Cloud Information Overload
Survival Guide for AWS
This free guide is an opinionated short list of important resources to consider using as part of a deliberate plan to manage the flood of available information required to stay current and expert with AWS.
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Recommendations are generally in priorty order within each category.
Training
People learn differently and you should find one or two training resources that best match your personal style and preferences.
While there are many available options, those listed below are highly popular and recommended by AWS practitioners across the board.
This site should be your first stop for learning about many different free and paid training and certfication options from AWS. AWS Training.
Even if you use training from a third-party, first spend some time on this site to understand what's available and to plan your training goals.
For people that find videos to be an effective learning style, this is a very deep resources. In addition to being self-paced, the ability to increase the playback speed can be quite helpful. AWS YouTube.
There are several key considerations to take into account when using YouTube videos for training. First, you generally need to know what you are looking for and search to find an appropriate video.
Also, AWS capabilities change fast and frequently. Therefore, it's important to check the date of a video and beware that if more than say a year old, it's quite possible that aspects are no longer up to date. Specific training resources from AWS or from third-parties are generally quite good about keeping their content fresh compared to YouTube which by it's nature is not curated in the same way.
Most AWS re:Invent (annual conference with a focus on learning) sessions are recorded. Starting with re:Invent 2019 Cloud Pegboard will catalog all re:Invent session videos that relate to specific services so that you can find relevant and current videos by selected service.
Self-paced video training with many different course options to match to your particular interests. A Cloud Guru.
Training is broken up into many smaller (max 20 minute) sessions. The team is highly knowledgable and the content is kept up to date. There are plenty of hands-on labs and pointers to resources to study beyond the course content. There is a particular focus on training for the purpose of gaining certifications.
Provides a rich library of Hands-on Labs, Learning Paths, Courses, and Quizzes. Suitable for individual use, and also has a strong enterprise focus as well. CloudAcademy.
Another good online training option. Linux Academy has a higher focus on hands-on labs. Linux Academy.
Reference
No matter what your role, as an AWS practitioner you will necessary spend hours every week looking up information that you'll need to work with AWS.
Optimizing your ability to find information will come in small bits, but will add up to hours of savings every month, let alone the value of keeping focus on the task as opposed to tangents mining for essential information.
Data from dozens of AWS and other sources organized to get directly to needed info in 1 or 2 clicks. Cloud Pegboard.
This is your most efficient and effective way to find cloud information wether your selecting services for a new architecture, in active development, or performing security or compliance analyses.
For active developers, best practice is to leave Cloud Pegboard open in one or more tabs to help you stay focused on the task at hand.
Source for AWS-specific information.
This site is of course a staple since it is the source of truth for AWS-specific information. AWS home.
AWS is so vast, that information can be challenging to find at times. Using Cloud Pegboard or Google searches is most common way to get to the starting point and then you can often navigate effectively from there.
Staying current
These resources will help you to stay current without drowning by trying to read the thousands of announcements and blogs that are published every year.
Daily or weekly emails for the specific services and/or regions that you select. Personalization lets you focus on what's important and filters out the noise. Cloud Pegboard.
Cloud Pegboard is the best source for efficiently staying up to date with new service announcements and updates to existing services as it is purpose-built to provide service-centic updates.
For more other AWS news (not service-specific), we recommend AWS Emails and/or AWS Podcasts.
If podcasting is a good medium for you, this will be a useful resource. Each episode is typically between 20 and 60 minutes and focuses on a specific topic each week. AWS Podcasts.
Of particular note and utility is the monthly update show that discusses the top announcements from the previous month.
Configure your AWS email preferences to get information on events, training and certification, announcements, and several other topics. AWS Emails.
It's of course easy to get overloaded with too many emails, so some care in your selections are in order. For services-specific information, we recommend using Cloud Pegboard as it is more personalized for your needs. However, for other topics such as events or trainings, AWS emails are the definitive source.
It can't hurt to oversubscribe at first to get a feel for what's good for you and then actively manage your preferences and opt out of low-value message types after a period of time.
These short videos provide a clear and accessible summary of about 4 key announcements from the previous week. AWS This Week.
The content is not really any different from the AWS announcements, but it's helpful to see what A Cloud Guru has selected as being important to highlight. Also, sometimes it's nice to get a change of pace and have information delivered via a short video instead of reading everything (though clearly not scalable beyond a few announcements per week).
Cloud Pegboard CEO Ken Robbins has a personal preference for using the Alexa skill to listen to AWS This Week. Using the Alexa skill ("Alexa, ask A Cloud Guru what's new") you can quickly listen to the updates while working out or eating.
This weekly newsletter provides a selected list of announcements and community news, each with a short snarky summary. Last Week in AWS.
Support
Matching the right type of help resources to a given problem can save significant time and frustration. Self reliance is important, but when you are stuck, consider these resources (and Google too of course).
AWS provides excellent customer support via 4 different support plan options. Effectively using AWS support should be a staple of your toolkit. AWS Support.
AWS Support is useful for service-related problems, limit changes, and services questions. The paid plans offering increasing degrees of architecture support.
"Support" can mean many things and you should not expect to use AWS Support for all of your support needs. Combine AWS Support with some of the other options in this section to have good coverage across your diverse support needs.
Community forums that provide an excellent Q&A capability and place to discuss issues. There's a good chance that your issue has already been discussed here. AWS Discussion Forums.
There are many categories and a massive community contributing. Additionally, AWS staff actively participate to provide authoritative answers, product information/news, and listen to feedback.
Sometimes asking your peers can be overlooked as a primary support option. Consider setting up formal and informal approaches to facilitate collaboration to help each other out. Such collaboration can of course be within your project team, but it's powerful to find ways to reach out to other groups within the same enterprise.
Seeking help from within your organization has additional benefits such as building connections across the org, cross-polinating institutional knowledge as a side effect, and being able to get answers from someone with a shared domain and context knwowledge.
Some channels to consider to help facilitate these sorts of interactions include creating Slack or MS Teams channels, office hours with domain experts, mailing lists, etc.
Unlike other community options, a chat tool allows for more interactive discussions. Channels such as #questions are often used for soliciting help from the community. Open Guide to AWS Slack channel.
Some people are fans of Reddit and some are not. If you are, this is where AWS topics are discussed. AWS Reddit.
Cloud Pegboard is not affiliated or compensated by any third-parties mentioned. We strongly encourage feedback to help keep these recommendations current and effective.
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