Disclaimer: The publisher asked me to review this book and sent me a review copy. I promise to be completely honest about my thoughts on this book.Whether or not this book is sufficient to get you through the exam I can’t say, but as a primer on AWS Database it is excellent. Every concept is clearly illustrated with examples and technicality behind it and Technical steps to get a working AWS environment. In-short I say value to money; and valuable resource on AWS Database concepts.Book is organized properly with steps to show you how to enable and configure database component.I learned a few things from this book and I found it quite an easy read.Author Kate Gawron nicely explained the components used even for the simplest of database deployments which require servers, networking, firewalls, security controls, and storage.Author has designed this book so nicely and in a practical style that will allow us to understand boththe theory of the subject and to experiment using cloud technology through hands-on workshops and labs.Though author has explained all bit and pieces very well with the fundamental skills, still this book is only recommended to those who has a low base level of knowledge in databases and (or) in AWS in general.One thing I would like to correct here is, at some places it had mention to use AWS Account with Root User, no harm till we are doing hands-on, however we aware in real world, always create a User and grant specific access may be such as Admin access and use it, instead of root user.The best thing I liked in this book is coding using AWS CLI, instead of GUI.As I said this book is so well organized, and this book organizes the different components; services and subjects in a great organized manner which is optimal for learning and retention. The end of each chapter has a section on review section and a chapter cheat sheet, which is great for review and retention.As a long time Database Developer cum DBA, I found Chapter 3 with an overview of networking very helpful. Earlier networking was of less important and just required a bit of knowledge of it for DBA's, However, this changes in the world of cloud where the DBA requires a better understanding of concepts like security groups; VPC; Subnets; IP Address's; Route Tables, NAT Gateways, and Internet Gateways etc. I really appreciated the way these are explained, and the hands on examples are second to none.Next best part of this book is deep dive into the migration pieces; and automation. As Cloud market is growing, the biggest part of moving to the cloud is actually a migrating databases to the cloud. Which author has done a wonderful job job at explaining the services and why and when to use them. And the another reason of moving to cloud is automation, and author has explained it very well with examples of CLI, Cloud Formation and infrastructure as Code.Last but not the least, and utmost important topic Security. Migrating from on-rem to Cloud everyone concerns about the data security, and again this book does a great job of explaining the security features of AWS databases.In the last I just wanted to say Thank you Kate for helping everyone on their Cloud journey by authoring this great book/study guide, and Thanks to publisher Packt for giving me the opportunity to review this great book.

My review is based on a few of the chapters in this book, which I have went through.As a database solutions architect, I found this book practical and comprehensive. The book covers AWS managed database services covered in AWS Certified Database - Specialty (DBS-C01) Certification. Each chapter also contains a cheat sheet and review questions at the end. The cheat sheets are helpful which summarizes the key concepts. There are also hands on labs along with a GitHub code repository, AWS console screenshots and AWS CLI examples which you can use to get your hands dirty. There are 60 exam practice questions at the end of the book, which you can use to get a taste of the actual certification exam.The book assumes that you have a low base level knowledge in databases and AWS in general. I found chapter 2 very helpful which covers database fundamentals and difference between various purpose built databases.But the book is not perfect and can be improved. I found some missing words in sentences in a few of the places and formatting errors in a comparison table (pg. 237). The book mentions Aurora global database as global tables (pg. 121) which is not the right term and incorrectly mentions synchronous replication for DocumentDB (pg. 183). The AWS console changes frequently. So the screenshots in the book might get outdated sooner and need to be updated. I would also like to see more practical use cases for each of the purpose built databases to familiarize the readers on when to use which database. It will be also helpful to show examples of storing and retrieving data from all the purpose built databases (missing for DocumentDB).

This is definitely a book for those aspiring to pass the DBS-C01 certification of course but it is much more than an exam guide.It distils the vast subject that is databases in AWS and the topics that are required to pass the exam. Each topic is backed by a comprehensive narrative that could only have been written by a seasoned DB professional who is not just conceptually strong but also been very hands-on.The exhaustive book also has a downside in that one probably needs to read a few times to digest all that is written. But this is greatly helped by a summarising cheat sheet, what to review and references for further reading.As you read the book you almost want the author to have dwelt more on say real world examples of SQL Vs NoSQL which is a classic decision that most DB professionals need to grapple with in the age of microservices and polyglot DBs and languages.But then one is reminded that the book aims to mainly take the reader through the journey of understanding the DB concepts with a view to acing the exam. In this process the author has definitely managed to pique the interest of each topic for further research and lead the reader into practical application of the knowledge gained.Cannot recommend the book more whether you are a beginner or a more experienced hand – it uses the exam topics as a great anchor to set you off on a journey to be a DB consultant worth your salt and if you already are, well, there is the perspective of a well-regarded consultant to gain.

May 31,2022 Monday.Used Kate book to apply for Federal job, all is fair in love and war. Most job questions in her book. What will I do if I get Job!!She holds four AWS certifications, including the AWS Certified Database – Specialty certification asGawron, Kate. AWS Certified Database - Specialty (DBS-C01) Certification Guide: A comprehensive guide to becoming an AWS Certified Database specialist (p. 3). Packt Publishing. Kindle Edition.She passed the cert, so she knows what we need to do. Just got book as well as other Pkt one. This is a step to a AWS Solutions Architect as well as Redhat stuff Ansible, Terraform...Gonna go thru her labs, ACloudGuru , yep there are courses. Maybe ANS-CO1 might be faster oh well ...180 minutes and there will be 65 questions.50/65 should be pass, $300, she includes a practice exam, chk out right and wrong answers, know all the AWS databases ...book looks good for the cert, from AWS Solutions Arch, RDS, Neptune, DynamoDB, Kinesis, DocumentDB, etc..a snippet of how to answer DB questions,summarize the steps you should take for answering questions during the exam: Identify the technologies and solutions being referred to in the question. Remove answers that cannot be correct based on those technologies.I only have beginner DB knowledge so tons to learn, do the AWS labs as cheap ...LOLShe tells which are NOT in free tier for us poor folks; She mentions Graph DB might be one or no questions, Nice!!will add to remember stuff; old age ...quick rundown:need chap 3 VPCs.. guess do that chap 3RDS - freeAurora - freeDynamoDB - freeNeptune - a small amount, wonder how small $$ guess update budget from $5-15 bucksRedshift - a small amountGraphDB - a small amountetc....