New AWS Cloud Technology Consultant Professional Certificate now available on Coursera

Companies are looking to understand and leverage the benefits of cloud computing and they need professionals with the talent, knowledge, and skills to power this transformation. Cloud Consultants play a vital role in helping companies realize the many advantages of the cloud, advising about the design, development and infrastructure of all cloud applications. The demand for entry-level Cloud Consultants is on the rise globally and it’s regarded as one of the emerging early cloud careers. Cloud Development & Management (a key part of the Cloud Consultant role) is the fastest-growing major skill cluster at a CAGR of 68% since 2019. (Draup Research).

Cloud Consultants help guide, shape, influence, and inform a company’s cloud strategy and execution plans. They work collaboratively with company decision makers on all areas of cloud computing, leading discussions, troubleshooting, and providing the operational, strategic, and technical direction they need.

Available now on Coursera, the AWS Cloud Consultant Professional Certificate is a holistic, nine-course program that will take an aspiring professional with little or no technical knowledge and provide them with the skills, knowledge, and context to understand the what, why, and how to become a successful AWS Cloud Consultant. You’ll learn from AWS experts as they teach you the skills to understand business goals and drivers, translate those into an appropriate AWS technical solutions and provide technical direction and oversight to cloud implementation teams. You’ll learn what a Cloud Consultant does, how they work, and what tools they rely on to be successful in their job.

Read on to learn about each of the nine courses and get started today to gain the skills you need to start your career as a Cloud Consultant.

Course one

The first course in the certificate series is Introduction to Information Technology and AWS Cloud and gives learners with zero technical knowledge enough context to begin to understand how to build solutions in the cloud. It’s a gentle introduction to the IT industry and acts as a primer to give you enough background to launch into the next course, which focuses on building solutions on AWS.

Course two

AWS Cloud Technical Essentials is next and introduces you to essential AWS services and common solutions. The course highlights the fundamental AWS concepts related to compute, database, storage, networking, monitoring, and security. Throughout the course, students will start building highly-available, scalable, and cost effective applications step-by-step. Upon course completion, you’ll be able to make an informed decision about when and how to match the ideal AWS service for compute, storage, and database to an unique use case.

Course three

Providing Technical Support for AWS Workloads focused on the types of AWS services available and their capabilities. You’ll deepen your understanding with the AWS Cloud infrastructure, and focus on expanding your knowledge to include support methods and mitigation techniques. The course begins with a review of AWS infrastructure, including foundational compute, networking, storage, and database AWS services.

Course four

The certificate’s fourth course is Developing Applications in Python on AWS and is a good transition point from concepts, theory, and use cases to hands-on builds and exercises. In this three-week course, you get a high-level introduction to the Python programming language. You’ll start building at the end of the course’s first week by writing a python script to solve a problem.

Course five

Skills for Working as an AWS Cloud Consultant examines the essential soft skills you need as a Cloud Consultant–it takes more than technical knowledge. You’ll explore the basic functions of the role and learn about critical and analytical thinking skills which are important in your day-to-day responsibilities. Deeper in the course, you’ll take on the role of a Cloud Consultant who is working with a customer, walking through a typical project: migrating a workload from an on-premises data center to AWS. The course closes with a focus on the importance of business relationships and tips to building and evolving your business and technical skills. If you want to know what it’s like to be a Cloud Consultant, this course is a must.

Course six

DevOps on AWS and Project Management centers on two Cloud Consultant must-haves: DevOps and Project Management. This course begins with a basic description and definition of a ‘project’ and introduces the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). You’ll then learn about two different project management methodologies: waterfall and agile and discover which one is best depending on the situation. Agile synced with DevOps is powerful when quickly building, testing and deploying your software. With project management covered, the course will then shift into a deep dive into DevOps. You’ll learn key DevOps concepts, including learning how to properly store your code and collaborate with teammates to make changes. Lastly, you’ll get up close with the remaining portions of the CI/CD pipeline by exploring the testing and deployment stages and complete a hands-on exercise.

Course seven

Automation in the AWS Cloud is next. AWS’ Russell Sayers and Rafael Lopes start the course by defining automation, before covering some of the basic components that you can use for automation in the cloud. You also learn more about APIs and the basics of using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). There’s even a hands-on lab focused on using the AWS CLI for Automation so you can gain practical experience with scripting tasks. Then it’s time to focus your learning on a relevant industry topic: automating things by using code, which is also known as infrastructure as code (IaC). Understanding IaC is crucial for operationalizing automation. Course seven closes with an overview of common AWS services used for Automation in the Cloud.

Course eight

Data Analytics and Databases on AWS introduces you to data analytics and making data-driven decisions. You’ll learn about the omnipresence of data in and the typical thinking day-to-day work challenges of a data analyst. You’ll compare and contrast ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) and understand how data is transformed and how data warehouses retain data. The course then provides an overview of data workflow and database foundations, including a rundown of the four Vs (volume, velocity, variety and veracity) of data and how they coincide when collecting, processing, and storing data. You’ll then work directly with AWS services and extract data with Amazon API Gateway, process data with AWS Lambda, load data with Amazon RDS, and visualize data with Amazon QuickSight.

Course nine

The final course in the Professional Certificate is Capstone: Following the Well-Architected Framework. This wrap-up course provides a thorough review of the AWS Well-Architected Framework to help you understand how to make informed decisions about your cloud architecture and understand the impact of design decisions. The Well-Architected Framework is a set of tools to help you find improvements or optimizations for your applications in the cloud. In the course, you’ll walk through each of the framework’s six pillars and cover examples on how to put them to use, which will help you produce stable and efficient systems. You then will learn about the next steps on how to launch a career in IT. You’ll explore interviewing tips, more ways to get hands-on experience with AWS, and more. By the conclusion of this course, you’ll understand each pillar (operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability) and you’ll complete the capstone project, where you apply the Well-Architected Framework to an architecture.

Start the AWS Cloud Technology Consultant Professional Certificate today and gain the skills and knowledge to start your career as a Cloud Technology Consultant. Once you complete all nine courses, you’ll be awarded a Professional Certificate completion certificate that you can share with recruiters, leadership, and colleagues, helping you stand out from the competition. Enroll for the certificate on Coursera today, for $39/month.