Certified Kubernetes Security Specilist (CKS)

Why I Pursued It

Achieving the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification was part of my goal to formalize the cloud design work I’d been doing in client projects. I wanted a structured way to validate architecture best practices, cost optimization, and operational excellence.

Preparation Journey

1. Weeks 1-2 — Core Services: Reviewed EC2, S3, IAM, and networking fundamentals. Built small labs to get comfortable with VPC peering, NAT gateways, and security groups.
2. Weeks 3-4 — Managed Services: Focused on RDS, DynamoDB, Lambda, and API Gateway. Replicated existing workloads I’d delivered at work to map theory to practice.
3. Weeks 5-6 — Reliability & Security: Studied Well-Architected Framework whitepapers, practiced designing multi-AZ and multi-region failover strategies.
4. Weeks 7-8 — Mock Exams: Took practice tests, analyzed incorrect answers, and re-built weak areas. Documented each session in a learning journal.

Key Takeaways

• Translating real workloads into exam scenarios made the concepts stick.
• The Well-Architected Framework is a powerful checklist for both exams and production design reviews.
• Automation (CloudFormation/Terraform) accelerates experimentation and reinforces best practices.

Credential

• Issued: January 2024
• Credential ID: AWS-ASA-2024-0001
• Verification: View Certificate