AWS Administrator Career

How to Start Career as an AWS Administrator?

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AWS certifications are presently one of the renowned certifications for establishing your career in cloud computing. Most important of all, AWS is presently a thought leader and is one of the early pioneers of the public cloud. Therefore, AWS administrator career opportunities seem to be on the rise for the right reasons.

The significance of the role of an AWS administrator is at par with that of an AWS developer or a solution architect.

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a staggering adoption rate of 67%.
  • Most important of all, AWS is also the leader in the adoption of public cloud services among SMBs at 53%.
  • Furthermore, 40% of government agencies depend on an external service provider for their cloud migration plans. Interestingly, the choice of the government for reliable cloud providers primarily includes renowned players such as AWS and Microsoft Azure. 

The above-mentioned factors clearly present the foundation for curiosity regarding a career as an AWS administrator. If you have some doubts between the SysOps and DevOps while choosing a better career option. You should first understand the difference between the two and make the right decision for a bright career.

The following discussion would help you find out a brief roadmap on how to start a career in AWS as an administrator. The discussion would point out critical aspects regarding the process of becoming an AWS administrator, such as reasons for pursuing an AWS administrator job role. In addition, the discussion would also focus on basic and role-specific skills, job description, required AWS associate certification, and salary for AWS administrator jobs. 

What is AWS Administration?

The AWS SysOps Administrators are responsible for managing, operating and administer the AWS systems or on-premise network systems. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a public cloud services that is hosted in the Amazon’s data centers across the world.

The administrators are just using the internet to access their resources allocated in the AWS account and manage them. It is the day-to-day job for an AWS Administrator.

Path to Become AWS Administrator

Before starting our discussion on how to start a career in AWS as an administrator, it is important to look where you stand! Individuals could start off with AWS foundational knowledge through the AWS certified cloud practitioner certification. Such a scenario is applicable in the case of aspirants who are venturing into the AWS cloud computing landscape for the first time. For example, for the freshers.

On the other hand, you could also start an AWS administrator career if you have gained basic experience in working on the cloud, especially AWS. In such cases, you would not have any specific idea regarding the job role of an AWS administrator. Another possible scenario that can be ideal for pursuing the job role of an AWS administrator involves on-premise system administrators.

On-premise system administrators could choose to develop their expertise with the AWS SysOps or AWS DevOps administration capabilities and knowledge. The primary objective of considering such scenarios is to establish the alignment of your skills and expertise with the AWS administrator roles and responsibilities. 

Reasons to Pursue AWS Administrator Jobs

There are many reasons why one has to choose the AWS Administrator career option. One of the primary reason is, a good salary for the AWS Professionals. 

Furthermore, the training and certification required for AWS sysops administration tasks help in proving expertise in job-specific skills to employers. Most important of all, online course certifications can help in achieving almost 20 to 40 percent raise in salaries. 

The large-scale adoption of AWS and many notable enterprises implementing AWS currently present favorable employment choices for AWS-certified professionals. In addition, the initial phases of an AWS administrator career prepare you for leveraging AWS concepts, tools, and best practices to solve business problems. If you aspire to land your dream job in AWS cloud, we recommend you to search for AWS jobs near me and find the right job for you.

Skills Required for Administration Jobs in AWS

The reflection on AWS administrator skills is essential for starting a career in AWS as an administrator. The basic skills for an AWS administrator include database skills, quality assurance, programming skills, and information security. 

  • Candidates aspiring for AWS administrator roles and responsibilities should have expertise in database languages such as MySQL, MongoDB, and Hadoop. A large portion of the work of AWS administrators involves the management of databases. 
  • Programming skills in different languages such as Ruby, Perl, and Python are also essential skills for AWS administrators. 
  • AWS administrators have to operate in line with the development team, thereby implying the necessity of quality assurance. Therefore, product quality assurance is another basic skill for AWS administrator career possibilities. 
  • Business management and data manipulation are imperative requirements for becoming AWS administrators. These skills help in establishing a candidate as the rightful choice for the task of an AWS sysops administrator. 
  • Finally, information security skills come into the picture as dominant entries. Asset security, identity, and access management are some of the mandatory skills that should be in the niche of AWS administrators. 

The role-specific AWS administrator skills also matter significantly for aspiring candidates. Here is an outline of the different role-specific skills that you would need in the role of an AWS administrator. 

  • Experience in Linux as a power user or administrator along with shell scripting expertise
  • Experience in production deployment, monitoring, and operational support
  • Expertise in DevOps tools and processes
  • Knowledge of S3, Lambda, API gateway, Cognito and Step Function
  • Familiarity with continuous integration, continuous delivery, and Agile software delivery
  • Proven capabilities in virtualization, provisioning, and configuration management tools and technologies like Ansible and Cloud Formation. 
  • Promising skills in critical thinking, problem-solving and troubleshooting skills
  • Traits of an active team player with a flexible mindset to work in a collaborative team with other players
  • Effective interpersonal and communication skills, along with expert verbal and written communication skills in English. 

Job Description of the AWS Administrator Role

The most crucial highlight of any discussion on AWS administrator career refers directly to the job description. The job description of an AWS administrator clearly outlines the AWS administrator’s responsibilities. Readers can also find clarity on ‘what is the role of AWS administrator” by reflecting on the job description of AWS administrators.

The basic AWS administrator responsibilities involve the configuration of AWS cloud management service and careful monitoring and management of their services. You need to understand that these two aspects are essential roles of an AWS administrator. Now, you must be wondering about the possible roles that you may have to take up with these responsibilities. Here are some additional responses you may find while searching for answers to ‘what is the role of AWS administrator?”. 

  • Carefully learning metrics and monitoring the health or use of AWS resources on a full scale by leveraging Amazon CloudWatch
  • Maintenance of resource backups through frequent AWS on-premise resources backup by using AWS services extensively
  • Reduction of time required for production through skills in AWS Cloud Formation technique to deploy automation infrastructure
  • Improvement of resources and working on resource tagging for designating costs and comprehensive planning for budgeting, reporting, and governance. 
  • The ability to create appealing presentations supporting the C2S overviews is also an important part of the AWS Administrator career description. 
  • Creation and management of VPC, C2S access points, Bastion Hosts, and URL proxies is also an important role.
  • Efficient monitoring of billing and development of cost optimization strategies
  • Communication with the NISP network team for completing network connections for client VPCs. 

Some of the other crucial responsibilities that can be a part of the AWS administrator career include the following:

  • Management of full AWS lifecycle, provisioning, security and automation
  • Establishing and administration of multi-tier computer system architectures
  • Configuration and fine-tuning of cloud infrastructure systems
  • Performing software upgrades, errata patches, and kernel patching
  • Management of disaster recovery and the creation of backups
  • Maintenance of data integrity and access control throughout the AWS application platform
  • Effective monitoring of availability and degree of performance. 

Certification Needed to Become AWS Administrator

Certification is the sole instrument that can help you find the perfect answer for “how to become AWS administrator.” The AWS SysOps Administrator- Associate certification is ideal for starting a career as an AWS administrator. The certification proves your skills and knowledge regarding system and operations administration on AWS. Furthermore, the certification gives the initial boost to your AWS administrator career by obtaining industry-level recognition for you. Let us take a closer look at the details of the AWS SysOps administrator associate certification exam in the following sections. 

Prerequisites for the Certification

The search for answers to “how to become AWS administrator” through AWS certification should start with the prerequisites! First of all, there are no mandatory prerequisites for the AWS SysOps Administrator Associate certification exam. However, you could improve your chances of qualifying the exam by fulfilling the recommended AWS and general IT knowledge prerequisites for the exam. 

The recommended AWS prerequisites for the AWS SysOps Administrator certification exam are as follows:

  • At least one year of practical experience with AWS
  • Experience in management and operations of systems on AWS
  • Understanding the AWS precedents for cloud architecture
  • Practical experience in AWS CLI and SDKs or API tools
  • Thorough knowledge of network technologies with respect to AWS
  • Knowledge of security concepts with practical experience in the implementation of security controls and enforcing compliance requirements 
  • The recommend general IT prerequisites for the AWS administrator certification exam are as follows:

Minimum of one or two years of experience as an on-premise systems administrator in a system operations role

  • Knowledge of virtualization technology
  • Experience in monitoring and audit of systems
  • The ability for translation of architectural requirements
  • Knowledge regarding networking concepts such as DNS, Firewalls, and TCP/IP

Abilities Tested in the Certification

The AWS SysOps Administrator- Associate certification exam evaluates the following abilities of candidates.

  • Deployment, management, and operation of AWS systems with high scalability, availability, and fault-tolerance
  • Implementation and control of the flow of data to and from AWS
  • Selection of appropriate AWS services on the grounds of compute, data or security prerequisites
  • Identification of appropriate uses for AWS operational best practices
  • Estimation of AWS usage costs and identification of operational cost control mechanisms
  • Migration of on-premise workloads to AWS.

AWS Administrator Job

Candidates aspiring for the AWS administrator career should also understand the basic details about the format and structure of the AWS SysOps Administrator associate certification exam. The exam includes a multiple-choice and multiple-answer format with a total duration of 130 minutes to complete the exam. The registration fee for the exam is $150 USD, and it is available in four languages, such as English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese. 

Salary of AWS Administrator

The average estimate of AWS administrator salary annually could also be a motivating factor for aspiring candidates. According to Global Knowledge, the average annual salary for AWS administrator is $130,610. It definitely seems like a promising pay package, doesn’t it? 

Bottom Line

Therefore, the road to start an AWS administrator career is very easy only with the right information as your support. You should have the right set of skills to support your claim as the perfect candidate for the job of an AWS administrator. Most important of all, behavioral skills such as interpersonal communication and collaboration skills would also be significant for AWS administrator jobs.

Furthermore, the flexibility of entry points into the career of an AWS administrator is also an advantage for aspiring candidates. An associate-level certification in AWS also paves the foundation for a long-term career on the AWS platform. You can go for the AWS DevOps professional certification for advancing your career as an AWS administrator. Find the right AWS SysOps administrator associate training course and get prepared for the certification right now!      

About Pavan Gumaste

Pavan Rao is a programmer / Developer by Profession and Cloud Computing Professional by choice with in-depth knowledge in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform. He helps the organisation figure out what to build, ensure successful delivery, and incorporate user learning to improve the strategy and product further.

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