AWS Certified Developer Associate (DVA-C01)
The AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification demonstrates competence in creating, deploying, and debugging cloud-based applications using AWS. It also demonstrates knowledge and comprehension of essential AWS services, uses, and fundamental AWS architecture best practices. Individuals who have prepared for and earned this certification have more self-assurance and credibility. The certainty of having the proper personnel to provide them a competitive edge and assure stakeholder and customer satisfaction is available to organizations with AWS Certified developers.
Becoming an AWS Certified Developer Associate demonstrates your ability to design, develop, and deploy applications on AWS, which is one of the most in-demand skills in the IT industry. This certification is highly valued by employers as it validates your expertise in AWS core services, developer tools, application integration, and security. Additionally, this certification helps you stand out from the competition and opens up new career opportunities in cloud computing.
Abilities Validated by the Certification
For those who may possess any of the following, the AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification is an excellent place to start on the AWS Certification path:
- Working understanding of at least one high-level programming language and experience in a developer capacity.
- knowledge of the AWS platform.
- strong grasp of on-premises to cloud mapping and familiarity with on-premises IT.
- working knowledge of different cloud services.
Recommended Knowledge and Experience
Before proceeding further lets understand the AWS Certified Developer Associate prerequisites:
- Proficiency in at least one high-level programming language
- Understanding of application lifecycle management
- Basic understanding of cloud-native applications to write code
- Ability to develop functional applications
- Experience in using development tools
Who Should Take the AWS Certified Developer Associate (DVA-C01) Exam
The AWS Certified Developer Associate exam is intended for individuals who have some experience in software development and want to demonstrate their expertise in developing and deploying applications on the AWS platform. Some of the job roles that can benefit from this certification include:
- Software Developers
- Application Developers
- Web Developers
- DevOps Engineers
- Solutions Architects
It is recommended that candidates have at least one year of experience in developing and maintaining AWS-based applications before taking this exam. Additionally, candidates should have a strong understanding of at least one programming language such as Python, Java, or Ruby.
AWS Certified Developer Associate Interview Questions
Practice with AWS Certified Developer Associate Interview Questions and clear your interview with flying colors.
About AWS Certified Developer Associate (DVA-C01) Exam
Exam Retake Policy
If you want to retake the AWS Developer Associate certification exam then you must wait for 14 days before becoming eligible for retaking the exam. You can give the exam as many times until you have passed the certification. However, you must pay the full exam fee for each attempt you take.
Exam Details
WS Certified Developer Associate exam questions are in multiple choice format. You get 130 minutes to pass the 65 questions of the exam. Moreover, you can take the exam in English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Also, the AWS Certified Developer Associate Cost is $150 plus taxes.
Course Outline
AWS Certified Developer Associate Course Outline covers descriptive details about the exam concepts. They are:
AWS Certified Developer Associate (DVA-C02) updated course outline.
Domain 1: Development with AWS Services
Task statement 1: Develop code for applications hosted on AWS.
Knowledge of:
- Architectural patterns (for example, event-driven, microservices, monolithic, choreography,
orchestration, fanout) (AWS Documentation: What is an Event-Driven Architecture?) - Idempotency (AWS Documentation: Ensuring idempotency)
- Differences between stateful and stateless concepts (AWS Documentation: Stateful or Stateless)
- Differences between tightly coupled and loosely coupled components (AWS Documentation: Loosely Coupled Scenarios, Tightly Coupled Scenarios)
- Fault-tolerant design patterns (for example, retries with exponential backoff and jitter, deadletter queues) (AWS Documentation: Building well-architected serverless applications, Timeouts, retries, and backoff with jitter)
- Differences between synchronous and asynchronous patterns (AWS Documentation: Synchronous and Asynchronous Express Workflows)
Skills in:
- Creating fault-tolerant and resilient applications in a programming language (for example, Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Lambda?, Resilience in AWS Lambda)
- Creating, extending, and maintaining APIs (for example, response/request transformations, enforcing validation rules, overriding status codes) (AWS Documentation: Use a mapping template to override an API’s request, Amazon API Gateway concepts)
- Writing and running unit tests in development environments (for example, using AWS Serverless Application Model [AWS SAM]) (AWS Documentation: Build and Test a Serverless Application, Getting started with AWS SAM)
- Writing code to use messaging services (AWS Documentation: Creating an example messaging application)
- Writing code that interacts with AWS services by using APIs and AWS SDKs
- Handling data streaming by using AWS services
Task Statement 2: Develop code for AWS Lambda.
Knowledge of:
- Event source mapping (AWS Documentation: Lambda event source mappings)
- Stateless applications
- Unit testing
- Event-driven architecture (AWS Documentation: What is an Event-Driven Architecture?)
- Scalability
- The access of private resources in VPCs from Lambda code (AWS Documentation: Configuring a Lambda function to access resources in a VPC)
Skills in:
- Configuring Lambda functions by defining environment variables and parameters (for example, memory, concurrency, timeout, runtime, handler, layers, extensions, triggers, destinations) (AWS Documentation: Configuring Lambda function options, Using AWS Lambda environment variables, Configuring AWS Lambda functions)
- Handling the event lifecycle and errors by using code (for example, Lambda Destinations, dead-letter queues) (AWS Documentation: Amazon SQS dead-letter queues, Using Lambda with Amazon SQS)
- Writing and running test code by using AWS services and tools (AWS Documentation: Developer Tools)
- Integrating Lambda functions with AWS services (AWS Documentation: Using AWS Lambda with other services)
- Tuning Lambda functions for optimal performance (AWS Documentation: Profiling functions with AWS Lambda Power Tuning)
Task Statement 3: Use data stores in application development.
Knowledge of:
- Relational and non-relational databases (AWS Documentation: What is NoSQL?, Relational (SQL) or NoSQL)
- Create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations (AWS Documentation: Performing Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations)
- High-cardinality partition keys for balanced partition access
- Cloud storage options (for example, file, object, databases) (AWS Documentation: Storage)
- Database consistency models (for example, strongly consistent, eventually consistent) (AWS Documentation: Read consistency, Consistency Model)
- Differences between query and scan operations (AWS Documentation: Best practices for querying and scanning data)
- Amazon DynamoDB keys and indexing
- Caching strategies (for example, write-through, read-through, lazy loading, TTL) (AWS Documentation: Caching strategies)
- Amazon S3 tiers and lifecycle management (AWS Documentation: Managing your storage lifecycle)
- Differences between ephemeral and persistent data storage patterns (AWS Documentation: Comparing your on-premises storage patterns with AWS Storage services)
Skills in:
- Serializing and deserializing data to provide persistence to a data store
- Using, managing, and maintaining data stores
- Managing data lifecycles
- Using data caching services
Domain 2: Security
Task Statement 1: Implement authentication and/or authorization for applications and AWS services.
Knowledge of:
- Identity federation (for example, Security Assertion Markup Language [SAML], OpenID Connect [OIDC], Amazon Cognito) (AWS Documentation: SAML identity providers (identity pools))
- Bearer tokens (for example, JSON Web Token [JWT], OAuth, AWS Security Token Service [AWS STS]) (AWS Documentation: Using bearer tokens)
- The comparison of user pools and identity pools in Amazon Cognito (AWS Documentation: What is Amazon Cognito?)
- Resource-based policies, service policies, and principal policies (AWS Documentation: Identity-based policies and resource-based policies, How IAM roles differ from resource-based policies)
- Role-based access control (RBAC) (AWS Documentation: Role-based access control)
- Application authorization that uses ACLs (AWS Documentation: Access control list (ACL) overview)
- The principle of least privilege (AWS Documentation: Security best practices in IAM)
- Differences between AWS managed policies and customer-managed policies (AWS Documentation: Managed policies and inline policies)
- Identity and access management (IAM) (AWS Documentation: What is IAM?)
Skills in:
- Using an identity provider to implement federated access (for example, Amazon Cognito, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM])
- Securing applications by using bearer tokens
- Configuring programmatic access to AWS
- Making authenticated calls to AWS services
- Assuming an IAM role
- Defining permissions for principals
Task Statement 2: Implement encryption by using AWS services.
Knowledge of:
- Encryption at rest and in transit (AWS Documentation: Encrypting Data-at-Rest and -in-Transit)
- Certificate management (for example, AWS Certificate Manager Private Certificate Authority) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Private CA?, Requesting a private PKI certificate)
- Key protection (for example, key rotation) (AWS Documentation: Rotating AWS KMS keys)
- Differences between client-side encryption and server-side encryption (AWS Documentation: Client-side and server-side encryption)
- Differences between AWS managed and customer-managed AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) keys (AWS Documentation: AWS KMS concepts, Basic concepts)
Skills in:
- Using encryption keys to encrypt or decrypt data
- Generating certificates and SSH keys for development purposes
- Using encryption across account boundaries
- Enabling and disabling key rotation
Task Statement 3: Manage sensitive data in application code.
Knowledge of:
- Data classification (for example, personally identifiable information [PII], protected health information [PHI]) (AWS Documentation: Personally identifiable information (PII))
- Environment variables (AWS Documentation: Environment variables to configure the AWS CLI)
- Secrets management (for example, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store) (AWS Documentation: Referencing AWS Secrets Manager secrets from Parameter Store parameters, AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store)
- Secure credential handling (AWS Documentation: AWS security credentials)
Skills in:
- Encrypting environment variables that contain sensitive data
- Using secret management services to secure sensitive data
- Sanitizing sensitive data
Domain 3: Deployment
Task Statement 1: Prepare application artifacts to be deployed to AWS.
Knowledge of:
- Ways to access application configuration data (for example, AWS AppConfig, Secrets Manager, Parameter Store) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store)
- Lambda deployment packaging, layers, and configuration options (AWS Documentation: Lambda deployment packages, Creating and sharing Lambda layers)
- Git-based version control tools (for example, Git, AWS CodeCommit) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS CodeCommit?, Getting started with Git and AWS CodeCommit)
- Container images
Skills in:
- Managing the dependencies of the code module (for example, environment variables, configuration files, container images) within the package
- Organizing files and a directory structure for application deployment
- Using code repositories in deployment environments
- Applying application requirements for resources (for example, memory, cores)
Task Statement 2: Test applications in development environments.
Knowledge of:
- Features in AWS services that perform application deployment (AWS Documentation: AWS Deployment Services, Overview of Deployment Options on AWS)
- Integration testing that uses mock endpoints (AWS Documentation: Set up mock integrations in API Gateway)
- Lambda versions and aliases (AWS Documentation: Lambda function aliases)
Skills in:
- Testing deployed code by using AWS services and tools
- Performing mock integration for APIs and resolving integration dependencies
- Testing applications by using development endpoints (for example, configuring stages in Amazon API Gateway)
- Deploying application stack updates to existing environments (for example, deploying an AWS SAM template to a different staging environment)
Task Statement 3: Automate deployment testing.
Knowledge of:
- API Gateway stages (AWS Documentation: Setting up a stage using the API Gateway console)
- Branches and actions in the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflow (AWS Documentation: CI/CD on AWS)
- Automated software testing (for example, unit testing, mock testing) (AWS Documentation: Integrating with automated tests)
Skills in:
- Creating application test events (for example, JSON payloads for testing Lambda, API Gateway, AWS SAM resources)
- Deploying API resources to various environments
- Creating application environments that use approved versions for integration testing (for example, Lambda aliases, container image tags, AWS Amplify branches, AWS Copilot environments)
- Implementing and deploying infrastructure as code (IaC) templates (for example, AWS SAM templates, AWS CloudFormation templates)
- Managing environments in individual AWS services (for example, differentiating between development, test, and production in API Gateway)
Task Statement 4: Deploy code by using AWS CI/CD services.
Knowledge of:
- Git-based version control tools (for example, Git, AWS CodeCommit) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS CodeCommit?, Getting started with Git and AWS CodeCommit)
- Manual and automated approvals in AWS CodePipeline (AWS Documentation: Manage approval actions in CodePipeline)
- Access application configurations from AWS AppConfig and Secrets Manager (AWS Documentation: AWS AppConfig integration with AWS Secrets Manager)
- CI/CD workflows that use AWS services (AWS Documentation: CI/CD on AWS)
- Application deployment that uses AWS services and tools (for example, CloudFormation, AWS Cloud Development Kit [AWS CDK], AWS SAM, AWS CodeArtifact, Copilot, Amplify, Lambda)
- Lambda deployment packaging options (AWS Documentation: Lambda deployment packages)
- API Gateway stages and custom domains (AWS Documentation: Setting up custom domain names for REST APIs)
- Deployment strategies (for example, canary, blue/green, rolling) (AWS Documentation: Rolling Deployments)
Skills in:
- Updating existing IaC templates (for example, AWS SAM templates, CloudFormation templates)
- Managing application environments by using AWS services
- Deploying an application version by using deployment strategies
- Committing code to a repository to invoke build, test, and deployment actions
- Using orchestrated workflows to deploy code to different environments
- Performing application rollbacks by using existing deployment strategies
- Using labels and branches for version and release management
- Using existing runtime configurations to create dynamic deployments (for example, using staging variables from API Gateway in Lambda functions)
Domain 4: Troubleshooting and Optimization
Task Statement 1: Assist in a root cause analysis.
Knowledge of:
- Logging and monitoring systems (AWS Documentation: Designing and implementing logging and monitoring)
- Languages for log queries (for example, Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights) (AWS Documentation: CloudWatch Logs Insights query syntax, Analyzing log data with CloudWatch Logs Insights)
- Data visualizations (AWS Documentation: Data visualization)
- Code analysis tools
- Common HTTP error codes (AWS Documentation: Supported status codes for custom response, Common Errors)
- Common exceptions generated by SDKs (AWS Documentation: Exception handling for the AWS SDK for Java 2.x)
- Service maps in AWS X-Ray (AWS Documentation: Using the service map)
Skills in:
- Debugging code to identify defects
- Interpreting application metrics, logs, and traces
- Querying logs to find relevant data
- Implementing custom metrics (for example, CloudWatch embedded metric format [EMF])
- Reviewing application health by using dashboards and insights
- Troubleshooting deployment failures by using service output logs
Task Statement 2: Instrument code for observability.
Knowledge of:
- Distributed tracing (AWS Documentation: AWS X-Ray, What is AWS X-Ray?)
- Differences between logging, monitoring, and observability (AWS Documentation: Monitoring and observability)
- Structured logging (AWS Documentation: Centralized and structured logging)
- Application metrics (for example, custom, embedded, built-in) (AWS Documentation: Publishing custom metrics)
Skills in:
- Implementing an effective logging strategy to record application behavior and state
- Implementing code that emits custom metrics
- Adding annotations for tracing services
- Implementing notification alerts for specific actions (for example, notifications about quota
limits or deployment completions) - Implementing tracing by using AWS services and tools
Task Statement 3: Optimize applications by using AWS services and features.
Knowledge of:
- Caching
- Concurrency (AWS Documentation: Configuring reserved concurrency)
- Messaging services (for example, Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS]) (AWS Documentation: Fanout to Amazon SQS queues, Sending Amazon SNS messages to an Amazon SQS queue in a different account, What is Amazon Simple Queue Service?)
Skills in:
- Profiling application performance
- Determining minimum memory and compute power for an application
- Using subscription filter policies to optimize messaging
- Caching content based on request headers
AWS Services
Preparation Guide For The AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam
Preparing for an exam is difficult. You need a AWS Certified Developer Associate Study Guide that will provide access to the best resources to pass the exam.
AWS Learning Path
AWS Technical Essentials
The AWS Technical Essentials introductory course will help you gain an understanding of the AWS products, services, and common solutions. Moreover, you will also gain hands-on expertise on the fundamentals of identifying AWS service. This will make you efficient in making informed decisions about IT solutions based on the requirements of your business.
Key AWS Services Included
- Foundational services: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), and Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
- Database services: Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
- Management services: AWS Auto Scaling, Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), and AWS Trusted Advisor
Developing on AWS
Developing on AWS is a 3-day course, designed by AWS for the candidates seeking to take the AWS Developer Associate exam. This course aims to help candidates gain knowledge of using the AWS SDK in developing secure and scalable cloud applications.
With this course, you’ll gain command of interacting with AWS by using code. Also, the course discusses the key concepts, best practices, and troubleshooting tips in AWS.
Advanced Developing on AWS
The Advanced Developing on AWS course is also designed by AWS experts to familiarize candidates with the real-world scenario of taking a legacy, on-premises monolithic application, and refactoring it into a serverless microservices architecture. This is a three-day advanced course that covers advanced development topics including architecting for a cloud-native environment; deconstructing on-premises, legacy applications, and repackaging them into cloud-based, cloud-native architectures. Also, this course trains you with the application of the tenets of the Twelve-Factor Application methodology.
Exam Readiness
AWS offers Exam Readiness for theAWS Certified Developer Associate Training in three different formats –
- Classroom training – It is a physical or virtual classroom to train candidates with an AWS-accredited instructor
- Free digital training – It is an online training platform for candidates to schedule their sessions at their convenience.
- Free webinars – These webinars include presentations from AWS-accredited instructors. This is followed by a live Q&A session.
Official Study Guide For AWS Developer Administrator Exam
AWS provides a well-elaborate study guide, prepared and validated by AWS experts. This guide trains you to showcase your skills in networking in an examination setting. It covers all the exam objectives and enables you to receive hands-on expertise based on the situations you are likely to encounter as an AWS Certified Developer Administrator (DVA-C01). This Study Guide will assist you in internalizing the AWS processes and the best practices associated with AWS.
AWS Whitepapers
AWS team offers several whitepapers, in order to enhance your technical knowledge. These whitepapers are produced exclusively by the AWS team, analysts, and other AWS partners.
Here is a list of some highly recommended AWS Certified Developer Associate White Papers
- Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
- AWS Security Best Practices
- Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Development and Test on AWS
- Backup and Recovery Approaches Using AWS
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Connectivity Options
- How AWS Pricing Works
AWS FAQs
AWS team also provides many FAQs, to help you familiarize yourself with the common queries of other candidates, and professionals. Here is a list of some FAQs by AWS
For More Details See – AWS Certified Developer Associate FAQ
Exam Difficulty Level
- Understand the difficulty level of the exam and plan your preparation accordingly.
- Use practice exams and quizzes to gauge your level of understanding and identify areas where you need to improve.
Study Strategies
- Create a study plan that covers all the topics listed in the exam blueprint.
- Focus on your weaker areas and spend more time studying those topics.
- Use flashcards and other study aids to reinforce your understanding of key concepts.
Refer AWS Recommended Books
AWS recommends some verified books for the ones seeking to take its certification exam. These books are designed to help you grasp a firm proficiency in AWS administration.
- All in One AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam Guide
- AWS for Developers for dummies
- AWS Development Essentials
- AWS Certified Developer Associate Guide: An Effective Guide for Developers
Join Online Forums
When more individuals are involved, there is a significantly larger chance that the issue will be resolved. Additionally, several points of view give the material more life. The research are made more thorough by these online forum conversations. Introverts who would often prefer to avoid conversations have an opportunity to express themselves. Forums are a great tool for creating the kind of community that is necessary for understanding others.
Solve Practice Tests
AWS Certified Developer Associate Practice Exams is all you need to check yourself. Practice paper helps in various aspects. The more answers you get right in a practice paper, the more confident you’ll feel for the examination. Also, you will know exactly how much time and effort needs to be invested in a different section of the question paper. Your brain will get trained to be at its highest potential for the duration of the exam. All of these factors can make a huge difference. Remember, your result does not reflect how much you know, but how much you wrote. Talent can only be judged if it translates well in performance. AWS offers a Practice Exam to help you familiarize yourself with the exam domains.
So Solve Our Practice Tests and Level Up Your Expertise
Get AWS Official Sample Paper Here
Amazon EC2
- EC2 Volume Types
- AMIs
- Migrating EC2 Resources to Another Region
- EC2 Backup Strategies
- EBS Raid Configurations
- Multi-Region Design
VPC
ELB (Elastic Load Balancer)
Storage
Deployment
Application Services
Monitoring