Best Online Azure/AWS/DevOps Certification Courses

One of the best, in-depth technical resources to keep your skills up-to-date. 

Being an author myself, I can vouch that an enormous amount of effort goes into making every course, with peer reviews, Production Editor reviews, etc.

With the Pluralsight Premium plan, you can access Azure Certification exams with Kaplan, which has helped me immensely to clear my Azure AZ-103 exam.

I cannot recommend it any better!

Whizlabs has the best Azure certification practice tests (& AWS too) available in the market. Each exam contains approximately 275 questions (which is a lot), and each question contains an explanation of why it is the right answer and why others are not.

Also, you get links to Microsoft documentation for each question. So, if you fall short of concepts, this is a better way to consolidate your bases.

I recommend using their practice tests before your actual examination.

Recently, Whizlabs has introduced a subscription plan which is much cheaper than its competitors. It includes all their courses, practice tests & labs.

Note: Use code WHIZ20SUB for 20% OFF on any course/practice test/annual subscription

LinkedIn Learning, Lynda earlier, has a few courses that will be very helpful for your IT certification exams, like the Azure Certification exam tips, etc., I always enjoyed their delivery

While Pluralsight has purely IT and software development related, LinkedIn Learning has a much bigger scope in that they also cater to topics on Creativity and Business fields

With free trials in the offing, there is absolutely no reason not to grab one

Also, check out their a la carte courses

Mindhub provides the cheapest Exam Replay products for various Microsoft certifications like Azure, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, etc.,

Exam Replay means you get 2 attempts for your exam. Even if you fail on the first attempt, you get another one. This is the best way to approach Microsoft certification exams, as it gives you some confidence.

In addition to that, they also provide MeasureUp official practice tests.

You can also buy exam replay bundles that come with the official practice tests.

Udemy is vast and has a huge range of courses for your Azure Certification needs

With a 30-day refund policy, you needn’t fret about trying one

Most of the time, their courses are cheap, starting at $10.

Skylines Academy has top-notch content for Azure Certification preparation, both courses, and Practice test. They also have a subscription option only at $19/month or $149/year.

In addition to Azure, Skylines have published content on Microsoft Office 365 Certifications. All their courses are impeccable and truly price-worthy

Only for users of ravikirans.com: I signed up a partnership with Skylines Academy to bring you their individual courses, Monthly, and Yearly subscription at the lowest possible prices (50% OFF)

If you are interested to learn more about Linux on Azure, you should check out the course ‘Deploying and Managing Linux on Azure’ from the Linux Foundation.

In addition to that, Linux Foundation also has several courses on Linux and DevOps certifications like Containers and Kubernetes (Check out their Certified Kubernetes Administrator Certificate course [CKAD]).

CKAD / CKA Exam discount: Use code RAVIKIRANS15 & get 15% OFF

Not much of Azure, but Coursera has some of the best certifications/content around Machine Learning, Google Cloud, and even AWS. 

Barring some courses, they are generally free to audit. If you are committed to earning a certificate, and doing projects, then you would need to pay for the course.

In addition to courses, you can also pursue

• Specializations (mastering a specific skill),
• Professional Certificates (if starting a new career or changing the current one, certificates help you become job-ready),
• MasterTrack Certificates (for earning high-quality credential issued by a university) &
• Online degrees (online degree from a world-class university)

Udacity provides Nanodegrees across different fields like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Autonomous Systems & others.

If you complete the Nanodegree program, then you must have worked on some real-life projects, develop multi-disciplinary skills, have some solid foundation to build your career upon. All of which you can brag in an interview.

In addition to that, Udacity provides several free courses, so be sure to try them out.

Use coupon UDACAFFIL2020 before purchasing any program

DataCamp provides online data science courses and projects across a gamut of technologies like SQL, Power BI, Python, R, Tableau, Machine Learning, and Data Science.

Decide on a career role to target and choose from a variety of Career-building learning paths (like Data Scientist, Data Analyst, etc.,) to subscribe. You can also target specific skills and learn at your own pace.

Some of the features provided by DataCamp are Interactive learning, Skills Assessment, Real-world projects, & Classroom Portal.

Aesthetically pleasing, very sturdy, and heavy, RE320 from Electro-Voice is easily one of the best microphones in the market (Many people rate it higher than Shure SM7B)

First suggested by my Production Editor at Pluralsight and I couldn’t thank him enough. Cheaper than the SM7B, a must-have if you are serious about a course/YouTube video, Podcast, or music production

To begin with, RE320 is a dynamic microphone which implies that it works great even if you have a noisy environment.

Check this video for the audio recorded with RE320 for my Pluralsight course. I highly recommend this mic and you wouldn’t regret purchasing it.

Simply put, Focusrite Scarlett, an audio interface converts analog signal (sound) to digital signal that your computer can process

It also does the reverse. Convert digital signal from your computer to analog so you can hear the sound by plugging in the microphone

Now, you might ask, that sounds pretty much like the sound card on my computer. Why do I need one? Well, the sound cards on your computer are of low quality. They are not meant for professional sound recording and do not handle interference well.

In addition to that, the audio interface also acts as a preamp. This is needed as the output from dynamic microphones is so low, that it needs to be amplified before it is sent to the computer.

There is literally no competition to Focusrite Scarlett in the market.

If you go for RE320 or any other heavier mics like Shure SM7B, be sure to get a high-grade boom arm

You cannot put a $300 mic on a $15 boom arm and expect it to hold at all times

I highly recommend Rode PSA1 Boom Arm. Note that the Boom arm has to support both the RE320 mic and the shock mount (which is heavier itself)

Initially, I was worried if RE320 would be too strong for the PSA1. And when I hooked them up, to my surprise, it worked like a gem and there were hardly any vibrations affecting the mic

Boom arm has 2 options:

• to drill a hole onto your table (permanent solution) 
• Or to just clamp to the table (temporary solution)

When you speak, you cause vibrations in the air which get captured as sound. 

But for certain kinds of sound, namely the Plosives (the ‘p’ and the ‘b’ sound), there is a sudden burst of air onto your microphone’s diaphragm.

This sudden burst of air sounds very unpleasant. To stop this, you need a pop filter

A pop filter filters the popping sounds by spreading out the air across different directions.

You can practically go for any cheapest double-meshed pop filter. The brand does not matter.

Monitoring your audio as you record is very important to improve your productivity.

When you monitor, you can easily detect the problems in your audio like: 

• Does the audio has too much echo?
• Are the audio levels too low or too high?

These problems can be easily uncovered, with monitor headphones. Else you need to record a short clip every time, save them and then test your audio, which is a cumbersome process

When you think the audio is perfect, you might continue recording a big clip (approx 20 minutes), only to later realize that there were software issues, or other unintended changes to your settings, which would result in low-grade audio. The professional monitor headphones will help you to uncover them.

I proofread all my scripts with Grammarly.

I am not a native-English speaker, hence this awesome app allows me to not sound stupid while I design my slides and write scripts

In fact, its browser extension integrates so well that Grammarly is everywhere when I’m online

It is a must-have tool