AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Exam Guide

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) certification is designed to validate an individual’s overall understanding of the AWS Cloud. This guide provides an overview of the exam, including the domains it covers, the format, and preparation tips.

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AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Overview

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Domains

The CLF-C02 exam is divided into four main domains:

1. Cloud Concepts
   • 24% of Scored Questions
2. Security and Compliance
   • 30% of Scored Questions
3. Cloud Technology and Services
   • 34% of Scored Questions
4. Billing, Pricing, and Support
   • 12% of Scored Questions

1. Cloud Concepts (24% of Exam)

Task Statement 1.1: Define the benefits of the AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:

• Value proposition of the AWS Cloud

Skills in:

• Understanding the economies of scale (for example, cost savings)
• Understanding the benefits of global infrastructure (for example, speed of
  deployment, global reach)
• Understanding the advantages of high availability, elasticity, and agility

Task Statement 1.2: Identify design principles of the AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:

• AWS Well-Architected Framework

Skills in:

• Understanding the pillars of the Well-Architected Framework (for example,
  operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost
  optimization, sustainability)
• Identifying differences between the pillars of the Well-Architected
  Framework

Task Statement 1.3: Understand the benefits of and strategies for migration to the
AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:

• Cloud adoption strategies
• Resources to support the cloud migration journey

Skills in:

• Understanding the benefits of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS
  CAF) (for example, reduced business risk; improved environmental, social,
  and governance (ESG) performance; increased revenue; increased
  operational efficiency)
• Identifying appropriate migration strategies (for example, database
  replication, use of AWS Snowball)

Task Statement 1.4: Understand concepts of cloud economics.
Knowledge of:

• Aspects of cloud economics
• Cost savings of moving to the cloud

Skills in:

• Understanding the role of fixed costs compared with variable costs
• Understanding costs that are associated with on-premises environments
• Understanding the differences between licensing strategies (for example,
  Bring Your Own License [BYOL] model compared with included licenses)
• Understanding the concept of rightsizing
• Identifying benefits of automation (for example, provisioning and
  configuration management with AWS CloudFormation)
• Identifying managed AWS services (for example, Amazon RDS, Amazon
  Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS], Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
  [Amazon EKS], Amazon DynamoDB)

2. Security and Compliance (30% of Exam)

Task Statement 2.1: Understand the AWS shared responsibility model.
Knowledge of:

• AWS shared responsibility model

Skills in:

• Recognizing the components of the AWS shared responsibility model
• Describing the customer’s responsibilities on AWS
• Describing AWS responsibilities
• Describing responsibilities that the customer and AWS share
• Describing how AWS responsibilities and customer responsibilities can shift,
  depending on the service used (for example, Amazon RDS, AWS Lambda,
  Amazon EC2)

Task Statement 2.2: Understand AWS Cloud security, governance, and compliance
concepts.
Knowledge of:

• AWS compliance and governance concepts
• Benefits of cloud security (for example, encryption)
• Where to capture and locate logs that are associated with cloud security

Skills in:

• Identifying where to find AWS compliance information (for example, AWS
  Artifact)
• Understanding compliance needs among geographic locations or industries
  (for example, AWS Compliance)
• Describing how customers secure resources on AWS (for example, Amazon
  Inspector, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Shield)
• Identifying different encryption options (for example, encryption in transit,
  encryption at rest)
• Recognizing services that aid in governance and compliance (for example,
  monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch; auditing with AWS CloudTrail, AWS
  Audit Manager, and AWS Config; reporting with access reports)
• Recognizing compliance requirements that vary among AWS services

Task Statement 2.3: Identify AWS access management capabilities.
Knowledge of:

• Identity and access management (for example, AWS Identity and Access
  Management [IAM])
• Importance of protecting the AWS root user account
• Principle of least privilege
• AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On)

Skills in:

• Understanding access keys, password policies, and credential storage (for
  example, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager)
• Identifying authentication methods in AWS (for example, multi-factor
  authentication [MFA], IAM Identity Center, cross-account IAM roles)
• Defining groups, users, custom policies, and managed policies in compliance
  with the principle of least privilege
• Identifying tasks that only the account root user can perform
• Understanding which methods can achieve root user protection
• Understanding the types of identity management (for example, federated)

Task Statement 2.4: Identify components and resources for security.
Knowledge of:

• Security capabilities that AWS provides
• Security-related documentation that AWS provides

Skills in:

• Describing AWS security features and services (for example, security groups,
  network ACLs, AWS WAF)
• Understanding that third-party security products are available from AWS
  Marketplace
• Identifying where AWS security information is available (for example, AWS
  Knowledge Center, AWS Security Center, AWS Security Blog)
• Understanding the use of AWS services for identifying security issues (for
  example, AWS Trusted Advisor)

3. Cloud Technology and Services (34% of Exam)

Task Statement 3.1: Define methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud.
Knowledge of:

• Different ways of provisioning and operating in the AWS Cloud
• Different ways to access AWS services
• Types of cloud deployment models
• Connectivity options

Skills in:

• Deciding between options such as programmatic access (for example, APIs,
  SDKs, CLI), the AWS Management Console, and infrastructure as code (IaC)
• Evaluating requirements to determine whether to use one-time operations
  or repeatable processes
• Identifying different deployment models (for example, cloud, hybrid, onpremises)
• Identifying connectivity options (for example, AWS VPN, AWS Direct
  Connect, public internet)

Task Statement 3.2: Define the AWS global infrastructure.
Knowledge of:

• AWS Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations
• High availability
• Use of multiple Regions
• Benefits of edge locations
• AWS Wavelength Zones and AWS Local Zones

Skills in:

• Describing relationships among Regions, Availability Zones, and edge
  locations
• Describing how to achieve high availability by using multiple Availability
  Zones
• Recognizing that Availability Zones do not share single points of failure
• Describing when to use multiple Regions (for example, disaster recovery,
  business continuity, low latency for end users, data sovereignty)
• Describing at a high level the benefits of edge locations (for example,
  Amazon CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator)

Task Statement 3.3: Identify AWS compute services.
Knowledge of:

• AWS compute services

Skills in:

• Recognizing the appropriate use of different EC2 instance types (for
  example, compute optimized, storage optimized)
• Recognizing the appropriate use of different container options (for
  example, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS)
• Recognizing the appropriate use of different serverless compute options
  (for example, AWS Fargate, Lambda)
• Recognizing that auto scaling provides elasticity
• Identifying the purposes of load balancers

Task Statement 3.4: Identify AWS database services.
Knowledge of:

• AWS database services
• Database migration

Skills in:

• Deciding when to use EC2 hosted databases or AWS managed databases
• Identifying relational databases (for example, Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora)
• Identifying NoSQL databases (for example, DynamoDB)
• Identifying memory-based databases
• Identifying database migration tools (for example AWS Database Migration
  Service [AWS DMS], AWS Schema Conversion Tool [AWS SCT])

Task Statement 3.5: Identify AWS network services.
Knowledge of:

• AWS network services

Skills in:

• Identifying the components of a VPC (for example, subnets, gateways)
• Understanding security in a VPC (for example, network ACLs, security
  groups)
• Understanding the purpose of Amazon Route 53
• Identifying edge services (for example, CloudFront, Global Accelerator)
• Identifying network connectivity options to AWS (for example AWS VPN,
  Direct Connect)

Task Statement 3.6: Identify AWS storage services.
Knowledge of:

• AWS storage services

Skills in:

• Identifying the uses for object storage
• Recognizing the differences in Amazon S3 storage classes
• Identifying block storage solutions (for example, Amazon Elastic Block Store
  [Amazon EBS], instance store)
• Identifying file services (for example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon
  EFS], Amazon FSx)
• Identifying cached file systems (for example, AWS Storage Gateway)
• Understanding use cases for lifecycle policies
• Understanding use cases for AWS Backup

Task Statement 3.7: Identify AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML)
services and analytics services.
Knowledge of:

• AWS AI/ML services
• AWS analytics services

Skills in:

• Understanding the different AI/ML services and the tasks that they
  accomplish (for example, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Lex, Amazon Kendra)
• Identifying the services for data analytics (for example, Amazon Athena,
  Amazon Kinesis, AWS Glue, Amazon QuickSight)

Task Statement 3.8: Identify services from other in-scope AWS service categories.
Knowledge of:

• Application integration services of Amazon EventBridge, Amazon Simple
  Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and Amazon Simple Queue Service
  (Amazon SQS)
• Business application services of Amazon Connect and Amazon Simple Email
  Service (Amazon SES)
• Customer engagement services of AWS Activate for Startups, AWS IQ, AWS
  Managed Services (AMS), and AWS Support
• Developer tool services and capabilities of AWS AppConfig, AWS Cloud9,
  AWS CloudShell, AWS CodeArtifact, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeCommit,
  AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeStar, and AWS X-Ray
• End-user computing services of Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon
  WorkSpaces, and Amazon WorkSpaces Web
• Frontend web and mobile services of AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync
• IoT services of AWS IoT Core and AWS IoT Greengrass

Skills in:

• Choosing the appropriate service to deliver messages and to send alerts and
  notifications
• Choosing the appropriate service to meet business application needs
• Choosing the appropriate service for AWS customer support
• Choosing the appropriate option for business support assistance
• Identifying the tools to develop, deploy, and troubleshoot applications
• Identifying the services that can present the output of virtual machines
  (VMs) on end-user machines
• Identifying the services that can create and deploy frontend and mobile
  services
• Identifying the services that manage IoT devices

4. Billing, Pricing, and Support (12% of Exam)

Task Statement 4.1: Compare AWS pricing models.
Knowledge of:

• Compute purchasing options (for example, On-Demand Instances, Reserved
  Instances, Spot Instances, Savings Plans, Dedicated Hosts, Dedicated
  Instances, Capacity Reservations)
• Data transfer charges
• Storage options and tiers

Skills in:

• Identifying and comparing when to use various compute purchasing options
• Describing Reserved Instance flexibility
• Describing Reserved Instance behavior in AWS Organizations
• Understanding incoming data transfer costs and outgoing data transfer costs
  (for example, from one Region to another Region, within the same Region)
• Understanding different pricing options for various storage options and
  tiers

Task Statement 4.2: Understand resources for billing, budget, and cost management.
Knowledge of:

• Billing support and information
• Pricing information for AWS services
• AWS Organizations
• AWS cost allocation tags

Skills in:

• Understanding the appropriate uses and capabilities of AWS Budgets, AWS
  Cost Explorer, and AWS Billing Conductor
• Understanding the appropriate uses and capabilities of AWS Pricing
  Calculator
• Understanding AWS Organizations consolidated billing and allocation of
  costs
• Understanding various types of cost allocation tags and their relation to
  billing reports (for example, AWS Cost and Usage Report)

Task Statement 4.3: Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options.
Knowledge of:

• Resources and documentation available on official AWS websites
• AWS Support plans
• Role of the AWS Partner Network, including independent software vendors
  and system integrators
• AWS Support Center

Skills in:

• Locating AWS whitepapers, blogs, and documentation on official AWS
  websites
• Identifying and locating AWS technical resources (for example AWS
  Prescriptive Guidance, AWS Knowledge Center, AWS re:Post)
• Identifying AWS Support options for AWS customers (for example,
  customer service and communities, AWS Developer Support, AWS Business
  Support, AWS Enterprise On-Ramp Support, AWS Enterprise Support)
• Identifying the role of Trusted Advisor, AWS Health Dashboard, and the
  AWS Health API to help manage and monitor environments for cost
  optimization
• Identifying the role of the AWS Trust and Safety team to report abuse of
  AWS resources
• Understanding the role of AWS Partners (for example AWS Marketplace,
  independent software vendors, system integrators)
• Identifying the benefits of being an AWS Partner (for example, partner
  training and certification, partner events, partner volume discounts)
• Identifying the key services that AWS Marketplace offers (for example, cost
  management, governance and entitlement)
• Identifying technical assistance options available at AWS (for example, AWS
  Professional Services, AWS Solutions Architects)

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Preparation Resources

AWS Official Resources

1. AWS Training and Certification:

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Guide
• Free digital training and classroom training
• Review the CLF-C02 exam guide(PDF)

2. AWS Whitepapers:

• Overview of Amazon Web Services
• Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
• AWS Well-Architected Framework

3. AWS Documentation:

• AWS documentation for core services and concepts

4. AWS Free Tier:

• Hands-on experience with AWS services using the free tier

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Study Materials

1. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Study Guide:

• Books and study guides specifically tailored to the CLF-C02 exam

2. Practice Exams:

• Online platforms offering practice exams and quizzes to test your knowledge

3. Online Courses:

• Udemy, A Cloud Guru, and other online education platforms offer comprehensive courses on AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Tips for Preparation

1. Understand Key Concepts:

• Focus on understanding core AWS services, cloud concepts, and the AWS shared responsibility model.

2. Hands-On Practice:

• Use the AWS Free Tier to get hands-on experience with key services like EC2, S3, RDS, and VPC.

3. Review AWS Whitepapers:

• Read AWS whitepapers to gain a deeper understanding of best practices and AWS architecture principles.

4. Take Practice Exams:

• Practice exams help you get familiar with the exam format and identify areas where you need more study.

5. Join Study Groups:

• Join AWS study groups or online forums to share knowledge and resources with other candidates.

Appendix A: Technologies and Concepts

Technologies and concepts that might appear on the exam
The following list contains technologies and concepts that might appear on the exam.
This list is non-exhaustive and is subject to change. The order and placement of the
items in this list is no indication of their relative weight or importance on the exam:

1. APIs
2. Benefits of migrating to the AWS Cloud
3. AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
4. AWS Compliance
5. Compute
6. Cost management
7. Databases
8. Amazon EC2 instance types (for example, Reserved, On-Demand, Spot)
9. AWS global infrastructure (for example, AWS Regions, Availability Zones)
10. Infrastructure as code (IaC)
11. AWS Knowledge Center
12. Machine learning
13. Management and governance
14. Migration and data transfer
15. Network services
16. AWS Partner Network
17. AWS Prescriptive Guidance
18. AWS Pricing Calculator
19. AWS Professional Services
20. AWS re:Post
21. AWS SDKs
22. Security
23. AWS Security Blog
24. AWS Security Center
25. AWS shared responsibility model
26. AWS Solutions Architects
27. Storage
28. AWS Support Center
29. AWS Support plans
30. AWS Well-Architected Framework

In-scope AWS services and features

The following list contains AWS services and features that are in scope for the exam.
This list is non-exhaustive and is subject to change. AWS offerings appear in
categories that align with the offerings’ primary functions:

Appendix B: Comparison of CLF-C01 and CLF-C02

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C01 Vs CLF-C02

Note: CLF-C01 is decommissioned starting from 19th Sep 2023 and now available new certificate CLF-C02 from 19th Sep 2023

Additions of content for CLF-C02

CLF-C02 Task Statement 1.3: Understand the benefits of and strategies for migration
to the AWS Cloud.
This new task statement includes the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF).

Deletions of content for CLF-C02

No content was deleted from the exam.

By following this guide and utilizing the recommended resources, you’ll be well-prepared to pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam.

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