A Cloud Guru, a Pluralsight Company FAQs

Your company’s chosen ACG for Business, and now you get to receive all the benefits. How awesome for you! We know you’re busy learning to be a Guru, so we’ve compiled some frequently asked questions to clear up any confusion.

What if I already have a personal account with A Cloud Guru?

I'm already paying for a membership, what do I do?

Can I get the annual swag since it's an annual membership?

I've been assigned a Learning Path. What does that mean?

What happens if my company's membership expires or I've been removed?

What if I already have a personal account with A Cloud Guru?

You're already well ahead of your peers - kudos! Your admin can invite your personal account if they're okay with that. This is the easiest way to go, and will automatically keep all of your course progress. If they require the business email to be in the organization there are two options:

1. If your account was set up using an email and password, you can simply change your account email address to the business email to join. Just follow this simple guide !

2. If your account was set up using a single sign on (think Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) then changing your account email is not an option as we are not the ones managing it. You will need to create a new account using the business email address.

I'm already paying for a membership, what do I do?

Your membership will automatically cancel when you join a team membership. If this is an annual membership with time remaining remaining, we will happily refund the prorated amount for you! Just send the Support team a ticket here and choose the options Business Subscription; Join My Company.

Can I get the annual swag since it's an annual membership?

Because we know it's all about the swag! As we continue to grow our company and focus on excellent content, we currently only have the individual annual member exclusive swag. Don't fret! You can still win swag from contests we hold periodically via marketing emails, Facebook and Twitter. Not connected with us on those platforms? You're missing out! You can find us on Facebook here and Twitter here.

I've been assigned a Learning Path. What does that mean?

Simply put, your admin cares about your success! You can learn more about learning paths here, but the path your admin has assigned you gives you a clear understanding of what you should be studying to move most efficiently to true Guru status.

What happens if my company's membership expires or I've been removed?

There are a number of reasons the membership may expire or your administrator removes you from a license. The best way to get exact answers are to go straight to your administrators/managers to figure out why.

You can also sign up for either a monthly or annual renewing membership. You can learn more here about what each one has to offer. If you sign up for a membership on the same account you've been learning on, you can pick right up where you left off as progress is saved!

And of course, either way, you should write your admin to let them know how much you miss the membership!

As an annual member, you will receive a free A Cloud Guru swag pack that includes:

1 exclusive members-only T-shirt

Available sizes for men: S - 2XL

Available sizes for women: XS - XL

1 pack of awesome stickers

Shirt sizes - Men (inches):

Shirt sizes - Women (inches):

We value all of our students and are working to build out a platform so everyone can have a great experience and learn the Cloud!

We know this is an important feature and appreciate your patience while we get this built into our platform.

Subtitles/Captions are available for the following courses:

Introduction to Cloud

Introduction to Amazon Web Services

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

AWS Certified Developer Associate

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

AWS Certified Machine Learning-Specialty

Coding for Cloud 101

Mastering the Well-Architected Framework

AWS Business Essentials

AWS Lambda

Kubernetes Deep Dive

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate

AWS Certified Security Specialty

We'll be constantly updating this list as we continue adding more subtitles/captions to courses.

How to activate subtitles:

When you're on a video for one of the available courses, you'll see a new icon in the bottom right of the screen.

https://www.facebook.com/acloudguru

You can toggle subtitles/captions on and off by selecting that button at anytime.

Be sure to follow us to stay in the loop on our latest course offerings!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/acloudguru

Facebook:

We have recently updated our membership fees. Check out the two membership types below:

Monthly membership:

Access to all the content available on our platform

Access to our Exam Simulator and ACG Original series

Recurring $49* a month subscription with the flexibility to cancel your membership at any time

Annual membership:

Same unlimited access to content as our monthly membership

Awesome swag package

Discount to Serverlessconf

With this plan, you pay $449* annually and save $99* in comparison to the monthly plan.

*Prices vary between regions.

You can find more information about our membership offering here: https://acloud.guru/membership

Congratulations on becoming an annual member of A Cloud Guru!

main help page

*Example of T-shirt and stickers

1.Your annual membership officially begins after your 7-day free trial. At that time, you will receive an email from Printfection with a link to claim your swag.

*Note: If you've recently cancelled your monthly and signed up for an annual membership, it may not trigger the email. Please contact support so we can get you your swag!

2.After completing your order and filling in your information,Printfection will handle the swag fulfillment and shipping. They're a pretty awesome third party swag provider so we can focus on creating the best Cloud courses! You will receive an email from Printfection with tracking once your package ships.

Note:Printfection uses UPS for all shipping.For packages within the US, shipments should deliver between 5-10 business days. For international packages, they should deliver between 6 -8 weeks. Many international packages get transferred to local shipping options once entering that country. Lots of times we and UPS donot receive a new tracking number once transferred. You will need to contact your local post office with your name and address for them to check on the package.

If you are a current annual member and have not received an email to redeem your swag after your 7 day trial is up, have gotten an error in your swag email or have not received your package after 8 weeks, please contact usby submitting a form through our .

If you'd like to reset the progress of any course, you can do this on the dashboard of the specific course you'd like to reset.

On the right hand side of the page, there is an option to reset course progress:

Please note, that once reset, progress and quiz scores can not be recovered.

The Google Cloud Platform exams do have a lot of similarities to the AWS exams, but in our opinion, for most people, the GCP Professional Cloud Architect exam will bemore difficultthan the AWS Certified Solutions ArchitectProfessionalexam.

One difference is that Google expects every Solutions Architect to come from a dev background. Now this might not be an issue for most people, but some would be quite thrown off by a question asking them to debug some Python code that has nothing to do with GCP.

But this leads into thekeydifference, which is that the GCP certification revolves entirely around professionally performing the Cloud Architectrole, rather than around the platform itself. There is significant value in this because it can better-represent real-world ability. But this can also make it much harder because the scope is almost limitless.Manyexam questions havenothingto do with Google.

Furthermore, although AWS and Google ask almost only scenario questions on their Pro exams, we felt that the way that Google asked their questions required to bridge even wider gaps in the question and its responses, to determine which were the right answers. What we mean by this is that a question might specify information A and a response might talk about C and G, but you have to imagine all the services, requirements, and business motivations filling in B, D, E, and F, in order to determine whether that option is reasonable. AWS does this, too (and it's one of the things mentioned in the Cert Prep Guide ), but Google did this even more, in our opinion.

We have recently had a number of students report problems with setting up the AWS MFA on Google Authenticator.

The problem

Some students have reported that when they 1st try to set up the MFA as part of the course that when they enter the verification code generated by google authenticator and click on submit, they recieve and error message.

" You need permissions You do not have the permission required to perform this operation. Ask your administrator to add permissions. Learn more Authentication code for device is not valid."

Planning for MFA problems

I have never been able to recreate the problem myself, so I suspect that it is intermittent as opposed to being systemic.

Possible causes & solutions

It is unclear exactly what the problem is, however it does seem to be a bug between AWS and Google, and not something that the students are doing.

1- Many of these systems are asynchronous, and so timing can be a possible cause. Some students have found that by either leaving it for 15 minutes, or logging out of AWS and back in that the problem goes away. Not very scientific, but if it is a timing issue this could be a work around.

2-Another student felt that the problem was with the QR code and used the provided secret Key instead, and was able to get the setup to work.

3-A common cause of problems (but probably not this one) is failing to provide two consecutive codes. They must be consecutive and so timing is critical.

While none of these have proven to be 100\% the cause and treatment it does seem to have allowed students to move forward.

The AWS support site has some discussion about the issue

Also:

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Things don't always go as planned, we understand. That's why our A Cloud Guru support team is here to help get your experience back on track!

When you need assistance or help for issues that can’t be resolved with our knowledge base or our discussion forums, you can always count on our support agents. They provide assistance via tickets/emails as this is the most efficient way to have your issue resolved. It allows you to send over screen shots/videos if need be and implement options on your own time that's convenient.

To get help from our team,submit a form by scrolling to the bottom of our help page https://help.acloud.guru/ Our team will respond promptly within business hours!It also helps our team solve your issue faster if you can choose the most appropriate ticket category and sub-category.

If you're looking to offer feedback or request any updates to courses specifically, you can easily send that feedback directly from the lesson by clicking the flag in the lower right hand corner of the lesson player.

We know it's never fun contacting Support, but we hope to give you the best experience possible when you do need to reach out!

Learning Paths allow you to assign a study path that guides someone from novice to expert in a specific cloud discipline. Learning Paths lead your employees through courses, deep dives, labs, and additional resources, building their cloud skills and helping them achieve their career goals. You can read more about the available Learning Paths here.

1. Locate the Learning Paths tab at the top of your admin portal.

Study Group

This will take you to the Learning Paths dashboard, where you’ll see an overview of how many students are in each Learning Path.

2. Click “Manage” to the right of the Learning Path you’re trying to assign.

3. Add members to the Learning Path by clicking “+ Add Students” and choosing which student to add. Click the green plus symbol to add them.

You can add multiple members here before choosing to exit the Add Students window.

4. You can now see the new students added, along with their level achieved and when they started their Learning Path. Click “View” to the right of a student’s name to go to their admin portal profile.

And that’s it! You’ve now successfully helped put your team on the (learning) path to achieving their goals! Feel free to add them into a to help accelerate components of their Learning Path.

Google offers official practice exams for each of their Cloud Certification exams:

Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineerpractice exam

Google Cloud CertifiedProfessional Cloud Architect practice exam

Google Cloud Certified Professional Data Engineer practice exam

TIPS:The practice exams contain 20 questions. We recommend not to spend more than 45 minutes in this practice exam, as that's the same amount of time per question as the real exam. The practice exam won't show a timer as the real exams do, so be sure to time yourself!

Experience is different to taking the real exam. The questions are not from the official exam pool but they are representative of the real exam. For this reason, memorizing won't give you an edge, but it is helpful to become comfortable with the way the questions areworded and the topics that are covered.

The practice exam questions don't change every time you take it. It is only a pool of only 20 questions. The best way to use this resource is to take the practice exam a week before your official exam so you can understand what topics you need to review. If you feel like you didn't do well in the practice exam, you still have time to re-schedule your exam without incurring further fees.

A Cloud Guru now has a Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer Exam Simulator!

1.From the course page, you can see the exam simulator option to the right.

2.Please read over the exam simulator information as it will prepare you for what to expect prior to starting it.

3.Take your exam simulator and be ready to pass your Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer exam! Please take the exam simulator as close as possible to the real exam settings; find a quiet spot where you will be uninterrupted!

Happy learning Cloud Gurus!

Free trial offers are available to new customer memberships on A Cloud Guru.

A valid method of payment is required upon starting your free trial to ensure your training experience will continue uninterrupted. In addition, it helps our team prevent abuse of our special offers. Your card will not be charged during the free trial period.

If you're not satisfied with the benefits of A Cloud Guru Memberships, we recommend cancelling your trial within the trial period to avoid incurring charges to your card. Please look at this help article on how to cancel your membership.

Skipping your 7-day trial for immediate billing.

We are working to build in a way for individuals to skip the free 7-day trial for immediate billing. We apologize for any inconvenience in the meantime. We highly recommend purchasing ahead of when a receipt is needed for any reimbursement purposes.

As an admin, you have access to some amazing tools to help keep your team engaged and tracking toward certain goals.

Study Groups is one of those tools, and will allow you to group users in your organization together to work toward a course completion goal.

You can also add them to the Accelerator Program (if available**), which automatically sends out weekly study plans to help employees stay on track.

**Note: Currently, the accelerator program is available for our four most popular courses.

AWS:Certified Cloud Practitioner

AWS: Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

Google: Associate Cloud Engineer

AZ-103: Microsoft Azure Administrator

AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

1. Locate the Study Groups tab at the top of your admin portal.

managing your created Study Groups

This will take you to the main Study Groups dashboard that will show all of your created study groups.

2. Click “Create Study Group” at the top right of the Study Groups main dashboard.

3. Enter a group name and description, then choose the color scheme and course this group will be studying. Click “Create Study Group”.

Remember, some courses will have the option to turn on/off the Accelerator Program!

Study Groups with optional Accelerator Program:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate 2019

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Google Associate Cloud Engineer

AZ-103: Microsoft Azure Administrator

Study Groups without an Accelerator Program:

AWS Certified Developer - Associate

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional

Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional

Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty

AWS Certified Big Data - Specialty

Certified Security - Specialty

4. Add members to the Study Group by clicking “+ Add Students” and choosing which student to add. Click the green plus symbol to add them.

You can add multiple members here before choosing to exit the add students window.

You can also add more students later by choosing the setup option next to the group in your main Study Groups dashboard.

5. Once your student list is all set, activate the group’s goal! Choose what date it will start, and a completion goal date if not an accelerator program, then click “Activate Study Plan”.

You can easily remove students that may have been accidentally added by choosing the remove option to the right of their name.

A wonderful welcome email will be sent to the members of the new Study Group!

You now have a plan and individuals working together toward a goal! We’ll go over in upcoming articles.

***NOTE: Please visit GCP's certification page for the most recent information on all GCP certifications***

Each level of certification has a different cost:

ASSOCIATE EXAM:

Google Cloud Certified, Associate Cloud Engineer - $125 USD

PROFESSIONAL EXAMS:

Google Cloud Certified, Professional Data Engineer - $200 USD

Google Cloud Certified, Professional Cloud Architect - $200 USD

Google Cloud Certified, Professional Cloud Security Engineer - $200 USD

Google Cloud Certified, Professional Cloud Developer - $200 USD

Google Cloud Certified, Professional Cloud Network Engineer - $200 USD

Want to show off your Cloud knowledge?

The (un)official ACG Awesome-meter

Our reputation system allows Cloud Gurus the ability to earn points by participating in the ACG discussion forums. If your posts are helpful, relevant and awesome then the community will respond by upvoting your post and you will earn reputation points.

Watch out though, if your post is unhelpful, irrelevant to the discussion or all around not awesome then you can lose reputation as the community downvotes your post.

These are not just fake points for bragging rights - sort of.

The reputation system helps you assess the knowledge and merit of any given user. The more points a user has, the likelier they are a trustworthy voice in the community.

Plus, wouldn’t you want to earn all these great color icons?

here.

We haven’t made a level beyond Unobtanium...yet.

This is your profile without any posts:

This is your profile when you've become Level 6: Ruby

Quartz is cool and all, but wouldn’t you want to be a Ruby?

How can I do my part for the ACG community?

Great question! For the reputation system to work, we need your help with the following:

1. You can help by asking questions, posting helpful tips and continuing to be awesome in the discussion forums.

A great guide to writing good questions can be found

2. You can respond to posts by other Gurus.

3. You can upvote posts that are relevant or helpful.

4. You can downvote posts that are not relevant and not helpful.

You’re now equipped with the knowledge and skills to earn that Ruby icon.

Get out there and keep being awesome!

Vendor exams are constantly changing, and our observations are that the question pool often include fringe topics that while not included in every exam may show up on some exams.

Like the vendor final exam, we include some of the fringe topics in the question pool for the practice exams, along with notes as study aids. We found that when we added this content to the practice exams the pass rates and pass scores increased. You are free to explore these topics further with the possibility that the further reading may get you a few extra points in the exam, or decide to skip these topic and focus exclusively on the core lesson topics.

Students who want more true-to-life practice exam experience can access our members-only Exam Simulator: https://acloud.guru/membership

We know the best way to retain what is learned practice! Although anyone can set up a free tier account in AWS to follow along with lessons, your business account has the option for members to utilize our free AWS Sandbox environment. This will help your members practice along for AWS courses, in-course labs and standalone Hands-On Labs!

What are Sandbox Labs?

Sandboxes are dynamic environments that replicate the AWS console, allowing you to do course lab work without having to create an AWS account.

Sandboxes are completely freeto your team members and can be used for lab lessons as long as you need - remember to extend your time if you need longer than 2 hours! They will be limited as to the features available, but you will have everything needed to reproduce the lab work.

1. Click on “Start a Sandbox Session” from the right hand side of the course dashboard or AWS Hands-On Lab.

The Sandbox Lab option will be only available on the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate and AWS Certified Developer Associate to begin with. As we grow the Sandbox environment out we will incorporate the Sandbox Labs into all remaining AWS courses. We appreciate your patience while we roll out this amazing feature!

Confirm that you won’t do anything out of terms and conditions in the Sandbox...

Once confirmed, a new tab will open, allowing you to access and use the AWS Console without risk to your own infrastructure.

2. Keep in mind, certain features within the Sandbox environment will not be available for use.

These include areas like IAM, Route 53 and Snowball.

When you attempt to access these features you will be greeted with an authorization error.

For the purpose of completing your labs, the sandbox is already configured with:

Access Keys for Command Line Interface (CLI) access to your sandbox.

An IAM role (acg-role) your role for EC2 instance profiles and other services such as your Lambda execution role.

An EC2 key pair (vockey) for authenticating to EC2 instances.

3. You’ll now find the Sandbox Labs modal is active and located in two areas; on the left hand side of your lesson and on the right hand side of the course dashboard.

The key information loads automatically, so you don’t have to worry about filling that in! Whew!

When setting up your CLI access, you will need to use thesession token along with the usual Key ID and Secret Access Key.

There is an SSH key pair provided for you! Just download PEM at the bottom of the window and remember to select vockey as your keypair when launching the instance. Use the PEM key in the same way as you would your own key pair.

Sandbox Live Session Options:

“Launch AWS Console” - Opens another tab of your AWS console. If you’ve already done work in one tab, it will keep that same information and pull it to the new tab.

“Extend Session” - Each session is limited to two hours. However, if you’re deep in the middle of a problem simply click on this button to extend your session by another two hours. There is no limit to how many times you can extend.

** Note -If you extend your sandbox session, you will be issued with a new access key, secret key and session token. Be sure to update these three fields in order to continue accessing the sandbox via CLI.

“Close sandbox” - This will terminate your current sandbox session. Keep in mind, once you close your sandbox environment, all of your work and data will be lost. Make sure you’re completely done!

You’re closer to being a true guru and creating a serverless world for your own company!

** PLEASE WAIT 24 HOURS FROM PURCHASE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO MIGRATE COURSES FROM UDEMY **

We sell our courses on a number of external training platforms. While our video content will always be the same on all platforms, we offer additional bonuses for taking courses on our website. That includes additional practice exams and a larger quiz database on our own platform.

During the sign up process you have the option of migrating previous course purchases to our platform. This process is only honoring the purchase on another platform and does not include the transfer of course progress or completion percentage.

To access the course migration wizard, find it in your account menu, or access it directly from here: https://www.acloud.guru/migrate?direct=true.

Thenchoose your preferred method of confirmingyour course purchase. Each option will provide you with detailed instructions on how to proceed with migrating your course purchases.

Please note: If after 24 hours from purchase and the migration still fails, please contact us by submitting a form through our help page https://help.acloud.guru/hc/en-us with a copy of your receipt attached for further assistance.

Many students seek out practice questions as study aids. If used in the wrong way they can actually be harmful to your learning, your career, and chance of passing the exam.

Used in limited numbers and in a a thoughtful way practice questions can be an asset.

Practice questions can be an asset if you use them as mini research problems. Every service and requirement mentioned in the question can be researched, and every suggested solution can be researched. By researching around the topics and in context, you can more efficiently build your mental model and your ability to recall and apply those facts.

The risk of practice questions is that they can be a huge waste of valuable time.

Time spent rehearsing & memorizing random facts without understanding the context behind them is counter productive. I know some students want a hundred or more practice questions. This is really a waste of time as you will spend so much time practicing questions that you will be missing out the opportunity to actually learn. Also there is the problem that the questions and answers on many question site are just WRONG and the student ends up memorizing rubbish.

Remember that the objective is a productive career, with respect and a good income. A profitable career comes from demonstrating advanced understanding and insights (not memorization of random facts). How to achieve that is not always obvious to some students. That is why we produced the AWS Exam Prep Guide (also useful for other vendor exams).

Focus on the knowledge, understanding and insight that you can get by researching each question. Don't try to practice and memorize questions as a way to pass the exam.

See also the discussion about topics covered on the exam which will help you focus your study.

Topics on the exam.

Practice test topics.

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Failing a 1st attempt at an AWS certification exam sadly still happens. When we discuss this with students it most often comes down to a lack of appreciation of the nature of the AWS exams leading to a lack of preparation. The AWS exams are well written to ensure that to pass you know your material well.

Don't give up. Now that you know what you are up against, plan to ace it.

Here are some recommendations how how to prepare for the 2nd attempt.

There is a skill to learning.

For the same effort as a bare pass you can become a Guru. The difference is in how you learn. To help you get the most out of your efforts I strongly encourage you to take time to go through the " AWS Certification Exam Prep Guide " by our Mattias Andersson who is one of the few people to score a 100\% on an AWS exam.

Understanding the exam

The AWS associate exams are well designed. They focus on testing if you understand the core technology, and if you actually know your stuff. General industry knowledge will not get you through. AWS will not ask you general knowledge questions, and if it looks like they are, they are really asking if you understand how AWS is different.

Question Scope

AWS include questions from all areas of the AWS environment. If you read the exam blueprint, it will not identify any area that is out-of-scope. However ~85\% of questions will come from the core topics you have been taught in the course. The remaining ~15\% are drawn from what you might call fringe areas. Consider them bonus points if you have taken the time to read a bit further or think a bit deeper about what the white papers and documentation is telling you.

Question difficulty

The AWS exams also have a range of question difficulties from simplistic (free marks) to challenging questions. As with the topic scope where there are fringe topics, there are very challenging fringe questions. I am certain that on every associate exam I sat, that I got a question I later saw on a Pro exam. Only one per exam but they were there. The message is that if you want 100\% you need to earn it by really knowing your stuff well.

Where we provide them, our ' practice exam ' questions are aimed above average, towards the more difficult types. This is to both ensure you are ready, and to lead you to deeper understanding if you want to put the effort in. No apologies, when we introduced the harder questions the pass rate increased and avg pass score jumped by about 10\%.

What should I re-study

Be guided by the scoring report you received. Start with area you were worst at and work your way up. Please understand thatevery exam is different, not just in questions, but also the services and topics covered. Don't focus on the one question or one service you didn't know. You need to work on the whole study area.

Re-study all the core topics as set out in the course. if you really know them you should be able to pass just on the core topics. Know them all and know them well. Read deeper and wider to increase your ability to get extra points. Test your understanding with the practice exam question s. The answers and score are irrelevant. What is important is knowingwhyevery answer is right or wrong (not just that it is). Use the AWS documentation to research every practice answer to find the proof that it is right or wrong. Use the ACG community Forums to talk to other students and alumni to understand wording or why a particular answer is wrong.

Don't expect to master all areas especially of the Pro level. But the more you understand the better your score.

Consider not re-sitting the same exam immediately. Restudying can be hard and boring. Consider doing another course that will help you build a broader foundation or deeper skills in a weak area and then later going back to resit the one you missed.

How do I re-study

My recommendation is to listen to all the lectures again, possibly at higher speed, but do listen. Don't try to memorize material, but seek to understand how the services work and interact with each other. The Moderators who have all completed the exams talk about a 'Mental Model'. When you understand the logic and interaction of the services, the questions become easier to understand and the wrong answers become easier to spot.

The White papers are very important. A number of questions are drawn from them almost word for word. Trying to memorize them will bore you to tears. Instead of "trying to get through them", read them slowly, seeking to understand the use-cases and the anti-cases for each. If something does not make sense, break away to research in the AWS doco to get a better understanding.

When you have idle moments when you cannot be studying, think about a service how it might, or might not be used it to solve problems.

The purpose of the labs is to help you build that mental model of how things go together. Do not just try to memorize the steps, but understand why is each step is needed and how does it go together to create a result.

A technique I found useful was what I call the 30 second summary. For any service or tech, try to be able to talk for 30 seconds on what it is, how it works, how it interacts, and what it is not good at. Developing this will both help you find things to research further, and rehearse recall for when you are in the exam.

Test your knowledge in the Discussion forums. Use every questions as a research topic. Don't 'guess' or 'have an opinion', research it and be able to back you position by reference to vendor documentation.

Finally, unless it is urgent to get the piece of paper, don't rush the exam. There are no bonus points for how soon you do it, but there are bragging rights for how well you do. Many of us advocate studying all three of the associate courses before sitting any exams. That way you get to leverage the breadth of knowledge and repetition of core topics to get higher marks over all.

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We love that you're up on security and checking on an email you received asking you to change your password immediately. We stay up on security as well, which is why we alert individuals whose account may be at risk. As long as the message is coming from [email protected], it is a legitimate message for your protection!

here.

1. Stay calm, your A Cloud Guru account is fine!

Your A Cloud Guru account is not compromised. However, we're working to keep it that way! We were alerted that your login information on our site was also used on another site that was in fact compromised. We work to get ahead of potential issues and alert you to change your password to ensure it's secure.

2. Change your password.

You can change your password through the email or directly on our site by following this article.

Remember to make the new password a strong one and try to reduce reusing passwords multiple times from other sites.

3. There are steps to reduce issues in the future.

Our 3rd party detection service, Auth0, has some wonderful tips and tricks

Thank you again for staying so on top of your accounts and security by doing your due diligence in verifying the email. Very cool, Guru! Your account will stay secure this way.

Our system does not allow monthly memberships to be paused.

If you decide to cancel your monthly membership, all your course progress and account settings will remain available in your original account. They'll become available in your account once you decide to restart your membership at any point in the future.

When does the new pricing go into effect?

What about my current membership?

What's the new pricing?

Why are we increasing our prices?

Tips and Tricks

When does the new pricing go into effect?

Our updated pricing goes into effect on Tuesday, January 14th, 2020.

What about my current membership?

If you’re a current ACG student, all of this is more of a nice-to-know. All students with active Individual Memberships will be grandfathered in at 2019 prices.

The price increase only applies to new students and returning students starting new memberships.

What’s the new pricing?

The new pricing is simple. Individual Memberships will now be priced at:

$49 USD per month -$449 USD per year

40 GBPper month - 375 GBPper year

49 EUR per month -449 EUR per year

ACG for Business pricing will not be changing.

Why are we increasing our prices?

We know. Nobody likes price hikes. We don’t either, and that’s why we’ve held our membership fees steady for so long.

So why now?

Over the past year, our content library has grown by leaps and bounds, expanding to cover new cert courses for AWS, Azure, and GCP, as well as going deep on popular services like Kubernetes. We’ve brought on awesome new instructors, released a bunch of new labs and projects, and launched new original series covering topics from GCP to DeepRacer. We’ve rolled out new features, from Exam Simulators to Career Learning Paths. And on top of all that growth, our instructors and editors are constantly revisiting existing courses and keeping them up to date as certifications and exams change.

It’s a lot. And adjusting our membership pricing will allow us to invest even more in content and platform development, all to create an even better, more comprehensive cloud learning experience that brings you an unparalleled value, whether you’re just starting out or already well down the path to becoming a cloud guru.

Tips and Tricks:

1. Make sure your payment information is up to date

To avoid any hiccups in your membership status, we recommend double checking that your credit card information is up to date.

You can modify your payment details at anytime between billing periods and this will not have any effect on your membership fees. Need help modifying your payment details? Check this out!

2.Lock in the 2019 Pricing Now

If you’ve been considering ACG but haven’t signed up yet, now is the perfect time.

Sign up byTuesday, January 14th 2020 to lock in 2019 pricing before the increase takes effect and save over $100 on the full ACG experience.

We'd sure love for you to stay, but we understand that A Cloud Guru memberships may not be the right resource for everyone.

You can cancel your A Cloud Guru membership at any time, no hard feelings.

1.Before you cancel, please be sure to check your status and be sure you understand what happens after your cancellation.

During 7-day free trial:

If you cancel your membership at any point during yourfree trial, you won't be charged and you'll still have access to the content and membership benefits until your free trial expires.

Monthly or Annual membership - after7-day free trial:

If you cancel your monthly or annual membership after the free trial, you'll retain access to the content and membership benefits until your paid period is up. You can check what your paid through date is in the Membership tab in your Account Settings: https://acloud.guru/settings/membership.

Once the paid period is up, you will not be charged again and your access to all the courses you started during your membership will be revoked.

Monthly or Annual membership joined before January 14, 2020:

If you joined before January 14, 2020, you’re grandfathered into our 2019 pricing as long as you renew your membership. By canceling, you’ll be giving up your grandfathered status, if you re-subscribe at a later time you’ll be subject to the current pricing. You can check your start date in the Membership tab in Account Settings: https://acloud.guru/settings/membership

2.Head to your account's membership page and follow the link to cancel your membership.

3.The next page is to confirm that you truly want to cancel your membership.Ensure that you type cancel inthe cancellation confirmation bar at the end of the page.

NOTE:Your cancellation will not be complete unless you confirm by typing that wordcancel at the end of the page. You can double check that your membership has been cancelled by going back into your account settings in the membership tab.

If you decide to join again in the future, we'll be ready to help you continue your Cloud learning!

If you are a new user utilizing a 7-day free trial, at the end of your trial our system will automatically charge your payment method for the membership plan selected at the time of enrollment. If you have already used your trial and are re-signing up then you will be charged immediately.

During your membership enrollment, our website will automatically calculate when your payment method will be charged. Be sure to make a note of when your free trial expires as our system will not send a reminder email to your account.

If you've signed up for an annual membership, you will be charged for the full annual membership fee of $449* when your free trial expires and will automatically renew each year until cancelled. For monthly memberships, a recurring $49* transaction will be posted on your account each month.

You can check in your next bill date by going into theMembership tab within your Account Settings.

This is also where you can cancel your membership if you plan to do so before your next payment.

*Prices vary according to the region you are purchasing from. We are based out of the UK, so please be sure to check with your bank about any foreign transaction fees.

** THIS IS CURRENTLY A BETA FEATURE AND IN TESTING **

There may be one ring to rule them all, but one administrator can't manage the entire team alone! This is why we've created the new Teams feature within your ACG for Business licenses.

What is the Teams feature?

Teams is a feature that allows you, as an organization admin, to create cohorts of all of your users. You can then assign each cohort a Team Coordinator who will be able to view reporting, create Study Groups, and assign Learning Paths to their cohort or team.

What is the difference between an Admin and a Team Coordinator?

Organisation admin:

Team coordinator:

1. Create your Team(s)!

Press the blue "ADD FIRST TEAM" button to open the Manage Teams panel and begin creating Teams.

Click + Add Team button (left) to add extra Teams. Be sure to hit Save once completed or your teams will not be created!

You should now be able to see your teams on the right of your dashboard.

2. Add individuals to your Team(s).

Head over to your 'Users' tab to see the list of individuals in your ACG for Business organization. Here, choose the students to add to a team.

Click 'Teams' next to the options at the top of the user list.

Choose the team to add your users to from the drop down.

Finally, click 'Add to Team' to finalize adding the list of users to that team.

3. Assign a Team Coordinator

Back in your 'Users' tab, click the three dots to the right of the user you'd like to have as a Team Coordinator.

Choose 'Change Role'

Choose the 'Team coordinator' role option and click 'Save'.

The new Team Coordinator will see the 'Manage Your Team' option at the top of their home dashboard. This will only show them reporting and stats relating to their assigned team members.

4. Removing People from a Team

Head over to your 'Users' tab to see the list of individuals in your ACG for Business organization. Here, choose the student(s) to from a team.

Click 'Teams' next to the options at the top of the user list.

Uncheck the team to remove them from.

Click 'Remove from Team' and save to confirm the removal. Don't worry, you can always add them back or to another team at a later time.

You now have a team that is manageable with the right people getting the right information. Goals will be met, executives will be happy and your team won't skip a beat.

Types of Memberships

There are two available options when choosing your membership - monthly and annually. This means you will be charged on the same day each month or the same day each year. In order for your training experience to continue uninterrupted, your A Cloud Guru membership is auto-renewing and will continue until you cancel it.

As long as your payment method is up to date, you will not need to manually renew your membership. Our system will recognize when your membership is up for renewal and do the work needed to keep your training experience seamless.

Finding your Renewal Date

It's easy to see when you will be charged next! In the membership tab found in your account settings you will see your membership status and the next bill date.

This means this user will not be billed again until January 25th, 2020 and if they cancelled their membership they would still have access through that date.

Happy learning!

Check out ourGoogle Certified Associate Cloud Engineer course here.

What you need to know about the exam?

You get 120 minutes to complete 50 questions.

The cost of the exam is $125 USD.

This exam is not available online, it must be taken in person at one of the testing locations. Find the closest one to you here.

The exam is currently available in English only.

All the questions are multiple choice, with at least 4 options.

Some are multiple response questions. You need to select all answers correctly in order to get the points for the question. If you are asked to choose 2 answers of 5, you need to select the two correct answers or you get 0 marks for the question.

There are no true and false questions.

We also now offer a Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer Exam Simulator!

1.From the course page, you can see the exam simulator option to the right.

2.Please read over the exam simulator information as it will prepare you for what to expect prior to starting it.

3.Take your exam simulator and be ready to pass your Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer exam! Please take the exam simulator as close as possible to the real exam settings; find a quiet spot where you will be uninterrupted!

As part of the ACG Membership package, the Exam Simulator is currently available for:

AWS

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

AWS Certified Developer Associate

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

AWS Certified Security - Specialty

AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty

Google Cloud Platform

Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer

About the Exam Simulator

Prepare yourself to confidently face the pressures of the real Cloud Certification exams. Answer similar style questions in the same format and time as the real exam. All questions are mixed to mimic the same vendor blueprint. This will give you a more accurate outcome so you know which areas you are strong and areas that may need more focus. The report will also give you recommendations on how to increase your score!

Locating the exam simulator

The Exam Simulator can be found either next to the Course Outline of each available course, on your student Dashboard page, or on the exam simulator page. Only users with an active ACG Membership can take advantage of the Exam Simulator.

Course page:

here

Exam simulator page :

We're continuously updating the exam simulator questions and adding new ones so you can confidently become a Guru!

Everyone loves a sale and a good deal. We're pleased that we get to give this to everyone, so anyone can learn Cloud!

We currently do not have any discounts or sales. But do not fret; although it looks as though we don't offer discounts, it's because we work extremely hard to keep the costs the lowest across the board. This allows everyone to benefit and still likely paying less than the other options with discounts. Training institutes that offer discounts can do so because they're usually charging much more already!

That's not to say we will never have sales or promotions.....

You will be made aware of any upcoming sales or promotions via our main website and our emails - are you subscribed? These are the best source of information!

If you require your billing information updated for future receipts and are not updating your payment method, please contact us with the details to have updated, such as:

Name

Email

Company name - if applicable

Address

Payment information

We can also update your existing receipts if this information is required.

If you're wanting to change your billing method moving forward - which will also change your name and address - you can do so by following the instructions here.

Congrats on using our mobile app! You can learn on the go and enjoy ACG wherever you are! Below is a step by step guide on how to locate the resources in an individual video.

1) After you launch the app, select the course you are currently studying on the Dashboard tab. In this example, we will be using AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

2) Within the course, select the video you are currently studying.

3) Once selected, you will see the "Links & Resources" section at the bottom of the screen. There you will be able to access all the materials needed for the video!

As always, happy learning!

We want our mobile app to be seamless and simple - which is why we don't list all of the courses to browse through our app. It's easy to add what courses you do want available on the go though!

1. Version 2.0 now allows starting new courses via the mobile app! Go to the "Browse" tab and find the course you want to start studying.

this simple guide.

2. If you have not watched the course in the past, you will see a "Ready? Let's get started!" button towards the bottom

3.You can then click on any videos within the course to start studying!

Happy learning! If you need courses to watch offline, please follow

When you purchase ACG for Business online, it's easy to gain all the insights into your billing information. Let’s run through how to become a billing guru!

1. Choose your billing option under your name in the upper right corner.

here.

2. In the Subscription tab you can add more seats, disable auto-renew, and view a history of billing events.

Want to add more seats? This article will walk you through the process.

If you plan to disable auto-renew, please note that you will lose all access to courses and data at the end of your contract.

3. You can always update your organization’s Billing contact! This is the information shown on invoices.

Once all of the information is correct, hit 'Save Details' to make it official!

4. Update your card information in the Payment details tab.

In the Payment details tab please choose 'Update card'. Currently, all ACG for Business purchased online must be paid with a credit card.

Fill in the updated information!

Once the information is correct, hit 'Save credit card' to lock it in!

5. Finally, you can locate all of your invoices in the Invoice history tab.

From the Invoice history tab you can ensure invoices have been paid, confirm invoice amounts, and download invoices as PDFs if needed.

You're managing your ACG for Business account like a guru! Of course, if you do run into issues our Support team is available to help. Just submit a ticket

The AWS exams are a challenge. Many students struggle with how to answer AWS questions. They are very well written questions that require you to both understand the questions and know the technical detail of the offered answers to determine which are not valid. There is a method for approaching the questions which I refer to as dissection. The key is to know your material very well so that you can spot the falsehood and mismatches in the offered answers.

The questions in the Pro exam are more complicated because they will offer more than one which will work and you need to choose the 'best'. In the Associate exams it is simpler. there will be ONLY ONE correct answer all the others will be incorrect for some reason.

-------------------------------

We have launched an AWS Certification Exam preparation course specifically designed to help you prepare for the exam. Take a few minutes and run though this course to help you get the maximum result from the same effort.

The Questions:

Identify every piece of information or hint in the question.

If they give you information it is relevant to choosing between options. This is particularly true of the associate exams. For the Professional exams some information may be 'less' relevant not not misleading.

If they don't give you a piece of information you don't needed it. Don't assume and do not add information that is not there.The only exception is that you can assume that any service will function as advertised.

The Answers:

Read the answers very carefully. Do not assume the answer based on the 1st and last word.

You must choose an offered answer. You cannot add an answer your would prefer. This sound silly but I have had candidates argue that the question is wrong because it does not offer the answer they want to give. As an engineer you cannot always do the "technically best solution" you must work with what you have. The same here.

You cannot assume additional services or configurations if not given. (See note above about default or as designed functions). If the questions is about a VPC and no mention is made of nACLs, then assume that they are there and properly configured. However if the questions describes one nACL you cannot assume a 2nd that suits your purposes better.

Look for how the answers self-eliminate. To do this you need to really know your material. Know how things work, not just the names and definitions. For every component and service be able to quote a dozen or more things about what it does and does not do. Compare similar solutions and research how they are different and when you might use one over another. It is never that one is better than another, they all have their place and you need to understand what each is 'best' and 'worst' for. When you know what an object or service cannot do, then you will be able to spot the nonsense in the offered answers.

I suggest that you practice dissecting questions and answers with our practice exams. IGNORE the score and our opinion about what answer is correct. Use each questions as a research opportunity to prove to yourself why each answer is correct or incorrect.

Do the labs over a few times. but focus on why you are doing each step. Mix it up and alter the lab and then figure out how to fix it.

Note:Accept that you will miss a few questions in the exam because that is how the exam is designed. When you hit a question you cannot make sense of, move on quickly and do well on all the others. Then come back to puzzle them out (or guess) for the extra points.

Finally

You can do this !

Don't rush into the exam. There are no bonus for how fast you study. But there are bragging rights for how well you did. We have one candidate who studied all the courses over an extended period without sitting one exam. Then sat all of them in a few days and score high 90\% on all.

Take you time. Know the material.

1.Please log into your account and head over to your Account Settings. Or if already logged in you can simply follow this link to your Purchases tab within Account Settings.

help site

2.You can open the individual purchase receipts by clicking "Open Invoice" to the right of which receipt you'd like to view.

Here you can see the date, invoice number and what was purchased.

3.You can download the PDF to your computer from here as well. If you ever need any assistance in regards to an invoice, please send us a message from our that includes your specific invoice number so we can assist.

* NOTE: If you purchased from Udemy then your receipts can be found on the Udemy site *

Receiving errors or not being able to complete a task is never fun. For our team to assist you, it helps to have the error that is actually occurring. This way our team can pinpoint where the error is coming from and offer a faster solution.

There are a number of reasons why you may not be able to log in or play videos, or have other issues. However, the most common fix is simply clearing your cache and accepting the correct cookies - look here and here.

If it is a more complex reason, please take screenshots of your console errors and diagnostics page and send them to our support team, including an explanation of the issue you are experiencing.This will help us assist in this more complex troubleshooting.

CONSOLE ERRORS

1.Open up the developer tools in your browser that you are using to watch our courses;

Windows:

Chrome: F12 key

Firefox:Ctrl+Shift+J

Internet Explorer:F12 key

Mac:

Chrome:Cmd+Option+J

Safari:Option-Cmd-C

Firefox:Cmd+Shift+J

2.Reattempt the process that is not working correctly. I.E., if you are not able to log in, try logging back in or if a video is not loading, try reloading the video.

3.In the developer tools, you will have multiple tabs to choose from. Please go to the "console" tab as that will provide any relevant errors. Most console errors will show up in red (see below):

https://acloud.guru/diagnostics

ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED- A common error message when your browser is unable to access our platform's user profile service or pricing database. Generally speaking due to misconfigured DNS servers, corporate firewall policies blocking access to Google (which we use for a database called Firebase) and some countries that block Google as well.

401 Unauthorized or 403 Forbidden- Usually video playback error messages that tend to appear when your account's authentication token has expired. Please log out and then back in to ensure that this is refreshed.

A cookie associated with a cross-site resource at <URL> was set without the `SameSite` attribute. A future release of Chrome will only deliver cookies with cross-site requests if they are set with `SameSite=None` and `Secure`. You can review cookies in developer tools under Application>Storage>Cookies and see more details at <URL> and <URL>.-This one isChromespecific. You can edit these settings by going to chrome://flags/#same-site-by-default-cookies and then clearing your cache and cookies.

DIAGNOSTICS PAGE

1. Open this page in your browser:

2. Take a screenshot of the page and send it to our team, together with the screenshots of your console errors.

Our team responds to most tickets in under 4 hours during business hours! We truly care about your success and getting you up and studying as soon as possible.

***Note, please visit Microsoft's website exam page for the most up to date information***

You can purchase Microsoft's official Practice exams from Mindhub. You can also find books, e-books, and practice labs in the same website.

Where are the Resources ?

Depending on the course there may be additional recourse provided. Either in the form of files, or links to external sites. You can find these in two places in the console.

In the left panel of some lectures You will see a paperclip indicating a resource.

How to use the Console

Alternately, to see where the resources are you can use the coursecurriculum / dashboard pageand scroll down you will see small paper clip icons that indicate resources. if you single click on them you can see what the resource are. Unfortunalty you cannot download download resources from here.

On small screens, the video-player resources view may be hidden behind the "Related Discussions" panel, so try making your browser window larger or having it zoom out. If the video mentions a resource and it's not listed there, ask acloud.guru support to add it. Please note both the specific video URL (ideally with a time mark) and the specific missing resource, when you contact support.

Also - .

--==--

We'd sure love for you to stay, but we understand that A Cloud Guru memberships may not be the right resource for everyone.

Monthly and Annual Memberships

You can cancel your A Cloud Guru membership at any time during your subscription. Please see how to cancel your membership here if you are unsure how to do so.

If you cancelled your membership during your free trial, you will not be billed for the cost of the membership and will not require a refund. If you cancelled your membership outside of the free trial period, you will still have access to all content until your paid through date! This is found in the Membership tab of your Account Settings.

here

Because individuals can cancel at any time, we do not provide refunds on any fees or charges for memberships, including partially used periods and bank/merchant fees. Be sure to cancel as soon as possible to stop any recurring charges. You can find how to, with the main reminder being to type the word "cancel" at the bottom of the cancellation page to confirm cancellation.

After cancelling, please check that your cancellation went through by checking your Membership Settings.

*NOTE:ForCitizens of the European Union, you are entitled to a full refund during the 14 days after the membership begins. Please note that this 14-day period begins when the subscription service starts.

We recognize that our mission to “teach the world to cloud” does not just start with the novice learner or end with the most advanced engineer, but is a mission that meets customers where they are at and enables them to be successful at their particular stage in their journey. By bringing together our complementary strengths and increasing investment in content innovation, customers and partners will have a single partner to keep pace with the rapid evolution of cloud technology.

https://acloud.guru/linux-academy

Does one login work on both sites?

What if I've already paid for one of both memberships?

Are all of the courses the same?

How will we know of updates?

What if I need help or have more questions?

Does one login work on both sites?

The short answer is no, both platforms are unique and have separate logins associated with them. That doesn't mean you can't set up the same email address for both logins, but they are managed separately.

If this changes in the future, we'll make sure to keep all Gurus informed.

What if I've already paid for one or both memberships?

Both A Cloud Guru and Linux Academy offer unique experiences to learners and we encourage you to utilize the platform(s) that meets the immediate needs of your training goals. As for canceling your A Cloud Guru subscription, our membership policy remains unchanged and you can review the full details here.

Please work with Linux Academy directly with any questions regarding your specific membership with Linux Academy.

Are all of the courses the same?

Each platform has unique instructors, and each offers their own great courses and features. As such, they are not the same and are being maintained as separate platforms. I encourage you to look at what your end goals are and which - or both - platforms will suit you best.

You can check out A Cloud Guru's features at https://acloud.guru/ and choosing "Features" at the top of the page. You can also browse the course catalogue through https://acloud.guru/courses as well.

How will we know of updates?

We understand that a big change like this can cause uncertainty and questions. We have a great team dedicated to ensuring users and admirers alike get the right information. Updates may come through as update emails (make sure you're subscribed), blog posts or social media updates.

Please follow us on Twitter @acloudguru and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/acloudguru/

What if I need help or have more questions?

Since both platforms will continue to offer their unique experience, we will continue offering Support for each platform! So, if you do need anything in regards to your A Cloud Guru account or memberships, we're all here to help at [email protected] or submitting a ticket at https://help.acloud.guru/hc/en-us/requests/new?.

If you need anything in regards to your Linux Academy account, their support team can be reached at [email protected] and they are just as awesome!

As students come to grips with AWS services a common questions is whether 'Instance Store' storage still has a place in modern AWS solutions. This is a reasonable question given the compilationof working with ephemeral storage.

------------------------------------

Instance Stores

Lets start with what Instance storage is. This is the disk that is physically attached to virtulization host. This is the closest (lowest latency) storage available to your instance (other than RAM). By Comparison EBS storage is storage on a remote network connected SAN or NAS and may be competing for I/O with thousands of other instances.

For 90\% of use cases the difference in latency will be irrelevant, and certainly not worth the complication introduced by the ephemeral nature of the Instance Store storage. The performance difference in latency, especially with SSD Instance Stores, can have a profound impact on compute intensive workloads where that CPU may be constantly waiting for data to be read from disk.

From time to time the ephemeral nature of Instance Stores is cited as a security advantage. While may be true and of some value, [IMO]this is a false sense of security and should not be relied on if you are serious aboutyour data security. The wiping is done by a 'process' on the host. If the Host fails suddenly those disks will not be wiped until the host is repaired, or the disks are moved to another host, or destroyed. Until that happens the data will be intact on the disks. Therefore the security wiping is not 'guaranteed' and the data on those disks cannot be assumed to be any more secure that any other storage on that site.

Ephemeral storage vs. EBS

Discussion about ephemeral storage us EBS is often phrased as two extremes, with Instance Stores being at risk of disappearing at any moment vs. EBS with is rock solid and will never fail. While they are at either ends of of the continuum, neither are extremes, they are in some cases closer then often considered.

It is true that Instance Stores will be wiped if the instance is stopped. However we have been happily using a technology with similar characteristics since the beginning of electronic computing. RAM is ephemeral storage and we use it without thinking about it. We know it has this limitation and we compensate by having processes that store important information on non-ephemeral media (tape, disk, EEPROM, etc) so that we can recall it when needed. Viewing Instance Stores in this way allows you think of it in terms of a balance between the performance advantage and the support solutions needed to allow you to take advantage of it. Just as we do with RAM.

At the other end is the idea that EBS is so reliable that you don't need to worry about disk failure.EBS volumes are not indestructible. The presented volumes have a failure rate or ~0.2\%. This is about 20 times better than a std disk. However if your app is super critical and you cannot risk an impact, this effectively puts you in the same situation as with Instance stores.You will need to engineer a fault tolerant solution. The AWS design pattern is to always 'Design for Failure' i.e. assume it will fail and design to pick up the load elsewhere. For a high proportion of systems EBS is an adequate (and cost effective) solution. However if your application is very sensitive the solution to make EBS fault tolerant will be similar to making an Instance Store fault tolerant.

Treatments

Depending on the nature of the data and use case there are a range of options to be considered.

A RAID mirror can be a good method to manage a disk level failure, as it provides time to mange the outage to move to a new instance. However it alone is not a full solution as you will continue to run an a defective instance until it is fixed, and it does not protect against other non-disk type failures.

If the requirement is only for fast Read, the data does not change frequently, and RTO / RPO are not onerous, Use S3 to host the master copy and basic snapshots or Lambda to pick up and write the incremental changes bask to S3.

If the data is changing, or the RPO & RTO are short, you may want to consider file level or block level replication to a standby Instance with Instance Store volumes. AWS do not have a services for this at present, but it can be done with 3rd party products.

If the data is changing, or the RPO is short but RTO is not, you may want to consider file level or block level replication to an instance with EBS volume as a form of up-to-date / real-time snapshot to use to build a new instance. AWS do not have a services for this at present, but it can be done with 3rd party products.

Possibly the design is no longer optimal and you should consider a High Performance Compute (HPC) solution which has additional safeguards and recovery methods built in.

I am sure you can think of more when you start to think outside the box.

Conclusion

Instance stores still have value especially when it comes to massive IOPS at low latency.

Instance Stores may be ephemeral, but EBS storage is not 100\% reliable either. Decide the level of acceptable Risk and 'Design for Failure' accordingly, regardless of the technology.

Until you get to the rarified atmosphere of high performance compute, EBS storage provides plenty of grunt and a whole bunch of flexibility to meet most of your EC2 needs.

--==--

this guide

We recommend to either allow third-party cookies in your browser or make an exception for A Cloud Guru's 3rd party cookie, in order to successfully log into your account.

Most browsers allow you to accept third-party cookies for specific sites that you allow. If you decide to keep third-party cookies blocked, you'll need to make exceptions for the following domain for A Cloud Guru to work:

auth.acloud.guru

Browser extensions such as Ghostery, Privacy Badger and some other ad blockers may also require this exception.

See the help documentation for your specific browser for instructions on creating an exception or allowance. Safari, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox instructions are below:

Safari:

1. Go to the Safari drop-down menu.

2. Select Preferences.

3. Click Privacy in the top panel.

4. Under 'Website tracking', untick 'Prevent cross-site tracking' and 'Block all cookies'

NOTE: Safari users need to turn off ITP.Which means that 'Ask websites not to track me' should be unticked as well.

Google Chrome:

1. At the top right, click the More button, then Settings.

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3. Under "Privacy and security," click Content settings.

4. Click Cookies.

5. For Allow, Click on ADDand type in "auth.acloud.guru"

6. Confirm that the allowed cookie appears as below:

Mozilla Firefox:

1.At the top right, click theMenubutton, thenOptions.

2.ClickPrivacy & Security.

3. Under "Cookies and Site Data" Click on "Exceptions"

4. Type in "auth.acloud.guru" and select Allow. Ensure that you type in https:// before the URL.

If all else fails, let's pinpoint exactly what may be blocking your login. Go ahead and send us an email to [email protected] and include a screenshot of your developer diagnostics when you hit the error by following .

Again, we thank you for your patience while we move away from thisrequirement!

From time to time students reach out and ask to get the slide decks and exam hints & tips as a download for review.

Unfortunatly we have to decline these requests. There are several reasons all of which contribute to this decision.

1-There is a real cost in maintaining printed material in line with the course and the industry changes. This is a real cost that would need to be passed on to students in course costs and the learning value does not justify this cost especially when there are alternatives.

2- For those on the move we provide the mobile app which gives access to the whole course in the form that it is designed to be absorbed in.

3-While we acknowledge that the slide decks and hints would make review and memorization of some material easier, that material would not be sufficient to develop good skills to take into a job, or properly prepare for the exam. The content you need to learn to pass the exams is much more than just the slide deck or the hints & tips. If you are looking for material to review, we encourage you to re-read the white papers and consider both what the services are good for, and what they are not well suited for. This will help with the scenario questions on the exam, and the supplementary reading to provide the deeper knowledge.

Our instructors found that they recognized many of the exam question from the white paper commentary. Read them slowly, stopping frequently to think about what they are saying, and what the anti case would be.

(If you are studying AWS the AWS free Kindle books excellent and a really good way to start your prep for the Speciality & Pro level certs.)

4- Due to copyright reasons, we're unable to release the slides used in our videos. We originally released material, but it only takes a couple of people to abuse it and ruin it for everyone. Within months we found them pirated and reproduced in other languages without permission. Given we also update the videos and section constantly which would put the written material out of date, we've opted to not make them available.

I am sorry that we cannot satisfy you on this, but I hope that my suggestions will help you move forward.

Sincerely

Our 7-day free trial gives you a taste of A Cloud Guru Memberships and time to evaluate if it's right for you. While we don't offer extensions for the 7-day free trial, we recommend joining our monthly membership to evaluate if our training content suits your needs.

Joining the monthly membership will give you full access to every single course on our website and members-only content, allowing you to further test the benefits of our membership. You can cancel anytime during your monthly membership.

In mid 2019 AWS changed the UI and Workflow to create RDS DBs in the console. This has led to a a few problems in the courses. This will show you how to turn on the new UI if it does not happen automatically.

Some users may find that they are not presented with the shiny new interface to create a new

database via the RDS console. This will mean that you won’t initially see the blue banner with the

new interface as shown below.

AWS RDS - does not create initial database

For those who are seeing the older interface, access the new interface for RDS by clicking on the

“Try it now” button that you will find in the “Aurora global databases feature is now available” box.

Do not worry, this won’t set up anything, but it will take you to the new interface.

See also :

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Whilst we use standard MP4 video containers for all videos that are streamed on our platform, some Linuxsystems require these codecs to be manually installed due to licensing.

On some Linux based systems, especially CentOS, 'GStreamer' needs to be installed in order to decode and watch the videos. Other websites (YouTube for instance) will automatically fall back to a different codec, such as Adobe Flash, which is why they may work, when videos on A Cloud Guru do not.

In order to fix this, ensure that GStreamer is installed for your operating system:

https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/MultimediaOnCentOS7

The last line in particular for installed GStreamer via Yum.

This link has some more in depth information around how the versions of GStreamer that ship with CentOS are too old for most videos and need to be updated: https://media.librelamp.com/gst.

Lets talk about AWS Storage for a moment.

There have been a number of questions about the different storage types, which are Block storage which are Object storage and where EFS fits into the mix. Below I hope toshed some light on the importantdifferences so that you can make wise choices between them.

Storage

Ultimately all storage has "block storage" at he lowest level (even SSDs which emulate disk blocks). The terminology used is not as important as understanding the distinctions in how the storage is interacted with. Rather than trying to memorize that this service has this title, or that service has that title, it is more useful to understand how they are used and the advantages and limitations that imposes.

S3, files on S3 can only be addressed as objects. You cannot interact with the contents of the object until you have extracted the object from S3 (GET). It cannot be edited in-place, you must extract it, change it, and them put it back to replace the original (PUT). What this comes down to is that here is no user "locking" functionality as might be offered by a 'file system' This is why it is called "Object storage".

EFS is basically NFS (Network File System) which is an old and still viable Unix technology. As the title implies it is a "File System" and offers more capabilities than "Object Storage" . The key to these is grades of 'File Locking' which makes it suitable for shared use. This is what makes it suitable for a share NETWORK file system. It is important to note that like Object Stores, you are still restricted to handling the file as a complete object. You can lock it so that you can write back to it, but you are restricted in the extent that you do partial content updates based on blocks. This gets a bit grey as there are ways to do partial updates, but they are limited.

EBS is closer to locally attached disk whether that be IDE, SAS, SCSI (or it's close cousin iSCSI/Fibre Channel, which is in reality just SCSI over a pipe). With Locally attached disk you have better responsiveness and addressing. This allows you to use File Systems that can address the disk at a block level. This includes part reads, part writes, read ahead, delayed writes, file system maintenance where you swap block under the file, block level cloning, thin provisioning, deduplication etc. As noted above, Block Storage sits underneath both NFS and Object stores, but as a consumer you are abstracted away and cannot make direct use of them.

Do take time to do more reading into the subtleties of Storage technology. It is not so relevant for the associate exams, but understanding the pros and cons is important for a practicing Professional Solution Architect and for the Pro exams.

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Why should non-technical staff understand Cloud services ?

Cloud implementations are not purely a technical matter that has no impact on the rest of the organisation. To reap the benefits that Cloud offers, changes are often needed in the broader organisation including but not limited to ; project planning philosophies, to staff management, and financial management strategies.

The 1st step is to understanding the potential benefits and what is needed to achieve these benefits.

As a manager or non-technical officer what can I study?

Start with a mix of short courses and informative articles. Then consolidate it with a foundation certification course.

The following short courses will give you a broad view of what the main vendors are offering and some insight into the business advantages they offer.

Introduction to Cloud Computing *

Introduction to AWS *

Introduction to GCP. *

Introduction to Azure *

*See the Course Catalogue for the links to the latests Course.

To get a better understanding of how the broader industry is using these products, make use of these series. The Biographies in particular provide insight into how these technologies are changing businesses and how people use information.

Watch “ AWS this week ”

Watch “ Azure this Week ”

The reInvent series

Sam’s ‘ ACG Release Review ’

ACG Biographies

When you have a good feel for the landscape and want to test your understanding, or want get an endorsement to show your capability, do the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner course and exam.

From there with a good foundation in cloud concepts and issues review the Vendor documentation and case studies on Cost Control, Migration strategies, Business Transformation. And look courses which are targeted at your area of interest.

Azure:

Cost management

Cost Analysis

Pricing

Migration

AWS:

Cost management

Business transformation

Migration

GCP:

Cost management

Migration (lift & shift)

Migration (go cloud native)

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From time to time we get asked for recommendations on what editor or IDE to use for studying and practice.

Editors & IDEs

For these courses and personal experimentation you do not need anything special. Any simple code editor that you already have on your workstation will do fine. NotePad (Win), NotePad++(Win) or TextEdit (Mac).

However Do Not use a Document editor such as WordPad or MSWord or gDocs etc. These have a bad habit of adding special (hidden) formatting information in the file which will really mess things up.

Each instructor has a favorite editor. If you are just starting out try the one that the instructor recommends as it will both give you exposure to different tools, and may make following the lessons easier.When you move into a commercial environment, you may need to change to whatever IDE the team uses, so it would be wise to experiment with different tools and be relaxed about what tool you use.

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If you plan to spend any time in IT then you should invest a bit of time in learning to use a range of good editors and IDEs. Here are some free and very functional ones you could experiment with:

NotePad++ (Win)

BBEdit (Mac) (was TextWrangler)

PyCharm Community IDE (both)

Atom IDE (both)

SubLime IDE (both)

VIM (both)

vsCode (both)

IDE = Integrated Development Environment

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