Advanced Learning for AWS

I posted a quick answer to a question on the AWS subreddit the other day that got a lot of imaginary internet points (aka. upvotes), so thought I'd spend a bit more time and share all the sources I use on a regular basis. Believe it or not, but it wasn't actually a thinly-veiled attempt to plug my book about AWS IAM (but that was).

Keeping Updated

I created BigOrange.Cloud/Updates to keep on top of all the AWS blog sources, as well as a few other sources like the CloudFormation release notes, and AWS SDK API updates. New items (since your last visit) will be bolded, so it helps me keep track of changes since the last time I looked. The code is up on GitHub if you want to add more sources.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to keep up to date with a topic while doing something else with your hands and eyes. Here's what's in my AWS-related podcasts look like, in no particular order:

The official AWS podcast has been around for ages, and does a regular update episode that summarises recent announcements.

Like the name says, this podcast has small, focused episodes that focus on specific services and parts of AWS. I find this a good way to dip my toe in a topic or service I'm not familiar with, or get a refresher on something I haven't touched in a while.

Screaming in the Cloud is a more people and topic focused podcast which is still mainly focused on AWS. Because it's not an official AWS source, you get some pretty frank and honest discussions and comments (that we were all thinking!).

Another official AWS podcast, but focused more on the business-level conversations and concerns, but still on AWS. This is a good one if you're working with AWS with larger companies and enterprises.

AWS FM is an informal podcast about AWS, and the people doing interesting stuff on it.

The host Adam does a great job of getting "hot takes" from his guests, so much so that I have started a campaign to rename the podcast.

Getting Help

There's so much AWS to learn these days, so even when you've gotten to an advanced level of AWS usage you're still going to need help sometimes!

The AWS Developer Slack is an invite-only Slack community that's great to ask advanced questions in. Reach out to your local AWS developer advocate for an invite.

The Open Guide to AWS is a great community maintained guide to AWS, and they have their own Slack too. I find the questions in here are generally a bit more beginner-level, and everyone is learning together.

A relatively recent addition to the landscape is re:Post, which has taken over from the old official AWS forums. While the old forums were a bit of a wasteland, the new platform is much nicer to use and seems more active. Unfortunately the sign-in is still linked to an AWS account, which is probably deliberate (you have to have an AWS account to post), but feels clunky in this day and age. Of course, there's always the o.g. StackOverflow for asking questions too.

Other

I enjoy dev.to in general as a developer resource, and a bunch of AWS Heroes (all of them?) have an organisation where they share focused and advanced articles frequently.

Got any good sources I missed? Please share on Twitter and let me know!

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash