Expert · Certifications and cloud careers · topic 47 of 50 · 25 min
Foundational exams: CLF-C02, AZ-900 and Cloud Digital Leader
Explanation
Why take a foundational exam?
A certification is an exam result that a cloud provider records and lets you share, usually as a digital badge. It does not replace skills, but it does two useful things. First, it gives your study a clear syllabus and a deadline. Second, recruiters and HR filters often look for it, especially for fresher and support roles in India. A foundational exam is the entry level: it tests understanding, not hands-on configuration.
Who it suits: final-year students, freshers, people moving from IT support or testing into cloud, and non-technical staff such as sales, project managers and finance teams who work with cloud. If you are already a working engineer, you can skip it and go straight to an associate exam.
The main options
| Exam | Provider | Format (check the current guide) |
|---|---|---|
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) | AWS | 65 questions (multiple choice and multiple response), 90 minutes, pass mark 700 out of 1000, about US$100 |
| AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) | AWS | A newer foundational exam on AI, machine learning and generative AI concepts on AWS; similar level and price |
| Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) | Microsoft | A short exam, pass mark 700; price depends on your country |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader | Google Cloud | Business and technical cloud concepts on Google Cloud; check the exam page for length and price |
Exam codes, prices and question counts change. Always check the current exam guide on the provider's website before you book. AWS and Microsoft exams are delivered by Pearson VUE, either at a test centre (there are many in Indian cities) or online with a webcam proctor at home. Google Cloud uses Kryterion (Webassessor). AWS certifications are valid for three years. Microsoft fundamentals certifications do not expire, while Microsoft role-based certifications such as AZ-104 must be renewed every year with a free online assessment on Microsoft Learn.
What CLF-C02 covers
The CLF-C02 exam guide has four domains. Weights change, so check the guide, but roughly a quarter is Cloud Concepts, about a third is Security and Compliance, the largest share is Cloud Technology and Services, and the smallest is Billing, Pricing and Support.
- Cloud Concepts: benefits of the cloud, the Well-Architected Framework, migration ideas, the economics of moving from buying hardware to paying as you go.
- Security and Compliance: the shared responsibility model, IAM, MFA, the root user, encryption, AWS Artifact, GuardDuty, Inspector, Shield and WAF.
- Cloud Technology and Services: regions and Availability Zones, EC2, Lambda, containers, S3, EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, VPC, CloudFront, Route 53, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and ways to use AWS (console, CLI, SDK, infrastructure as code).
- Billing, Pricing and Support: On-Demand, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans and Spot, the Pricing Calculator, Budgets, Cost Explorer, Organizations with consolidated billing, and the support plans.
How to prepare
- Read the official exam guide and keep it open as your checklist.
- Take the free official training: AWS Skill Builder for AWS, Microsoft Learn for Azure, Google Cloud Skills Boost for Google Cloud.
- Get hands-on. Use a free-tier account with a budget alert set on day one. Launch an EC2 instance, create an S3 bucket, write an IAM policy, then delete everything.
- Do practice questions, starting with the official sample questions and practice question sets. Read why each wrong answer is wrong.
- Book the exam for a fixed date. A date on the calendar stops endless "I will book it when I am ready".
A four-week plan with this course (about 1 to 1.5 hours a day)
| Week | Study | Hands-on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Modules 1 and 2: cloud concepts, shared responsibility, IAM, pricing and billing | Secure an account: root MFA, admin identity, budget alert |
| 2 | Modules 3, 4 and 5: EC2, S3, VPC, databases, serverless, CloudWatch | Launch and delete an EC2 instance; host a file in S3; a small Lambda function |
| 3 | Modules 10 and 11: high availability, Well-Architected, security and compliance | Turn on CloudTrail and GuardDuty trial; read a finding |
| 4 | Official practice questions, review weak domains, support plans and pricing details | Rebuild one thing from memory; book and sit the exam |
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Foundational exams: CLF-C02, AZ-900 and Cloud Digital Leader · 1/7
A foundational exam proves you understand cloud basics. It gives your study a syllabus and a deadline, and recruiters notice it.
Prefer a video by a teacher? Find free videos on “AWS Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 full course study plan” on YouTube ↗
In real life: A commerce graduate moves into cloud support
Priya, a B.Com graduate working in a BPO in Kolkata, wants to move into IT. She studies for one hour every evening for five weeks, using this course, AWS Skill Builder and a free-tier account with a ₹400 budget alert. She passes CLF-C02 with 812. The badge on her LinkedIn profile and a small S3 website project get her interviews for a cloud support associate role at an IT services company, where the interview asks about regions, IAM, S3 storage classes and the shared responsibility model, all topics she practised.
Practice (0/4 done)
Which is the AWS foundational certification for general cloud knowledge?
Write weeks_needed(total_hours, hours_per_week) that returns how many whole weeks you need to finish a study plan. Any part of a week counts as a full week (round up). Example: 40 hours at 7 hours a week needs 6 weeks.
Write passed(exam, score) that returns True if a scaled score passes. Pass marks: "CLF-C02" 700, "AIF-C01" 700, "SAA-C03" 720, "AZ-900" 700. The score must be at least the pass mark. Raise a ValueError for an exam code that is not in the table.
Make your own study plan for one foundational exam. Choose the exam, your target date, hours per week, and fill a week-by-week table with topics, official training modules and hands-on tasks.
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Questions people ask about this
Open a question to see the answer and why. The first ones are this topic's own quiz, so try the quiz above before you peek.
What is the passing score for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)?
Answer: 700 out of 1000
CLF-C02 needs a scaled score of 700. Check the current exam guide, as details can change.
Which company delivers AWS and Microsoft certification exams?
Answer: Pearson VUE
AWS and Microsoft use Pearson VUE (test centre or online proctored). Google Cloud uses Kryterion.
Which free official platform belongs to Microsoft?
Answer: Microsoft Learn
Microsoft Learn has free learning paths for AZ-900 and other Azure exams.
Do Microsoft fundamentals certifications such as AZ-900 expire?
Answer: No, they do not expire
Fundamentals certifications do not expire; role-based ones renew yearly through a free online assessment.
Which is the best first step before any hands-on practice in a new AWS account?
Answer: Set up MFA and a budget alert
Protect the account and your money first; then practise.
Through which company do you book the CCNA exam?Related
Answer: Pearson VUE
Cisco exams are delivered by Pearson VUE, at a test centre or online.
Which Microsoft exam is the associate-level administrator exam for Azure?Related
Answer: AZ-104
AZ-104 is Azure Administrator Associate; AZ-900 is fundamentals.
To earn Microsoft's DevOps Engineer Expert certification, what do you need besides passing AZ-400?Related
Answer: AZ-104 or AZ-204
The expert certification needs AZ-400 plus either the Administrator (AZ-104) or Developer (AZ-204) associate certification.
Which exam code gives the RHCSA certification?Related
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Next steps
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