The public cloud market is growing at a staggering rate, as companies of all sizes move their technical architecture away from costly on-site configurations. At the top of this industry is Amazon’s public cloud service, AWS, with $35.4 billion in revenue last year and 38.9% total market share. Its closest competitor, Microsoft’s Azure, saw $19 billion in revenue and 21.1% market share. It’s understandable then that AWS skills are in high demand among companies wanting to scale their backend infrastructure and provide the best possible customer experience. As AWS features change quickly, companies are encouraging employees to prepare for and earn technical certifications in AWS services to keep current with the complexities of cloud computing. Certifications are an optimal way to train and validate employees’ skills in these tools. They can also be a crucial hiring qualification when recruiting candidates for a specific technical need. Since there are 12 available AWS certifications for technical employees to earn, it can be difficult to understand which is right for your company’s needs. We recently spoke with instructor and AWS expert, Chandra Lingam, about his perspectives on keeping cloud computing knowledge current and the AWS certification that will give your team a strong foundation in the cloud platform.

Q: What is a particularly valuable AWS certification?

A: I consider the Solutions Architect Associate as the foundational certification for people in the technical track. I like this certification, as it gives learners a breadth of understanding of AWS services and how to integrate them into a complete solution for your company.