Pass AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Certification Exam Fast

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Exam Has Been Retired

This exam has been replaced by Amazon with new exam.

Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Exam Details

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification targets those candidates who work in the position of a Solutions Architect. It is ideal for anyone who wants to learn how to deploy secure applications using AWS technology.

Who Is Audience for This AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification?

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification validates the candidates’ ability to define optimum solutions to use different architectural design principles following the customer’s requirements. Also, this certification will enable their skills to offer implementation guidance based on the identified best practices so that the organization goes through all lifecycles of any given project. Unlike other certifications, this one requires candidates to pass only one exam, whose code is SAA-C02. Luckily, this exam doesn’t have any prerequisites. However, candidates are recommended to have some prior practical experience using AWS technologies. In addition, candidates should demonstrate that they have a minimum of 1 year of hands-on expertise in designing cost-effective, available, and fault-tolerant systems using AWS architecture. Also, they should have relevant experience using compute, storage, networking, and database AWS services and are recommended to possess prior experience using AWS management and deployment services. Having the ability to identify and define AWS services and their technical requirements will be also extremely helpful for candidates who want to pass the AWS SAA-C02. At last, applicants should also have an understanding of basic and global AWS architecture and infrastructure.

What Are Details of Exam for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification?

The AWS Solutions Architect Associate certificate requires candidates to pass SAA-C02 test first. This is an associate exam that includes various questions in multiple-choice and multiple-answer formats. They will also find unscored items which are used for statistical purposes. The delivery method for this exam is either online or in testing centers. Plus, candidates will have to answer all questions in 130 minutes. To know more, they should pay $150 as a registration fee. And in case they want to enroll in taking a practice exam, they should pay an additional fee of $20. The exam is delivered in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean, and by successfully passing this exam for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification, candidates will be able to add it to their resume and social networks such as LinkedIn. This certification will bring them more visibility and improve their chances to get a better-paid salary and bonuses.

Which Topics Are Covered by AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification Exam?

The AWS SAA-C02 exam covers four topics and takes the candidate through the entire journey becoming a certified Solutions Architect Associate. They are the following:

• Resilient Architectures Design;
• High-Performing Architectures;
• Secure Applications & Architectures Design;
• Cost-Optimized Architectures

The first domain covers 30% of the overall exam questions and helps the candidates understand how to use different Amazon files and storage technologies. For example, they will find more about Amazon EBS, EFS, or S3 storage alternatives. Also, during the preparation process, they will learn how to use these technologies in different situations. In addition, this section will help you understand how to effectively design multi-tier and fault-tolerant architecture solutions. Besides, candidates will understand how AWS Global Infrastructure works and determine how to design the application stacks and properly use them to underlying infrastructure architecture.

The second objective focuses on how to design high-performing architectures. 28% of all questions will treat this subject. In order to correctly answer the questions included in this topic, candidates will need to know how to select the best storage and database solutions depending on the different scenarios they face. Thus, they will need to find elastic and scalable compute solutions for different types of workloads. Also, they should be able to identify high-performing networking solutions and choose the proper database services for a given workload. When it comes to elasticity and scalability services, candidates will need to know how to use AWS Auto Scaling and EC2 Auto Scaling.

Within the Secure Applications and Architectures Design topic (24%), candidates will need to develop the necessary skills to understand how to implement different services in the most secure way using AWS resources. Candidates will find questions that ask them to identify the best Amazon technologies for different situations. For example, they will become familiar with CloudFront, Amazon Route 53, DDoS mitigation, and AWS Auto Scaling. You should also understand how to design isolation and separation using AWS service architecture, together with Amazon EC2 deployment options and Amazon VPC configuration.

The final section handles Cost-Optimized Architectures. It covers the lowest percentage of the overall exam questions and equals 14%. In this part, candidates will discover more about cost-effective storage, database, and compute solutions. They will learn how to design cost-optimized Amazon network architectures. Even though this is a relatively small topic, it will ask candidates to use their knowledge and experience to identify cost-effectiveness when using AWS applications. Depending on the scenario you are in at a certain moment, you should be able to identify the best choices and different cost models related to storage and compute services.

Career Opportunities for AWS Solutions Architect Associates?

By adding the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification to your resume, you will become more visible to international companies and their recruiters. As the competition on the market is quite high currently, recruiters pay close attention to the candidates’ special abilities and whether they got any international certifications. As the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification is quite popular these days, the candidates who manage to obtain it can be hired for the following positions:

• Solutions Architect;
• DevOps Engineer;
• Cloud Engineer.

As we already mentioned, the salary that a certified AWS Solutions Architect Associate can get is higher than an average specialist who works in a Solutions Architect position. We used it as a point of reference to the salaries mentioned on Payscale.com. Therefore, according to the information available on this site, a Solutions Architect wins almost $119k in one year. Plus, this salary may be increased by bonuses and attractive incentives and thus can reach $159k, which will compensate for your efforts.