How to Prepare for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam?

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam is an advanced AWS certification exam that tests your knowledge on how to architect and design an AWS Solution for your projects. This is not the first certification in the AWS career path. If you are in entry-level learning, you should consider preparing for AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification.

AWS certification – New updates:

Nov 2022:

As per the latest information from the AWS official page, there is a huge update is going to happen in AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C01) exam starting by November 15th, 2022. If you are already preparing for AWS solutions architect certification, then it’s time to attempt the certification on/before November 14th, 2022.

After November 15th, 2022, a new version of the SAP-C02 AWS Solutions Architect exam will be launched. Also, if you want to recertify as per the existing syllabus, hurry up!.

TRY NOW: Free Questions for AWS SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT PROFESSIONAL Exam

In this article, we are going to explain the exam information and important tips that will help you prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam.

AWS Certification Exams

There are five certifications offered by Amazon Web services (AWS). These are divided into different levels such as – Associate Level, Professional Level, and Specialty level certification. Associate level is the entry point and Professional level is the advanced certifications. Here is the list of AWS certifications:

Foundational Level Certifications

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Associate Level Certifications

• Solutions Architect Associate
• Developer Associate
• SysOps Administrator Associate

Professional Certifications

• Solutions Architect Professional
• DevOps Engineer Professional

Specialty Certifications

• Advanced Networking Specialty
• Big Data Specialty

One is recently launched basic level AWS certification – AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner. This AWS certification does not require any prerequisite and irrespective of all the other certifications. But can act as a prerequisite for professional level and specialty level certification exams.

What is AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certifications anyway?

This AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional SAP-C02 exam tests your knowledge of how to design and deploy scalable, fault-tolerant, and highly available systems on the AWS platform.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification is a great way to show potential employers that you have the skills and knowledge necessary to build complex applications on the AWS platform. It can also help you land a higher-paying job and advance your career.

This exam tests your ability to perform tasks within AWS Well-Architected framework like:

• Plan for organizational complexity
• Plan for new solutions
• Continually improving on existing solutions
• Prolong workload migration and modernization

What are the skills for AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certifications?

There are many different skills that are required for the AWS Solutions Architect – Professional SAP-C02 certification. Some of the most important skills include:

1. Understanding of AWS Services

To pass the exam, you will need to have a good understanding of the AWS services that are available. You should be familiar with the features and capabilities of each service, and how they can be used to create cloud-based solutions.

2. Understanding of Cloud Computing Concepts

To design and implement AWS-based solutions, you will need to be familiar with basic cloud computing concepts. This includes understanding topics such as scalability, elasticity, and cloud security.

3. Understanding of AWS Architectural Principles

You will need to be familiar with the architectural principles that AWS is built on. This includes understanding the AWS cloud infrastructure, how services are integrated, and how to design solutions that are scalable and elastic.

4. Understanding of AWS Solution Design Patterns

To design solutions on AWS, you will need to be familiar with the patterns that are available. These include patterns for compute, storage, networking, and application deployment.

5. Ability to Apply Knowledge to Real-world Scenarios

The exam will also test your ability to apply your knowledge to real-world scenarios. This includes being able to design and implement solutions that meet the needs of your business.

Also Read : 12 AWS Certifications – Which One Should I Choose?

The general scope of AWS concepts covered in the SAP-C02 exam

In order to help you prepare for the exam, we have put together a list of the in-scope AWS services and features. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should give you a good idea of what to expect.

AWS Services:

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
• Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
• Amazon Route 53
• Amazon CloudFront
• Amazon CloudWatch
• Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

AWS Features:

• Security
• Scalability
• High Availability
• Fault Tolerance
• Elasticity
• Management Console
• APIs

There are a few more AWS services and features for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification. These include:

• Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Amazon Route 53 traffic flow
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• AWS OpsWorks
• AWS Trusted Advisor
• AWS Import/Export
• AWS Direct Connect
• AWS Lambda
• AWS ElastiCache
• Amazon S3 Glacier
• Amazon DynamoDB
• Amazon SimpleDB
• Amazon SQS
• Amazon SES
• Amazon EC2 Container Service

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam Overview

Here is the basic information about the solutions architect professional exam. Note that these details are updated by Amazon frequently to ensure the quality of the certification. We keep updating our questions based on the latest exam syllabus.

Who should take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification?

This SAP-C02 certification is designed for those who have experience working with AWS and want to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in designing and deploying cloud-based solutions.

So, who should take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification? Here are a few key groups that we think would benefit from this certification:

• Experienced AWS users who want to validate their skills and knowledge
• IT professionals who want to move into cloud computing
• Solutions architects who want to specialize in AWS
• Knowledge on AWS APIs, AWS CLI, AWS CloudFormation templates, the AWS Billing Console, AWS Management Console, a scripting language, and Windows & Linux environments
• Best practices for architectural design across the enterprise’s many applications and projects, as well as the capacity to link business goals to application/architecture needs
• Ability to create a hybrid architecture leveraging essential AWS technologies, such as a continuous integration and deployment process and VPNs or AWS Direct Connect.

If you fit into one of these groups, then the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification could be a great option for you.

How to get started for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification?

You have start from Amazon’s official site for certification. That is the best place for you to start knowing about the various certification exams offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Here is the official site for AWS Certification Exams.

Sign-Up for Free Tier Account

AWS free tier is the free web services environment offered by Amazon for it’s 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 is great amount of opportunities for career if you have good knowledge on AWS and prepare for the AWS certifications.

Signing up to the free tier is ideal way to start making your hands dirty. There is no short cut, you have to get your hands dirty by exploring the AWS console once you have signed up for the free tier.

Please visit the site Sign-up for AWS Free Tier Account. This is the entry point for signing up to the free account.

Exam domain for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification (SAP-C02)

If you start preparing for the certification, the first thing you have to read is certification blueprint published in AWS’s website. This document demonstrates the certification topics and any other important references for the certification exam.

Refer Blueprint : https://d0.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-sa-pro/AWS_certified_solutions_architect_professional_blueprint.pdf

Study materials to refer for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification

AWS’s official certification site itself providing lots of study materials that will be very helpful for you to prepare for the Solutions Architect Associate certification exam.

• Official Preparation Site – Just browse the official certification page for any information about the exams, white papers, FAQs , etc. that can be used for the preparation.
• Exam Blue Print – Exam blue print is the exam objectives. This details out what are the things thate are covered in the exam.
• Sample Exam Questions – There is set of 5 questions available in the official website. This questions can be reviewed by you to understand what type of questions are asked in the exam. Essentially this would help you to get an basic idea about the multiple choice questions. More than that it would not help you much. But, it is worth reading once as a first step before you start the preparation for the certification exam.
• Hands-on Practice – This is one of the important part of preparation techniques. As we have explained earlier, once you are registered with the free tier account, you can start exploring the services available in the AWS console. This will give you very good idea on how to use them. Most of the questions asked in the exam is scenario based questions which expect you to choose based on a certain scenarios. Unless you have the experience, you will not be able to answer them properly.
• FAQ – Every services have it’s own FAQs section. This section would provide very good clarity on the services. Essentially, these sections explains the do’s and dont’s of each services. That will be very helpful for the exam preparation.
• Practice Exam – The practice exam cost you $20. But, there is only 20 questions for you. We would suggest that there is not much value spending $20 for just 20 questions. You can purchase any of the good exam simulators like Whizlabs for the most effective preparation.
• White Papers – It is most recommended to read the white papers. Atleast reading few important white papers would help you to get good idea on the services. Some of the important white papers are Overview of Security Processes ,Storage Options in the Cloud ,Defining Fault Tolerant Applications in the AWS Cloud ,Overview of Amazon Web Services ,Compliance Whitepaper and Architecting for the AWS Cloud

Summary

We hope that this article would be very helpful for preparing for the solutions architect professional certification exam. In Whizlabs, we are creating practice questions and training resources with maximum dedication to cover all the exam objectives and help the students to pass the exam in the first attempt. Our exam simulator have very detailed explanation for each questions. This will be them to understand why each option is correct or wrong.

We do have hands-on labs & AWS sandbox that will guide you through actual real-time experiences in live cloud environments to prepare for your SAP-C02 certification.

If you have any questions about the AWS certifications, please call us and send mail to our support. We are happy to answer your queries related to AWS certification exams.

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About Pavan Gumaste

Pavan Rao is a programmer / Developer by Profession and Cloud Computing Professional by choice with in-depth knowledge in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform. He helps the organisation figure out what to build, ensure successful delivery, and incorporate user learning to improve the strategy and product further.

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