AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C02)

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Learning Resources

Amazon Web Services (AWS), houses a collection of cloud computing services, that have opened up hot career prospects in the world of cloud computing. With more than 70 services, spanning a wide range, including compute, networking, database, storage, analytics, application services, management, mobile deployment, developer tools, and the Internet of things are there in AWS. Also, AWS offers cloud certifications that assert your ability to operate on the cloud. AWS offers different certifications at different levels and each of them opens the floodgates to enhanced career opportunities. Depending on your interest and career goals, you yourself can choose to engage in any of the two certification tracks prescribed by AWS. AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate is an entry-level exam specifically designed for professionals wanting to build a career in this field.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam is for candidates who are capable of executing the function of solutions architect. They must have at least one year of hands-on experience creating AWS distributed systems that are available, cost-effective, fault-tolerant, and scalable. This exam verifies a candidate’s competence to develop and deliver safe and resilient applications using Amazon Web Services technology. Moreover, it increases your earning potential as the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate salary is at an average annual of $118,266.

Abilities Validated by the Certification

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification validates the following abilities

Demonstrating knowledge of how to architect and deploy secure and robust applications on AWS technologies
Defining a solution using architectural design principles on the basis of customer requirements
Providing implementation guidance on the basis of best practices to the organization throughout the life cycle of the project

Recommended AWS Knowledge

Before you proceed to prepare for the exam you must know about the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate prerequisites :

Candidates must have one year of hands-on experience in designing available, cost-effective, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems on AWS.
They should have hands-on experience using compute, networking, storage, and database AWS services as well as with AWS deployment and management services.
Candidates should have the ability to identify and define technical requirements for an AWS-based application.
They must have skills to identify which AWS services meet a given technical requirement.
They should have knowledge of recommended best practices for building secure and reliable applications on the AWS platform.
Further, candidates must have an understanding of the basic architectural principles of building in the AWS Cloud. This also includes knowledge and understanding in AWS global infrastructure and network technologies.
Lastly, they must be familiar with security features and tools that AWS provides and how they relate to traditional services

AWS Architect Learning Path

AWS has designed an Architect learning path for solution architect, solution design engineers and individuals who wants to learn designing applications and system on AWS.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C02) Learning Path

Solutions Architect Associate Exam Overview

While you are preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam it is very important to thoroughly go through the exam details, exam pattern, scoring methods, exam format so that you are prepared in advance and able to take the final exam without any hassles. So let us start understanding each and every aspect of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam format before you begin your preparation.

Exam Pattern

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam questions are in multiple choice format. Moreover, this exam covers 65 questions that are to be completed in 130 minutes. The exam is available in English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese languages. Moreover, the type of questions can be further nderstood as follows:

Multiple choice questions: in this you have select one correct option out of four options.
Multiple response questions: in this there can be multiple correct answers from the options given.

Also, the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam cost is $ 150 USD. You need a passing score of 70-75% to clear the exam. This exam has a validity of 3 years.

Exam Objective

Individuals in this exam are examined using the following structure.
Defining solution based on user requirement by using architectural design principles.
Designing and deploying robust and secure applications using AWS technologies.
Preparing guidance for implementation using best practice to the organization in the project.
Ability to design cost-effective, scalable distributed system on AWS.

Exam Registration

In case you are planning to register here are to steps to begin the registration process

You have to sign in to aws.training.
After that click on Certification on the top.
Then click on AWS Certification account, Schedule new exam.
Check for the exam you want to take and click schedule at Pearson VUI button or PSI.

Exam Scoring

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) examination is a pass or fail exam. The examination is scored against a minimum standard established by AWS professionals who are guided by the certification industry best practices and guidelines.

The exam’s results are given on a scale of 100 to 1000, with a minimum passing score of 720. Your score indicates how well you did on the entire exam and whether or not you passed. Scaled scoring models are used to average marks across numerous test forms with varying degrees of difficulty.

A categorization table of your performance at each part level is included in the exam score report. In addition, this data is intended to offer overall comments on your exam performance. The test employs a compensatory scoring mechanism, which means you only need to “pass” the entire exam, not the individual portions. Furthermore, each component of the exam is weighted differently, so some sections contain more questions than others. The table includes general information about you, as well as your strengths and shortcomings. When analyzing section-level feedback, be cautious.

Individuals giving the exam have to select one or more best suitable answers based on the type of the question.
There is no negative marking in the exam.
Questions which are not answered will be marked as incorrect.
There can also be some content which haven’t assigned any score or no score will be given on that.

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Exam Result

The exam score is scaled between 100 to 1000.
On percentage basis you need to get a minimum 65%.
The score report for the exam is in a table format with every section listed performance wise.
There is no rule for passing each section, you just have to get the overall passing score.
Every section in this exam has a varying weighting, with differ in number of questions listed against each section in the exam.
AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam is based pass or fail format.
Scoring in the exam is done by minimum standards established by AWS professionals as per the good guidelines and practice.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Badge

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Course Outline

The Solutions Architect Associate exam guide demonstrates the weightings, test domains, and objectives only. Even though it is not a comprehensive listing of the content on this examination. The table of content lists the main content domains and their weightings

AWS Solution Architect Associate domains

Domain 1: Design Resilient Architectures

1.1 Designing a multi-tier architecture solution (AWS Documentation: AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures)

1.2 Designing highly available and/or fault-tolerant architectures (AWS Documentation: Fault-Tolerant Components on AWS)

1.3 Designing decoupling mechanisms using AWS services (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon SQS Dead-Letter Queues to Control Message Failure)

1.4 Choosing appropriate resilient storage (AWS Documentation: Building Mission-Critical Financial Services Applications on AWS)

Domain 2: Design High-Performing Architectures

2.1 Identifying elastic and scalable compute solutions for a workload (AWS Documentation: Compute Services, Elasticity)

2.2 Selecting high-performing and scalable storage solutions for a workload (AWS Documentation: High-Performance Computing Storage Options, Developing High-Performance, Scalable, Cost-Effective Storage Solutions)

2.3 Selecting high-performing networking solutions for a workload (AWS Documentation: Networking Solutions, Configuring Networking Solution)

2.4 Choosing high-performing database solutions for a workload (AWS Documentation: Selecting database solution, Best storage practices for running production workloads on hosted databases, Right Data Store for Your Workload)

Domain 3: Design Secure Applications and Architectures

3.1 Designing secure access to AWS resources (AWS Documentation: Best practices to help secure your AWS resources)

3.2 Designing secure application tiers (AWS Documentation: Building three-tier architectures, AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures)

3.3 Selecting appropriate data security options (AWS Documentation: Best practices for securing sensitive data in AWS data stores, Overview of Security Processes)

Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

4.1 Identifying cost-effective storage solutions (AWS Documentation: AWS Cost Optimization, Cost Optimization Pillar)

4.2 Identifying cost-effective compute and database services (AWS Documentation: Reducing database cost and improving availability)

4.3 Designing cost-optimized network architectures(AWS Documentation: Cost Optimization, Cost Optimization Pillar)

Preparation Guide AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

For passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification exam you don’t only have to study but there is also a need to make a plan for achieving the certification. Clearing this certification will give you access to advanced level certifications and enhance your skills. We suggest the preparation guide which will be helpful for you to crack certification exam.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Study Guide

Step 1- Make a Blueprint

Before starting to study for the exam do some research on AWS concepts and its exams pattern with optics. Then make a topic wise chart mentioning the weakest and the strongest area.

Step 2 – Understands the concepts

This is the important part for passing the certification,
You need to visualize and understand the concepts instead of cramming it.
Try to get practical knowledge on the topics to get more information about it.

Step 3 – Reference Books

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Books are a great way to diversify your study guide. Some of these books you must refer to are:

Fisrtly, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – The Definitive Study Guide by Zeal Vora
Secondly, Serverless Architectures on AWS by Peter
Thirdly, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Complete Study Guide: 100+ Exam Practice Questions by IP Specialist

Step 4 – AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Training

There are many free training that is provided by AWS for Solutions Architect Professional exam athttps://aws.amazon.com/training/. These trainings required registration and are available at zero cost. AWS also gives access to variousLearning librariesto get to know more about the AWS services. It also includes AWS APN partner which helps you to accelerate your business on AWS.

“Get updated AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional tutorial by experts with the latest information about AWS Service”

Step 5 – Evaluate your skills

Practicing on a daily basis will help you learn and understand the concepts more easily.
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate practice test will help you know about you weak areas and then you can give time to make that part strong.
After completing one topic, give it a revision and try to assess yourself on that topic.
Boost your confidence with a Aws Certified Solutions Architect Associate free practice tests!

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Step 6 – Be punctual

Make a schedule for studying and practicing questions. This will help you cover the topics quickly with giving time for practice.

Step 7 – Give the exam

After completion of the syllabus, take the mock test and try to practice as many times as possible. Practice, understand and give the exam. All the best for the final exam. Happy Learning!

Learning Resources AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

Unit 1 – Introduction to Amazon Web Services

Unit 2 – Amazon Storage Services

Unit 3 – Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS

Unit 4 – Amazon VPC

Unit 5 – Elastic Load Balancing and Auto Scaling

Unit 6 – AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Unit 7 – AWS and Databases

Unit 8 – Amazon SQS, SWF, and SN

Unit 9 – Domain Name System (DNS) and Amazon Route 53

Unit 10 – Amazon ElastiCache

Amazon ElastiCache

Unit 11 – Amazon Web Services Security