A beginner-friendly study guide for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam — the best starting point for your AWS certification journey.
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Exam Code | CLF-C02 |
| Duration | 90 minutes |
| Questions | 65 questions |
| Passing Score | 700 / 1000 |
| Cost | $100 USD |
| Format | Multiple choice & multiple response |
| Prerequisite | None |
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| 1. Cloud Concepts | 24% |
| 2. Security and Compliance | 30% |
| 3. Cloud Technology and Services | 34% |
| 4. Billing, Pricing, and Support | 12% |
- What is cloud computing? (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
- AWS Global Infrastructure
- Shared Responsibility Model
- IAM basics (Users, Groups, Roles, Policies, MFA)
- AWS Organizations, SCPs
- Compute: EC2, Lambda, ECS, Elastic Beanstalk
- Storage: S3, EBS, EFS, Storage Gateway
- Database: RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, Redshift
- Networking: VPC, CloudFront, Route 53, Direct Connect
- Security services: WAF, Shield, GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie
- Encryption: KMS, CloudHSM, ACM
- Pricing models: On-Demand, Reserved, Spot, Savings Plans
- AWS Support Plans: Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise
- Cost tools: Cost Explorer, Budgets, Pricing Calculator, TCO
- Take practice exams
- Review AWS Well-Architected Framework (6 pillars)
- Revise weak areas
- Trade CAPEX for OPEX — Pay only for what you use
- Economies of scale — AWS buys in bulk, passes savings
- Stop guessing capacity — Scale up/down on demand
- Speed and agility — Deploy in minutes, not months
- Go global in minutes — Regions worldwide
| AWS Responsibility ("OF the cloud") | Customer Responsibility ("IN the cloud") |
|---|---|
| Physical security | IAM, MFA |
| Hardware/infrastructure | Security group rules |
| Network infrastructure | OS patching (EC2) |
| Managed service patching | Data encryption |
| Hypervisor | Application code |
| Plan | Price | Response Time (Critical) |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | No tech support |
| Developer | $29/mo | 12 hours |
| Business | $100/mo | 1 hour |
| Enterprise | $15,000/mo | 15 minutes + TAM |
- On-Demand: Pay per second/hour, no commitment
- Reserved (1 or 3 year): Up to 72% discount
- Spot: Up to 90% discount, can be terminated
- Savings Plans: Flexible, commit $/hour for 1-3 years
- ExamCert — Free AWS CLF-C02 Practice Tests — 500+ questions with detailed explanations
- AWS Official Practice Questions
- Shared Responsibility Model — Know it cold, 5+ questions guaranteed
- Know what each service DOES — Don't need deep config knowledge
- "Which AWS service..." — Usually testing if you know the right service name
- Support Plans — Know which features come with which plan
- Free Tier — Understand the 3 types: Always Free, 12 Months Free, Trials
- This is a BREADTH exam — Know a little about many services
PRs welcome!
MIT License
Good luck with your CLF-C02 exam! 🚀
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