Prerequisites
- No production AWS experience required
- 45-90 minutes of study time per day
- Optional AWS Free Tier account for light console exploration
Study Schedule
Week 1 (Days 1-7)Cloud Concepts
- Days 1-2: Cloud value proposition, pay-as-you-go, elasticity, scalability, agility
- Day 3: AWS global infrastructure: Regions, Availability Zones, edge locations
- Day 4: Deployment models and managed service benefits
- Day 5: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework and migration motivations
- Day 6: Well-Architected pillars at a foundational level
- Day 7: Domain 1 review quiz and notes cleanup
Week 2 (Days 8-14)Security and Compliance
- Days 8-9: Shared responsibility model and examples by service type
- Days 10-11: IAM users, groups, roles, policies, MFA, root account, least privilege
- Day 12: AWS Organizations, IAM Identity Center, SCPs, consolidated billing
- Day 13: Security services: KMS, Shield, WAF, GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie, Security Hub
- Day 14: Domain 2 practice quiz and missed-answer review
Week 3 (Days 15-21)Cloud Technology and Services
- Days 15-16: Compute services: EC2, Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk, Lightsail, ECS, EKS, Fargate
- Day 17: Storage services: S3, EBS, EFS, FSx, Glacier, Backup, Storage Gateway
- Day 18: Database services: RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, Redshift, DocumentDB
- Day 19: Networking and content delivery: VPC, Route 53, CloudFront, Direct Connect, VPN
- Day 20: Monitoring, management, integration, migration, analytics, and AI/ML service categories
- Day 21: Domain 3 practice quiz and service-selection flashcards
Week 4 (Days 22-28)Billing, Pricing, Support, and Practice
- Day 22: Free Tier, Pricing Calculator, Cost Explorer, Budgets, and Cost and Usage Reports
- Day 23: EC2 pricing models, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, Spot, and storage lifecycle cost control
- Day 24: Support plans, Trusted Advisor, Health Dashboard, Service Quotas, and AWS re:Post
- Day 25: Full mock exam #1
- Day 26: Review mock exam #1 and re-study weak domains
- Day 27: Full mock exam #2
- Day 28: Review mock exam #2 and summarize missed topics
Days 29-30Final Review
- Review cheat sheets for shared responsibility, IAM, S3, EC2, VPC, pricing, and support
- Run flashcards for all weak topics
- Take one final untimed mixed quiz if needed
- Rest before the real exam and keep notes light on exam day
Study Tips
Treat Domain 3 as a service vocabulary sprint: know what each service is for.
Use one-page notes for recurring pairs: CloudWatch vs CloudTrail, S3 vs EBS vs EFS, Cost Explorer vs Budgets.
Do not wait until the final week to practice. Quiz every week.
Aim for consistent 80%+ on mixed practice before scheduling the exam.
Ready to Practice?
Put your study plan into action with CLF-C02 practice questions.