Are you thinking to prepare for the new AWS Solutions Architect Professional exam? But confused about the pattern and the number of questions involved? Then hope that you are aware of the latest version of the AWS CSAP exam i.e. AWS CSAP Exam Released February 2019. Here we’ll discuss what all it takes to appear for the AWS CSAP exam.
Let’s start with the vital details of the newly AWS CSAP updated exam.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam
AWS certifications are basically divided into four sections i.e. Foundational-level, Associate-level, Professional-level, and Specialty-level. The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam is meant for those who are already working as Solutions Architect Professionals. This exam acknowledges and showcases the candidate’s experience and abilities in designing distributed systems and applications on the AWS platform.
The AWS CSAP exam affirms the capability of the individual in:
- Firstly designing and deploying fault-tolerant applications, reliable, highly available, and scalable, on AWS
- Secondly migration of multi-tier, complex applications on AWS
- Thirdly selecting suitable AWS services for designing and deploying applications as per the requirement
- Subsequently implementation of the cost-control strategies
- Then designing and deploying scalable and reliable operations on AWS platform throughout the enterprise
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam Information
Like any other AWS certifications and previous AWS CSAP exam, this newly released version. Additionally, the exam includes questions with multiple-choice and multiple-answer formats. Currently, it’s offered in two languages: English and Japanese. Candidates are given 180 minutes to finish the exam, and there’s a fee of $300 to take the exam.
Let’s eye on the overview of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam information:
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam Information
| Certification Name | AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional |
| Exam Code | SAP-C01 |
| Exam Format | Multiple Choice and Multiple Answer Questions (75 Questions) |
| Exam Duration | 180 Minutes |
| Exam Language | English, Japanese |
| Registration Fee | 300 USD |
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam Preparation
It is noteworthy that the exam objectives i.e. domains covered in the AWS CSAP exam have been changed and so the preparation resources changed. And it is really important to be focused on the exam objectives while doing preparation. Therefore, it is required to choose the appropriate preparation material.
Go Through the Exam Study Guide
If you aspire to take the AWS CSAP exam released, then you must first go through the AWS CSAP exam guide. Which is given on the official certification page. This guide will give you all the required information that you need to take the exam. The information involves: exam blueprint, topics covered in each domain, exam basic information, questions format, scoring pattern, exam preparation tips, etc. Also, getting a good knowledge of all the details will help you to prepare for the exam in a good way. Although the table followed represents the updated blueprint. So go through it before starting your AWS CSAP exam preparation.
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C01) exam strongly emphasizes concepts and services related to Scalability, High Availability, Disaster Recovery, Migration, Security, and Cost Control.
- Be sure to cover the following topics
- Also, the Whitepapers are the key to understand
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam Blueprint
| Domain | % of the Examination |
| Domain 1 | Design for Organizational Complexity 12.5% |
| Domain 2 | Design for New Solutions 31% |
| Domain 3 | Migration Planning 15% |
| Domain 4 | Cost Control 12.5% |
| Domain 5 | Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions 29% |
| TOTAL | 100% |
Overview of Security Processes
Disaster Recovery make sure you understand the difference between each types esp. pilot light, warm standby w.r.t RTO and RPO
Cloud Migration, However make sure you understand the difference between rehost, replatform, are an architect
- Architecting for the Cloud: Best Practices
- Building Fault-Tolerant Applications on AWS
Migration & Transfer
- Firstly understand Cloud Migration Services
- Secondly know Server Migration Service
- Thirdly know Database Migration Service (Elasticsearch is supported by DMS)
- Then Snowball vs Snowball Edge vs SnowMobile
- Later know AWS Application Discovery Service (hint: agentless mode does not track processes)
Management & Governance tools
Understand AWS Organizations
Understand the distinction between Service Control Policies and IAM Policies. Service Control Policies set the highest permissions a user can have. However, the user must be specifically assigned an IAM policy.
Systems Manager
- Firstly, understand AWS Systems Manager and its various services like parameter store, patch manager
- Then understand the Systems Manager Patch Manager patching process
Understand CloudWatch
- CloudWatch logs
- Subscription Filters and its integration with other services.
- Events
Understand CloudTrail for audit and governance
- Know CloudFormation esp. in terms of Disaster Recovery for replicating the environment across regions.
- Also, note the exam does not cover developer tools like CodeDeploy, CodeCommit, CodePipeline, CodeBuild
Networking & Content Delivery
Know VPC
- Understand the Security Groups, NACLs
- Then VPC Endpoints
- Later VPC Flow Logs
- Also, VPC Peering
Route 53
- Firstly understand Route 53
- Routing Policies and their use cases and mainly Focus on Weighted, Latency routing policies
- Then CloudFront and use cases
- Understand API Gateway
- Know AWS PrivateLink
Load Balancer
- Understand ELB, ALB and NLB
- Understand ELB with Auto Scaling
Security, Identity & Compliance
- AWS Identity and Access Management
- Understand IAM Roles and use cases
- Also, understand IAM Web Identity & Federation
- Know IAM Best Practices
- Know AWS Shield, WAF for DDoS Protection
Storage
The exam does not cover Storage services in deep
Focus on Simple Secure Service (S3) Know S3 supports retrieval of partial content using Range Get requests
- Firstly understand the S3 Permissions i.e. know S3 bucket policies for controlling access to VPC Endpoints
- Know the S3 Data Protection
- Then understand S3 Storage Classes -Glacier for archival
- Understand S3 Sub resources i.e. Requester Pays can allow you to host content, while the user of the content pays the transfer costs)
- Know S3 disaster recovery across the region- cross-region replication
- Subsequently know CloudFront for caching to improve performance
Elastic Block Store
- Using snapshots for HA and Disaster recovery focus mainly on EBS Backup
- Understand Storage Gateway
Database
- Firstly the exam covers databases mainly in terms- of Scalability, High Availability, and Disaster Recovery.
- Secondly, understand RDS Multi-AZ vs reading Replicas. Cross-region replication and availability of data.
- Also know the Aurora DR & HA using Read Replicas and Global Database
- Then DynamoDB
- Know DynamoDB Streams for tracking changes
- Subsequently know the dynamoDB Auto Scaling & DAX for caching. Know TTL which can expire the data.
- Therefore improve performance – Best practices. one question for selection of keys
Compute
Understand EC2
- The EC2 Instance Types
- The, understand EC2 Instance Purchase Types
- Moreover, understanding Auto Scaling
Know Elastic Beanstalk mainly from the perspective of migration.
Subsequently, understand Lambda i.e. know what it takes to run Lambda within a VPC and Lambda Edge
Analytics
- Firstly understand Kinesis
- Secondly, understand the difference between Kinesis Data Streams and Kinesis Firehose
- Then know Amazon Elasticsearch provides a managed solution
Integration Tools
Understanding SQS in terms of loose coupling and scaling.
- Knowing the difference between SQS Standard and FIFO
Also, know how CloudWatch integration with SNS and Lambda can help in notification
Architecting for the Cloud AWS Best Practices
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes
- Microservices on AWS
- AWS Security Best Practices
- Moreover, practicing Continuous Integration and Contin
So now it’s the time to know and understand who is eligible to take up this exam.
Who is eligible to take AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
A professional AWS architect is responsible for evaluating the requirements of the organization. Also, making architectural recommendations in order to implement and deploy AWS-based applications. So to get this certification, a candidate must have experience and technical skills required to design applications on the AWS platform.
This AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification exam will also include practices. which are implemented for architecting the AWS-based applications. So, this requires the candidate to have knowledge of the strategies used for cost optimizations. Thus, they must know how to satisfy the application’s requirements by choosing the correct AWS service. Also know how to relocate the different, complex application systems to the AWS platform.
So, in order to meet the eligibility the candidate must have the following:
- Firstly a minimum of 2 years of working experience in design. And deploying AWS-based cloud architecture.
- Secondly, skills to recommend services that can be used to design, provision, and deploy AWS-based applications
- Then, must be aware of the practices involved in implementing the AWS application’s architecture.
- Lastly, expertise in the high-level programming language.
Thus, as an AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, you will be able to earn $167,500 per year.
So, Buckle up and get ready to become a Certified Architect Cloud Practitioner.
