Intelligence 

  Amazon AI, AWS Deep Learning AMIs, Amazon Polly, Amazon Rekognition, and Alexa Voice Services.

• Security and Governance

  AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS Directory Service, AWS Organizations, and Amazon Inspector.

• Other Services 

  Amazon Chime service, Amazon WorkDocs, Amazon AppStream, AWS IoT service, AWS Greengrass, etc.

Figure 2: Growth of AWS services from 2014 to 2019

Top 10 Benefits of Learning AWS

If you want to learn AWS, there is no better time to do so than right now. There are plenty of opportunities for employment or to start your own business if you have AWS certification.

Of course, you don’t have to get a certification. That said, certifications will put you way ahead of your competition and fast track your goals of gaining an advantage in career or business.

For example, AWS certification for managers will come in handy in helping you gain knowledge and understanding of AWS, manage people who work with AWS resources and ultimately help you to get a promotion and a higher salary.

For most people, taking a course in AWS for beginners will help you to decide whether AWS is for you or not and which path is right for you. For your consideration, here are ten reasons why learning AWS and getting a certification will benefit not only newcomers and cloud professionals but also those who want to build a career or improve their business.

1. Increased Enterprise Cloud Migration to AWS

SMBs to enterprise organizations across industry verticals are rapidly migrating to the cloud. According to Cisco, the global data center IP traffic will reach 20.6 Zettabytes (ZB) (1.7 ZB per month) by the end of 2021. Also, the worldwide public cloud services market growth rate is expected to reach 17.5 percent.

Additionally, organizations that are migrating their applications and services to the cloud face several roadblocks and challenges, which implies that they need professional, customized services. As such, there is an increasing demand for cloud professionals who can help these organizations ease their transition from traditional IT infrastructure to the cloud. In-depth knowledge in cloud platforms, and especially AWS is a valued asset for professionals and organizations.

2. Expertise in Cloud Computing Is Inevitable for IT Professionals

The emergence of cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are driving a push towards the cloud. In fact, according to Forbes;    

• Half of IT professionals believe that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning play a massive role in the adoption of Cloud Computing
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will be a leading driver for greater Cloud Computing adoption by 2020

Figure 3: Drivers of public cloud engagement

Therefore, gaining expertise in Cloud Computing, and specifically in AWS services, which is the leading Cloud Computing services provider, is becoming a necessity for IT professionals today and for the foreseeable future.

3. AWS Is the Fastest Growing Public Cloud Service

AWS was the first to market its public cloud services offer and has had a seven-year head-start over competitors like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. A year after AWS was launched in 2006, there were already a hundred and eighty thousand developers on the platform. Since then the AWS team hasn’t looked back. In the third quarter of 2017, AWS expanded its market share to 42-percent and reached 49-percent by the first quarter of 2018. By 2020 AWS is expected to increase its market share to 52-percent.

Figure 4: AWS has the most market share

The predicted growth of AWS is enough reason to start learning AWS and prepare for current and future opportunities.

4. AWS Is the Most Widely Used Platform in Cloud Adoption

According to a study, AWS holds just about a third of the infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market which is about as much as the next two providers (Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform) combined. Currently, the total IaaS market share is less than half the size of the software as a Service (SaaS) market, which shows that there is still considerable potential for growth in the IaaS market. If the current trends hold, and they are most likely to do so, we are likely to witness tremendous growth in AWS in the coming years. As such, learning AWS is a safe career choice for IT professionals and a safe bet for those that want to grow their skills or businesses on the platform.

5. Free-tier Access and Affordable Pricing

Novices, trainees, and apprentices, including anyone who wants to gain hands-on experience with AWS, can create a free-tier AWS account. The free-tier account level provides access to some free services that will never expire. There are other accounts available that are free for a year along with some premium services available for a free trial. Some of the included services are EC2, S3, Elastic load balancing, and Amazon RDS. Although some of these services have some usage limits, they are more than enough to learn and get acquainted with what will be on offer with the flexible pay-as-you-use service.

6. AWS Skills Demand Is Outstripping Supply

In the US, it is difficult for employers to find professionals with Cloud Computing skills. Furthermore, according to Indeed, about 60-percent of Cloud Computing job postings require skills related to AWS.

Figure 5: It is challenging to find professionals with cloud computing skills

Additionally, Indeed also reports that there are six to twelve times more job postings than there are job seekers. These numbers show that Cloud Computing skills, precisely AWS skills, are in high demand and will continue to be for a long time to come. For IT professionals, learning AWS is a reliable way to advance their career and companies are ready to pay top-dollar for specialists in the increasingly ubiquitous AWS platform.

7. The Abundance of AWS Learning Resources

The AWS certification has been available since 2013. There are plenty of resources, including books, courses, forums, manuals, and AWS practice exams for anyone who wants to learn AWS. Also, there are several AWS communities, both online and offline, to help those seeking a career in AWS, before and after certification.

What all this means is that attaining AWS certification is an achievable goal. The best way to learn is through an AWS course that offers a mix of theory and hands-on experience. Learning can also be extended beyond a specific course through the massive amount of resources that make success in any AWS certification a real possibility.

8. Certification Validates Expertise and Credibility

Credibility and trust are huge factors when it comes to proving your expertise to potential employers and clients. These factors help AWS professionals build and maintain relationships. One of the easiest ways to establish expertise and credibility is to produce a certificate that demonstrates that you have the skills in a specific area. AWS certifications tell employers and clients that a professional has gone through rigorous training, and they are capable of successfully implementing what is required.

Additionally, organizations with several employees with AWS certifications gain access to The AWS Partner Network. It enables organizations to gain additional training and resources (technical, business, sales, and marketing) that will better serve their customers using AWS services. The more certifications an organization has, the higher the benefits they can access through the tiered AWS Partner Network.

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9. AWS Skills Are Well Compensated

AWS certifications rank high in the list of the top-paying IT certifications. In fact, according to Indeed.com, several AWS skills will guarantee a six-figure salary.

AWS Skill	Salary
DynamoDB	$141,813
Elastic MapReduce (EMR)	$136,250
CloudFormation	$132,308
Elastic Cache	$125,625
CloudWatch	$121,980
Lambda	$121,481
Kinesis	$121,429
Key Management Service	$117,297
Elastic Beanstalk	$114,219
Redshift	$113,950

10. Several Specialty Learning Paths

When you start learning AWS, you can choose a path based on:

• Roles: Cloud Practitioner, Architect, Operations, Developer or
• Solutions: Machine Learning, Storage, AWS media services

Eventually, AWS experts can choose to focus on one of three specialty areas, including Advanced Networking, Big Data, or Security. With these learning paths, professionals can grow and validate advanced skills in specific technical areas of their choice. Some of the job titles available after learning AWS include:

•     AWS Cloud Architect
•     SysOps Administrator
•     Cloud Developer
•     Cloud Sales and Purchase Manager
•     Cloud DevOps Engineer
•     Key Account Manager, Cloud
•     Cloud Software Engineer
•     AWS Networking Specialist
•     AWS Big Data Specialist

Conclusion

Is learning AWS the right path for you? That depends on what career you wish to pursue. Once you decide to go with the cloud, then the best way to get on the right track and boost your employability is by acquiring AWS skills and certifications. There are lots of resources available for both beginners and professionals who want to know how to learn AWS. That said, the most natural path is to enroll for an AWS Solutions Architect Certification Course that offers a combination of theory and practical training.