New: AWS Certified Developer, Azure Labs, Alibaba course, plus more

In January, our team of expert certification specialists released three new or updated learning paths, 32 courses, 25 hands-on labs, and two lab challenges!

New Content on Cloud Academy

December’s new content fell into these categories:

Plus, check out updates on:

Amazon Web Services

LEARNING PATH: AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C01)

This learning path is curated specifically to prepare you for passing the AWS Developer – Associate exam.

HANDS-ON LAB: Controlling Amazon DynamoDB Access Using AWS IAM Policies

In this lab, you will create an AWS IAM policy, and you will use this policy to restrict access to an Amazon DynamoDB table in various ways.

HANDS-ON LAB: TIBCO Spotfire to Visualize Data

In this lab, you will analyze and visualize transformed Amazon CloudFront log data from your Amazon Redshift data warehouse using TIBCO Spotfire.

HANDS-ON LAB: Setting up a simple Data lake in AWS

Learn how to set up a simple data lake in AWS with this hands-on lab.

COURSE: Managing access using IAM User Groups and Roles

This course explores some of the security best practices when using user groups and roles and how these can help you secure access to your resources more effectively.

COURSE: Automating Patch and State Operations with AWS Systems Manager

This course looks at the AWS Systems Manager and its features. It covers how to execute commands, apply patches, and establish the desired state for instances.

LAB CHALLENGE: AWS CloudFormation Template Update Challenge

In this hands-on challenge lab, you will be given a scenario and a set of tasks to complete to meet the scenario’s requirements.

Google Cloud Platform

LEARNING PATH: The Infrastructure Developer’s Guide to Terraform: GCP Edition

This learning path contains a series of hands-on labs that will teach you how to build infrastructure using Terraform.

HANDS-ON LAB: Optimizing Terraform Configurations with Loops in GCP

This lab will walk students through the use of the count, for, and for_each tools within a Terraform configuration. It also covers some of the use cases and limitations of each.

HANDS-ON LAB: Centralizing Remote State with Terragrunt in GCP

In this lab, you will use Terragrunt to deploy a Terraform configuration in separate Google Cloud Platform environments while keeping the remote state configuration DRY.

HANDS-ON LAB: Passing Outputs Between Terraform Modules with Terragrunt in GCP

In this short lab, the student walks through the process of passing resource variables between Terraform modules.

HANDS-ON LAB: Creating a Central Authorization Layer using Cloud IAP

In this lab, you will be securing your application using Cloud Identity Aware Proxy. You will first create a simple Python application that you will deploy on the App Engine and then you will enable Cloud IAP to create a Central Authorization Layer.

HANDS-ON LAB: Testing Google Cloud Platform Modules with Terratest

In this lab, you write a test using the Terratest library that validates a Google Cloud Platform module configuration.

HANDS-ON LAB: Deploy a Google Cloud Engine Instance with Terraform Challenge

This challenge will test your practical ability to work within a Terraform project to satisfy a set of requirements in a production-like GCP environment.

COURSE: Managing Google Cloud Platform Environments with Terragrunt

This lab walks the student through creating separate environments in GCP with Terragrunt.

Microsoft Azure

HANDS-ON LAB: Creating Knowledge Bases using Wiki in Azure DevOps

In this lab, you will create and manage a basic project wiki.

HANDS-ON LAB: Implementing Azure Storage Account Failover Strategy

Upon completion of this intermediate-level lab, you will be able to understand the storage types to choose for high-availability and understand the failover process for storage endpoints.

HANDS-ON LAB: Predict Income Levels Using Azure Machine Learning Designer

In this lab, you will predict income levels using census data and compare the performance of two trained models in Azure Machine Learning Designer. You will see how easy it is to build robust models without writing a single line of code!

HANDS-ON LAB: Hosting Static Web App on Azure Blob Storage

In this hands-on lab, you will learn about Static website and perform the necessary configuration required to host the website in Azure Storage.

HANDS-ON LAB: Publishing Repository Content as a Wiki in Azure DevOps

In this lab, you will publish documentation hosted in a repository as a wiki to Azure DevOps Wiki using a development environment.

HANDS-ON LAB: Handling Messages with Azure Storage Queue

In this hands-on lab, you will learn how to create the storage queue and send/receive messages to/from the queue.

HANDS-ON LAB: Understanding Azure Networking Products: Load Balancers, Application Gateways, and CDNs

In this lab, you will navigate the Microsoft Azure Portal and receive an introduction to networking services as provided by Azure. Each lab step will focus on a different Azure networking service.

HANDS-ON LAB: Image Recognition

In this lab, you will learn the pre-built models of Azure Computer Vision service for image analysis.

COURSE: Introduction to Azure App Service

This course explores Azure App Service, which makes deploying a web application as easy as possible by managing the underlying infrastructure for you.

COURSE: Creating and Managing Power BI Workspaces

This course will walk through the process of creating Power BI workspaces, provisioning user roles, and publishing content to these spaces.

COURSE: Implementing Azure ExpressRoute

We cover design considerations when planning for ExpressRoute, requirements for installing ExpressRoute, and management and troubleshooting tasks.

COURSE: Designing for Azure Virtual Desktop User Identities and Profiles

This course will help you design and plan your Azure Virtual Desktop identity and user profiles and allow you to understand how it integrates with other Azure services.

COURSE: Implementing Storage for Azure Virtual Desktop

In this course, we will help you design your Azure Virtual Desktop storage components so you can get the most out of them in your AVD solution but also control cost to make AVD a more cost-effective solution with a dedicated focus on preparing you for the Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty exam.

COURSE: Implementing Networking for Azure Virtual Desktop

In this course, we will help you design your Azure Virtual Desktop network components so you can not only gain insight into those Azure services but also understand how they integrate and relate to the Azure Virtual Desktop service and help you to pass the Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty exam.

COURSE: Designing and Building HADR for SAP Workloads on Azure

The course looks at setting up VM and network redundancy in various scenarios and how to implement data redundancy and database recovery.

COURSE: SAP on Azure – Backup and Restore

This course focuses on continuous availability instead of high availability and complements the Azure SAP HADR course.

COURSE: Developing a Power BI Data Model

Developing a Power BI Data Model starts by looking at built-in hierarchy functionality across several scenarios to enhance a data model. Then we see how to apply row and object-level security to a data model, and the course finishes by setting the Q&A feature that enables users to provide feedback to the report writer.

COURSE: SAP on Azure – Monitoring and Optimization

This course looks at Azure Monitor, Azure Advisor, Azure Site Recovery, as well as tools like SAP Hardware and Cloud Measurement, and SAPS – SAP Application Performance Standard.

COURSE: Autoscaling on Azure App Service

This brief course explores how to use autoscaling on Azure App Service to optimize the resources necessary for running your app.

COURSE: Managing Access to Azure Virtual Desktop

This course will help you implement access to your Azure Virtual Desktop environment and understand how it integrates with the other Azure services.

LAB CHALLENGE: Azure Storage Blob Static Website Challenge

This hands-on lab challenge will test your practical ability to interact with Azure Storage to satisfy a set of requirements in a production-like Azure environment. 

Alibaba Cloud

COURSE: Powering Your Big Data Analytics with Alibaba Cloud IoT Device Data

This course looks at how to deal with analytics at scale, specifically how to empower your big data analytics with real-time data from IoT devices using Alibaba Cloud.

COURSE: Managing Compute Resources with Alibaba ECS

This course explores Alibaba’s Elastic Compute Service and the features it offers to manage your Alibaba instances.

COURSE: A Practical Understanding of Alibaba Cloud RDS

This course explores Alibaba’s RDS service looking at RDS instances, features, security, and the foundational concepts of the service.

COURSE: A Practical Understanding of Alibaba Object Storage Service (OSS)

This course explores the Alibaba Object Storage Service (OSS), covering the basics of the service and then looking at its features through guided demonstrations from the Alibaba Cloud Platform.

COURSE: Using Auto Scaling to Support Your Alibaba Cloud Workloads

This course explores the main applications of the Alibaba Auto Scaling service and includes guided demonstrations for each one.

COURSE: ACA & ACP Cloud Computing Certifications – Exam Guidance

This brief course provides some additional guidance to help you pass either the ACA or ACP Cloud Computing Certification exams.

COURSE: Securing Your Workloads with Alibaba Cloud Security

In this course, we’ll take a look at Alibaba Cloud security products to ensure host, network, apps, and data security.

COURSE: Distributing Traffic Between Instances with Alibaba Server Load Balancer (SLB)

This course introduces the Alibaba Server Load Balancer (SLB) service and its features, components, and settings.

COURSE: Fundamentals of Alibaba Content Delivery Network

This course focuses on Alibaba’s Content Delivery Network (CDN), exploring its features, architecture, and use cases.

Programming

HANDS-ON LAB: Working with JavaScript Spread Operator

After completing this lab, learners will be able to use the spread operator to make a new object from an existing object.  They will be able to merge two arrays together in order to make a new array.

HANDS-ON LAB: Working with JavaScript Rest Operator

After completing this lab, learners will be able to use the rest operator to make a new object from the remaining object properties by using destructuring.  Use the rest operator to destructure and create a new array from an existing array.  Lastly, use the rest operator as a function parameter.

HANDS-ON LAB: Working with HTML Elements

This lab gives an introduction to commonly used elements to display content on a web page. Elements used to display information on the page are often referred to as flow content.

HANDS-ON LAB: Working With JavaScript Object Constructor

In this lab, Learners will be working with the JavaScript Object Constructor. A constructor is a function that creates an instance of an object.

HANDS-ON LAB: Working with JavaScript Classes

In this lab, learners will work with different aspects of JavaScript Classes, including constructors and class methods. Classes were introduced with the inclusion of ES6 and are mostly syntactic sugar of constructor functions. A JavaScript class is a blueprint for creating objects.

HANDS-ON LAB: Working with JavaScript For Loops

In this lab, learners will be working with JavaScript For loops. A for loop is a way to loop over an iterable in JavaScript. A loop is used to execute a specific block of code a specific number of times.

HANDS-ON LAB: Working with Higher Order Functions

In this lab, learners will be working with JavaScript Higher Order Functions. A higher order function is a function that takes another function as an argument or returns a function.

COURSE: Introduction to HTML Elements

This practical course explores HTML elements and gives an introduction to commonly used elements to display content on a web page.

COURSE: Introduction to JavaScript Classes

This course explores JavaScript Classes, which were introduced with the inclusion of ES6 and are mostly syntactic sugar of constructor functions.

COURSE: Introduction to JavaScript For Loops

This course explores JavaScript for loops.  A for loop is a way to loop over an iterable in JavaScript.

COURSE: Introduction to Higher Order Functions: Map & Filter

This course explores JavaScript Higher Order Functions. A higher order function is a function that takes another function as an argument or returns a function. This course explores two built-in JavaScript higher order functions: Map and Filter.

COURSE: Introduction to Higher Order Functions: Reduce

This practical course explores the JavaScript Higher Order Function – Reduce. A higher order function is a function that takes another function as an argument or returns a function.

Security

LEARNING PATH: CSSLP Domain 3 – Secure Software Architecture and Design

This learning path covers the four key areas of domain three of the CSSLP certification.

HANDS-ON LAB: Testing and Evaluating System Performance

This lab includes a scenario which you have to complete in a real-life environment.

COURSE: CSSLP Domain 3:2 – Design Considerations

This is the second course in Domain 3 of the CSSLP certification and covers the essential ideas, concepts, and principles that you need to take into account when building secure software.

COURSE: CSSLP Domain 3:3 – Securing Commonly Used Architecture

This is the third course in Domain 3 of the CSSLP certification and covers the essential ideas, concepts, and principles that you need to take into account when building secure software.

COURSE: CSSLP Domain 3:4 – Technologies

This is the fourth course in Domain 3 of the CSSLP certification and covers the essential ideas, concepts, and principles that you need to take into account when building secure software.

Webinars

Check out the complete list, including links to sign up for future webinars and watch recordings of past ones, on our Webinars page.

Recent — click to view recording

Ongoing — click to register

New Product Features

Changes to the way the product looks or works appear in the Cloud Academy Release Notes page. We released three features in January.

You can now import your custom questions into Content Engine in bulk. You can include up to 50 questions in each import file. See Creating Custom Questions for Exams for step-by-step instructions and an explanation of the import file format.

The Training Library has a fresh new look this month. All the same functionality is still available, but the new layout substantially reduces scrolling and gets users more information about the training materials without having to click. See How the New Training Library Looks Different for a summary of the changes. 

If departments in your company have separate Cloud Academy accounts, those multiple accounts can now implement single sign-on to the same authentication system. For example, if more than one department in your organization each have a separate Cloud Academy account, they can all set up SSO with your authentication provider, such as Okta or Azure AD.

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