AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Preparation Guidelines .
Tags: aws
Published: 2022-03-06 20:41:50

One of the most important part of our AWS journey is , when a person is AWS certified . Being AWS Certified not only means that a person has cleared his certifications, but it also involves the person to have a detailed knowledge and exposure to all the AWS services which are present in the AWS management console .

Today , I am listing out all the possible ways for a person to be a cloud certified . 

One of the most important certification that I am going to pen it down is :AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate.

This exam costs us around 150 dollars and it plays a vital role for a person who wants to pursue their skills as a cloud infrastructure enthusiast , and also as a passionate cloud architect .

One needs to follow certain steps to clear this exam .I am sharing my personal experience with everyone so that one may get clear insights about this exam.

 ## PATTERN OF THE EXAM :-


This exam consists of 65 questions , out of which a person needs to clear 47 questions in particular It consists of single correct options and multiple correct options as well .Overall , cutoff to clear this exam is 720 which comprises of total 2 hours (120 minutes ).




 ## IMPORTANT AREAS TO FOCUS FOR THIS EXAM:-

We have all types of services being used for AWS Certified solutions architect associate exam . There are some services which needs to be highly stressed upon . Those services are :-

1.S3 ( Cross region replication , storage types , versioning , encryption ,  Bucket policies)

2. VPC ( Internet Gateway , subnet , NAT Gateway , NAT instances , Gateway endpoint , VPC endpoint , VPC peering , AWS Direct connect )

3.EC2 ( Load Balancers , instance types )

4.Security (AWS WAF , AWS shield , Amazon Inspector , Amazon Guard duty)

5. SQS, SNS and Kinesis (SQS FIFO , Polling Concepts , Types of Queues )

6.EFS and EBS (FSx for windows , FSx for lustre )

7. API Gateway ( File , Volume , storage 

8. Databases ( Dynamodb , Amazon Aurora , RDS )

9. Disaster Recovery ( RPO,RTO, warm standby )

10. Cost optimisation ( AWS budgets , Cost explorer )

11. Cloud watch and Cloud Trail

12. Serverless Architecture (AWS Lambda , EKS , ECS and Fargate) 





 ## PREPARATION GUIDELINES:-

I am listing down my preparation strategies which I followed while preparing for the Solutions Architect Associate exam . Here are the following points :-

1. A person needs to have an AWS free tier account , so that they can practice everything practically and have proper hands-on while exploring all the services that have been used in this exam . This is one of the basic pre-requisite in the learning aspect.

2. A person who has zero foundation can blindly start to prepare for this exam without any hurdles . Adding the best course out here ,

https://www.udemy.com/share/102CPB3@yF8YxXqTl-I1ydtF0yhN6VQ0Vr8RNxf2BbKPOCRFGi1MC1x9Ruc5p60XVo3O65xqIw==/

Stephane Maarek , one of the best cloud instructor a person can ever witness .The way he has delivered the concepts and his  hands-on access to the console is commendable . A person can start from his course and I recommend this is the best we had , in the cloud computing domain.One who completes his courses twice , will easily tackle AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam .


3.Thirdly , I would recommend a person to solve the practice sets , when they are done with preparation of concepts both theoretically and practically on the AWS Management console .

https://www.udemy.com/share/102Dhn3@2JDXJU_W_jqferSruA4z0yhm8ci239go01rT6ckLZVUIKfAvc--zJDlDhTFli3NsWQ==/

The most trusted practice sets , Jon Bonso practice sets.These are highly recommended to test skills when they are done with the preparation of the concepts. These practice sets test the knowledge of an individual with deep dive in AWS architect terminologies .

4.Apart from this , a person can try different lab scenarios of the different AWS services being used . Whizlabs , provides the trusted labs where every individual gets a chance to practically implement their workings on different services in the dummy console . A person will get to work in 50+ labs which can boost their cloud skills in the cloud journey .

5. Last , but not the least , I will recommend that a person should be into more of hands-on rather than experiencing only the theoretical approach for this certification . One who has a deep dive understanding of AWS services practically , makes it easy for them to clear this exam with 100% of marks .




CONCLUSION:- 


Certifications are a complimentary knowledge base to showcase an employer that you are  a serious candidate when it comes to hiring. Regardless of your background or interests, these certifications can unlock a lot of potential career opportunities. We hope this information will help you choose the right way to approach this certification path.