Becoming a Cloud Architect: A Roadmap to the AWS Solutions Architect - Associate Certificate🏗️💡
Tags: aws, cloudcomputing, architecture, certification
Published: 2023-06-23 17:02:37

Hello Everyone! 😄

### What should you be expecting from the Article?
Here, I will be presenting all the tips and tricks I used to prepare myself properly and pass the exams of the AWS Solutions Architect - Associate certificate.

This is my first post, so an feedback is more than welcome!😁

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#### There are 4 Sections
0. **General Information** - Information about the AWS resources and exams.
1. **Courses** - What you need to know and how to proceed.
2. **Practice Tests** - How should you utilize your time and resources.
3. **Appendix** - Useful Resources w/ Tips & Tricks.

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## 0. General Information 📝

**Name:** AWS CAA-S03 (previously CAA-S02).
**Length:** 130 minutes for English-native speakers. If you are a non English-native speaker, you may request _30 additional minutes for the exams_.
Minimum Passing Score: 720 (72%)
**Cost:** 150$ (One exam attempt per voucher)
**Format:** 65 questions (multiple choice or multiple answers)

🧑‍💼 **Fields of Interest:** _Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure Engineer, Operations Engineer, Automations Engineer, Cloud Engineer/Developer._

The AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (or _SAA-C03_) is considered as a rather challenging certificate. It is a process that could take as much time as you want/need. To be honest though, you should set a goal of N days/months and schedule the exams for a certain day. As the time passes, it gets more difficult to remember all the information you gained during your homework.
_Don't forget_ we are talking about nearly 150 AWS services that are in the exams.

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Questions are descriptive and could get long, presenting an architectural scenario, for which you are asked to provide the most well suited answer from a multiple choice format.

- Since the _AI/ML Solutions_ are now a hot topic, the SAA-C03 release of the exams assimilate more questions on AWS's AI/ML services.

- In these 65 questions, _15_ of them are Unscored Questions. These questions will not affect your score. AWS randomly uses them in the exams, to gather information from each candidate and assess the worth of each question for future use.

- Every time, try excluding the answers that seem to be _off_. Usually, you'll find two answers that do not actually stick with the questions, and two answers that are similar.

- Never leave a question unanswered. Even if it doesn't make sense to you, I suggest that you answer the question, Flag it and revisit it, once you are done with all 65 of them. This way you'll get plenty more time to evaluate the question without getting anxious about the time.

There are 4 domains in which you'll prepare yourself, as described in the table below. This is just _good to know_, it doesn't make any difference to you.

| Domain                                         | % of Exams    |
| ---------------------------------------------- |:-------------:|
| Domain 1: Design Secure Architecture           | 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 Architecture

_Secure Architecture_ means Access Control, Global Infrastructure, Federated Access and Identity Services and Best Practices.

_Outstanding Services:_ **VPN, AWS Direct Connect, NAT Gateways, AWS WAF, and Security Groups**.

### ⚖️ Domain 2 : Design Resilient Architecture

_Resilient Architecture_ means scalable, fault-tolerant and loosely coupled, and highly available architectures.

_Outstanding Services:_ **SQS, SNS, AWS Lambda, AWS Fargate, Load Balancers (ALB, ELB, GLB), Amazon API Gateway, Secrets Manager, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Step Function, DR Strategies, Amazon Route 53, AWS Regions and Availability Zones**

### ⚡ Domain 3 : Design High-Performing Architectures

_High Performing Architecture_ means scalable and elastic database, compute and network solutions.

_Outstanding Services:_ **Amazon ElastiCache Memcached/Redis, Database replication (Read Replicas, Multi-AZ), Database types (serverless, relational or not), AWS CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator, AWS PrivateLink, AWS VPN, Direct Connect, AWS DataSync, AWS Storage Gateway, AWS Kinesis, AWS Firehose.**
 
### 💰 Domain 4 : Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

_Cost Optimized Architecture_ means using the most appropriate infrastructure, providing the best performance with the least cost.

_Outstanding Services:_ **AWS Cost Explorer, Cost Allocation Tags, Comparing identical services (i.e. Nat gateway/instance), Network routing/peering/topology (AWS Transit Gateway, VPC peering, Site-to-Site VPN, AWS Direct Connection), Spot Fleets/Instances, Comparing AWS database services, Comparing storage types (EBS, EFS, FSx, S3), S3 Bucket Tiers.**

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## 1. Courses 📙

First of all, you need to pick the course that makes the best fit for you. For my case, the course [Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c03/) offered by Stephane Maarek in Udemy was ideal. Descriptive, well organized, with a great flow and hands-on labs. This is a long course with 27 hours of lectures.

**NOTE:** You do not need to go over the hands-on labs. Time and Cost-wise (as you would need to provision some AWS infrastructure that might not be included in the _Free Tier_). There is not doubt that this will help you elevate your understanding in AWS, but it is not actually required to prepare you for the exams. Practice tests are the experience you are looking, **just** for the exams.

| Course                                   | Cost | Time | Link |
| ---------------------------------------- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate 2020 (PASS THE EXAM!) - _freecodecamp_ | Free | 10h26m | [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-UEYYR44s) |
| Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03
- Udemy | 18.64$ | 10h26m | [Link](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c03/) |

_Tip:_ For me it was helpful writing down notes of the services I had issues understanding.

## 2. Practice Tests 🧪

Practice Tests are actually what will get you through the exams. Without these, it would be (and without any experience in these exams) extremely difficult for anyone to pass the exams.
This is the hands-on experience you are looking for the exams.

**NOTE:** in _October 2022_ AWS released the new version of the exams, moving into SAA-C03 (previous was SAA-C02).

_TIP:_ There are no big differences between the two versions, but AWS has included new services in SAA-C03, **focusing** on the AI/ML ones.

| Practice Tests                  | Cost    | Link         |
| --------------------------------| ------- |:------------:|
| AWS Official Sample Questions  | Free | [Link](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-sa-assoc/AWS-Certified-Solutions-Architect-Associate_Sample-Questions.pdf)           |
| ExamTopics - Provides answers/discussions | Free | [Link](https://www.examtopics.com/exams/amazon/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c03/view/)          |
| KnowledgeHut upGrad - Registration required | Free | [Link](https://www.knowledgehut.com/practice-tests/aws-solutions-architect-associate)           |
| W3School - Registration required | Free | [Link](https://www.w3schools.com/training/aws/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-official-practice-question-set-saa-c03-english.php)           |
| SkillCertPro ⭐ - My _preference_ | 19.99$ | [Link](https://skillcertpro.com/product/aws-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c03/) |
| Whizlab - Remember to check only the Practice Tests | 17.95$ | [Link](https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-solutions-architect-associate/) |
| Practice Exams - AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate | 18.64$ | [Link](https://www.udemy.com/course/practice-exams-aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate/) |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice Exams | 19.73$ | [Link](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-practice-tests-k/) |


## 3. Appendix 🍬

Here you'll find resources to help you out through your preparation for the certificate, but also for your career as a AWS Solutions Architect.

- [AWS Product List - FAQs 🆘] (https://aws.amazon.com/products/?aws-products-all.sort-by=item.additionalFields.productNameLowercase&aws-products-all.sort-order=asc&awsf.re%3AInvent=*all&awsf.Free%20Tier%20Type=*all&awsf.tech-category=*all) - This probably is one of the most important one. The best resource you may utilize to gain a better understanding is the FAQs page of the service itself. As an AWS Solutions Architect you need to have at least a good understanding of these questions for the most popular services.

- [Abdur's Notes](https://notes.arkalim.org/notes/aws%20solutions%20architect%20associate/aws%20solutions%20architect%20associate%20(saa-c02)/) - This is a great blog for you to use as a reference point when you want to go back and check specific resources or just to make a revision. Those could be a little outdated, but still will do the job for you.

- [AWS Solutions](https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/) - This is an index of solutions provided by AWS, which follow good practice principles, and can be used as additional labs/exercises.

- [AWS Well Architected](https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/?nc2=h_ql_sol_org_r1&wa-lens-whitepapers.sort-by=item.additionalFields.sortDate&wa-lens-whitepapers.sort-order=desc&wa-guidance-whitepapers.sort-by=item.additionalFields.sortDate&wa-guidance-whitepapers.sort-order=desc) - This is a resource that will help you out build and maintain solutions on top of the six pillars of AWS for Cloud systems.

- [AWS Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/?nc2=h_ql_exm_bl&awsf.blog-master-category=*all&awsf.blog-master-learning-levels=*all&awsf.blog-master-industry=*all&awsf.blog-master-analytics-products=*all&awsf.blog-master-artificial-intelligence=*all&awsf.blog-master-aws-cloud-financial-management=*all&awsf.blog-master-blockchain=*all&awsf.blog-master-business-applications=*all&awsf.blog-master-compute=*all&awsf.blog-master-customer-enablement=*all&awsf.blog-master-customer-engagement=*all&awsf.blog-master-database=*all&awsf.blog-master-developer-tools=*all&awsf.blog-master-devops=*all&awsf.blog-master-end-user-computing=*all&awsf.blog-master-mobile=*all&awsf.blog-master-iot=*all&awsf.blog-master-management-governance=*all&awsf.blog-master-media-services=*all&awsf.blog-master-migration-transfer=*all&awsf.blog-master-migration-solutions=*all&awsf.blog-master-networking-content-delivery=*all&awsf.blog-master-programming-language=*all&awsf.blog-master-sector=*all&awsf.blog-master-security=*all&awsf.blog-master-storage=*all) - Consider this as AWS newsfeed. From here, you may keep yourself up-to-date with the latest trends/news of AWS from AWS.

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Hopefully this will get you started with your studies on the exams. Again, please share if you have any other suggestions, tips or tricks!