Specialty on Maceage's Blog

AWS Machine Learning Specialty

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam. Then I did something arguably harder: I tackled the AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty with almost no prior machine learning experience.

Of the six certifications I’ve earned, this was the one I felt least prepared for. Not because the material is impossible – but because unlike networking or compute services, I couldn’t lean on day-to-day engineering experience to fill the gaps. Everything here came from studying the official AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty learning path on Pluralsight, and these notes are what I captured along the way.

AWS Advanced Networking Specialty

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After passing the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional, I decided to take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional route – but with a detour first. Networking underpins almost everything in the SA Pro exam, so I sat the AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty first to shore up the foundations.

These are my study notes from the AWS Certified Advanced Networking Specialty path on Pluralsight.

Fair warning: they’re the longest set of notes I’ve ever taken, because the exam domain is genuinely enormous – from BGP path selection to GENEVE encapsulation. I’ve organised them by the exam’s four domains, and I’ve flagged the things that tripped me up along the way.

AWS Security Specialty

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Following on from my Associate certifications, I tackled the AWS Certified Security – Specialty as my next milestone. Security felt like a natural progression given my growing focus on infrastructure protection, and honestly, this exam rewards hands-on familiarity more than any Associate-level test I’ve taken.

These are my study notes, organised by the exam’s five domains: threat detection and incident response, security logging and monitoring, infrastructure security, identity and access management, and data protection.