--- title: "Enabling You to Get the Best from AWS: Introducing the New Calico AWS Expert Certification" source: "https://www.tigera.io/blog/enabling-you-to-get-the-best-from-aws-introducing-the-new-calico-aws-expert-certification/" --- [Technical Blog](https://www.tigera.io/category/technical-blog/) # Enabling You to Get the Best from AWS: Introducing the New Calico AWS Expert Certification By [Chris Tomkins](https://www.tigera.io/blog/author/chris-tomkins/) on Jun 10, 2021 • 4 min read ## Why Create a Course About Calico in AWS? Calico is the industry standard for Kubernetes networking and security. It offers a proven platform for your workloads across a huge range of environments, including cloud, hybrid, and on-premises. ![Diagram illustrating various cloud service types, highlighting Calico's role in Kubernetes networking and security](https://www.projectcalico.org/app/uploads/2020/05/Calico-Ecosystem.svg) Given this incredibly wide support, why did we decide to create a course specifically about AWS? Well, our [previous online course](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-level-1/) continues to be a great success (it’s self-paced, so if you haven’t already, we would love for you to take it and become an expert in Kubernetes networking and security). The course covers how Kubernetes networking works, how to configure and manage a Calico network, and how to secure your Kubernetes cluster. Once you know the underlying concepts, it becomes a more important consideration to identify the nuanced differences between possible implementations. These become even more relevant once you have selected a platform to move forward with. Amazon’s cloud computing platform, AWS, has played a huge role in changing the landscape around how users consume compute resources and data. As little as ten years ago, it would have been difficult to anticipate the speed with which companies and other organizations would embrace moving their precious compute resources and data out of their own data centers and facilities. Of course, AWS is not the only cloud computing platform, but it has achieved huge forward momentum due to a combination of first-mover advantage and excellent execution. Deploying Kubernetes in AWS is a common goal for organizations that wish to deploy and manage container-based applications at scale in the cloud. Calico is the most popular open-source networking and security solution for Kubernetes. Like all of the other cloud environments, there is more than one way to deploy Kubernetes. Calico can help in every case, but in each deployment model the exact options differ. For now, we’ve chosen to get started with AWS as so many of our users have had great success deploying there. ## Many Right Choices At a high-level, your organization can deploy a managed Kubernetes cluster in AWS using Amazon EKS, or you can build your own cluster. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so the new Calico Certified Operator: AWS Expert course covers both in detail. In both cases, the new course will help you to examine the options and benefits for deploying Calico to either replace or complement the advanced networking available in AWS. Not only that, but we’ll also examine how the default AWS networking works. When your organization needs Kubernetes, you can be the expert who knows how to get the networking right. ## A Fast On-ramp for Understanding How to Get the Benefits As well as learning some of the theory around Calico and AWS, this course will let you get your hands dirty with deploying demo applications with multiple deployment tools, including eksctl and kOps. ## What the Course Covers **Week 1** - Get Started with AWS Networking - Kubernetes Cluster Options in AWS - Kubernetes Networking Options in AWS - Kubernetes Network Security in AWS - Exposing Services Outside the Cluster - Lab Setup **Week 2** - EKS Deployment Overview - EKS Lab with AWS-CNI - Securing a demo application with Calico Policy - Deploying an Elastic Load Balancer **Week 3** - The AWS CNI with Calico eBPF - Deploying EKS with Calico eBPF - Deploying a demo application with eBPF - Deploying EKS with Calico CNI - IP Address Allocation Review - Enabling Encryption **Week 4** - Self-Managed Installation Options - kOps Overview - kOps with Calico CNI - Using an Application Load Balancer - Deploying Istio - Deploying Calico Application Layer Policy with Istio Ready to get started? Sign up now for our free, self-paced [AWS Expert certification course](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-aws-expert/). Or, if you haven’t already completed the previous course, we’d recommend that you [start there](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-level-1/). Either way, never stop learning! Tigera, the inventor and maintainer of open-source Project Calico, is the industry leader in Kubernetes security and observability. Tigera’s solutions, Calico Cloud and Calico Enterprise, build on open-source Calico to provide Kubernetes-native security and observability capabilities. To learn more about Tigera’s offerings, visit [www.tigera.io](https://www.tigera.io/). [Open Source](https://www.tigera.io/tags/open-source/)[Project Calico](https://www.tigera.io/tags/project-calico/)[Announcements](https://www.tigera.io/tags/announcements/) ## Related posts [![Meet Mylo: An AI-native way to work with Calico](https://www.tigera.io/app/uploads/2026/09/Meet-Mylo-An-AI-native-way-to-work-with-Calico.png)](https://www.tigera.io/blog/meet-mylo-an-ai-native-way-to-work-with-calico/) #### [Meet Mylo: An AI-native way to work with Calico](https://www.tigera.io/blog/meet-mylo-an-ai-native-way-to-work-with-calico/) By [Phil DiCorpo](https://www.tigera.io/blog/author/phil-dicorpo/) on Sep 3, 2026 A library of Calico tools and skills — delivered through the Calico MCP Server What if your hardest network question took ten minutes instead of ten days? Anyone who has operated Kubernetes networking at scale... 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