The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam or AWS CCP is the easiest to achieve among all the AWS certification exams. This certification covers most if not all, fundamental knowledge that one should know when venturing into the Cloud. The AWS Cloud Practitioner course intends to provide practitioners with a fundamental understanding of the AWS Cloud without having to dive deep into the technicalities. This includes the AWS Global Infrastructure, best practices in using AWS Cloud, pricing models, technical support options, and many more. You can view the complete details and guidelines for the certification exam here.

What to Review For the CLF-C02 AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam?

1.  The AWS Cloud Services

Currently, AWS offers more than 200+ services and products to its customers. And every year, the list grows longer. You don’t have to memorize every single service and function to pass the exam (although that would be amazing if you did!). What’s important is that you familiarize yourself with the more commonly used services such as those under compute, storage, databases, security, networking and content delivery, management and governance, and a few others. Aside from questions on the different services, questions about Regions and Availability Zones commonly pop up in the exam as well.

2. Best Practices when Architecting for the Cloud

This section is highly important and might comprise the bulk of your AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam. Focus on reading the content of this AWS Well-Architected Framework. The best practices are essentially the ways you can take advantage of AWS Cloud’s strengths. You can visit this site to gather more information and view additional content for your review of this section.

3. Security in the Cloud

Security in the AWS Cloud is another major part of your AWS Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 Exam. AWS has defined the security controls that they manage and the security controls that you manage through the Shared Responsibility Model below.

4. AWS Pricing Model

One of the advantages of using the Cloud is having on-demand capacity provisioning. Therefore, it is also crucial for you to understand the AWS pricing model. AWS charges you in multiple ways. There is no exact model that applies to all since different AWS services have their own cost plans. However, AWS has three fundamental drivers of cost that usually apply to any kind of service. They are:

1. Compute cost
2. Storage cost
3. Outbound data transfer cost

5. AWS Support Plans

AWS offers five types of support plans: Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, and Enterprise. It is important to know how each support plan differs from one another.

What AWS services are included in the CLF-C02 Exam?

The official Exam Guide for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam doesn’t just share the list of exam domains and a detailed description for each exam domain. It also has a list of relevant tools, technologies, and concepts that will be covered on the CLF-C02 exam. The following is a non-exhaustive list of AWS services and features that appear on the Cloud Practitioner exam, based on the provided information in the exam guide. Take note that this list could change at any time, but nonetheless, this information is still quite helpful in determining the relevant AWS services that you should focus on:

Review Process for the CLF-C02 AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam

As with any exam, the very first step is always the same – KNOWING WHAT TO STUDY. Although we have already enumerated them in the previous section, I highly suggest you go over the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam (CLF-C02) Exam Guide again and see the exam content. 

AWS already has a vast number of free CLF-C02 resources available for you to prepare for the exam. With that being said, here is a suggested step-by-step review process to help you pass and even ace your AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam.

Step 1 – Read the Overview of Amazon Web Services Whitepaper

I suggest going through the Overview of Amazon Web Services whitepaper to gain a good understanding of the different AWS concepts and services. Again, you don’t need to memorize every single AWS service and function there. Rather, focus on the services that are more commonly used by the industry.

» Tip: If you want a more concise version of the whitepaper, you can check out the Tutorials Dojo AWS cheat sheets. These cheat sheets provide an easy-to-read summary of the most important concepts about each service.

Step 2 – Study AWS Pricing

Next, I recommend studying AWS pricing. The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam (CLF-C02) exam frequently throws out tricky questions about pricing, TCO, and cost optimization. Be extra careful in answering questions that ask for the most cost-effective solution. Always prioritize utility over pricing, since there might be a choice in the question where it is the cheapest solution, but is not appropriate for the scenario’s needs. 

Aside from on-demand capacity provisioning, AWS also offers you multiple ways to lower your total cost, such as the option to reserve capacity or create a savings plan.

The purpose of studying cost and pricing models is to help you optimize your costs in AWS. AWS provides a great tool to calculate expected monthly costs, known as the AWS Pricing Calculator. Note that the AWS Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam frequently asks for scenarios where you’d have to optimize your costs.

Step 3 – Study the Shared Responsibility Model

The Best Practices for Security, Identity, & Compliance webpage discusses what you’ll need to know for AWS Security. Also, familiarize yourself with the Shared Responsibility Model. This frequently comes up in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam (CLF-C02). With security, you should know the following:

• Protect your data in and going out of AWS. Different services (EBS, S3, EC2, RDS, etc) have different encryption methods and protocols.
• Network level security and subnet level security. There are many ways you can secure your VPC and the services inside it, such as NACLs and security groups.
• Be comfortable with IAM. Focus on concepts of IAM users, groups, policies, and roles.
• Understand AWS monitoring and logging features such as Cloudwatch, CloudWatch Logs, VPC Logs, and CloudTrail.

Step 4 – Read the AWS Well-Architected Framework

The last whitepaper you need to review is the AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper. It is very important to understand what the best practices are since scenario questions in the exam always revolve around these topics. Once logged in, you can open up your AWS Management Console to help you visualize what is being discussed in this paper.

Step 5 – Study the AWS Support Plans

For the AWS Support Plans, this webpage will serve as your primary study material. This is a quick browse of a webpage, and shouldn’t take you long in studying. Take note of what support plans are available, and how they differ from each other. There might be questions in the exam that ask which support plan offers some specific service. With that said, you might miss the subtle details if you don’t read each support plan properly, so be sure to take note of these details.

In tandem with learning the AWS Support Plans is studying AWS Trusted Advisor. AWS Trusted Advisor is a tool that offers best practice checks and recommendations across these categories: cost optimization, security, fault tolerance, performance, and service limits. 

Step 6 – Enroll in a Video Course

Common Exam Scenarios for the CLF-C02 AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam

Final Step: Validate Your AWS Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 Knowledge

When you are feeling confident with your review, it is best to validate your knowledge through sample exams. Tutorials Dojo offers a very useful and well-reviewed set of practice tests for the Cloud Practitioner exam takers here. Each test contains many unique questions which will surely help you verify if you have missed out on anything important that might appear on your exam. You can also pair our practice exams with our AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Study CLF-C02 Guide and Cheat Sheets eBook.

Sample CLF-C02 / CLF-C02 Practice Test Questions:

Question 1

Which of the following channels shares a collection of offerings to help you achieve specific business outcomes related to enterprise cloud adoption through paid engagements in several specialty practice areas?

1. AWS Enterprise Support
2. Concierge Support
3. AWS Professional Services
4. AWS Technical Account Manager

Question 2

1. AWS Partner Network Technology Partners
2. AWS Marketplace
3. AWS Partner Network Consulting Partners

4. Technical Account Management

Click here for more AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner practice exam questions.

Check out our other AWS practice test courses here:

What to Expect on the CLF-C02 AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam?

There are two types of questions on the examination:

• Multiple-choice: Has one correct response and three incorrect responses (distractors).
• Multiple-response: Has two or more correct responses out of five or more options.

Distractors, or incorrect answers, are response options that an examinee with incomplete knowledge or skill would likely choose. However, they are generally plausible responses that fit in the content area defined by the test objective.

Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect; there is no penalty for guessing. 

The majority of questions are usually scenario-based. Some will ask you to identify a specific service or concept. While others will ask you to select multiple responses that fit the given requirements. No matter the style of the question, as long as you understand what is being asked, then you will do fine.

Your examination may include unscored items that are placed on the test by AWS to gather statistical information. These items are not identified on the form and do not affect your score.

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) examination is a pass or fail exam. Your results for the examination are reported as a scaled score from 100 through 1000, with a minimum passing score of 700. Right after the exam, you will immediately know whether you passed or you failed. And in the succeeding business days, you should receive your complete results with the score breakdown (and hopefully the certificate too).

Final Exam Tips for the CLF-C02 AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam

1. Be sure to get proper sleep the night before. If you feel that you aren’t ready enough, you can just reschedule your exam.
2. Come early to the exam venue so that you have time to handle mishaps if there are any.
3. Read the exam questions properly, but don’t spend too much time on a question you don’t know the answer to. You can always go back to it after you answer the rest. 
4. Keep your reviewer if you plan on taking other AWS certifications in the future. It will be handy for sure. 
5. And be sure to visit the Tutorials Dojo website to see our latest AWS reviewers, cheat sheets, and other guides.

Note: The new AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam version will be available starting September 19, 2023. Read this article to learn more.