If you are preparing for AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam certification then it tests your knowledge of AWS services and how to use them to design and deploy solutions.
In this article, you will learn how to prepare for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam. In the current scenario, this certification is the most popular and demanded certification exam globally. If you are planning to start your career in cloud computing, then you should plan to pass this exam.
According to a recent survey, this certification leads to the highest-paid industry certifications. An AWS Certified solutions architect may earn an average annual salary of more than $100,000. It’s awesome that you are ready to take the first step to boost your cloud career.
In this article, we are writing a step-by-step guide for the preparation for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification exam. This preparation guide will help you to pass this exam on the first attempt.
If you have any questions on how to prepare for this certification exam, please send them to our support email ID or post your comments.
Here is the definitive guide for ongoing AWS CSAA exam preparation (SAA – C02) that will help aspirants achieve the certification.
How to Prepare for Your AWS Certification?
If you are planning to get AWS certified, you should start with Amazon’s official site to learn about the AWS certifications. It is the best place for one to start getting information about the various certification exams offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS Certification Exams
There are 11 certifications offered by Amazon Web services (AWS). These certifications are divided into Associate Level, Professional Level, Specialty, and Entry-level. The Associate level certifications are the entry point while the Professional level certifications are the advanced certifications.
But it’s not mandatory, as per the latest AWS update one can directly take Professional or Specialty level certification. You may read this article to understand choosing the right certification for your career. Here is the list of AWS certifications:
| Foundation Level Certifications |
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner |
| Associate Level Certifications |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate |
| AWS Certified Developer – Associate |
| AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate |
| Professional Level Certifications |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional |
| AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional |
| Specialty Certifications |
| AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty |
| AWS Certified Security – Specialty |
| AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty |
| AWS Certified Database – Specialty |
| AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty |
Here is the representation of available AWS certifications through infographic:
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Exam
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam is the basic level certification exam conducted by Amazon. If you are planning to build a career in AWS technology, this certification is the best start for your AWS cloud career. On completing this certification exam, you will have sufficient knowledge to work on the AWS services.
Here is the summary of exam details for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification:
Note: Amazon requests every candidate to sign up for the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before writing the exam. The exam takers are not allowed to disclose any of the exam details like the number of questions, type of questions, passing score, etc. If they reveal it publicly, Amazon is authorised to cancel their certification.
Latest Update on AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam
2022 – The New Version of the AWS CSAA (SAA – C03) is available starting from August 30, 2022.
Last date to take the current version of AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam is August 20, 2022
2018 – New version of the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam was launched and few changes were made in the exam blueprint as well as exam structure
2014 – AWS CSAA exam was released
Sign-Up for AWS Free Tier Account
AWS free tier is the free web services environment offered by Amazon for its first-time users. If you are new to the cloud computing world, then you must be aware that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the leading cloud platform across the world. It has weak challenges from Microsoft and Google. So, there are a great number of career opportunities if you have good knowledge on AWS and have an AWS certification.
Signing up for the free tier is an ideal way to start making your hands dirty. There is no shortcut, you will have to explore the AWS console once you have signed up for the free tier. It will provide you hands-on experience of working with Amazon Web Services.
Please visit the AWS website and sign-up for the AWS Free Tier Account.
Preparation Guide for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam
Preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam? You may find a number of articles over the internet regarding the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam and its preparation. But it is not easy to keep all of the good content altogether or bookmark all of them.
However, it consumes a lot of time to find all the good content and keep that safe for further reading and learning. We understand the value of your time and effort at the time of the exam and so here we bring all the content related to AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam altogether so you can prepare well for the AWS certification exam.
The official site for AWS certifications itself provides a lot of study material that will be very helpful for you to prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification exam. Here is the complete preparation guide for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam –
1. Visit Official Certification Page
Just browse the official certification page at AWS website for any information about the exam, white papers, FAQs, etc. This information is the first step to start your exam preparation.
2. Understand the Exam Blueprint
Exam blueprint contains the exam objectives. It explains what are the domains/ subject areas that are covered in the exam. The below table mentions the domains covered in the AWS certified solutions architect associate exam with their percentage in the exam.
| Exam Content Domain | % in Examination |
| 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% |
3. Read AWS Books
The choice of good books is very important for the preparation of an exam. So, it is recommended to prepare through some good AWS books to pass the AWS architect certification exam. The first book you should read is the official study guide for AWS certified solutions architect associate exam. But, that itself would not be sufficient, so here is the list of AWS books for AWS solutions architect associate exam –
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Official Study Guide: Associate Exam 1st Edition by Joe Baron, Hisham Baz, Tim Bixler, Biff Gaut, Kevin E. Kelly, Sean Senior, John Stamper
- Amazon Web Services in Action by Andreas Wittig and Michael Wittig
- AWS For Admins For Dummies 1st Edition by John Paul Mueller
- AWS Administration Cookbook by Lucas Chan, Rowan Udell
4. Read AWS White Papers
It is most recommended to read the AWS white papers while preparing for an AWS certification. Reading few important white papers will help you to get a good idea of the Amazon Web Services. Some of the important white papers you should go through are –
- Overview of Amazon Web Services
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
- AWS Security Best Practices
- AWS Storage Services Overview
Read More : 7 Ways to Double Your Cloud Solutions Architect Role Salary in 12 Months
5. Hands-on Practice
Not to mention, practice is required for the perfection. So, it is one of the important steps during the preparation of AWS certified solutions architect associate exam. Whizlabs providing free hands-on labs account if you are purchasing the courses. You don’t have to create your own AWS account using the credit card, Whizlabs would pay for all your practice.
We do have hands-on labs for AWS, Azure, GCP where you can work with real-world materials and environment to learn new concepts and skills.
Let’s try our Playground and get certified!!
This will give you a very good idea on how to use those services. Most of the questions asked in the exam are scenario based questions which expect you to choose the correct answer based on a certain scenario. Unless you have the experience, you will not be able to answer them properly.
6. Try Video Course
Whizlabs providing one of the best and very detailed video lectures to prepare for the AWS Solutions Architect certification exam. Here is the snapshot of what’s covered in our course:
7. Sample AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam Questions
A set of 7 sample questions is available on the official AWS website. It is important to review them to understand the type of questions that are asked in the exam. Essentially, this would help you to get a basic idea about the exam pattern. More than that, it’s not going to help you much. But, it is worth reading once before you start the preparation for the AWS architect certification exam & also go through AWS Solutions Architect Interview Questions & Answers.
8. Go Through FAQs
Every Amazon Web Services have their own FAQs section. This section would provide a good clarity on the various concepts of Amazon Web services. Moreover, these sections explain the do’s and don’ts of each service. That will be very helpful for the exam preparation.
Also Read : 5 Reasons for AWS Certification Exam Failure and Proven Strategies to Succeed Next Time
9. Try Practice Exams
The final step to prepare for the AWS Solutions Architect certification exam is to try SAA-C03 Practice Questions or Mock Exam Simulators to gain confidence to appear for the real exam. Whizlabs is #1 mock exam questions provider that replicate the real exam pattern. Here is the features of Whizlabs practice exams:
- The questions are designed for the real exam format
- You can enable practice mode to practice each question instead of sit for the full exam
- Hands-on labs are integrated to the questions. For example: Suitable labs that are required for a question topic is integrated to the question itself.
- A very detailed report is available to validate your strengths and weakness
- Unlimited number of attempts are allowed
10. Download WhizCard
WhizCard is a quick revision tip that is very useful for the last-minute preparation. It is a must for scoring high on the exam.
11. Online Articles and Forum Discussions
You can find a number of articles about AWS certifications on the technical blogs. If you are good at reading articles, it can help you a lot. Just use your research skills and find some good articles on every topic of AWS-certified solutions architect associate certification subject areas.
Also, there are some discussion forums, you can participate in them and ask your question. There, you will get expert answers to all of your queries about the exam, exam objective, exam information, and exam topics.
Exam Preparation Tips & Tricks
Here I am listing the actual tips and tricks that would help you to pass this exam.
The following topics are mostly covered in the exam:
- Compute
- Cost management
- Database
- Disaster recovery
- High availability
- Management and governance
- Microservices and component decoupling
- Migration and data transfer
- Networking, connectivity, and content delivery
- Security
- Serverless design principles
- Storage
Also Read : 7 AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam Tips
Important Tips
- Download the study guide from the AWS official site and go through each and every concept. This makes you to remember the important concepts.
- Start your AWS free tier or sign up with a Whizlabs account to get hands-on experience on AWS labs. Whizlabs provides 200+ free AWS hands-on labs.
- While you are preparing for the exam, keep taking notes and maintain them safely. These notes are important to revise just before the exam.
- You have to imagine yourself as an architect and apply the contents using the AWS best practices and well-architected framework.
- AWS documentation and AWS FAQs are the most important parts of your preparation. Keep reading them again and again to understand all the concepts.
- Completely read the well-architected framework where most of the questions would be asked from the design concepts.
- Most of the questions may be asked around three-tier architecture like EC2, VPC, and databases so plan to study how to use subnets, multi-AZ, security groups, NACL, ELB, Auto-scaling, etc for designing highly available, fault-tolerant, and secure systems.
- Learn the concepts of :
- AWS EKS
- AWS ECS
- AWS CloudTrail
- AWS Config
- Study all the AWS services that help you to connect the on-premise systems to cloud systems.
Certification Exam Study Materials
- Sample Free Questions
- Latest Exam Release
- AWS Certification Benefits
- How to reduce the AWS Bill?
- Popular AWS Services
- AWS EC2
- AWS Ingress and Egress
- Solutions Architect Certification Books
Importance of AWS Certifications in Getting AWS Jobs
AWS offers a number of certifications as per the different job roles on the AWS platform. These certifications help the candidates to validate their knowledge and expertise, thus to stand out of the crowd in this era of competition. Due to the availability of certifications, it is recommended to get certified if you are an IT professional working in the AWS domain.
Nowadays, the AWS certification course has become a recognition of one’s skills in working on the AWS platform. These certifications increase your creditability for a job position. First, you need to gather proper knowledge and find the answer to this question to make the right decision.
Previously there was a learning path to be followed for the AWS certifications but now Amazon Web Services has made AWS certifications more flexible. So, they have removed the requirement of a prerequisite certification exam for another certification exam. It is even possible to take a professional level or a specialty level certification directly now.
As we have stated above getting certified with an AWS certification proves invaluable in getting a job. There are a number of AWS Jobs that you can get with the AWS certifications. All you need to do is find the relevant certification as per your job position, prepare well, and pass the certification exam, crack the interview and you’ll get your dream job.
Latest Updates
In this section you will find the latest updates on this certification exam. Here we update the latest version, new updates to the exam, etc. Stay tuned for the latest updates!!
Here is the summary of comparison between last two changes in the certification exam.
Old Version
Domain |
Weightage |
|
Designing Resilient Architectures |
34% |
|
Designing Performance Architectures |
24% |
|
Specifying Secure Applications and Architectures |
26% |
|
Designing Cost-Optimized Architectures |
10% |
|
Defining Operational Excellent Architectures |
6% |
New Version
Domain |
Weightage |
|
Designing Resilient Architectures |
30% |
|
Designing High-Performance Architectures |
26% |
|
Designing Secure Applications and Architectures |
24% |
|
Designing Cost-Optimized Architectures |
20% |
So, we can note that the new exam would focus on cost-optimization and higher performance of AWS solutions architecture. Therefore, candidates have to emphasize harder on these topics for qualifying the exam.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How long does it take to prepare for AWS Solution Architect?
Preparation time completely depends on the experience and knowledge level. If you have good hands-on experience and concepts, then it may take only 2-4 weeks of time to prepare and get certified as a AWS developer. If you are a fresher without any prior hands-on experience, then it might take 2-3 months time to pass this exam.
What is the salary of AWS Solutions Architect?
Based on the 2024 survey, the average salary for a solutions architect in the United States and Canada is around $123,091 per year. In India, annual salary is around INR 25 lacs.
What is considered out of scope for the target candidate?
Summary
To conclude, you need to study hard and prepare well to pass the AWS solutions architect associate exam. We hope this article will be very helpful for you to prepare for the AWS certified solutions architect certification exam. At Whizlabs, we’ve created AWS certification training online courses and practice tests with the maximum dedication to cover all the exam objectives.
And thus, we are aimed to help the students to pass the exam on the first attempt. Our exam simulator has a very detailed explanation for each question. This will help you to understand why an option is correct or incorrect. So, follow this guide and get ready to become a certified AWS Solutions Architect.
Have any questions about the AWS certification exams, please feel free to put a comment below or write at Whizlabs Helpdesk. We will be happy to answer your queries.
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nice useful and must check .
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Good Information
I have passed my first AWS Solutions Architect – Associate with 80%. Thanks! Whizlabs.
Question bank is too good.
Overall Score: 80%
Topic Level Scoring:
1.0 Designing highly available, cost efficient, fault tolerant, scalable systems: 69%
2.0 Implementation/Deployment: 100%
3.0 Security: 90%
4.0 Troubleshooting: 100%
Hello Mayank,
Thank you for the feedback. It is great to know that our exam questions have helped you.
Hey Mayank,
Congrations !! 🙂 🙂 .. I need to appear for the certification in next few days due to some compliance thing @ work. Do you have any pointers that could help me prepare for the battle? 😛
Hi Mayank
can yu help me with the practice questions please.
my mail id is :muttal.me@gmail.com
let me know, so that it would be of great help.
Thanks
sahana
Great site for preparation!
Link for the question is not working. Could you please share it.
Regards,
Jaya
I have bought the exam prep already from Whizlabs. Can I get a 25% discount as money back if I tweet this link ?
Hi all..just cleared my AWS CSA-A exam (with 32 days of prep) scoring 93% thanks to whizlabs and it’s excellent practice material. What i liked the most about whizlabs is detailed explanation for each question, which prepares up simultaneously for many more scenerios at the same time. I kind of liked the interface also and ability to view/review your results in depth. Thanks Whizlabs for really good quality practice questions, now started preparing for developer associate exam. Looking forward to similar experience in other AWS exams also. Thanks so much. Neeraj
HI
can you kindly let us know how many attempt can we take for this below online practice course
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate,,,
You’ve unlimited access.
I want to do the coarse on sysops admin associate,
What are the services need to learn for getting the sysops admin certification
Hi Venkat,
These are the main services you’ve to learn: Cloudwatch, EC2, EBS, RDS, ELB, ElasticCache, AWS Billing system. Apart from these, many other topics are there. So, It’s my recommendation to go for AWS Certified Solution Architect Online Course or Practice Tests and get certified.
Is this package updated with new AWS february 2018 certification questions?
Yes, Our Practice Tests for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam is updated. Plz visit our forum once: http://ask.whizlabs.com/t/new-announcement-full-tests-aws-solutions-architect-professional-update/1256
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In the Practice Test -> Section Test, A very important topic EC2 is missing. Could Anyone please confirm if it is really missing or only I couldn’t find it ?
Hi Purushottam,
We have 7 practice tests and section tests.
As for as EC2 is concerned – 7 Practice tests cover all possible scenarios for EC2. So we didn’t create a separate EC2 section test.
If you feel that any particular scenario is missing, please do let us know. We will surely add new questions for those scenarios.
Can you give me the updated link for practice test purchase for AWS Solutions Architect Associate ?
Is this the latest now ? I see last update is on April. Can I get the link for practice tests to purchase the same with updates upto October ?
Hi Jagadish,
We always have latest practice tests available in the website. Please go to link provided below to purchase the latest updated practice tests.
https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-solutions-architect-associate/
DO let me know if you have any other queries.
please update this article with the new tips and tricks for new exam release….
Hi Rigoberto,
We’ve covered a fresh article on AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (Released February 2018). Please check here –
https://www.whizlabs.com/blog/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-released-february-2018/
Hi,
COuld you please update, do practice tests updated for 2019 AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exams.
Very awesome!!!