AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C02)
The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C02) exam is designed for system administrators in a cloud operations role. For this they must have knowledge and experience of at least one year in deployment, management, networking, and security on AWS.
However, the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam validates an examinee’s ability in:
- Firstly, maintaining AWS workloads as per the AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Thirdly, executing operations using the AWS Management Console and the AWS CLI. And, implementing security controls for meeting compliance requirements.
- Next, monitoring, log, and troubleshooting systems
- Then, applying networking concepts (for example, DNS, TCP/IP, firewalls) and implementing architectural requirements like high availability, performance, capacity
- Lastly, performing business continuity and disaster recovery procedures as well as identifying and classifying incidents
Recommended AWS Knowledge
For AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate, candidates must have:
- Firstly, a minimum of one year of hands-on experience with AWS technology and experience in deploying, managing, and operating workloads on AWS
- Secondly, knowledge and understanding of the AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Thirdly, hands-on experience of performing operations with the AWS Management Console and the AWS CLI
- Next, knowledge of AWS networking and security services
- Lastly, hands-on experience in implementing security controls and compliance requirements
Check AWS SysOps Administrator Associate Interview Questions
AWS SysOps Administrator Associate: Exam Details
The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) exam is available at a discounted price of 75 USD. For completing the exam, there will be a time duration of 220 minutes. Passing the exam will provide AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate certification to candidates with all the associated benefits. Lastly, the exam can be taken only in the English Language.
Talking about the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate questions, the exam can have three types of questions. This includes:
- Firstly, Multiple choice, that is there will be one correct response and three incorrect responses.
- Secondly, Multiple responses, that is there can be two correct responses out of five options.
- Lastly, Exam lab, that is there is a scenario that has a set of tasks to be performed in the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI.
Exam Scheduling
For the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) exam, the appointments are limited, so candidates have to register early to participate. However, the updated exam (SOA-C02) will be generally available in the third quarter of 2021. Further, the registration for the new AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam is live and can be taken from February 16, 2021, to March 26, 2021.
Signing up for AWS Exam
AWS Certification helps individuals to develop skills and knowledge by validating cloud expertise with industry-recognized certification. Signing up for the AWS will help organizations candidates to:
- Firstly, schedule and manage exams
- Secondly, view certification history
- Thirdly, access to digital badges
- Next, take exam sample tests
- Lastly, view your benefits of certifications
AWS SOA-C02 exam: Course Outline
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) exam guide provides 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)
For More: Check AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C02) Exam FAQs
AWS Exam Policies
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides exam policies that provide information about the terms and procedures of the certifications exam. These exam policies include details about exam training and certification. Some of the policies include:
Exam Retake Policy
AWS states that candidates who will not be able to pass the exam must have to wait for 14 days before they are eligible to retake the exam. Further, there is no limit on exam attempts until the exam is passed. But, for every exam attempt, the full registration price must be paid.
Exam Rescheduling
For rescheduling or cancelling an exam, follow the steps:
- Firstly, sign in to aws.training/Certification.
- Then, select the Go to your Account button.
- Thirdly, select Manage PSI or Pearson VUE Exams button.
- After that, you will be redirected to the PSI or Pearson VUE dashboard.
- Next, if the exam is scheduled with PSI, then, click on View Details for the exam that is scheduled. Else, if the exam is scheduled with Pearson VUE, then, select the exam in the Upcoming Appointments menu.
- Further, you should know that the exam can be rescheduled up to 24 hours before the scheduled exam time. And, each exam appointment can only be rescheduled twice. For taking the exam a third time, candidates are required to cancel the exam and then schedule it for a convenient date.
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate Study Guide
Get familiar with the Exam Objectives
For getting a better understanding of the concepts it is important to use exam objectives. AWS provides a list of topics covering exam domains for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam. Going through this will help you get familiar with the topics and sub-topics and then start preparation accordingly.
AWS Exam guide
AWS provides an exam guide containing the exam course outline, overview, and other important details about the certification. These outlines are written by AWS experts that help in demonstrating networking skills and guiding through hands-on exercises based on situations as per the exam. This will also cover concepts of deployment, management, and operations to migration, data flow, cost control, and best practices associated with AWS. However, the exam guide essential for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam include:
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate Study Guide: 1st Edition by Stephen Cole, Gareth Digby, Chris Fitch , Steve Friedberg and so on.
AWS Training
For developing technical skills for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam, AWS recommended courses that include:
This course provides understanding about the fundamentals of identifying AWS services and making informed decisions for IT solutions as per the business requirements. Further, this course helps in
- Firstly, learning and understanding the concepts related to the AWS platform
- Secondly, understanding the process of navigating the AWS Management Console
- Lastly, learning about the key concepts of AWS security measures and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
This course helps in learning about
- Firstly, the system’s operators
- Secondly, the process of managing and operating automatable
- Thirdly, deployments of networks and systems on AWS.
- Lastly, the systems operations functions like installing, configuring, automating, monitoring, securing, maintaining, and troubleshooting.
AWS Exam Readiness
Exam Readiness training helps to understand the process of explaining exam questions and allocating study time. This offers classroom training for learning and a virtual classroom with an AWS-accredited instructor. However, for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C02) exam training includes:
Exam Readiness: AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate
Exam readiness offers an intermediate-level course for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate that provides an understanding of the topic areas and process of planning SysOps on AWS. Moreover, this course tests the sample exam questions in each topic area and helps in learning the process of explaining the concepts. Further, there are objectives covered in this course that includes:
- Firstly, understanding the examination process.
- Secondly, understanding the exam pattern and question types.
- Thirdly, identifying the process of relating questions to the AWS SysOps concepts.
- Lastly, planning time for studying and preparing for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam.
Evaluate yourself using the Practice Tests
Taking a practice test works as a self assessment for identifying the knowledge and skills gaps. Moreover, AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam practice tests will help in having the best possible revision, and to understand the pattern of the questions so that you don’t face any problem during the exam. Start talking AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate practice tests for getting better preparation.
