How hard is the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam?

The difficulty of the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam will vary depending on your level of experience and familiarity with AWS services.

The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator certification exam has been developed to validate the candidate’s skills and knowledge and strengthen their career opportunities. The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam is designed to assess an individual’s ability to deploy, manage, and operate scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. The exam is intended for individuals with a strong understanding of AWS services and best practices for deploying and operating systems on the AWS platform.

The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam covers a range of topics, including:

Monitoring and reporting: The exam tests an individual’s understanding of how to monitor and report on the performance and availability of AWS resources.
Deployment and provisioning: The exam covers an individual’s knowledge of how to deploy and provision resources on the AWS platform, including how to automate deployment processes.
Security and compliance: The exam tests an individual’s understanding of AWS security and compliance best practices, and how to implement them on the AWS platform.
Networking: The exam covers an individual’s knowledge of AWS networking concepts and how to design and implement secure and scalable networks on the AWS platform.
Disaster recovery: The exam tests an individual’s understanding of disaster recovery best practices and how to implement disaster recovery solutions on the AWS platform.

Before moving to the exam details let’s checkout some Sample Questions.

Case Study: XYZ Corp. is a global media and entertainment company that wants to move its entire IT infrastructure to AWS. They have a team of SysOps Administrators responsible for managing their AWS environment.

1. What is the best way to monitor the performance of Amazon EC2 instances running in XYZ Corp.’s AWS environment?
A. Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor the activity of the instances.
B. Use AWS CloudWatch to monitor the CPU utilization and network traffic of the instances.
C. Use AWS Config to monitor the configuration of the instances.
D. Use AWS CloudFormation to create templates for the instances.

2. XYZ Corp. wants to store their application logs in a centralized location for easier analysis. Which AWS service should they use?
A. Amazon S3
B. Amazon RDS
C. Amazon CloudFront
D. Amazon CloudWatch Logs

3. What is the best way to manage user access to AWS resources in XYZ Corp.’s AWS environment?
A. Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to create groups and assign policies to control access.
B. Use AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to encrypt the data stored in the resources.
C. Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy and manage the applications.
D. Use AWS Lambda to automate the resource management tasks.

4. XYZ Corp. wants to ensure that their AWS environment is secure and compliant with industry standards. Which AWS service can help them achieve this goal?
A. Amazon CloudWatch
B. AWS Config
C. Amazon GuardDuty
D. Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

5. XYZ Corp. wants to deploy their applications using a fully managed platform as a service (PaaS) solution. Which AWS service should they use?
A. Amazon EC2
B. Amazon Elastic Beanstalk
C. Amazon RDS
D. Amazon S3

Answers:

Exam Details

Here are the job and responsibilities the candidate will get once they clear the exam:

Deploy, manage, and operate workloads on AWS
Support and maintain AWS workloads according to the AWS Well-Architected Framework
Perform operations by using the AWS Management Console and the AWS CLI
Implement security controls to meet compliance requirements
Monitor, log and troubleshoot systems
Apply networking concepts (for example, DNS, TCP/IP, firewalls)
Implement architectural requirements (for example, high availability, performance, capacity)
Perform business continuity and disaster recovery procedures
Identify, classify, and remediate incidents

Candidates planning to take the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam are recommended to have 1-2 years’ experience as a systems administrator in systems operations. Also, an understanding of virtualization technology. In addition, the candidate must have the ability to monitor and audit systems experience as well as translate architectural requirements. Furthermore, to have a fair knowledge of networking concepts like DNS, TCP/IP, and Firewalls.

Exam Format

Understanding the exam format goes a long way in your preparations. It acts as a blueprint for the exam and helps the candidate to prepare for what they will face on the exam day. Familiarizing with the exam format will help the candidate align their preparations with the exam and its objectives. Firstly, to begin with, the candidate will have to attempt 65 Multiple Choice and Multi-Response Questions in the exam.

Also, the candidate will get 170 minutes to complete it. Further, it will cost them nearly $300 USD and is available in the English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese languages. Most importantly, they need to get a passing score of 75%-80% to achieve this credential.

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator (SA0-C02): Course Outline

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) exam guide provides a course outline containing the topics and subtopics. The topics given in this course outline will help a lot during the exam preparation. However, they include:

Domain 1: Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation

1.1 Implementing metrics, alarms, and filters by using AWS monitoring and logging services

Identify, collect, analyze, and export logs (for example, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, CloudWatch Logs Insights, AWS CloudTrail logs) (AWS Documentation: Analyzing Log Data with CloudWatch Logs Insights, Define Amazon CloudWatch Logs, CloudWatch Logs Insights Sample Queries)
Collect metrics and logs using the CloudWatch agent (AWS Documentation: Collecting Metrics and Logs from Amazon EC2 Instances and On-Premises Servers)
Creating CloudWatch alarms (AWS Documentation: Create a CloudWatch Alarm Based on a Static Threshold, Create a CloudWatch alarm for an instance, Using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms)
Develop metric filters (AWS Documentation: Creating Metrics From Log Events Using Filters, Creating Metric Filters)
Creating CloudWatch dashboards (AWS Documentation: Creating a CloudWatch Dashboard, Using Amazon CloudWatch Dashboards)
Configuring notifications (for example, Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS], Service Quotas, CloudWatch alarms, AWS Health events) (AWS Documentation: Setting Up Amazon SNS Notifications, Configuring Amazon SNS notifications for Amazon SES, Configuring Notifications for CloudWatch Logs Alarms, Monitoring AWS Health events with Amazon CloudWatch Events, Service Quotas, and Amazon CloudWatch alarms)

1.2 Remediating issues based on monitoring and availability metrics

Troubleshooting or taking corrective actions based on notifications and alarms (AWS Documentation: Amazon CloudWatch Features, Troubleshooting CloudWatch Events)
Configuring Amazon EventBridge rules to trigger actions (AWS Documentation: Creating a rule for an AWS service, Creating an EventBridge Rule That Triggers on an AWS API Call Using AWS CloudTrail)
Using AWS Systems Manager Automation documents to take action based on AWS Config rules (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Automation, Systems Manager Automation actions reference, Working with runbooks, AWS Config)

Domain 2: Reliability and Business Continuity

2.1 Implementing scalability and elasticity

Creating and maintaining AWS Auto Scaling plans (AWS Documentation: AWS Auto Scaling, How scaling plans work)
Implementing caching (AWS Documentation: Caching Overview, Caching strategies)
Applying Amazon RDS replicas and Amazon Aurora Replicas (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon Aurora Auto Scaling with Aurora replicas, Replication with Amazon Aurora)
Implementing loosely coupled architectures (AWS Documentation: Building Loosely Coupled, Scalable, C# Applications with Amazon SQS and Amazon SNS, Loosely Coupled Scenarios)
Differentiating between horizontal scaling and vertical scaling

2.2 Implement high availability and resilient environments

Configuring Elastic Load Balancer and Amazon Route 53 health checks (AWS Documentation: Configuring Amazon Route 53 to route traffic to an ELB load balancer, Creating Amazon Route 53 health checks, and configuring DNS failover)
Differentiating between the use of a single Availability Zone and Multi-AZ deployments. For example, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon FSx, Amazon RDS (AWS Documentation: Regions and Zones, High availability (Multi-AZ) for Amazon RDS, Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling)
Implementing fault-tolerant workloads. For example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Elastic IP addresses (AWS Documentation: Mounting with an IP address, Amazon EFS: How it works)
Applying Route 53 routing policies (for example, failover, weighted, latency based) (AWS Documentation: Choosing a routing policy)

2.3 Implementing backup and restore strategies

Automating snapshots and backups based on use cases (for example, RDS snapshots, AWS Backup, RTO and RPO, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager, retention policy) (AWS Documentation: Working with backups, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager)
Restoring databases (for example, point-in-time restore, promote read replica) (AWS Documentation: Working with read replicas)
Implementing versioning and lifecycle rules (AWS Documentation: Lifecycle configuration elements, Managing your storage lifecycle)
Configuring Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (AWS Documentation: Amazon S3 Replication, Configuring replication, Replicating objects)
Executing disaster recovery procedures (AWS Documentation: Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR))

Domain 3: Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation

3.1 Provisioning and maintaining cloud resources

Creating and managing AMIs (for example, EC2 Image Builder) (AWS Documentation: EC2 Image Builder, How EC2 Image Builder works)
Creating, managing, and troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation (AWS Documentation: Troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation)
Provisioning resources across multiple AWS Regions and accounts. For example, AWS Resource Access Manager, CloudFormation StackSets, IAM cross-account roles (AWS Documentation: Use CloudFormation StackSets to Provision Resources, Multiple-account, multiple-Region AWS CloudFormation, Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets for Multiple Accounts in an AWS Organization)
Selecting deployment scenarios and services (for example, blue/green, rolling, canary) (AWS Documentation: Blue/Green deployment with CodeDeploy, Working with deployment configurations in CodeDeploy, Set up an API Gateway canary release deployment)
Identifying and remediating deployment issues (for example, service quotas, subnet sizing, CloudFormation, and AWS OpsWorks errors, permissions) (AWS Documentation: AWS service quotas, AWS OpsWorks, AWS::EC2::Subnet)

3.2 Automating manual or repeatable processes

Using AWS services (for example, OpsWorks, Systems Manager, CloudFormation) to automate deployment processes (AWS Documentation: AWS OpsWorks, Use AWS CloudFormation to configure a service role for Automation, AWS CodeDeploy)
Implementing automated patch management (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager, Patch management overview)
Scheduling automated tasks by using AWS services (for example, EventBridge, AWS Config) (AWS Documentation: EventBridge Event Examples from Supported AWS Services, Build a scheduler as a service, AWS Config)

Domain 4: Security and Compliance

4.1 Implementing and managing security and compliance policies

Implementing IAM features (for example, password policies, MFA, roles, SAML, federated identity, resource policies, policy conditions) (AWS Documentation: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Creating a Role for SAML 2.0 federation (console), Policies and permissions in IAM, Identity providers and federation, IAM Identities (users, groups, and roles))
Troubleshooting and auditing access issues by using AWS services (for example, CloudTrail, IAM Access Analyzer, IAM policy simulator) (AWS Documentation: Logging IAM and AWS STS API calls with AWS CloudTrail, Using AWS IAM Access Analyzer, AWS security audit guidelines, Logging Access Analyzer API calls with AWS CloudTrail)
Validating service control policies and permission boundaries (AWS Documentation: Service control policies, Permissions boundaries for IAM entities)
Reviewing AWS Trusted Advisor security checks (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor)
Validating AWS Region and service selections based on compliance requirements (AWS Documentation: Compliance validation for Amazon EC2, Compliance validation for AWS Identity and Access Management, Regions and Zones)
Implementing secure multi-account strategies (for example, AWS Control Tower, AWS Organizations) (AWS Documentation: AWS multi-account strategy for your AWS Control Tower landing zone, AWS Control Tower)

4.2 Implementing data and infrastructure protection strategies

Enforcing a data classification scheme (AWS Documentation: Leveraging AWS Cloud to Support Data Classification, Data Classification)
Creating, managing, and protecting encryption keys (AWS Documentation: Creating keys)
Implementing encryption at rest (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS]) (AWS Documentation: AWS Key Management Service, AWS Key Management Service concepts)
Implementing encryption in transit (for example, AWS Certificate Manager, VPN) (AWS Documentation: AWS Certificate Manager, Protecting data using encryption)
Securely store secrets by using AWS services (for example, AWS Secrets Manager, Systems Manager Parameter Store) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, Referencing AWS Secrets Manager secrets from Parameter Store parameters)
Reviewing reports or findings (for example, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Config, Amazon Inspector) (AWS Documentation: Amazon Inspector, Assessment reports, Amazon GuardDuty)

Domain 5: Networking and Content Delivery

5.1 Implementing networking features and connectivity

Configuring a VPC (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups, NAT gateway, internet gateway ) (AWS Documentation: VPC with public and private subnets (NAT), NAT gateways, Internet gateways, Network ACLs)
Configuring private connectivity (for example, Systems Manager Session Manager, VPC endpoints, VPC peering, VPN) (AWS Documentation: Create a Virtual Private Cloud endpoint, AWS Systems Manager Session Manager, AWS PrivateLink and VPC endpoints, VPC peering)
Checking AWS network protection services (for example, AWS WAF, AWS Shield) (AWS Documentation: How AWS Shield works, What are AWS WAF, AWS Shield, and AWS Firewall Manager?)

5.2 Configuring domains, DNS services, and content delivery

Configuring Route 53 hosted zones and records (AWS Documentation: Creating a public hosted zone, Creating records by using the Amazon Route 53 console)
Implementing Route 53 routing policies (for example, geolocation, geoproximity) (AWS Documentation: Choosing a routing policy, Creating and managing traffic policies)
Customizing DNS (for example, Route 53 Resolver) (AWS Documentation: Getting started with Route 53 Resolver, Resolving DNS queries between VPCs and your network, Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service)
Configuring Amazon CloudFront and S3 origin access identity (OAI) (AWS Documentation: Restricting Access to Amazon S3 Content by Using an Origin Access Identity)
Configuring S3 static website hosting (AWS Documentation: Hosting a static website using Amazon S3, Configuring a static website on Amazon S3)

5.3 Troubleshooting network connectivity issues

Interpreting VPC configurations (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups) (AWS Documentation: Route tables for your VPC, Internetwork traffic privacy in Amazon VPC, Network ACLs, VPC Flow Logs)
Collecting and interpreting logs (for example, VPC Flow Logs, Elastic Load Balancer access logs, AWS WAF web ACL logs, CloudFront logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging web ACL traffic information, Configuring and using standard logs (access logs), VPC Flow Logs, Access logs for your Network Load Balancer)
Identifying and remediating CloudFront caching issues (AWS Documentation: Amazon CloudFront)
Troubleshoot hybrid and private connectivity issues (AWS Documentation: troubleshoot network performance issues between Amazon EC2 Linux instances in a VPC, Troubleshoot connecting to your instance, Hybrid Connectivity)

Domain 6: Cost and Performance Optimization

6.1 Implement cost optimization strategies

Implementing cost allocation tags (AWS Documentation: Using Cost Allocation Tags)
Identify and remediate underutilized or unused resources by using AWS services and tools (for example, Trusted Advisor, AWS Compute Optimizer, Cost Explorer) (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Tools for Reporting and Cost Optimization, optimize costs using AWS Trusted Advisor)
Configure AWS Budgets and billing alarms (AWS Documentation: Creating a Billing Alarm to Monitor Your Estimated AWS Charges, Managing your costs with AWS Budgets)
Assessing resource usage patterns to qualify workloads for EC2 Spot Instances (AWS Documentation: Spot Instances)
Identify opportunities to use managed services (for example, Amazon RDS, AWS Fargate, EFS) (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon EFS file systems with Amazon ECS, Amazon Elastic Container Service, Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS))

6.2 Implement performance optimization strategies

Recommend compute resources based on performance metrics (AWS Documentation: List the available CloudWatch metrics for your instances, Metrics analyzed by AWS Compute Optimizer)
Monitor Amazon EBS metrics and modify the configuration to increase performance efficiency (AWS Documentation: I/O characteristics and monitoring, Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS)
Implementing S3 performance features (for example, S3 Transfer Acceleration, multipart uploads) (AWS Documentation: Configuring fast, secure file transfers using Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, Multipart upload overview)
Monitor RDS metrics and modify the configuration to increase performance efficiency (for example, performance insights, RDS Proxy) (AWS Documentation: Managing connections with Amazon RDS Proxy, Using Performance Insights on Amazon RDS)
Enabling enhanced EC2 capabilities (for example, enhanced network adapter, instance store, placement groups) (AWS Documentation: Enhanced networking on Linux, Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows instances, Placement groups)

How difficult is AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Exam?

The difficulty level of the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam varies from person to person, depending on their level of experience and preparation. However, in general, the exam is considered to be challenging and requires a solid understanding of the AWS platform and its services, as well as experience working with AWS solutions.

Here are some factors that can affect the difficulty of the exam:

Familiarity with AWS services: A good understanding of the various AWS services and their use cases is essential for passing the exam.
Hands-on experience: Hands-on experience working with AWS solutions is highly recommended for the exam. This will help you understand how the services work and how to apply them in real-world scenarios.
Preparation: The exam requires thorough preparation and a good understanding of the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam objectives. Consider taking online courses or attending training sessions to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the AWS platform.
Exam format: The exam consists of multiple-choice and multiple-response questions and is timed. It is important to manage your time effectively during the exam and to read the questions carefully.

Learning Resources to Refer!

Exploring AWS Learning Paths– This learning path is designed for software developers, voice developers, solutions architects, UI developers, voice designers, and others. Majorly for those who perform a role involving Alexa skill-building. Also, anyone with beginner-level coding experience who wants to learn to build, test, and publish Amazon Alexa skills can refer to this.
Understand the exam format and content: The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam is a multiple-choice exam consisting of 65 questions to be completed in 130 minutes. The exam tests your knowledge of various AWS services and their use cases, operational best practices, and common AWS applications. The exam is split into five domains: Monitoring and Reporting, High Availability, Deployment and Provisioning, Storage and Data Management, and Security and Compliance.
Study the official AWS documentation: The official AWS documentation is the best resource to learn about AWS services and their use cases. The documentation is comprehensive and covers all aspects of AWS services. As SysOps Administrator, you should focus more on services such as EC2, CloudWatch, CloudFormation, RDS, S3, IAM, and Route53.

Testprep Online Tutorials– AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Online Tutorial enhances your knowledge and provides a depth understanding of the exam concepts. Additionally, they also cover exam details and policies. Therefore learning with Online Tutorials will result in strengthening your preparation.
Testprep Online Course- Online courses are one of the most interactive paths of qualifying for the exam. Subject matter experts create them. Further, the course will provide the candidate a solid foundation of the exam concepts. Additionally, this online course guides the candidate along the learning curve.
Try Practice Test– Practice tests are the one who ensures the candidate about their preparation. The practice test will help the candidates to acknowledge their weak areas so that they can work on them. There are many practice tests available on the internet nowadays, so the candidate can choose which they want. We at Testprep training also offer practice tests which are very helpful for the ones who are preparing.
Manage your time: Time management is important during the exam. You have 130 minutes to complete 65 questions, which means you have an average of two minutes per question. Make sure you pace yourself and don’t spend too much time on any one question.

Exam Tips to Remember:

Here are some tips for preparing and passing the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam:

Gain hands-on experience: Hands-on experience is critical to understanding how to deploy, manage, and operate systems on the AWS platform. Consider working on real-world projects or participating in online labs to gain practical experience.
Study the official AWS documentation: The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam covers a range of topics, and the official AWS documentation provides in-depth information on each topic. Make sure to study the relevant AWS documentation before taking the exam.
Enroll in an AWS certification course: Enrolling in an AWS certification course can provide structured learning and help you understand the exam objectives and format. Official AWS courses can also help you prepare for the exam by providing practice exams and other resources.
Use practice exams: Practice exams are a great way to test your understanding of the exam objectives and format. Use practice exams to gauge your readiness for the exam and identify areas where you need to focus your studies.
Focus on the exam objectives: Make sure to understand the exam objectives and format, and focus your studies on the topics covered by the exam. Don’t try to memorize everything, but instead focus on understanding the concepts and how they apply to the AWS platform.
Stay current with AWS updates: AWS is constantly adding new services and features, so it’s important to stay current with updates to the platform. Make sure to keep your knowledge up-to-date by regularly reading the AWS blog and attending AWS events.
Get organized: Create a study plan and stick to it, take notes, and use flashcards to help memorize important concepts.

Overall, preparing for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam requires dedication and hard work, but with the right preparation, anyone can pass the exam and demonstrate their expertise in deploying, operating, and supporting AWS-based applications.

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