- Define the benefits of the AWS Cloud
- Identify design principles of the AWS Cloud
- Understand the benefits of and strategies for migration to the AWS Cloud
- Understand concepts of cloud economics
AWS Certification Training Course
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Training
We'll get you ready for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam, the AWS starting point for anyone who needs to talk about the cloud with confidence.
Course focus: Cloud concepts, the shared responsibility model, core AWS services, global infrastructure and pricing, mapped to the four CLF-C02 domains.
Course Overview
What the Cloud Practitioner course covers and who it's for.
AWS built Cloud Practitioner for people in technical and non-technical roles who need a working picture of the AWS Cloud. That includes sales, finance, project managers, new IT staff and anyone heading toward an Associate exam.
We follow the four domains in the official CLF-C02 exam guide. Cloud Technology and Services is the largest at 34%, so we spend real time on compute, storage, databases, networking and AI services, then cover cloud concepts, security and compliance, and billing and support.
Live virtual expert-led classes with hands-on labs and practice questions.
Accumentum is an AWS Authorized Training Partner. AWS sets exam content, fees and policies, so check aws.amazon.com/certification before you book.
Course Objectives
Get ready for Cloud Practitioner the way the exam is built.
01
Cover the Whole Exam Guide
Work through all 4 domains in the official CLF-C02 exam guide, weighted the way AWS weights them.
02
Go Deep on the Biggest Domain
Cloud Technology and Services is 34% of the scored content per AWS, so it gets the most class time.
03
Practice in Real AWS Labs
Hands-on lab work on the tasks the CLF-C02 guide lists, not just slides.
04
Be Ready for Test Day
The exam has 65 multiple choice and multiple response questions in 90 minutes. We practice both question types under time.
Who Should Attend
- People new to cloud who want a first AWS credential.
- Sales, finance, procurement and project staff who work with AWS teams.
- IT staff starting toward Solutions Architect or CloudOps Engineer.
- Service members and veterans moving into cloud roles.
Prerequisites
- AWS doesn't require another certification first, and we don't have enrollment prerequisites either.
- AWS says candidates could have up to 6 months of exposure to the AWS Cloud, but it isn't required.
Pathway Map
The Cloud Practitioner course in 4 modules.
Each module is one domain from the official CLF-C02 exam guide, with its exam weight.
Course Content
- Understand the AWS shared responsibility model
- Understand AWS Cloud security, governance, and compliance concepts
- Identify AWS access management capabilities
- Identify components and resources for security
- Define methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud
- Define the AWS global infrastructure
- Identify AWS compute services
- Identify AWS database services
- Identify AWS network services
- Compare AWS pricing models
- Understand resources for billing, budget, and cost management
- Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options
Course Features
How we teach Cloud Practitioner.
Expert-Led Classes
Live virtual instruction with time for questions, so you aren't figuring out the hard parts alone.
Hands-On Labs
Lab work in AWS tied to the tasks in the CLF-C02 exam guide.
Exam Guide Mapping
Every module maps to a domain in the official CLF-C02 exam guide.
Exam Strategy
Timed practice with multiple choice and multiple response questions, plus test day tips for the center or online.
Certification Exam
About the Cloud Practitioner exam.
Cloud Practitioner Exam Readiness
Our students pass at a 98.8% rate across Accumentum courses. We'll get you ready for Cloud Practitioner the same way.
Per AWS, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is a Foundational level exam with 65 multiple choice and multiple response questions in 90 minutes, priced at 100 USD. You can take it at a Pearson VUE test center or as an online proctored exam.
AWS certifications are valid for three years. Full details are on the official AWS Cloud Practitioner page and in the CLF-C02 exam guide.
Accumentum is an AWS Authorized Training Partner. AWS sets exam content, fees and policies, so check aws.amazon.com/certification before you book. We're also an Army CA and Air Force COOL Approved Vendor.
Exam Objectives
What CLF-C02 actually tests, task by task.
Here is the full CLF-C02 blueprint at the task level. That means 4 domains, 19 tasks and the specific knowledge and skills AWS tests under each one.
Domain 1: Cloud Concepts (24%)
Task 1.1: Define the benefits of the AWS Cloud
- Value proposition of the AWS Cloud
- Understanding the benefits of global infrastructure (for example, speed of deployment, global reach)
- Understanding the advantages of high availability, elasticity, and agility
Task 1.2: Identify design principles of the AWS Cloud
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Understanding the pillars of the Well-Architected Framework (for example, operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, sustainability)
- Identifying differences between the pillars of the Well-Architected Framework
Task 1.3: Understand the benefits of and strategies for migration to the AWS Cloud
- Cloud adoption strategies
- Resources to support the cloud migration journey
- Understanding the components of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) (for example, reduced business risk, improved environmental, social, and governance [ESG] performance, increased revenue, increased operational efficiency)
- Identifying appropriate migration strategies (for example, database replication)
Task 1.4: Understand concepts of cloud economics
- Aspects of cloud economics
- Cost savings of moving to the cloud
- Understanding the role of fixed costs compared with variable costs
- Understanding costs that are associated with on-premises environments
- Understanding the differences between licensing strategies (for example, Bring Your Own License [BYOL] model compared with included licenses)
- Understanding the concept of rightsizing
- Identifying benefits of automation
- Understanding the economies of scale (for example, cost savings)
Domain 2: Security and Compliance (30%)
Task 2.1: Understand the AWS shared responsibility model
- AWS shared responsibility model
- Recognizing the components of the AWS shared responsibility model
- Describing the customer's responsibilities on AWS
- Describing AWS responsibilities
- Describing responsibilities that the customer and AWS share
- Describing how AWS responsibilities and customer responsibilities can shift, depending on the service used (for example, Amazon RDS, AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2)
Task 2.2: Understand AWS Cloud security, governance, and compliance concepts
- AWS compliance and governance concepts
- Benefits of cloud security (for example, encryption)
- Where to capture and locate logs that are associated with cloud security
- Identifying where to find AWS compliance information (for example, AWS Artifact)
- Understanding compliance needs among geographic locations or industries (for example, AWS compliance)
- Describing how customers secure resources on AWS (for example, Amazon Inspector, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Shield)
- Identifying encryption options (for example, encryption in transit, encryption at rest)
- Recognizing services that aid in governance and compliance (for example, monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch, auditing with AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config, reporting with access reports)
- Recognizing compliance requirements that vary among AWS services
Task 2.3: Identify AWS access management capabilities
- Identity and access management (for example, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM])
- Importance of protecting the AWS root user account
- Principle of least privilege
- AWS IAM Identity Center
- Understanding access keys, password policies, and credential storage (for example, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager)
- Identifying authentication methods in AWS (for example, multi-factor authentication [MFA], IAM Identity Center, cross-account IAM roles)
- Defining groups, users, custom policies, and managed policies in compliance with the principle of least privilege
- Identifying tasks that only the account root user can perform
- Understanding which methods can achieve root user protection
- Understanding the types of identity management (for example, federated)
Task 2.4: Identify components and resources for security
- Security capabilities that AWS provides
- Security-related documentation that AWS provides
- Describing AWS security features and services (for example, AWS WAF, AWS Firewall Manager, AWS Shield, Amazon GuardDuty)
- Understanding that third-party security products are available from AWS Marketplace
- Identifying where AWS security information is available (for example, AWS Knowledge Center, AWS Security Center, AWS Security Blog)
- Understanding the use of AWS services for identifying security issues (for example, AWS Trusted Advisor)
Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services (34%)
Task 3.1: Define methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud
- Various ways of provisioning and operating in the AWS Cloud
- Various ways to access AWS services
- Types of cloud deployment models
- Deciding between options such as programmatic access (for example, APIs, SDKs, CLI), the AWS Management Console, and infrastructure as code (IaC)
- Evaluating requirements to determine whether to use one-time operations or repeatable processes
- Identifying deployment models (for example, cloud, hybrid, on-premises)
Task 3.2: Define the AWS global infrastructure
- AWS Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations
- High availability
- Use of multiple Regions
- Benefits of edge locations
- Describing relationships among Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations
- Describing how to achieve high availability by using multiple Availability Zones
- Recognizing that Availability Zones do not share single points of failure
- Describing when to use multiple Regions (for example, disaster recovery, business continuity, low latency for end users, data sovereignty)
Task 3.3: Identify AWS compute services
- AWS compute services
- Recognizing the appropriate use of various Amazon EC2 instance types (for example, compute optimized, storage optimized)
- Recognizing the appropriate use of various container options (for example, Amazon Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS], Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service [Amazon EKS])
- Recognizing the appropriate use of various serverless compute options (for example, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda)
- Recognizing that auto scaling provides elasticity
- Identifying the purposes of load balancers
Task 3.4: Identify AWS database services
- AWS database services
- Database migration
- Deciding when to use EC2 hosted databases or AWS managed databases
- Identifying relational databases (for example, Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora)
- Identifying NoSQL databases (for example, Amazon DynamoDB)
- Identifying memory-based databases (for example, Amazon ElastiCache)
- Identifying database migration tools (for example, AWS Database Migration Service [AWS DMS], AWS Schema Conversion Tool [AWS SCT])
Task 3.5: Identify AWS network services
- AWS network services
- Identifying the components of a VPC (for example, subnets, gateways)
- Understanding security in a VPC (for example, network ACLs, security groups, Amazon Inspector)
- Understanding the purpose of Amazon Route 53
- Identifying network connectivity options to AWS (for example, AWS VPN, AWS Direct Connect)
Task 3.6: Identify AWS storage services
- AWS storage services
- Identifying the uses for object storage
- Recognizing the differences in Amazon S3 storage classes
- Identifying block storage solutions (for example, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS], instance store)
- Identifying file services (for example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon FSx)
- Identifying cached file systems (for example, AWS Storage Gateway)
- Understanding use cases for lifecycle policies
- Understanding use cases for AWS Backup
Task 3.7: Identify AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) services and analytics services
- AWS AI/ML services
- AWS analytics services
- Understanding AI/ML services and the tasks that they accomplish (for example, Amazon SageMaker AI, Amazon Lex)
- Identifying the services for data analytics (for example, Amazon Athena, Amazon Kinesis, AWS Glue, Amazon Quick Sight)
Task 3.8: Identify services from other in-scope AWS service categories
- Application integration services of Amazon EventBridge, Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
- Business application services of Amazon Connect and Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES)
- Customer enablement services (for example, AWS Support)
- Developer tool services and capabilities (for example, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodePipeline, and AWS X-Ray)
- End-user computing services of Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon WorkSpaces, and Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser
- Frontend web and mobile services of AWS Amplify
- IoT services (for example, AWS IoT Core)
- Choosing the appropriate service to deliver messages and to send alerts and notifications
- Choosing the appropriate service to meet business application needs
- Choosing the appropriate option for business support assistance
- Identifying the tools to develop, deploy, and troubleshoot applications
- Identifying the services that can present the output of virtual machines (VMs) on end-user machines
- Identifying the services that can create and deploy frontend and mobile services
- Identifying the services that manage IoT devices
Domain 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support (12%)
Task 4.1: Compare AWS pricing models
- Compute purchasing options (for example, On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, AWS Savings Plans, Dedicated Hosts, Dedicated Instances, Capacity Reservations)
- Storage options and tiers
- Identifying when to use various compute purchasing options
- Describing Reserved Instance flexibility
- Describing Reserved Instance behavior in AWS Organizations
- Understanding incoming data transfer costs and outgoing data transfer costs (for example, from one AWS Region to another Region, within the same Region)
- Understanding pricing options for various storage options and tiers
Task 4.2: Understand resources for billing, budget, and cost management
- Billing support and information
- Pricing information for AWS services
- AWS Organizations
- AWS cost allocation tags
- Understanding the appropriate uses and capabilities of AWS Budgets and AWS Cost Explorer
- Understanding the appropriate uses and capabilities of AWS Pricing Calculator
- Understanding AWS Organizations consolidated billing and allocation of costs
- Understanding various types of cost allocation tags and their relation to billing reports (for example, AWS Cost and Usage Report)
Task 4.3: Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options
- Resources and documentation available on official AWS websites
- AWS Support plans
- Role of the AWS Partner Network, including independent software vendors and system integrators
- AWS Support Center
- Locating AWS whitepapers, blogs, and documentation on official AWS websites
- Identifying and locating AWS technical resources (for example, AWS Prescriptive Guidance, AWS Knowledge Center, AWS re:Post)
- Identifying AWS Support options for AWS customers (for example, customer service and communities, Basic Support, AWS Business Support+, AWS Enterprise Support, AWS Unified Operations)
- Identifying the role of AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Health Dashboard, and the AWS Health API to help manage and monitor environments for cost optimization
- Identifying the role of the AWS Trust and Safety team to report abuse of AWS resources
- Understanding the role of AWS Partners (for example, AWS Marketplace, independent software vendors, system integrators)
- Identifying the benefits of being an AWS Partner (for example, partner training and certification, partner events, partner volume discounts)
- Identifying the key services that AWS Marketplace offers (for example, cost management, governance and entitlement)
- Identifying technical assistance options available at AWS (for example, AWS Professional Services, AWS solutions architects)
Before You Start
Is CLF-C02 the right exam for you?
AWS describes a target candidate for every exam. Here is how it describes the person who should sit CLF-C02, in its words.
Who AWS wrote this exam for
The target candidate has up to 6 months of exposure to AWS Cloud design, implementation, and/or operations. The candidate might be in the early stages of pursuing an AWS Cloud career or the candidate might work with people in AWS Cloud roles.
Knowledge AWS recommends you bring
- AWS Cloud concepts
- Security and compliance in the AWS Cloud
- Core AWS services
- Economics of the AWS Cloud
What AWS says is out of scope
- Coding
- Designing cloud architecture
- Troubleshooting
- Implementation
- Load and performance testing
AWS lists these as outside what the target candidate needs to do, so we leave them out too.
Scoring and Format
How AWS scores CLF-C02.
CLF-C02 has 65 questions in total. 50 of them count toward your score and 15 are unscored questions AWS uses to gather data for future exams. You won't know which ones are unscored, so give every question your full attention.
AWS reports results as a scaled score from 100 to 1,000, and the minimum passing score for CLF-C02 is 700. The exam uses compensatory scoring, which means you pass on your overall score and don't have to pass each domain on its own.
The question types listed in the CLF-C02 exam guide are multiple choice and multiple response. You get 90 minutes, and the exam fee AWS lists is $100.
Cloud Technology and Services is the heaviest domain at 34%, so it gets the most time in our course and in your practice exams.
Career Outcomes
Jobs that ask for CLF-C02.
Cloud Practitioner shows up on resumes for help desk and support staff, sales engineers, project coordinators and finance teams who sit in on cloud decisions. It rarely lands a job by itself, but it gives you the vocabulary to hold your own in an AWS conversation and a clean starting point for an Associate exam.
Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer occupations as a group earned a median annual wage of $109,470 in May 2025. That figure is a national midpoint. Where you live, how long you have been in the field and who you work for all move the number. Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Funding and PathPay
Ways to pay for CLF-C02 training.
Accumentum is an Army CA and Air Force COOL Approved Vendor. If you're serving, start with your education center and read our Army CA and Air Force COOL pages for the steps. We'll help you line up the course with your request.
Paying on your own? CLF-C02 prep is eligible for PathPay, our monthly payment plan. Terms of 3, 4 and 6 months carry no added fee. 9, 12 and 18 month terms add 5%, 10% and 15%. Course access opens when your first payment clears.
Veterans can also look at VR&E benefits for career training.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about our Cloud Practitioner course.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is a Foundational level certification from AWS. Details are on the official page at https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-cloud-practitioner/
Yes. We're an AWS Authorized Training Partner, and our course follows the official AWS exam guide domain by domain.
AWS lists the exam at 100 USD. Exam pricing can change and foreign exchange rates may apply, so check the AWS exam pricing page before you buy.
Yes. AWS offers the exam at Pearson VUE test centers or as an online proctored exam.
AWS certifications are valid for three years. AWS publishes recertification options on its certification pages.
AWS doesn't require another certification first, and we don't have enrollment prerequisites either. AWS says candidates could have up to 6 months of exposure to the AWS Cloud, but it isn't required.
Live virtual expert-led classes with hands-on labs and practice questions. Ask us about upcoming class dates.
Yes. We're an Army CA and Air Force COOL Approved Vendor. Email info@accumentum.net and we'll walk you through the options.
Use the registration page linked below, or email info@accumentum.net and we'll follow up with dates and next steps.
50 of the 65 questions are scored. The other 15 are unscored questions AWS uses for research, and they aren't marked.
AWS uses a scaled score from 100 to 1,000. The minimum passing score for CLF-C02 is 700.
Cloud Technology and Services at 34% of the scored content, per the official AWS exam guide.
The target candidate has up to 6 months of exposure to AWS Cloud design, implementation, and/or operations. The candidate might be in the early stages of pursuing an AWS Cloud career or the candidate might work with people in AWS Cloud roles.
AWS lists these as out of scope: coding, designing cloud architecture, troubleshooting, implementation.
Yes. CLF-C02 prep is eligible for PathPay. Terms of 3, 4 and 6 months add no fee, and longer terms add 5% to 15%.
Enrollment
Enroll in Cloud Practitioner training with Accumentum.
Enroll in our Cloud Practitioner course to get ready for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam with expert-led classes and hands-on labs.
For dates and next steps, use the registration page linked below or email info@accumentum.net.
Ready to start on Cloud Practitioner?
Tell us your target date and we'll help you plan the path.