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Top 30 AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam Tips
AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam Prep Urls
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0
Understand some basic code samples such as JSON code, config files, and IAM policy documents: Amazon EC2, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS KMS, Amazon CloudTrail, AWS Organizations, Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWF), and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Load Balancing, DynamoDB, EBS, Multi-AZ RDS, Aurora, EFS, DynamoDB, NLB, ALB, Aurora, Auto Scalling, DynamoDB(latency), Aurora(performance), Multi-AZ RDS(high availability), Throughput Optimized EBS (highly sequential), Read the quizlet note cards here
AWS topics for DVA-C01
1
What to study: LAMBDA [10-15% of Exam]Invocation types, Using notifications and event source mappings, Concurrency and throttling, X-Ray and Amazon SQS DLQs, Versions and aliases, Blue/green deployment, Packaging and deployment, VPC connections (with Internet/NAT GW), Lambda as ELB target, Dependencies, Environment variables (inc. encrypting them)
AWS topics for DVA-C01
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2
What to study: DYNAMODB [10-12% of Exam]Scans vs queries (and the APIs, parameters you can use), Local and Global Secondary indexes, Calculating Read Capacity Units (RCUs) and Write, Capacity Units (WCUs), Performance / optimization best practices, Use cases (e.g. session state, key/value data store, scalability), DynamoDB Streams, Use in serverless app with Lambda and API Gateway, DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) use cases
AWS topics for DVA-C01: DynamoDB
3
What to study: API Gateway [8-10% of Exam] Lambda / IAM / Cognito authorizers, Invalidation of cache, Integration types: proxy vs custom / AWS vs HTTP, Caching, Import / export OpenAPI Swagger specifications, Stage variables, Performance metrics,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: API Gateway
4
What to study: COGNITO [7-8% of Exam] User pools vs Identity pools, Unauthenticated identities, AWS Cognito Sync, Using MFA with Cognito, Web identity federation,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: COGNITO
5
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What to study: S3 [7-8% of Exam]Encryption – make sure you understand S3 encryption very well for the exam, S3 Transfer Acceleration, Versioning, Copying data, Lifecycle rules,
AWS topics for DVA-C01
6
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What to study: IAM IAM policies and roles, Cross account access, Multi-factor authentication (MFA), API calls, IAM Roles with EC2 (instance profiles), Access keys vs roles, IAM best practices, Federation,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: IAM
7
What to study: ECS Shared storage between containers, Single vs multi-docker environments, Uploading / downloading images with ECR, Placement strategies (e.g. spread, binpack, random etc.), Port mappings, Defining task definitions, IAM Roles for Tasks,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: ECS
8
What to study: ELASTIC BEANSTALK Deployment policies and blue/green, .ebextensions and config file usage, Updating deployments, Worker vs web tier, Deployment, packaging and files, code, commands used, Use cases,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: AMAZON ELASTIC BEANSTALK
9
What to study: CLOUDFORMATIONS CloudFormation template anatomy (e.g. mappings, outputs, parameters, etc.), Packaging and deployment including commands used, AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM),
AWS topics for DVA-C01
10
What to study: AMAZON CLOUDWATCH Monitoring application logs, Trigger scheduled Lambda invocation, Custom metrics, Metric resolution,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: AMAZON CLOUDWATCH
11
What to study: CODECOMMIT, CODEBUILD, CODEDEPLOY, CODEPIPELINE, CODESTAR Know how each tool fits into the CI/CD pipeline, Various files used such as appspec.yml, buildspec.yml etc., Process for packaging and deployment, Deployment types with CodeDeploy including different , destination services (e.g. Lambda, ECS, EC2), Manual approvals with CodePipeline,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: CODECOMMIT, CODEBUILD, CODEDEPLOY, CODEPIPELINE, CODESTAR
12
What to study: AMAZON CLOUDFRONT
AWS topics for DVA-C01: AMAZON CLOUDFRONT
13
What to study: X-RAYS X-Ray daemon, installing and configuring, Lambda with X-Ray, Use cases / benefits, Inclusion in Elastic Beanstalk environment, Annotations vs segments vs subsegments vs metadata, API calls, Port used (UDP 2000),
AWS topics for DVA-C01: X-RAYS
14
What to study: SQS Standard queues, FIFO, DLQ, delay queue, Decoupling applications use cases, Event source mapping to Lambda, Visibility timeout, Short polling vs long polling,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: SQS
15
What to study: ELASTICACHE Use cases (caching and session state), In-memory data store, Services it sits in front of (e.g. Amazon RDS), Comparison against DynamoDB DAX, Lazy loading vs Write Through Caching, Memcached vs Redis,
AWS topics for DVA-C01: ELASTICACHE
16
What to study: STEP FUNCTIONS Step Functions state machines, Using to coordinate multiple Lambda function invocations
AWS topics for DVA-C01: STEP FUNCTIONS
17
What to study: SSM PARAMETER STORE Storing credentials, Rotation (application needs to do it) – comparison with secrets manager (which handles rotation automatically),
SSM PARAMETER STORE
18
Know what instance types can be launched from which types of AMIs, and which instance types require an HVM AMI
AWS HVM AMI
19
Have a good understanding of how Route53 supports all of the different DNS record types, and when you would use certain ones over others.
Route 53 supports all of the different DNS record types
20
Know which services have native encryption at rest within the region, and which do not.
AWS Services with native Encryption at rest
21
Kinesis Sharding:
#AWS Kinesis Sharding
22
Handling SSL Certificates in ELB ( Wildcard certificate vs SNI )
#AWS Handling SSL Certificates in ELB ( Wildcard certificate vs SNI )
24
The Default Termination Policy for Auto Scaling Group (Oldest launch configuration vs Instance Protection)
#AWS Default Termination Policy for Auto Scaling Group
25
Use AWS Cheatsheets – I also found the cheatsheets provided by Tutorials Dojo very helpful. In my opinion, it is better than Jayendrapatil Patil’s blog since it contains more updated information that complements your review notes.
#AWS Cheat Sheet
26
Watch this exam readiness 3hr video, it very recent webinar this provides what is expected in the exam.
#AWS Exam Prep Video
27
Start off watching Ryan’s videos. Try and completely focus on the hands on. Take your time to understand what you are trying to learn and achieve in those LAB Sessions.
#AWS Exam Prep Video
28
Do not rush into completing the videos. Take your time and hone the basics. Focus and spend a lot of time for the back bone of AWS infrastructure – Compute/EC2 section, Storage (S3/EBS/EFS), Networking (Route 53/Load Balancers), RDS, VPC, Route 3. These sections are vast, with lot of concepts to go over and have loads to learn. Trust me you will need to thoroughly understand each one of them to ensure you pass the certification comfortably.
#AWS Exam Prep Video
29
Make sure you go through resources section and also AWS documentation for each components. Go over FAQs. If you have a question, please post it in the community. Trust me, each answer here helps you understand more about AWS.
#AWS Faqs
30
Like any other product/service, each AWS offering has a different flavor. I will take an example of EC2 (Spot/Reserved/Dedicated/On Demand etc.). Make sure you understand what they are, what are the pros/cons of each of these flavors. Applies for all other offerings too.
#AWS Services
What is the AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam?
The AWS Certified Developer – Associate examination is intended for individuals who perform a development role and have one or more years of hands-on experience developing and maintaining an AWS-based application. It validates an examinee’s ability to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of core AWS services, uses, and basic AWS architecture best practices
- Demonstrate proficiency in developing, deploying, and debugging cloud-based applications using AWS
There are two types of questions on the examination:
- Multiple-choice: Has one correct response and three incorrect responses (distractors).
- Provide implementation guidance based on best practices to the organization throughout the lifecycle of the project.
Select one or more responses that best complete the statement or answer the question. Distractors, or incorrect answers, are response options that an examinee with incomplete knowledge or skill would likely choose. However, they are generally plausible responses that fit in the content area defined by the test objective. Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect; there is no penalty for guessing.
To succeed with the real exam, do not memorize the answers below. It is very important that you understand why a question is right or wrong and the concepts behind it by carefully reading the reference documents in the answers.
AWS Certified Developer Associate info and details
The AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam is a multiple choice, multiple answer exam. Here is the Exam Overview:
- Certification Name: AWS Certified Developer Associate.
- Prerequisites for the Exam: None.
- Exam Pattern: Multiple Choice Questions
- Number of Questions: 65
- Duration: 130 mins
- Exam fees: US $150
- Exam Guide on AWS Website
- Available languages for tests: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese
- Read AWS whitepapers
- Register for certification account here.
- Prepare for Certification Here
Other AWS Facts and Summaries and Questions/Answers Dump
- AWS S3 facts and summaries and Q&A Dump
- AWS DynamoDB facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS EC2 facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Serverless facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Developer and Deployment Theory facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS IAM facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS vs Azure vs Google
- Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Customer Insurance – Cloud Provider Insurance – Cyber Insurance
Additional Information for reference
Below are some useful reference links that would help you to learn about AWS Practitioner Exam.
- AWS certified cloud practitioner/
- certification faqs
- AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam Prep Dumps
Other Relevant and Recommended AWS Certifications
AWS Certification Exams Roadmap[/caption]
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
- AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
- AWS Certified Developer – Professional
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
- AWS Certified Big Data Specialty
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking.
- AWS Certified Security – Specialty
AWS Developer Associate Exam Whitepapers:
AWS has provided whitepapers to help you understand the technical concepts. Below are the recommended whitepapers.
Online Training and Labs for AWS Certified Developer Associate Exam
AWS Certified Developer Associate Jobs
Top 60 AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam Tips


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Top 60 AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam Tips
SAA Exam Prep App urls

Solution Architect FREE version:
Google Play Store (Android)
Apple Store (iOS)
Pwa: Web
Amazon android: Amazon App Store (Android)
Microsoft/Windows10:
0 In a nutshell, below are the resources and apps that you need for SAA-C03 Exam Prep:
- Study material by Adrian Cantrill ($40) or Joyjeet Banerjee ($50)
- PRO Quiz and Practice Exams by Djamgatech ($9.99) [iOS – Android]
- Quiz and Practice Exams by Djamgatech [Web – android – iOS – windows] (FREE or $5)
- Practice tests by Tutorial Dojo ($15)
- AWS labs and practices at AWS Qwiklabs ($25-50)
- Extra: $30 for Marek’s course on Udemy
- Extra: You can check out Practice exams by Ken Adams for solutions architect. (SAA-C02 – Updated June 2021)
Read FAQs and learn more about the following topics in details: Load Balancing, DynamoDB, EBS, Multi-AZ RDS, Aurora, EFS, DynamoDB, NLB, ALB, Aurora, Auto Scalling, DynamoDB(latency), Aurora(performance), Multi-AZ RDS(high availability), Throughput Optimized EBS (highly sequential), Read the quizlet note cards about Cloudwatch, CloudTrail, KMS, ElasticBeanstalk, OpsWorks here. Read Dexter’s Barely passed AWS Cram Notes about RPO vs RTO, HA vs FT, Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting, Access Management Basics, Shared Responsibility Model, Cloud Service Models
AWS topics for SAA-CO1 and SAA-CO2
1
Know what instance types can be launched from which types of AMIs, and which instance types require an HVM AMI
AWS HVM AMI
2
Understand bastion hosts, and which subnet one might live on. Bastion hosts are instances that sit within your public subnet and are typically accessed using SSH or RDP. Once remote connectivity has been established with the bastion host, it then acts as a ‘jump’ server, allowing you to use SSH or RDP to login to other instances (within private subnets) deeper within your network. When properly configured through the use of security groups and Network ACLs, the bastion essentially acts as a bridge to your private instances via the Internet.”
Bastion Hosts
3
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Know the difference between Directory Service’s AD Connector and Simple AD. Use Simple AD if you need an inexpensive Active Directory–compatible service with the common directory features. AD Connector lets you simply connect your existing on-premises Active Directory to AWS.
AD Connector and Simple AD
4
Know how to enable cross-account access with IAM: To delegate permission to access a resource, you create an IAM role that has two policies attached. The permissions policy grants the user of the role the needed permissions to carry out the desired tasks on the resource. The trust policy specifies which trusted accounts are allowed to grant its users permissions to assume the role. The trust policy on the role in the trusting account is one-half of the permissions. The other half is a permissions policy attached to the user in the trusted account that allows that user to switch to, or assume the role.
Enable cross-account access with IAM
5
Have a good understanding of how Route53 supports all of the different DNS record types, and when you would use certain ones over others.
Route 53 supports all of the different DNS record types
6
Know which services have native encryption at rest within the region, and which do not.
AWS Services with native Encryption at rest
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iOS - Android
AI Dashboard is available on the Web, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, PRO version
7
Know which services allow you to retain full admin privileges of the underlying EC2 instances
EC2 Full admin privilege
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- AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01): Conquer the AWS Certified AI Practitioner exam with our AI and Machine Learning For Dummies test prep. Master fundamental AI concepts, AWS AI services, and ethical considerations.
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8
Know When Elastic IPs are free or not: If you associate additional EIPs with that instance, you will be charged for each additional EIP associated with that instance per hour on a pro rata basis. Additional EIPs are only available in Amazon VPC. To ensure efficient use of Elastic IP addresses, we impose a small hourly charge when these IP addresses are not associated with a running instance or when they are associated with a stopped instance or unattached network interface.
When are AWS Elastic IPs Free or not?
9
Know what are the four high level categories of information Trusted Advisor supplies.
#AWS Trusted advisor
10
Know how to troubleshoot a connection time out error when trying to connect to an instance in your VPC. You need a security group rule that allows inbound traffic from your public IP address on the proper port, you need a route that sends all traffic destined outside the VPC (0.0.0.0/0) to the Internet gateway for the VPC, the network ACLs must allow inbound and outbound traffic from your public IP address on the proper port, etc.
#AWS Connection time out error
11
Be able to identify multiple possible use cases and eliminate non-use cases for SWF.
#AWS
12
Understand how you might set up consolidated billing and cross-account access such that individual divisions resources are isolated from each other, but corporate IT can oversee all of it.
#AWS Set up consolidated billing
13
Know how you would go about making changes to an Auto Scaling group, fully understanding what you can and can’t change. “You can only specify one launch configuration for an Auto Scaling group at a time, and you can’t modify a launch configuration after you’ve created it. Therefore, if you want to change the launch configuration for your Auto Scaling group, you must create a launch configuration and then update your Auto Scaling group with the new launch configuration. When you change the launch configuration for your Auto Scaling group, any new instances are launched using the new configuration parameters, but existing instances are not affected.
#AWS Make Change to Auto Scaling group
14
Know how you would go about making changes to an Auto Scaling group, fully understanding what you can and can’t change. “You can only specify one launch configuration for an Auto Scaling group at a time, and you can’t modify a launch configuration after you’ve created it. Therefore, if you want to change the launch configuration for your Auto Scaling group, you must create a launch configuration and then update your Auto Scaling group with the new launch configuration. When you change the launch configuration for your Auto Scaling group, any new instances are launched using the new configuration parameters, but existing instances are not affected.
#AWS Make Change to Auto Scaling group
15
Know which field you use to run a script upon launching your instance.
#AWS User data script
16
Know how DynamoDB (durable, and you can pay for strong consistency), Elasticache (great for speed, not so durable), and S3 (eventual consistency results in lower latency) compare to each other in terms of durability and low latency.
#AWS DynamoDB consistency
17
Know the difference between bucket policies, IAM policies, and ACLs for use with S3, and examples of when you would use each. “With IAM policies, companies can grant IAM users fine-grained control to their Amazon S3 bucket or objects while also retaining full control over everything the users do. With bucket policies, companies can define rules which apply broadly across all requests to their Amazon S3 resources, such as granting write privileges to a subset of Amazon S3 resources. Customers can also restrict access based on an aspect of the request, such as HTTP referrer and IP address. With ACLs, customers can grant specific permissions (i.e. READ, WRITE, FULL_CONTROL) to specific users for an individual bucket or object.
#AWS Difference between bucket policies
18
Know when and how you can encrypt snapshots.
#AWS EBS Encryption
19
Understand how you can use ELB cross-zone load balancing to ensure even distribution of traffic to EC2 instances in multiple AZs registered with a load balancer.
#AWS ELB cross-zone load balancing
20
How would you allow users to log into the AWS console using active directory integration. Here is a link to some good reference material.
#AWS og into the AWS console using active directory integration
21
Spot instances are good for cost optimization, even if it seems you might need to fall back to On-Demand instances if you wind up getting kicked off them and the timeline grows tighter. The primary (but still not only) factor seems to be whether you can gracefully handle instances that die on you–which is pretty much how you should always design everything, anyway!
#AWS Spot instances
22
The term “use case” is not the same as “function” or “capability”. A use case is something that your app/system will need to accomplish, not just behaviour that you will get from that service. In particular, a use case doesn’t require that the service be a 100% turnkey solution for that situation, just that the service plays a valuable role in enabling it.
#AWS use case
23
There might be extra, unnecessary information in some of the questions (red herrings), so try not to get thrown off by them. Understand what services can and can’t do, but don’t ignore “obvious”-but-still-correct answers in favour of super-tricky ones.
#AWS Exam Answers: Distractors
24
If you don’t know what they’re trying to ask, in a question, just move on and come back to it later (by using the helpful “mark this question” feature in the exam tool). You could easily spend way more time than you should on a single confusing question if you don’t triage and move on.
#AWS Exa: Skip Questions that are vague and come back to them later
25
Some exam questions required you to understand features and use cases of: VPC peering, cross-account access, DirectConnect, snapshotting EBS RAID arrays, DynamoDB, spot instances, Glacier, AWS/user security responsibilities, etc.
#AWS
26
The 30 Day constraint in the S3 Lifecycle Policy before transitioning to S3-IA and S3-One Zone IA storage classes
#AWS S3 lifecycle policy
27
Enabling Cross-region snapshot copy for an AWS KMS-encrypted cluster
Redis Auth / Amazon MQ / IAM DB Authentication
#AWS Cross-region snapshot copy for an AWS KMS-encrypted cluster
28
Know that FTP is using TCP and not UDP (Helpful for questions where you are asked to troubleshoot the network flow)
TCP and UDP
29
Know the Difference between S3, EBS and EFS
#AWS Difference between S3, EBS and EFS
31
Handling SSL Certificates in ELB ( Wildcard certificate vs SNI )
#AWS Handling SSL Certificates in ELB ( Wildcard certificate vs SNI )
32
Difference between OAI, Signed URL (CloudFront) and Pre-signed URL (S3)
#AWS Difference between OAI, Signed URL (CloudFront) and Pre-signed URL (S3)
33
Different types of Aurora Endpoints
#AWS Different types of Aurora Endpoints
34
The Default Termination Policy for Auto Scaling Group (Oldest launch configuration vs Instance Protection)
#AWS Default Termination Policy for Auto Scaling Group
35
Watch Acloud Guru Videos Lectures while commuting / lunch break – Reschedule the exam if you are not yet ready
#AWS ACloud Guru
36
Watch Linux Academy Videos Lectures while commuting / lunch break – Reschedule the exam if you are not yet ready
#AWS Linux Academy
37
Watch Udemy Videos Lectures while commuting / lunch break – Reschedule the exam if you are not yet ready
#AWS Linux Academy
38
The Udemy practice test interface is good that it pinpoints your weak areas, so what I did was to re-watch all the videos that I got the wrong answers. Since I was able to gauge my exam readiness, I decided to reschedule my exam for 2 more weeks, to help me focus on completing the practice tests.
#AWS Udemy
39
Use AWS Cheatsheets – I also found the cheatsheets provided by Tutorials Dojo very helpful. In my opinion, it is better than Jayendrapatil Patil’s blog since it contains more updated information that complements your review notes.
#AWS Cheat Sheet
40
Watch this exam readiness 3hr video, it very recent webinar this provides what is expected in the exam.
#AWS Exam Prep Video
41
Start off watching Ryan’s videos. Try and completely focus on the hands on. Take your time to understand what you are trying to learn and achieve in those LAB Sessions.
#AWS Exam Prep Video
42
Do not rush into completing the videos. Take your time and hone the basics. Focus and spend a lot of time for the back bone of AWS infrastructure – Compute/EC2 section, Storage (S3/EBS/EFS), Networking (Route 53/Load Balancers), RDS, VPC, Route 3. These sections are vast, with lot of concepts to go over and have loads to learn. Trust me you will need to thoroughly understand each one of them to ensure you pass the certification comfortably.
#AWS Exam Prep Video
43
Make sure you go through resources section and also AWS documentation for each components. Go over FAQs. If you have a question, please post it in the community. Trust me, each answer here helps you understand more about AWS.
#AWS Faqs
44
Like any other product/service, each AWS offering has a different flavor. I will take an example of EC2 (Spot/Reserved/Dedicated/On Demand etc.). Make sure you understand what they are, what are the pros/cons of each of these flavors. Applies for all other offerings too.
#AWS Services
45
Ensure to attend all quizzes after each section. Please do not treat these quizzes as your practice exams. These quizzes are designed to mostly test your knowledge on the section you just finished. The exam itself is designed to test you with scenarios and questions, where in you will need to recall and apply your knowledge of different AWS technologies/services you learn over multiple lectures.
#AWS Services
46
I, personally, do not recommend to attempt a practice exam or simulator exam until you have done all of the above. It was a little overwhelming for me. I had thoroughly gone over the videos. And understood the concepts pretty well, but once I opened exam simulator I felt the questions were pretty difficult. I also had a feeling that videos do not cover lot of topics. But later I realized, given the vastness of AWS Services and offerings it is really difficult to encompass all these services and their details in the course content. The fact that these services keep changing so often, does not help
#AWS Services
47
Go back and make a note of all topics, that you felt were unfamiliar for you. Go through the resources section and fiund links to AWS documentation. After going over them, you shoud gain at least 5-10% more knowledge on AWS. Have expectations from the online courses as a way to get thorough understanding of basics and strong foundations for your AWS knowledge. But once you are done with videos. Make sure you spend a lot of time on AWS documentation and FAQs. There are many many topics/sub topics which may not be covered in the course and you would need to know, atleast their basic functionalities, to do well in the exam.
#AWS Services
48
Once you start taking practice exams, it may seem really difficult at the beginning. So, please do not panic if you find the questions complicated or difficult. IMO they are designed or put in a way to sound complicated but they are not. Be calm and read questions very carefully. In my observation, many questions have lot of information which sometimes is not relevant to the solution you are expected to provide. Read the question slowly and read it again until you understand what is expected out of it.
#AWS Services
49
With each practice exam you will come across topics that you may need to scale your knowledge on or learn them from scratch.
#AWS Services
50
With each test and the subsequent revision, you will surely feel more confident.
There are 130 mins for questions. 2 mins for each question which is plenty of time.
At least take 8-10 practice tests. The ones on udemy/tutorialdojo are really good. If you are a acloudguru member. The exam simulator is really good.
Manage your time well. Keep patience. I saw someone mention in one of the discussions that do not under estimate the mental focus/strength needed to sit through 130 mins solving these questions. And it is really true.
Do not give away or waste any of those precious 130 mins. While answering flag/mark questions you think you are not completely sure. My advice is, even if you finish early, spend your time reviewing the answers. I could review 40 of my answers at the end of test. And I at least rectified 3 of them (which is 4-5% of total score, I think)
So in short – Put a lot of focus on making your foundations strong. Make sure you go through AWS Documentation and FAQs. Try and envision how all of the AWS components can fit together and provide an optimal solution. Keep calm.
This video gives outline about exam, must watch before or after Ryan’s course. #AWS Services
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Walking you through how to best prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C02 exam in 5 steps:
1. Understand the exam blueprint
2. Learn about the new topics included in the SAA-C02 version of the exam
3. Use the many FREE resources available to gain and deepen your knowledge
4. Enroll in our hands-on video course to learn AWS in depth
5. Use practice tests to fully prepare yourself for the exam and assess your exam readiness
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Storage:
1. Know your different Amazon S3 storage tiers! You need to know the use cases, features and limitations, and relative costs; e.g. retrieval costs.
2. Amazon S3 lifecycle policies is also required knowledge — there are minimum storage times in certain tiers that you need to know.
3. For Glacier, you need to understand what it is, what it’s used for, and what the options are for retrieval times and fees.
4. For the Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), make sure you’re clear which operating systems you can use with it (just Linux).
5. For the Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), make sure you know when to use the different tiers including instance stores; e.g. what would you use for a datastore that requires the highest IO and the data is distributed across multiple instances? (Good instance store use case)
6. Learn about Amazon FSx. You’ll need to know about FSx for Windows and Lustre.
7. Know how to improve Amazon S3 performance including using CloudFront, and byte-range fetches — check out this whitepaper.
8. Make sure you understand about Amazon S3 object deletion protection options including versioning and MFA delete.
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Compute:
1. You need to have a good understanding of the options for how to scale an Auto Scaling Group using metrics such as SQS queue depth, or numbers of SNS messages.
2. Know your different Auto Scaling policies including Target Tracking Policies.
3. Read up on High Performance Computing (HPC) with AWS. You’ll need to know about Amazon FSx with HPC use cases.
4. Know your placement groups. Make sure you can differentiate between spread, cluster and partition; e.g. what would you use for lowest latency? What about if you need to support an app that’s tightly coupled? Within an AZ or cross AZ?
5. Make sure you know the difference between Elastic Network Adapters (ENAs), Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) and Elastic Fabric Adapters (EFAs).
6. For the Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), make sure you understand how to assign IAM policies to ECS for providing S3 access. How can you decouple an ECS data processing process — Kinesis Firehose or SQS?
7. Make sure you’re clear on the different EC2 pricing models including Reserved Instances (RI) and the different RI options such as scheduled RIs.
8. Make sure you know the maximum execution time for AWS Lambda (it’s currently 900 seconds or 15 minutes).
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Network
1. Understand what AWS Global Accelerator is and its use cases.
2. Understand when to use CloudFront and when to use AWS Global Accelerator.
3. Make sure you understand the different types of VPC endpoint and which require an Elastic Network Interface (ENI) and which require a route table entry.
4. You need to know how to connect multiple accounts; e.g. should you use VPC peering or a VPC endpoint?
5. Know the difference between PrivateLink and ClassicLink.
6. Know the patterns for extending a secure on-premises environment into AWS.
7. Know how to encrypt AWS Direct Connect (you can use a Virtual Private Gateway / AWS VPN).
8. Understand when to use Direct Connect vs Snowball to migrate data — lead time can be an issue with Direct Connect if you’re in a hurry.
9. Know how to prevent circumvention of Amazon CloudFront; e.g. Origin Access Identity (OAI) or signed URLs / signed cookies.
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Databases
1. Make sure you understand Amazon Aurora and Amazon Aurora Serverless.
2. Know which RDS databases can have Read Replicas and whether you can read from a Multi-AZ standby.
3. Know the options for encrypting an existing RDS database; e.g. only at creation time otherwise you must encrypt a snapshot and create a new instance from the snapshot.
4. Know which databases are key-value stores; e.g. Amazon DynamoDB.
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Application Integration
1. Make sure you know the use cases for the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), and Simple Notification Service (SNS).
2. Understand the differences between Amazon Kinesis Firehose and SQS and when you would use each service.
3. Know how to use Amazon S3 event notifications to publish events to SQS — here’s a good “How To” article.
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Management and Governance
1. You’ll need to know about AWS Organizations; e.g. how to migrate an account between organizations.
2. For AWS Organizations, you also need to know how to restrict actions using service control policies attached to OUs.
3. Understand what AWS Resource Access Manager is.
AWS CERTIFIED SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT SAA-C02 : HOW TO BEST PREPARE IN 5 STEPS
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Jon Bonso list of helpful exam prep materials that you can use.
1. The official AWS SAA-C02 Certification Exam page.
2. The official AWS Exam Guide.
3. The official AWS Sample Questions
4. The official AWS Ramp-Up Guide: Architect PDF
5. Tutorials Dojo SAA-C02 Study Guide
6. Udemy Practice Exams
7. New AWS Services to prepare for:AWS Global Accelerator
8. New AWS Services to prepare for: Elastic Fabric Adapter — Amazon Web Services
9. New AWS Services to prepare for: AWS ParallelCluster – Amazon Web Services
10. New AWS Services to prepare for: Amazon FSx File Storage
Pass your SAA-C02 (AWS Solutions Architect Associate) exam with these Top 5 Resources
About this App
The AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Examination reparation and Readiness Quiz App (SAA-C01, SAA-C01, SAA) Prep App helps you prepare and train for the AWS Certification Solution Architect Associate Exam with various questions and answers dumps.
This App provide updated Questions and Answers, an Intuitive Responsive Interface allowing to browse questions horizontally and browse tips and resources vertically after completing a quiz.
Features:
- 100+ Questions and Answers updated frequently to get you AWS certified.
- Quiz with score tracker, countdown timer, highest score saving. Vie Answers after completing the quiz for each category.
- Can only see answers after completing the quiz.
- Show/Hide button option for answers. Link to PRO Version to see all answers for each category
- Ability to navigate through questions for each category using next and previous button.
- Resource info page about the answer for each category and Top 60 Tips to succeed in the exam.
- Prominent Cloud Evangelist latest tweets and Technology Latest News Feed
- The app helps you study and practice from your mobile device with an intuitive interface.
- SAA-C01 and SAA-C02 compatible
- Resource info page about the answer for each category.
- Helps you study and practice from your mobile device with an intuitive interface.
The questions and Answers are divided in 4 categories:
- Design High Performing Architectures,
- Design Cost Optimized Architectures,
- Design Secure Applications And Architectures,
- Design Resilient Architecture,
The questions and answers cover the following topics: AWS VPC, S3, DynamoDB, EC2, ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, Code Pipeline, Code Deploy, TCO Calculator, AWS S3, AWS DynamoDB, CloudWatch , AWS SES, Amazon Lex, AWS EBS, AWS ELB, AWS Autoscaling , RDS, Aurora, Route 53, Amazon CodeGuru, Amazon Bracket, AWS Billing and Pricing, AWS Simply Monthly Calculator, AWS cost calculator, Ec2 pricing on-demand, AWS Pricing, AWS Pay As You Go, AWS No Upfront Cost, Cost Explorer, AWS Organizations, Consolidated billing, Instance Scheduler, on-demand instances, Reserved instances, Spot Instances, CloudFront, Web hosting on S3, S3 storage classes, AWS Regions, AWS Availability Zones, Trusted Advisor, Various architectural Questions and Answers about AWS, AWS SDK, AWS EBS Volumes, EC2, S3, Containers, KMS, AWS read replicas, Cloudfront, API Gateway, AWS Snapshots, Auto shutdown Ec2 instances, High Availability, RDS, DynamoDB, Elasticity, AWS Virtual Machines, AWS Caching, AWS Containers, AWS Architecture, AWS Ec2, AWS S3, AWS Security, AWS Lambda, Bastion Hosts, S3 lifecycle policy, kinesis sharing, AWS KMS, Design High Performing Architectures, Design Cost Optimized Architectures, Design Secure Applications And Architectures, Design Resilient Architecture, AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud, Resources, Questions, AWS, AWS SDK, AWS EBS Volumes, AWS read replicas, Cloudfront, API Gateway, AWS Snapshots, Auto shutdown Ec2 instances, High Availability, RDS, DynamoDB, Elasticity, AWS Virtual Machines, AWS Caching, AWS Containers, AWS Architecture, AWS Ec2, AWS S3, AWS Security, AWS Lambda, Load Balancing, DynamoDB, EBS, Multi-AZ RDS, Aurora, EFS, DynamoDB, NLB, ALB, Aurora, Auto Scaling, DynamoDB(latency), Aurora(performance), Multi-AZ RDS(high availability), Throughput Optimized EBS (highly sequential), SAA-CO1, SAA-CO2, Cloudwatch, CloudTrail, KMS, ElasticBeanstalk, OpsWorks, RPO vs RTO, HA vs FT, Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting, Access Management Basics, Shared Responsibility Model, Cloud Service Models, etc…
The resources sections cover the following areas: Certification, AWS training, Mock Exam Preparation Tips, Cloud Architect Training, Cloud Architect Knowledge, Cloud Technology, cloud certification, cloud exam preparation tips, cloud solution architect associate exam, certification practice exam, learn aws free, amazon cloud solution architect, question dumps, acloud guru links, tutorial dojo links, linuxacademy links, latest aws certification tweets, and post from reddit, quota, linkedin, medium, cloud exam preparation tips, aws cloud solution architect associate exam, aws certification practice exam, cloud exam questions, learn aws free, amazon cloud solution architect, amazon cloud certified solution architect associate exam questions, as certification dumps, google cloud, azure cloud, acloud, learn google cloud, learn azure cloud, cloud comparison, etc.
Abilities Validated by the Certification:
- Effectively demonstrate knowledge of how to architect and deploy secure and robust applications on AWS technologies
- Define a solution using architectural design principles based on customer requirements
- Provide implementation guidance based on best practices to the organization throughout the life cycle of the project
Recommended Knowledge for the Certification:
- One year of hands-on experience designing available, cost-effective, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems on AWS.
- Hands-on experience using compute, networking, storage, and database AWS services.
- Hands-on experience with AWS deployment and management services.
- Ability to identify and define technical requirements for an AWS-based application.
- bility to identify which AWS services meet a given technical requirement.
- Knowledge of recommended best practices for building secure and reliable applications on the AWS platform.
- An understanding of the basic architectural principles of building in the AWS Cloud.
- An understanding of the AWS global infrastructure.
- An understanding of network technologies as they relate to AWS.
- An understanding of security features and tools that AWS provides and how they relate to traditional services.
Note and disclaimer: We are not affiliated with AWS or Amazon or Microsoft or Google. The questions are put together based on the certification study guide and materials available online. We also receive questions and answers from anonymous users and we vet to make sure they are legitimate. The questions in this app should help you pass the exam but it is not guaranteed. We are not responsible for any exam you did not pass.
Important: To succeed with the real exam, do not memorize the answers in this app. It is very important that you understand why a question is right or wrong and the concepts behind it by carefully reading the reference documents in the answers.
What is the AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Exam?
This exam validates an examinee’s ability to effectively demonstrate knowledge of how to architect and deploy secure and robust applications on AWS technologies. It validates an examinee’s ability to:
- Define a solution using architectural design principles based on customer requirements.
- Multiple-response: Has two correct responses out of five options.
There are two types of questions on the examination:
- Multiple-choice: Has one correct response and three incorrect responses (distractors).
- Provide implementation guidance based on best practices to the organization throughout the lifecycle of the project.
Select one or more responses that best complete the statement or answer the question. Distractors, or incorrect answers, are response options that an examinee with incomplete knowledge or skill would likely choose. However, they are generally plausible responses that fit in the content area defined by the test objective. Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect; there is no penalty for guessing.
To succeed with the real exam, do not memorize the answers below. It is very important that you understand why a question is right or wrong and the concepts behind it by carefully reading the reference documents in the answers.
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate info and details
The AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Exam is a multiple choice, multiple answer exam. Here is the Exam Overview:
- Certification Name: AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate.
- Prerequisites for the Exam: None.
- Exam Pattern: Multiple Choice Questions
- Duration: 130 mins
- Exam fees: US $150
- Exam Guide on AWS Website
- Available languages for tests: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese
- Read AWS whitepapers
- Register for certification account here.
- Prepare for Certification Here
Other AWS Facts and Summaries and Questions/Answers Dump
- AWS S3 facts and summaries and Q&A Dump
- AWS DynamoDB facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS EC2 facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Serverless facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Developer and Deployment Theory facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS IAM facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS vs Azure vs Google
- Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Customer Insurance – Cloud Provider Insurance – Cyber Insurance
Additional Information for reference
Below are some useful reference links that would help you to learn about AWS Practitioner Exam.
- AWS certified cloud practitioner/
- certification faqs
- AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Exam Prep Dumps
Other Relevant and Recommended AWS Certifications

AWS Certification Exams Roadmap[/caption]
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
- AWS Certified Big Data Specialty
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking.
- AWS Certified Security – Specialty
AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam Whitepapers:
AWS has provided whitepapers to help you understand the technical concepts. Below are the recommended whitepapers.
Online Training and Labs for AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Exam
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Jobs
AWS Certification and Training Apps for all platforms:
AWS Cloud practitioner FREE version:
AWS Certified Cloud practitioner for the web:pwa
AWS Certified Cloud practitioner Exam Prep App for iOS
AWS Certified Cloud practitioner Exam Prep App for Microsoft/Windows10
AWS Certified Cloud practitioner Exam Prep App for Android (Google Play Store)
AWS Certified Cloud practitioner Exam Prep App for Android (Amazon App Store)
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AWS Solution Architect FREE version:
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Exam Prep App for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/solution-architect-assoc-quiz/id1501225766
Solution Architect Associate for Android Google Play
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AWS Certified Cloud practitioner Exam Prep App for Microsoft/Windows10
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AWS Cloud Practitioner PRO Versions:
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AWS Certified Cloud practitioner Exam Prep PRO App for Android (Huawei App Gallery) Coming soon
AWS Solution Architect PRO
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate PRO versions for iOS
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate PRO Exam Prep App for Android google
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate PRO Exam Prep App for Windows10
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate PRO Exam Prep App for Amazon android
Huawei App Gallery: Coming soon
AWS Certified Developer Associates Free version:
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Amazon App Store: Coming soon
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PRO version with mock exam for android (Google Play)
PRO version with mock exam ios
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Top 100 AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification Exam Questions and Answers Dump SAA-C03


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What are the Top 100 AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification Exam Questions and Answers Dump SAA-C03?
AWS Certified Solutions Architects are responsible for designing, deploying, and managing AWS cloud applications. The AWS Cloud Solutions Architect Associate exam validates an examinee’s ability to effectively demonstrate knowledge of how to design and deploy secure and robust applications on AWS technologies. The AWS Solutions Architect Associate training provides an overview of key AWS services, security, architecture, pricing, and support.

An Insightful Overview of SAA-C03 Exam Topics Encountered and Reflecting on My SAA-C03 Exam Journey: From Setback to Success
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) Examination is a required examination for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional level. Successful completion of this examination can lead to a salary raise or promotion for those in cloud roles. Below is the Top 100 AWS solutions architect associate exam prep facts and summaries questions and answers dump.
With average increases in salary of over 25% for certified individuals, you’re going to be in a much better position to secure your dream job or promotion if you earn your AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification. You’ll also develop strong hands-on skills by doing the guided hands-on lab exercises in our course which will set you up for successfully performing in a solutions architect role.
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The AWS Solutions Architect Associate is ideal for those performing in Solutions Architect roles and for anyone working at a technical level with AWS technologies. Earning the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate will build your credibility and confidence as it demonstrates that you have the cloud skills companies need to innovate for the future.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate average salary
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate average salary is $149,446/year
In this blog, we will help you prepare for the AWS Solution Architect Associate Certification Exam, give you some facts and summaries, provide AWS Solution Architect Associate Top Questions and Answers Dump
How long to study for the AWS Solutions Architect exam?
We recommend that you allocate at least 60 minutes of study time per day and you will then be able to complete the certification within 5 weeks (including taking the actual exam). Study times can vary based on your experience with AWS and how much time you have each day, with some students passing their exams much faster and others taking a little longer. Get our eBook here.

AWS Certified Solutions Architects are IT professionals who design cloud solutions with AWS services to meet given technical requirements. An AWS Solutions Architect Associate is expected to design and implement distributed systems on AWS that are high-performing, scalable, secure and cost optimized.
How hard is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam?
The AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam is an associate-level exam that requires a solid understanding of the AWS platform and a broad range of AWS services. The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam questions are scenario-based questions and can be challenging. Despite this, the AWS Solutions Architect Associate is often earned by beginners to cloud computing.
The popular AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam have its new version this August 2022.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) Exam Guide
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam is intended for individuals who perform in a solutions architect role.
The exam validates a candidate’s ability to use AWS technologies to design solutions based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
What is the format of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam?
The SAA-C03 exam is a multiple choice examination that is 65 questions in length. You can take the exam in a testing center or using an online proctored exam from your home or office. You have 130 minutes to complete your exam and the passing mark is 720 points out of 100 points (72%). If English is not your first language you can request an accommodation when booking your exam that will qualify you for an additional 30 minutes exam extension.
The exam also validates a candidate’s ability to complete the following tasks:
• Design solutions that incorporate AWS services to meet current business requirements and future projected needs
• Design architectures that are secure, resilient, high-performing, and cost-optimized
• Review existing solutions and determine improvements
Unscored content
The exam includes 15 unscored questions that do not affect your score.
AWS collects information about candidate performance on these unscored questions to evaluate these questions for future use as scored questions. These unscored questions are not identified on the exam.
Target candidate description
The target candidate should have at least 1 year of hands-on experience designing cloud solutions that use AWS services
Your results for the exam are reported as a scaled score of 100–1,000. The minimum passing score is 720.
Your score shows how you performed on the exam as a whole and whether or not you passed. Scaled scoring models help equate scores across multiple exam forms that might have slightly different difficulty levels.
What is the passing score for the AWS Solutions Architect exam?
All AWS certification exam results are reported as a score from 100 to 1000. Your score shows how you performed on the examination as a whole and whether or not you passed. The passing score for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate is 720 (72%).
Can I take the AWS Exam from Home?
Yes, you can now take all AWS Certification exams with online proctoring using Pearson Vue or PSI. Here’s a detailed guide on how to book your AWS exam.
Are there any prerequisites for taking the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam?
There are no prerequisites for taking AWS exams. You do not need any programming knowledge or experience working with AWS. Everything you need to know is included in our courses. We do recommend that you have a basic understanding of fundamental computing concepts such as compute, storage, networking, and databases.
How much does the AWS Solution Architect Exam cost?
The AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam cost is $150 US.
Once you successfully pass your exam, you will be issued a 50% discount voucher that you can use towards your next AWS Exam.
For more detailed information, check out this blog article on AWS Certification Costs.
The Role of an AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
AWS Certified Solutions Architects are IT professionals who design cloud solutions with AWS services to meet given technical requirements. An AWS Solutions Architect Associate is expected to design and implement distributed systems on AWS that are high-performing, scalable, secure and cost optimized.
Content outline:
Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures 30%
Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures 26%
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures 24%
Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures 20%
Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures
This exam domain is focused on securing your architectures on AWS and comprises 30% of the exam. Task statements include:
Task Statement 1: Design secure access to AWS resources.
Knowledge of:
• Access controls and management across multiple accounts
• AWS federated access and identity services (for example, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM], AWS Single Sign-On [AWS SSO])
• AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions)
• AWS security best practices (for example, the principle of least privilege)
• The AWS shared responsibility model
Skills in:
• Applying AWS security best practices to IAM users and root users (for example, multi-factor authentication [MFA])
• Designing a flexible authorization model that includes IAM users, groups, roles, and policies
• Designing a role-based access control strategy (for example, AWS Security Token Service [AWS STS], role switching, cross-account access)
• Designing a security strategy for multiple AWS accounts (for example, AWS Control Tower, service control policies [SCPs])
• Determining the appropriate use of resource policies for AWS services
• Determining when to federate a directory service with IAM roles
Task Statement 2: Design secure workloads and applications.
Knowledge of:
• Application configuration and credentials security
• AWS service endpoints
• Control ports, protocols, and network traffic on AWS
• Secure application access
• Security services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Cognito, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Macie)
• Threat vectors external to AWS (for example, DDoS, SQL injection)
Skills in:
• Designing VPC architectures with security components (for example, security groups, route tables, network ACLs, NAT gateways)
• Determining network segmentation strategies (for example, using public subnets and private subnets)
• Integrating AWS services to secure applications (for example, AWS Shield, AWS WAF, AWS SSO, AWS Secrets Manager)
• Securing external network connections to and from the AWS Cloud (for example, VPN, AWS Direct Connect)
Task Statement 3: Determine appropriate data security controls.
Knowledge of:
• Data access and governance
• Data recovery
• Data retention and classification
• Encryption and appropriate key management
Skills in:
• Aligning AWS technologies to meet compliance requirements
• Encrypting data at rest (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS])
• Encrypting data in transit (for example, AWS Certificate Manager [ACM] using TLS)
• Implementing access policies for encryption keys
• Implementing data backups and replications
• Implementing policies for data access, lifecycle, and protection
• Rotating encryption keys and renewing certificates
Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures
This exam domain is focused on designing resilient architectures on AWS and comprises 26% of the exam. Task statements include:
Task Statement 1: Design scalable and loosely coupled architectures.
Knowledge of:
• API creation and management (for example, Amazon API Gateway, REST API)
• AWS managed services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Transfer Family, Amazon
Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Secrets Manager)
• Caching strategies
• Design principles for microservices (for example, stateless workloads compared with stateful workloads)
• Event-driven architectures
• Horizontal scaling and vertical scaling
• How to appropriately use edge accelerators (for example, content delivery network [CDN])
• How to migrate applications into containers
• Load balancing concepts (for example, Application Load Balancer)
• Multi-tier architectures
• Queuing and messaging concepts (for example, publish/subscribe)
• Serverless technologies and patterns (for example, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda)
• Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block)
• The orchestration of containers (for example, Amazon Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS],Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service [Amazon EKS])
• When to use read replicas
• Workflow orchestration (for example, AWS Step Functions)
Skills in:
• Designing event-driven, microservice, and/or multi-tier architectures based on requirements
• Determining scaling strategies for components used in an architecture design
• Determining the AWS services required to achieve loose coupling based on requirements
• Determining when to use containers
• Determining when to use serverless technologies and patterns
• Recommending appropriate compute, storage, networking, and database technologies based on requirements
• Using purpose-built AWS services for workloads
Task Statement 2: Design highly available and/or fault-tolerant architectures.
Knowledge of:
• AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions, Amazon Route 53)
• AWS managed services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Polly)
• Basic networking concepts (for example, route tables)
• Disaster recovery (DR) strategies (for example, backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby,
active-active failover, recovery point objective [RPO], recovery time objective [RTO])
• Distributed design patterns
• Failover strategies
• Immutable infrastructure
• Load balancing concepts (for example, Application Load Balancer)
• Proxy concepts (for example, Amazon RDS Proxy)
• Service quotas and throttling (for example, how to configure the service quotas for a workload in a standby environment)
• Storage options and characteristics (for example, durability, replication)
• Workload visibility (for example, AWS X-Ray)
Skills in:
• Determining automation strategies to ensure infrastructure integrity
• Determining the AWS services required to provide a highly available and/or fault-tolerant architecture across AWS Regions or Availability Zones
• Identifying metrics based on business requirements to deliver a highly available solution
• Implementing designs to mitigate single points of failure
• Implementing strategies to ensure the durability and availability of data (for example, backups)
• Selecting an appropriate DR strategy to meet business requirements
• Using AWS services that improve the reliability of legacy applications and applications not built for the cloud (for example, when application changes are not possible)
• Using purpose-built AWS services for workloads
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
This exam domain is focused on designing high-performing architectures on AWS and comprises 24% of the exam. Task statements include:
Task Statement 1: Determine high-performing and/or scalable storage solutions.
Knowledge of:
• Hybrid storage solutions to meet business requirements
• Storage services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS])
• Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block)
Skills in:
• Determining storage services and configurations that meet performance demands
• Determining storage services that can scale to accommodate future needs
Task Statement 2: Design high-performing and elastic compute solutions.
Knowledge of:
• AWS compute services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Batch, Amazon EMR, Fargate)
• Distributed computing concepts supported by AWS global infrastructure and edge services
• Queuing and messaging concepts (for example, publish/subscribe)
• Scalability capabilities with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, AWS Auto Scaling)
• Serverless technologies and patterns (for example, Lambda, Fargate)
• The orchestration of containers (for example, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS)
Skills in:
• Decoupling workloads so that components can scale independently
• Identifying metrics and conditions to perform scaling actions
• Selecting the appropriate compute options and features (for example, EC2 instance types) to meet business requirements
• Selecting the appropriate resource type and size (for example, the amount of Lambda memory) to meet business requirements
Task Statement 3: Determine high-performing database solutions.
Knowledge of:
• AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions)
• Caching strategies and services (for example, Amazon ElastiCache)
• Data access patterns (for example, read-intensive compared with write-intensive)
• Database capacity planning (for example, capacity units, instance types, Provisioned IOPS)
• Database connections and proxies
• Database engines with appropriate use cases (for example, heterogeneous migrations, homogeneous migrations)
• Database replication (for example, read replicas)
• Database types and services (for example, serverless, relational compared with non-relational, in-memory)
Skills in:
• Configuring read replicas to meet business requirements
• Designing database architectures
• Determining an appropriate database engine (for example, MySQL compared with
PostgreSQL)
• Determining an appropriate database type (for example, Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB)
• Integrating caching to meet business requirements
Task Statement 4: Determine high-performing and/or scalable network architectures.
Knowledge of:
• Edge networking services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator)
• How to design network architecture (for example, subnet tiers, routing, IP addressing)
• Load balancing concepts (for example, Application Load Balancer)
• Network connection options (for example, AWS VPN, Direct Connect, AWS PrivateLink)
Skills in:
• Creating a network topology for various architectures (for example, global, hybrid, multi-tier)
• Determining network configurations that can scale to accommodate future needs
• Determining the appropriate placement of resources to meet business requirements
• Selecting the appropriate load balancing strategy
Task Statement 5: Determine high-performing data ingestion and transformation solutions.
Knowledge of:
• Data analytics and visualization services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Athena, AWS Lake Formation, Amazon QuickSight)
• Data ingestion patterns (for example, frequency)
• Data transfer services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS DataSync, AWS Storage Gateway)
• Data transformation services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Glue)
• Secure access to ingestion access points
• Sizes and speeds needed to meet business requirements
• Streaming data services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Kinesis)
Skills in:
• Building and securing data lakes
• Designing data streaming architectures
• Designing data transfer solutions
• Implementing visualization strategies
• Selecting appropriate compute options for data processing (for example, Amazon EMR)
• Selecting appropriate configurations for ingestion
• Transforming data between formats (for example, .csv to .parquet)
Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures
This exam domain is focused optimizing solutions for cost-effectiveness on AWS and comprises 20% of the exam. Task statements include:
Task Statement 1: Design cost-optimized storage solutions.
Knowledge of:
• Access options (for example, an S3 bucket with Requester Pays object storage)
• AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing)
• AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report)
• AWS storage services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon FSx, Amazon EFS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS)
• Backup strategies
• Block storage options (for example, hard disk drive [HDD] volume types, solid state drive [SSD] volume types)
• Data lifecycles
• Hybrid storage options (for example, DataSync, Transfer Family, Storage Gateway)
• Storage access patterns
• Storage tiering (for example, cold tiering for object storage)
• Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block)
Skills in:
• Designing appropriate storage strategies (for example, batch uploads to Amazon S3 compared with individual uploads)
• Determining the correct storage size for a workload
• Determining the lowest cost method of transferring data for a workload to AWS storage
• Determining when storage auto scaling is required
• Managing S3 object lifecycles
• Selecting the appropriate backup and/or archival solution
• Selecting the appropriate service for data migration to storage services
• Selecting the appropriate storage tier
• Selecting the correct data lifecycle for storage
• Selecting the most cost-effective storage service for a workload
Task Statement 2: Design cost-optimized compute solutions.
Knowledge of:
• AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing)
• AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report)
• AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions)
• AWS purchasing options (for example, Spot Instances, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans)
• Distributed compute strategies (for example, edge processing)
• Hybrid compute options (for example, AWS Outposts, AWS Snowball Edge)
• Instance types, families, and sizes (for example, memory optimized, compute optimized, virtualization)
• Optimization of compute utilization (for example, containers, serverless computing, microservices)
• Scaling strategies (for example, auto scaling, hibernation)
Skills in:
• Determining an appropriate load balancing strategy (for example, Application Load Balancer [Layer 7] compared with Network Load Balancer [Layer 4] compared with Gateway Load Balancer)
• Determining appropriate scaling methods and strategies for elastic workloads (for example, horizontal compared with vertical, EC2 hibernation)
• Determining cost-effective AWS compute services with appropriate use cases (for example, Lambda, Amazon EC2, Fargate)
• Determining the required availability for different classes of workloads (for example, production workloads, non-production workloads)
• Selecting the appropriate instance family for a workload
• Selecting the appropriate instance size for a workload
Task Statement 3: Design cost-optimized database solutions.
Knowledge of:
• AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing)
• AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report)
• Caching strategies
• Data retention policies
• Database capacity planning (for example, capacity units)
• Database connections and proxies
• Database engines with appropriate use cases (for example, heterogeneous migrations, homogeneous migrations)
• Database replication (for example, read replicas)
• Database types and services (for example, relational compared with non-relational, Aurora, DynamoDB)
Skills in:
• Designing appropriate backup and retention policies (for example, snapshot frequency)
• Determining an appropriate database engine (for example, MySQL compared with PostgreSQL)
• Determining cost-effective AWS database services with appropriate use cases (for example, DynamoDB compared with Amazon RDS, serverless)
• Determining cost-effective AWS database types (for example, time series format, columnar format)
• Migrating database schemas and data to different locations and/or different database engines
Task Statement 4: Design cost-optimized network architectures.
Knowledge of:
• AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing)
• AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report)
• Load balancing concepts (for example, Application Load Balancer)
• NAT gateways (for example, NAT instance costs compared with NAT gateway costs)
• Network connectivity (for example, private lines, dedicated lines, VPNs)
• Network routing, topology, and peering (for example, AWS Transit Gateway, VPC peering)
• Network services with appropriate use cases (for example, DNS)
Skills in:
• Configuring appropriate NAT gateway types for a network (for example, a single shared NAT
gateway compared with NAT gateways for each Availability Zone)
• Configuring appropriate network connections (for example, Direct Connect compared with VPN compared with internet)
• Configuring appropriate network routes to minimize network transfer costs (for example, Region to Region, Availability Zone to Availability Zone, private to public, Global Accelerator, VPC endpoints)
• Determining strategic needs for content delivery networks (CDNs) and edge caching
• Reviewing existing workloads for network optimizations
• Selecting an appropriate throttling strategy
• Selecting the appropriate bandwidth allocation for a network device (for example, a single VPN compared with multiple VPNs, Direct Connect speed)

Which key tools, technologies, and concepts might be covered on the exam?
The following is a non-exhaustive list of the tools and technologies that could appear on the exam.
This list is subject to change and is provided to help you understand the general scope of services, features, or technologies on the exam.
The general tools and technologies in this list appear in no particular order.
AWS services are grouped according to their primary functions. While some of these technologies will likely be covered more than others on the exam, the order and placement of them in this list is no indication of relative weight or importance:
• Compute
• Cost management
• Database
• Disaster recovery
• High performance
• Management and governance
• Microservices and component decoupling
• Migration and data transfer
• Networking, connectivity, and content delivery
• Resiliency
• Security
• Serverless and event-driven design principles
• Storage
AWS Services and Features
There are lots of new services and feature updates in scope for the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification! Here’s a list of some of the new services that will be in scope for the new version of the exam:
Analytics:
• Amazon Athena
• AWS Data Exchange
• AWS Data Pipeline
• Amazon EMR
• AWS Glue
• Amazon Kinesis
• AWS Lake Formation
• Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK)
• Amazon OpenSearch Service (Amazon Elasticsearch Service)
• Amazon QuickSight
• Amazon Redshift
Application Integration:
• Amazon AppFlow
• AWS AppSync
• Amazon EventBridge (Amazon CloudWatch Events)
• Amazon MQ
• Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)
• Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
• AWS Step Functions
AWS Cost Management:
• AWS Budgets
• AWS Cost and Usage Report
• AWS Cost Explorer
• Savings Plans
Compute:
• AWS Batch
• Amazon EC2
• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• AWS Outposts
• AWS Serverless Application Repository
• VMware Cloud on AWS
• AWS Wavelength
Containers:
• Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR)
• Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)
• Amazon ECS Anywhere
• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS)
• Amazon EKS Anywhere
• Amazon EKS Distro
Database:
• Amazon Aurora
• Amazon Aurora Serverless
• Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility)
• Amazon DynamoDB
• Amazon ElastiCache
• Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra)
• Amazon Neptune
• Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB)
• Amazon RDS
• Amazon Redshift
• Amazon Timestream
Developer Tools:
• AWS X-Ray
Front-End Web and Mobile:
• AWS Amplify
• Amazon API Gateway
• AWS Device Farm
• Amazon Pinpoint
Machine Learning:
• Amazon Comprehend
• Amazon Forecast
• Amazon Fraud Detector
• Amazon Kendra
• Amazon Lex
• Amazon Polly
• Amazon Rekognition
• Amazon SageMaker
• Amazon Textract
• Amazon Transcribe
• Amazon Translate
Management and Governance:
• AWS Auto Scaling
• AWS CloudFormation
• AWS CloudTrail
• Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)
• AWS Compute Optimizer
• AWS Config
• AWS Control Tower
• AWS License Manager
• Amazon Managed Grafana
• Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus
• AWS Management Console
• AWS Organizations
• AWS Personal Health Dashboard
• AWS Proton
• AWS Service Catalog
• AWS Systems Manager
• AWS Trusted Advisor
• AWS Well-Architected Tool
Media Services:
• Amazon Elastic Transcoder
• Amazon Kinesis Video Streams
Migration and Transfer:
• AWS Application Discovery Service
• AWS Application Migration Service (CloudEndure Migration)
• AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)
• AWS DataSync
• AWS Migration Hub
• AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS)
• AWS Snow Family
• AWS Transfer Family
Networking and Content Delivery:
• Amazon CloudFront
• AWS Direct Connect
• Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
• AWS Global Accelerator
• AWS PrivateLink
• Amazon Route 53
• AWS Transit Gateway
• Amazon VPC
• AWS VPN
Security, Identity, and Compliance:
• AWS Artifact
• AWS Audit Manager
• AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)
• AWS CloudHSM
• Amazon Cognito
• Amazon Detective
• AWS Directory Service
• AWS Firewall Manager
• Amazon GuardDuty
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Amazon Inspector
• AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)
• Amazon Macie
• AWS Network Firewall
• AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM)
• AWS Secrets Manager
• AWS Security Hub
• AWS Shield
• AWS Single Sign-On
• AWS WAF
Serverless:
• AWS AppSync
• AWS Fargate
• AWS Lambda
Storage:
• AWS Backup
• Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
• Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
• Amazon FSx (for all types)
• Amazon S3
• Amazon S3 Glacier
• AWS Storage Gateway
Out-of-scope AWS services and features
The following is a non-exhaustive list of AWS services and features that are not covered on the exam.
These services and features do not represent every AWS offering that is excluded from the exam content.
Analytics:
• Amazon CloudSearch
Application Integration:
• Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (Amazon MWAA)
AR and VR:
• Amazon Sumerian
Blockchain:
• Amazon Managed Blockchain
Compute:
• Amazon Lightsail
Database:
• Amazon RDS on VMware
Developer Tools:
• AWS Cloud9
• AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK)
• AWS CloudShell
• AWS CodeArtifact
• AWS CodeBuild
• AWS CodeCommit
• AWS CodeDeploy
• Amazon CodeGuru
• AWS CodeStar
• Amazon Corretto
• AWS Fault Injection Simulator (AWS FIS)
• AWS Tools and SDKs
Front-End Web and Mobile:
• Amazon Location Service
Game Tech:
• Amazon GameLift
• Amazon Lumberyard
Internet of Things:
• All services
Which new AWS services will be covered in the SAA-C03?
AWS Data Exchange,
AWS Data Pipeline,
AWS Lake Formation,
Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka,
Amazon AppFlow,
AWS Outposts,
VMware Cloud on AWS,
AWS Wavelength,
Amazon Neptune,
Amazon Quantum Ledger Database,
Amazon Timestream,
AWS Amplify,
Amazon Comprehend,
Amazon Forecast,
Amazon Fraud Detector,
Amazon Kendra,
AWS License Manager,
Amazon Managed Grafana,
Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus,
AWS Proton,
Amazon Elastic Transcoder,
Amazon Kinesis Video Streams,
AWS Application Discovery Service,
AWS WAF Serverless,
AWS AppSync,
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AWS solutions architect associate exam prep facts and summaries questions and answers dump – Solution Architecture Definition 1:
Solution architecture is a practice of defining and describing an architecture of a system delivered in context of a specific solution and as such it may encompass description of an entire system or only its specific parts. Definition of a solution architecture is typically led by a solution architect.
AWS solutions architect associate exam prep facts and summaries questions and answers dump – Solution Architecture Definition 2:
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate examination is intended for individuals who perform a solutions architect role and have one or more years of hands-on experience designing available, cost-efficient, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems on AWS.
AWS solutions architect associate exam prep facts and summaries questions and answers dump – AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam Facts and Summaries (SAA-C03)
- Take an AWS Training Class
- Study AWS Whitepapers and FAQs: AWS Well-Architected webpage (various whitepapers linked)
- If you are running an application in a production environment and must add a new EBS volume with data from a snapshot, what could you do to avoid degraded performance during the volume’s first use?
Initialize the data by reading each storage block on the volume.
Volumes created from an EBS snapshot must be initialized. Initializing occurs the first time a storage block on the volume is read, and the performance impact can be impacted by up to 50%. You can avoid this impact in production environments by pre-warming the volume by reading all of the blocks. - If you are running a legacy application that has hard-coded static IP addresses and it is running on an EC2 instance; what is the best failover solution that allows you to keep the same IP address on a new instance?
Elastic IP addresses (EIPs) are designed to be attached/detached and moved from one EC2 instance to another. They are a great solution for keeping a static IP address and moving it to a new instance if the current instance fails. This will reduce or eliminate any downtime uses may experience. - Which feature of Intel processors help to encrypt data without significant impact on performance?
AES-NI - You can mount to EFS from which two of the following?
- On-prem servers running Linux
- EC2 instances running Linux
EFS is not compatible with Windows operating systems.
When a file(s) is encrypted and the stored data is not in transit it’s known as encryption at rest. What is an example of encryption at rest?
When would vertical scaling be necessary? When an application is built entirely into one source code, otherwise known as a monolithic application.
Fault-Tolerance allows for continuous operation throughout a failure, which can lead to a low Recovery Time Objective. RPO vs RTO
- High-Availability means automating tasks so that an instance will quickly recover, which can lead to a low Recovery Time Objective. RPO vs. RTO
- Frequent backups reduce the time between the last backup and recovery point, otherwise known as the Recovery Point Objective. RPO vs. RTO
- Which represents the difference between Fault-Tolerance and High-Availability? High-Availability means the system will quickly recover from a failure event, and Fault-Tolerance means the system will maintain operations during a failure.
- From a security perspective, what is a principal? An anonymous user falls under the definition of a principal. A principal can be an anonymous user acting on a system.
An authenticated user falls under the definition of a principal. A principal can be an authenticated user acting on a system.
- What are two types of session data saving for an Application Session State? Stateless and Stateful
23. It is the customer’s responsibility to patch the operating system on an EC2 instance.
24. In designing an environment, what four main points should a Solutions Architect keep in mind? Cost-efficient, secure, application session state, undifferentiated heavy lifting: These four main points should be the framework when designing an environment.
25. In the context of disaster recovery, what does RPO stand for? RPO is the abbreviation for Recovery Point Objective.
26. What are the benefits of horizontal scaling?
Vertical scaling can be costly while horizontal scaling is cheaper.
Horizontal scaling suffers from none of the size limitations of vertical scaling.
Having horizontal scaling means you can easily route traffic to another instance of a server.
Top
Reference: AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam Prep
Top 100 AWS solutions architect associate exam prep facts and summaries questions and answers dump – SAA-C03
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Top AWS solutions architect associate exam prep facts and summaries questions and answers dump – Quizzes
A company is developing a highly available web application using stateless web servers. Which services are suitable for storing session state data? (Select TWO.)
- A. CloudWatch
- B. DynamoDB
- C. Elastic Load Balancing
- D. ElastiCache
- E. Storage Gateway

Q1: A Solutions Architect is designing a critical business application with a relational database that runs on an EC2 instance. It requires a single EBS volume that can support up to 16,000 IOPS.
Which Amazon EBS volume type can meet the performance requirements of this application?
- A. EBS Provisioned IOPS SSD
- B. EBS Throughput Optimized HDD
- C. EBS General Purpose SSD
- D. EBS Cold HDD
Q2: An application running on EC2 instances processes sensitive information stored on Amazon S3. The information is accessed over the Internet. The security team is concerned that the Internet connectivity to Amazon S3 is a security risk.
Which solution will resolve the security concern?
- A. Access the data through an Internet Gateway.
- B. Access the data through a VPN connection.
- C. Access the data through a NAT Gateway.
- D.Access the data through a VPC endpoint for Amazon S3
Q3: An organization is building an Amazon Redshift cluster in their shared services VPC. The cluster will host sensitive data.
How can the organization control which networks can access the cluster?
- A. Run the cluster in a different VPC and connect through VPC peering.
- B. Create a database user inside the Amazon Redshift cluster only for users on the network.
- C. Define a cluster security group for the cluster that allows access from the allowed networks.
- D. Only allow access to networks that connect with the shared services network via VPN.

Q4: A web application allows customers to upload orders to an S3 bucket. The resulting Amazon S3 events trigger a Lambda function that inserts a message to an SQS queue. A single EC2 instance reads messages from the queue, processes them, and stores them in an DynamoDB table partitioned by unique order ID. Next month traffic is expected to increase by a factor of 10 and a Solutions Architect is reviewing the architecture for possible scaling problems.
Which component is MOST likely to need re-architecting to be able to scale to accommodate the new traffic?
- A. Lambda function
- B. SQS queue
- C. EC2 instance
- D. DynamoDB table
Q5: An application requires a highly available relational database with an initial storage capacity of 8 TB. The database will grow by 8 GB every day. To support expected traffic, at least eight read replicas will be required to handle database reads.
Which option will meet these requirements?
- A. DynamoDB
- B. Amazon S3
- C. Amazon Aurora
- D. Amazon Redshift
Q6: How can you improve the performance of EFS?
- A. Use an instance-store backed EC2 instance.
- B. Provision more throughput than is required.
- C. Divide your files system into multiple smaller file systems.
- D. Provision higher IOPs for your EFS.
Q7:
If you are designing an application that requires fast (10 – 25Gbps), low-latency connections between EC2 instances, what EC2 feature should you use?
- A. Snapshots
- B. Instance store volumes
- C. Placement groups
- D. IOPS provisioned instances.

Q8: A Solution Architect is designing an online shopping application running in a VPC on EC2 instances behind an ELB Application Load Balancer. The instances run in an Auto Scaling group across multiple Availability Zones. The application tier must read and write data to a customer managed database cluster. There should be no access to the database from the Internet, but the cluster must be able to obtain software patches from the Internet.
Which VPC design meets these requirements?
- A. Public subnets for both the application tier and the database cluster
- B. Public subnets for the application tier, and private subnets for the database cluster
- C. Public subnets for the application tier and NAT Gateway, and private subnets for the database cluster
- D. Public subnets for the application tier, and private subnets for the database cluster and NAT Gateway
Q9: What command should you run on a running instance if you want to view its user data (that is used at launch)?
- A. curl http://254.169.254.169/latest/user-data
- B. curl http://localhost/latest/meta-data/bootstrap
- C. curl http://localhost/latest/user-data
- D. curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data

Q10: A company is developing a highly available web application using stateless web servers. Which services are suitable for storing session state data? (Select TWO.)
- A. CloudWatch
- B. DynamoDB
- C. Elastic Load Balancing
- D. ElastiCache
- E. Storage Gateway
Q11: From a security perspective, what is a principal?
- A. An identity
- B. An anonymous user
- C. An authenticated user
- D. A resource
Q12: What are the characteristics of a tiered application?
- A. All three application layers are on the same instance
- B. The presentation tier is on an isolated instance than the logic layer
- C. None of the tiers can be cloned
- D. The logic layer is on an isolated instance than the data layer
- E. Additional machines can be added to help the application by implementing horizontal scaling
- F. Incapable of horizontal scaling
Q13: When using horizontal scaling, how can a server’s capacity closely match it’s rising demand?
A. By frequently purchasing additional instances and smaller resources
B. By purchasing more resources very far in advance
C. By purchasing more resources after demand has risen
D. It is not possible to predict demand
Q14: What is the concept behind AWS’ Well-Architected Framework?
A. It’s a set of best practice areas, principles, and concepts that can help you implement effective AWS solutions.
B. It’s a set of best practice areas, principles, and concepts that can help you implement effective solutions tailored to your specific business.
C. It’s a set of best practice areas, principles, and concepts that can help you implement effective solutions from another web host.
D. It’s a set of best practice areas, principles, and concepts that can help you implement effective E-Commerce solutions.
Question 127: Which options are examples of steps you take to protect your serverless application from attacks? (Select FOUR.)
A. Update your operating system with the latest patches.
B. Configure geoblocking on Amazon CloudFront in front of regional API endpoints.
C. Disable origin access identity on Amazon S3.
D. Disable CORS on your APIs.
E. Use resource policies to limit access to your APIs to users from a specified account.
F. Filter out specific traffic patterns with AWS WAF.
G. Parameterize queries so that your Lambda function expects a single input.
Question 128: Which options reflect best practices for automating your deployment pipeline with serverless applications? (Select TWO.)
A. Select one deployment framework and use it for all of your deployments for consistency.
B. Use different AWS accounts for each environment in your deployment pipeline.
C. Use AWS SAM to configure safe deployments and include pre- and post-traffic tests.
D. Create a specific AWS SAM template to match each environment to keep them distinct.
Question 129: Your application needs to connect to an Amazon RDS instance on the backend. What is the best recommendation to the developer whose function must read from and write to the Amazon RDS instance?
A. Use reserved concurrency to limit the number of concurrent functions that would try to write to the database
B. Use the database proxy feature to provide connection pooling for the functions
C. Initialize the number of connections you want outside of the handler
D. Use the database TTL setting to clean up connections

Question 130: A company runs a cron job on an Amazon EC2 instance on a predefined schedule. The cron job calls a bash script that encrypts a 2 KB file. A security engineer creates an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) CMK with a key policy.
The key policy and the EC2 instance role have the necessary configuration for this job.
Which process should the bash script use to encrypt the file?
A) Use the aws kms encrypt command to encrypt the file by using the existing CMK.
B) Use the aws kms create-grant command to generate a grant for the existing CMK.
C) Use the aws kms encrypt command to generate a data key. Use the plaintext data key to encrypt the file.
D) Use the aws kms generate-data-key command to generate a data key. Use the encrypted data key to encrypt the file.
Question 131: A Security engineer must develop an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy for a company’s organization in AWS Organizations. The company needs to give developers autonomy to develop and test their applications on AWS, but the company also needs to implement security guardrails to help protect itself. The company creates and distributes applications with different levels of data classification and types. The solution must maximize scalability.
Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to meet these requirements? (Choose three.)
A) Create an SCP to restrict access to highly privileged or unauthorized actions to specific AM principals. Assign the SCP to the appropriate AWS accounts.
B) Create an IAM permissions boundary to allow access to specific actions and IAM principals. Assign the IAM permissions boundary to all AM principals within the organization
C) Create a delegated IAM role that has capabilities to create other IAM roles. Use the delegated IAM role to provision IAM principals by following the principle of least privilege.
D) Create OUs based on data classification and type. Add the AWS accounts to the appropriate OU. Provide developers access to the AWS accounts based on business need.
E) Create IAM groups based on data classification and type. Add only the required developers’ IAM role to the IAM groups within each AWS account.
F) Create IAM policies based on data classification and type. Add the minimum required IAM policies to the developers’ IAM role within each AWS account.
Question 132: A company is ready to deploy a public web application. The company will use AWS and will host the application on an Amazon EC2 instance. The company must use SSL/TLS encryption. The company is already using AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) and will export a certificate for use with the deployment.
How can a security engineer deploy the application to meet these requirements?
A) Put the EC2 instance behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). In the EC2 console, associate the certificate with the ALB by choosing HTTPS and 443.
B) Put the EC2 instance behind a Network Load Balancer. Associate the certificate with the EC2 instance.
C) Put the EC2 instance behind a Network Load Balancer (NLB). In the EC2 console, associate the certificate with the NLB by choosing HTTPS and 443.
D) Put the EC2 instance behind an Application Load Balancer. Associate the certificate with the EC2 instance.
What are the 6 pillars of a well architected framework:
AWS Well-Architected helps cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications and workloads. Based on five pillars — operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization — AWS Well-Architected provides a consistent approach for customers and partners to evaluate architectures, and implement designs that can scale over time.
1. Operational Excellence
The operational excellence pillar includes the ability to run and monitor systems to deliver business value and to continually improve supporting processes and procedures. You can find prescriptive guidance on implementation in the Operational Excellence Pillar whitepaper.
2. Security
The security pillar includes the ability to protect information, systems, and assets while delivering business value through risk assessments and mitigation strategies. You can find prescriptive guidance on implementation in the Security Pillar whitepaper.
3. Reliability
The reliability pillar includes the ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or service disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand, and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or transient network issues. You can find prescriptive guidance on implementation in the Reliability Pillar whitepaper.
4. Performance Efficiency
The performance efficiency pillar includes the ability to use computing resources efficiently to meet system requirements and to maintain that efficiency as demand changes and technologies evolve. You can find prescriptive guidance on implementation in the Performance Efficiency Pillar whitepaper.
5. Cost Optimization
The cost optimization pillar includes the ability to avoid or eliminate unneeded cost or suboptimal resources. You can find prescriptive guidance on implementation in the Cost Optimization Pillar whitepaper.
6. Sustainability
- The ability to increase efficiency across all components of a workload by maximizing the benefits from the provisioned resources.
- There are six best practice areas for sustainability in the cloud:
- Region Selection – AWS Global Infrastructure
- User Behavior Patterns – Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing
- Software and Architecture Patterns – AWS Design Principles
- Data Patterns – Amazon EBS, Amazon EFS, Amazon FSx, Amazon S3
- Hardware Patterns – Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic Beanstalk
- Development and Deployment Process – AWS CloudFormation
- Key AWS service:
- Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Source: 6 pillards of AWs Well architected Framework
The AWS Well-Architected Framework provides architectural best practices across the five pillars for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud. The framework provides a set of questions that allows you to review an existing or proposed architecture. It also provides a set of AWS best practices for each pillar.
Using the Framework in your architecture helps you produce stable and efficient systems, which allows you to focus on functional requirements.
Other AWS Facts and Summaries and Questions/Answers Dump
- AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Exam Prep App
- AWS S3 facts and summaries and Q&A Dump
- AWS DynamoDB facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS EC2 facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Serverless facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Developer and Deployment Theory facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS IAM facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Lambda facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS SQS facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS RDS facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS ECS facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS CloudWatch facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS SES facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS EBS facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS ELB facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Autoscaling facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS VPC facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS KMS facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS CodeBuild facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS CodeDeploy facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
- AWS CodePipeline facts and summaries and Questions and Answers Dump
What means undifferentiated heavy lifting?
The reality, of course, today is that if you come up with a great idea you don’t get to go quickly to a successful product. There’s a lot of undifferentiated heavy lifting that stands between your idea and that success. The kinds of things that I’m talking about when I say undifferentiated heavy lifting are things like these: figuring out which servers to buy, how many of them to buy, what time line to buy them.
Eventually you end up with heterogeneous hardware and you have to match that. You have to think about backup scenarios if you lose your data center or lose connectivity to a data center. Eventually you have to move facilities. There’s negotiations to be done. It’s a very complex set of activities that really is a big driver of ultimate success.
But they are undifferentiated from, it’s not the heart of, your idea. We call this muck. And it gets worse because what really happens is you don’t have to do this one time. You have to drive this loop. After you get your first version of your idea out into the marketplace, you’ve done all that undifferentiated heavy lifting, you find out that you have to cycle back. Change your idea. The winners are the ones that can cycle this loop the fastest.
On every cycle of this loop you have this undifferentiated heavy lifting, or muck, that you have to contend with. I believe that for most companies, and it’s certainly true at Amazon, that 70% of your time, energy, and dollars go into the undifferentiated heavy lifting and only 30% of your energy, time, and dollars gets to go into the core kernel of your idea.
I think what people are excited about is that they’re going to get a chance they see a future where they may be able to invert those two. Where they may be able to spend 70% of their time, energy and dollars on the differentiated part of what they’re doing.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associates Questions and Answers around the web.
Testimonial: Passed SAA-C02!
So my exam was yesterday and I got the results in 24 hours. I think that’s how they review all saa exams, not showing the results right away anymore.
I scored 858. Was practicing with Stephan’s udemy lectures and Bonso exam tests. My test results were as follows Test 1. 63%, 93% Test 2. 67%, 87% Test 3. 81 % Test 4. 72% Test 5. 75 % Test 6. 81% Stephan’s test. 80%
I was reading all question explanations (even the ones I got correct)
The actual exam was pretty much similar to these. The topics I got were:
A lot of S3 (make sure you know all of it from head to toes)
VPC peering
DataSync and Database Migration Service in same questions. Make sure you know the difference
One EKS question
2-3 KMS questions
Security group question
A lot of RDS Multi-AZ
SQS + SNS fan out pattern
ECS microservice architecture question
Route 53
NAT gateway
And that’s all I can remember)
I took extra 30 minutes, because English is not my native language and I had plenty of time to think and then review flagged questions.
Good luck with your exams guys!
Testimonial: Passed SAA-C02

Hey guys, just giving my update so all of you guys working towards your certs can stay motivated as these success stories drove me to reach this goal.
Background: 12 years of military IT experience, never worked with the cloud. I’ve done 7 deployments (that is a lot in 12 years), at which point I came home from the last one burnt out with a family that barely knew me. I knew I needed a change, but had no clue where to start or what I wanted to do. I wasn’t really interested in IT but I knew it’d pay the bills. After seeing videos about people in IT working from home(which after 8+ years of being gone from home really appealed to me), I stumbled across a video about a Solutions Architect’s daily routine working from home and got me interested in AWS.
AWS Solutions Architect SAA Certification Preparation time: It took me 68 days straight of hard work to pass this exam with confidence. No rest days, more than 120 pages of hand-written notes and hundreds and hundreds of flash cards.
In the beginning, I hopped on Stephane Maarek’s course for the CCP exam just to see if it was for me. I did the course in about a week and then after doing some research on here, got the CCP Practice exams from tutorialsdojo.com Two weeks after starting the Udemy course, I passed the exam. By that point, I’d already done lots of research on the different career paths and the best way to study, etc.
Cantrill(10/10) – That same day, I hopped onto Cantrill’s course for the SAA and got to work. Somebody had mentioned that by doing his courses you’d be over-prepared for the exam. While I think a combination of material is really important for passing the certification with confidence, I can say without a doubt Cantrill’s courses got me 85-90% of the way there. His forum is also amazing, and has directly contributed to me talking with somebody who works at AWS to land me a job, which makes the money I spent on all of his courses A STEAL. As I continue my journey (up next is SA Pro), I will be using all of his courses.
Neal Davis(8/10) – After completing Cantrill’s course, I found myself needing a resource to reinforce all the material I’d just learned. AWS is an expansive platform and the many intricacies of the different services can be tricky. For this portion, I relied on Neal Davis’s Training Notes series. These training notes are a very condensed version of the information you’ll need to pass the exam, and with the proper context are very useful to find the things you may have missed in your initial learnings. I will be using his other Training Notes for my other exams as well.
TutorialsDojo(10/10) – These tests filled in the gaps and allowed me to spot my weaknesses and shore them up. I actually think my real exam was harder than these, but because I’d spent so much time on the material I got wrong, I was able to pass the exam with a safe score.
As I said, I was surprised at how difficult the exam was. A lot of my questions were related to DBs, and a lot of them gave no context as to whether the data being loaded into them was SQL or NoSQL which made the choice selection a little frustrating. A lot of the questions have 2 VERY SIMILAR answers, and often time the wording of the answers could be easy to misinterpret (such as when you are creating a Read Replica, do you attach it to the primary application DB that is slowing down because of read issues or attach it to the service that is causing the primary DB to slow down). For context, I was scoring 95-100% on the TD exams prior to taking the test and managed a 823 on the exam so I don’t know if I got unlucky with a hard test or if I’m not as prepared as I thought I was (i.e. over-thinking questions).
Anyways, up next is going back over the practical parts of the course as I gear up for the SA Pro exam. I will be taking my time with this one, and re-learning the Linux CLI in preparation for finding a new job.
PS if anybody on here is hiring, I’m looking! I’m the hardest worker I know and my goal is to make your company as streamlined and profitable as possible. 🙂
Testimonial: How did you prepare for AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Level certification?
Best way to prepare for aws solution architect associate certification
Practical knowledge is 30% important and rest is Jayendra blog and Dumps.
Buying udemy courses doesn’t make you pass, I can tell surely without going to dumps and without going to jayendra’s blog not easy to clear the certification.
Read FAQs of S3, IAM, EC2, VPC, SQS, Autoscaling, Elastic Load Balancer, EBS, RDS, Lambda, API Gateway, ECS.
Read the Security Whitepaper and Shared Responsibility model.
The most important thing is basic questions from the last introduced topics to the exam is very important like Amazon Kinesis, etc…
– ACloudGuru course with practice test’s
– Created my own cheat sheet in excel
– Practice questions on various website
– Few AWS services FAQ’s
– Some questions were your understanding about which service to pick for the use case.
– many questions on VPC
– a couple of unexpected question on AWS CloudHSM, AWS systems manager, aws athena
– encryption at rest and in transit services
– migration from on-premise to AWS
– backup data in az vs regional
I believe the time was sufficient.
Overall I feel AWS SAA was more challenging in theory than GCP Associate CE.
some resources I bookmarked:
- Comparison of AWS Services
- Solutions Architect – Associate | Qwiklabs
- okeeffed/cheat-sheets
- A curated list of AWS resources to prepare for the AWS Certifications
- AWS Cheat Sheet
Whitepapers are the important information about each services that are published by Amazon in their website. If you are preparing for the AWS certifications, it is very important to use the some of the most recommended whitepapers to read before writing the exam.
The following are the list of whitepapers that are useful for preparing solutions architectexam. Also you will be able to find the list of whitepapers in the exam blueprint.
- Overview of Security Processes
- Storage Options in the Cloud
- Defining Fault Tolerant Applications in the AWS Cloud
- Overview of Amazon Web Services
- Compliance Whitepaper
- Architecting for the AWS Cloud
Data Security questions could be the more challenging and it’s worth noting that you need to have a good understanding of security processes described in the whitepaper titled “Overview of Security Processes”.
In the above list, most important whitepapers are Overview of Security Processes and Storage Options in the Cloud. Read more here…
Big thanks to /u/acantril for his amazing course – AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) – the best IT course I’ve ever had – and I’ve done many on various other platforms:
CBTNuggets
LinuxAcademy
ACloudGuru
Udemy
Linkedin
O’Reilly
- #AWS #SAAC02 #SAAC03 #SolutionsArchitect #AWSSAA #SAA #AWSCertification #AWSTraining #LearnAWS #CloudArchitect #SolutionsArchitect #Djamgatech
If you’re on the fence with buying one of his courses, stop thinking and buy it, I guarantee you won’t regret it! Other materials used for study:
Jon Bonso Practice Exams for SAA-C02 @ Tutorialsdojo (amazing practice exams!)
Random YouTube videos (example)
Official AWS Documentation (example)
TechStudySlack (learning community)
Study duration approximately ~3 months with the following regimen:
Daily study from
30min
to2hrs
Usually early morning before work
Sometimes on the train when commuting from/to work
Sometimes in the evening
Due to being a father/husband, study wasn’t always possible
All learned topics reviewed weekly
Testimonial: I passed SAA-C02 … But don’t do what I did to pass it

I’ve been following this subreddit for awhile and gotten some helpful tips, so I’d like to give back with my two cents. FYI I passed the exam 788
The exam materials that I used were the following:
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate All-in-One Exam Guide (Banerjee)
Stephen Maarek’s Udemy course, and his 6 exam practices
Adrian Cantrill’s online course (about `60% done)
TutorialDojo’s exams
(My company has udemy business account so I was able to use Stephen’s course/exam)
I scheduled my exam at the end of March, and started with Adrian’s. But I was dumb thinking that I could go through his course within 3 weeks… I stopped around 12% of his course and went to the textbook and finished reading the all-in-one exam guide within a weekend. Then I started going through Stephen’s course. While learning the course, I pushed back the exam to end of April, because I knew I wouldn’t be ready by the exam comes along.
Five days before the exam, I finished Stephen’s course, and then did his final exam on the course. I failed miserably (around 50%). So I did one of Stephen’s practice exam and did worse (42%). I thought maybe it might be his exams that are slightly difficult, so I went and bought Jon Bonso’s exam and got 60% on his first one. And then I realized based on all the questions on the exams, I was definitely lacking some fundamentals. I went back to Adrian’s course and things were definitely sticking more – I think it has to do with his explanations + more practical stuff. Unfortunately, I could not finish his course before the exam (because I was cramming), and on the day of the exam, I could only do Bonso’s four of six exams, with barely passing one of them.
Please, don’t do what I did. I was desperate to get this thing over with it. I wanted to move on and work on other things for job search, but if you’re not in this situation, please don’t do this. I can’t for love of god tell you about OAI and Cloudfront and why that’s different than S3 URL. The only thing that I can remember is all the practical stuff that I did with Adrian’s course. I&