Solutions Architect Associate Introduction

I am writing this guide as part of my preparation for the newer AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate exam. As a member of the AWS Community Builders program, I have had a very good introduction to the resources available:

1. Cloud Academy is full of labs, questions and preparation exercises
2. Tutorials Dojo has a good series of practice exams
3. Andrew Brown has completed a very helpful overview with his AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Free course
4. Stephane Maarek's Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03

What is in the AWS Solutions Architect - Exam?

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C02) Exam Guide

Domain 1: Design Resilient Architectures

1.1 - Design a multi-tier architecture solution

1.2 - Design highly available and/or fault-tolerant architectures

1.3 - Design decoupling mechanisms using AWS services

1.4 - Choose appropriate resilient storage

Domain 2: Design High-Performing Architectures

2.1 - Identify elastic and scalable compute solutions for a workload

2.2 - Select high-performing and scalable storage solutions for a workload

2.3 - Select high-performing networking solutions for a workload

2.4 - Choose high-performing database solutions for a workload

Domain 3: Design Secure Applications and Architectures

3.1 - Design secure access to AWS resources

3.2 - Design secure application tiers

3.3 - Select appropriate data security options

Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

4.1 - Identify cost-effective storage solutions

4.2 - Identify cost-effective compute and database services

4.3 - Design cost-optimized network architectures

Recommended Reading:

Here are some links for recommended reading. You can cover a lot of ground by skimming over what you already know or what you can infer to be true. In particular, read the first sentence of each paragraph and if you have no uncertainty about what is being said in that sentence, move on to the first sentence of the next paragraph. Take notes whenever necessary.

1. AWS Well-Architected Framework

2. Amazon VPC FAQs

3. AWS Autoscaling FAQs

4. Amazon EC2 FAQs

5. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling FAQs

6. Amazon EBS FAQs

7. Elastic network interfaces

8. Amazon S3 FAQs

9. Elastic Load Balancing FAQs

10. Amazon Route 53 FAQs

11. AWS Storage Gateway FAQs

12. Amazon EFS FAQs

13. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server FAQs

14. Amazon FSx for Lustre FAQs

15. AWS Organizations FAQs

Top Tip:

If you are not working with AWS every day it will be useful to take the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner before trying the Solutions Architect Associate so that you have a good grounding in the basics.

Exam at a glance: