In today’s cloud-first world, infrastructure management isn’t just about keeping the lights on, it’s about ensuring high availability, security, and cost-efficiency at scale. And few certifications validate these skills better than the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate. Recognized globally, this exam proves you have what it takes to manage, operate, and troubleshoot complex AWS environments with a strong grasp of both technical depth and operational best practices.
Unlike other AWS associate-level exams, the SysOps Administrator is not just about spinning up services or writing Lambda functions, it tests your ability to monitor systems, automate deployments, optimize costs, enforce security controls, and maintain compliance in live, production-grade AWS environments. It’s also the only associate-level certification that includes a hands-on exam lab, which means you’ll need to demonstrate real-world skills, not just theory.
If you have worked with EC2 instances, configured VPCs, managed RDS backups, or optimized S3 lifecycle policies, you are already familiar with many of the exam topics. But cracking this certification requires more than hands-on experience, it demands structured preparation, a deep understanding of AWS monitoring and automation tools like CloudWatch, CloudFormation, Auto Scaling, IAM, and the ability to interpret performance metrics and incident logs under pressure.
This blog is your ultimate roadmap to success. We will break down the exam structure, dive into the key domains, explore must-know services, and share tried-and-tested strategies that will help you not just pass but confidently crack the AWS SysOps Administrator exam and stand out in the cloud computing space.
About AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate Exam
The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate exam has been updated to a new version – AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02). AWS stands as a prominent name, providing a spectrum of certifications categorized into Associate level, Professional level, Specialty level, and Entry-level certifications for cloud professionals. If you’re contemplating a career shift towards cloud computing, AWS serves as the ideal starting point. Among the three levels of Associate certifications offered by AWS, the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate certification holds particular significance for administrators.
- AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification
- AWS Developer Associate Certification
- AWS SysOps Administrator Associate Certification
The AWS SysOps Associate certification is engineered to validate the skills required to provision, manage, monitor, and secure infrastructure at scale within AWS. It targets professionals who operate in production environments, managing cloud-native and hybrid systems using a combination of the AWS Console, CLI, and automation frameworks.
Exam Focus: Real-World Ops
The exam bridges deep cloud administration concepts with real-world operational tooling, especially focusing on:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Know how to automate deployments using AWS CloudFormation and Systems Manager (SSM).
- Monitoring and Observability: Expect scenarios involving CloudWatch metrics, custom dashboards, alarms, Log Insights queries, and event-driven automation via EventBridge or SNS + Lambda.
- Performance Optimization: You must understand auto scaling policies, RDS performance tuning (e.g., read replicas, enhanced monitoring), and S3 lifecycle policies.
- Security Posture Management: Get comfortable with IAM policy evaluation, service control policies (SCPs), KMS encryption, CloudTrail trails, and Config conformance packs.
- Networking Troubleshooting: Be fluent with VPC route tables, NACLs, security groups, VPC flow logs, hybrid DNS setups using Route 53, and VPN/IPSec tunnels.
Exam Labs
- AWS is testing your actual operational skillset, not just theory.
- You’ll be given a live AWS environment with CLI and/or Console access. Sample lab challenges might include:
- Launch an EC2 instance with a specified AMI, instance profile, and user data script
- Configure a CloudWatch alarm for high CPU and set a recovery action
- Create an S3 bucket with versioning, encryption, and fine-grained bucket policies
- Apply a restrictive IAM policy using JSON to limit access to a specific VPC and subnet
- Use AWS CLI to identify misconfigured security groups causing EC2 connectivity failures
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) Course Outline and Documentation
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) exam guide offers a detailed course outline and documentation containing the topics and subtopics. The topics given in this course outline will help a lot during the exam preparation. However, they include:
Domain 1: Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation
1.1 Implementing metrics, alarms, and filters by using AWS monitoring and logging services
- Identify, collect, analyze, and export logs (for example, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, CloudWatch Logs Insights, AWS CloudTrail logs) (AWS Documentation: Analyzing Log Data with CloudWatch Logs Insights, Define Amazon CloudWatch Logs, CloudWatch Logs Insights Sample Queries)
- Collect metrics and logs using the CloudWatch agent (AWS Documentation: Collecting Metrics and Logs from Amazon EC2 Instances and On-Premises Servers)
- Creating CloudWatch alarms (AWS Documentation: Create a CloudWatch Alarm Based on a Static Threshold, Create a CloudWatch alarm for an instance, Using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms)
- Develop metric filters (AWS Documentation: Creating Metrics From Log Events Using Filters, Creating Metric Filters)
- Creating CloudWatch dashboards (AWS Documentation: Creating a CloudWatch Dashboard, Using Amazon CloudWatch Dashboards)
- Configuring notifications (for example, Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS], Service Quotas, CloudWatch alarms, AWS Health events) (AWS Documentation: Setting Up Amazon SNS Notifications, Configuring Amazon SNS notifications for Amazon SES, Configuring Notifications for CloudWatch Logs Alarms, Monitoring AWS Health events with Amazon CloudWatch Events, Service Quotas, and Amazon CloudWatch alarms)
1.2 Remediating issues based on monitoring and availability metrics
- Troubleshooting or taking corrective actions based on notifications and alarms (AWS Documentation: Amazon CloudWatch Features, Troubleshooting CloudWatch Events)
- Configuring Amazon EventBridge rules to trigger actions (AWS Documentation: Creating a rule for an AWS service, Creating an EventBridge Rule That Triggers on an AWS API Call Using AWS CloudTrail)
- Using AWS Systems Manager Automation documents to take action based on AWS Config rules (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Automation, Systems Manager Automation actions reference, Working with runbooks, AWS Config)
Domain 2: Reliability and Business Continuity
2.1 Implementing scalability and elasticity
- Creating and maintaining AWS Auto Scaling plans (AWS Documentation: AWS Auto Scaling, How scaling plans work)
- Implementing caching (AWS Documentation: Caching Overview, Caching strategies)
- Applying Amazon RDS replicas and Amazon Aurora Replicas (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon Aurora Auto Scaling with Aurora replicas, Replication with Amazon Aurora)
- Implementing loosely coupled architectures (AWS Documentation: Building Loosely Coupled, Scalable, C# Applications with Amazon SQS and Amazon SNS, Loosely Coupled Scenarios)
- Differentiating between horizontal scaling and vertical scaling
2.2 Implement high availability and resilient environments
- Configuring Elastic Load Balancer and Amazon Route 53 health checks (AWS Documentation: Configuring Amazon Route 53 to route traffic to an ELB load balancer, Creating Amazon Route 53 health checks, and configuring DNS failover)
- Differentiating between the use of a single Availability Zone and Multi-AZ deployments. For example, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon FSx, Amazon RDS (AWS Documentation: Regions and Zones, High availability (Multi-AZ) for Amazon RDS, Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling)
- Implementing fault-tolerant workloads. For example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Elastic IP addresses (AWS Documentation: Mounting with an IP address, Amazon EFS: How it works)
- Applying Route 53 routing policies (for example, failover, weighted, latency based) (AWS Documentation: Choosing a routing policy)
2.3 Implementing backup and restore strategies
- Automating snapshots and backups based on use cases (for example, RDS snapshots, AWS Backup, RTO and RPO, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager, retention policy) (AWS Documentation: Working with backups, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager)
- Restoring databases (for example, point-in-time restore, promote read replica) (AWS Documentation: Working with read replicas)
- Implementing versioning and lifecycle rules (AWS Documentation: Lifecycle configuration elements, Managing your storage lifecycle)
- Configuring Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (AWS Documentation: Amazon S3 Replication, Configuring replication, Replicating objects)
- Executing disaster recovery procedures (AWS Documentation: Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR))
Domain 3: Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation
3.1 Provisioning and maintaining cloud resources
- Creating and managing AMIs (for example, EC2 Image Builder) (AWS Documentation: EC2 Image Builder, How EC2 Image Builder works)
- Creating, managing, and troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation (AWS Documentation: Troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation)
- Provisioning resources across multiple AWS Regions and accounts. For example, AWS Resource Access Manager, CloudFormation StackSets, IAM cross-account roles (AWS Documentation: Use CloudFormation StackSets to Provision Resources, Multiple-account, multiple-Region AWS CloudFormation, Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets for Multiple Accounts in an AWS Organization)
- Selecting deployment scenarios and services (for example, blue/green, rolling, canary) (AWS Documentation: Blue/Green deployment with CodeDeploy, Working with deployment configurations in CodeDeploy, Set up an API Gateway canary release deployment)
- Identifying and remediating deployment issues (for example, service quotas, subnet sizing, CloudFormation, and AWS OpsWorks errors, permissions) (AWS Documentation: AWS service quotas, AWS OpsWorks, AWS::EC2::Subnet)
3.2 Automating manual or repeatable processes
- Using AWS services (for example, OpsWorks, Systems Manager, CloudFormation) to automate deployment processes (AWS Documentation: AWS OpsWorks, Use AWS CloudFormation to configure a service role for Automation, AWS CodeDeploy)
- Implementing automated patch management (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager, Patch management overview)
- Scheduling automated tasks by using AWS services (for example, EventBridge, AWS Config) (AWS Documentation: EventBridge Event Examples from Supported AWS Services, Build a scheduler as a service, AWS Config)
Domain 4: Security and Compliance
4.1 Implementing and managing security and compliance policies
- Implementing IAM features (for example, password policies, MFA, roles, SAML, federated identity, resource policies, policy conditions) (AWS Documentation: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Creating a Role for SAML 2.0 federation (console), Policies and permissions in IAM, Identity providers and federation, IAM Identities (users, groups, and roles))
- Troubleshooting and auditing access issues by using AWS services (for example, CloudTrail, IAM Access Analyzer, IAM policy simulator) (AWS Documentation: Logging IAM and AWS STS API calls with AWS CloudTrail, Using AWS IAM Access Analyzer, AWS security audit guidelines, Logging Access Analyzer API calls with AWS CloudTrail)
- Validating service control policies and permission boundaries (AWS Documentation: Service control policies, Permissions boundaries for IAM entities)
- Reviewing AWS Trusted Advisor security checks (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor)
- Validating AWS Region and service selections based on compliance requirements (AWS Documentation: Compliance validation for Amazon EC2, Compliance validation for AWS Identity and Access Management, Regions and Zones)
- Implementing secure multi-account strategies (for example, AWS Control Tower, AWS Organizations) (AWS Documentation: AWS multi-account strategy for your AWS Control Tower landing zone, AWS Control Tower)
4.2 Implementing data and infrastructure protection strategies
- Enforcing a data classification scheme (AWS Documentation: Leveraging AWS Cloud to Support Data Classification, Data Classification)
- Creating, managing, and protecting encryption keys (AWS Documentation: Creating keys)
- Implementing encryption at rest (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS]) (AWS Documentation: AWS Key Management Service, AWS Key Management Service concepts)
- Implementing encryption in transit (for example, AWS Certificate Manager, VPN) (AWS Documentation: AWS Certificate Manager, Protecting data using encryption)
- Securely store secrets by using AWS services (for example, AWS Secrets Manager, Systems Manager Parameter Store) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, Referencing AWS Secrets Manager secrets from Parameter Store parameters)
- Reviewing reports or findings (for example, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Config, Amazon Inspector) (AWS Documentation: Amazon Inspector, Assessment reports, Amazon GuardDuty)
Domain 5: Networking and Content Delivery
5.1 Implementing networking features and connectivity
- Configuring a VPC (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups, NAT gateway, internet gateway ) (AWS Documentation: VPC with public and private subnets (NAT), NAT gateways, Internet gateways, Network ACLs)
- Configuring private connectivity (for example, Systems Manager Session Manager, VPC endpoints, VPC peering, VPN) (AWS Documentation: Create a Virtual Private Cloud endpoint, AWS Systems Manager Session Manager, AWS PrivateLink and VPC endpoints, VPC peering)
- Checking AWS network protection services (for example, AWS WAF, AWS Shield) (AWS Documentation: How AWS Shield works, What are AWS WAF, AWS Shield, and AWS Firewall Manager?)
5.2 Configuring domains, DNS services, and content delivery
- Configuring Route 53 hosted zones and records (AWS Documentation: Creating a public hosted zone, Creating records by using the Amazon Route 53 console)
- Implementing Route 53 routing policies (for example, geolocation, geoproximity) (AWS Documentation: Choosing a routing policy, Creating and managing traffic policies)
- Customizing DNS (for example, Route 53 Resolver) (AWS Documentation: Getting started with Route 53 Resolver, Resolving DNS queries between VPCs and your network, Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service)
- Configuring Amazon CloudFront and S3 origin access identity (OAI) (AWS Documentation: Restricting Access to Amazon S3 Content by Using an Origin Access Identity)
- Configuring S3 static website hosting (AWS Documentation: Hosting a static website using Amazon S3, Configuring a static website on Amazon S3)
5.3 Troubleshooting network connectivity issues
- Interpreting VPC configurations (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups) (AWS Documentation: Route tables for your VPC, Internetwork traffic privacy in Amazon VPC, Network ACLs, VPC Flow Logs)
- Collecting and interpreting logs (for example, VPC Flow Logs, Elastic Load Balancer access logs, AWS WAF web ACL logs, CloudFront logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging web ACL traffic information, Configuring and using standard logs (access logs), VPC Flow Logs, Access logs for your Network Load Balancer)
- Identifying and remediating CloudFront caching issues (AWS Documentation: Amazon CloudFront)
- Troubleshoot hybrid and private connectivity issues (AWS Documentation: troubleshoot network performance issues between Amazon EC2 Linux instances in a VPC, Troubleshoot connecting to your instance, Hybrid Connectivity)
Domain 6: Cost and Performance Optimization
6.1 Implement cost optimization strategies
- Implementing cost allocation tags (AWS Documentation: Using Cost Allocation Tags)
- Identify and remediate underutilized or unused resources by using AWS services and tools (for example, Trusted Advisor, AWS Compute Optimizer, Cost Explorer) (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Tools for Reporting and Cost Optimization, optimize costs using AWS Trusted Advisor)
- Configure AWS Budgets and billing alarms (AWS Documentation: Creating a Billing Alarm to Monitor Your Estimated AWS Charges, Managing your costs with AWS Budgets)
- Assessing resource usage patterns to qualify workloads for EC2 Spot Instances (AWS Documentation: Spot Instances)
- Identify opportunities to use managed services (for example, Amazon RDS, AWS Fargate, EFS) (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon EFS file systems with Amazon ECS, Amazon Elastic Container Service, Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS))
6.2 Implement performance optimization strategies
- Recommend compute resources based on performance metrics (AWS Documentation: List the available CloudWatch metrics for your instances, Metrics analyzed by AWS Compute Optimizer)
- Monitor Amazon EBS metrics and modify the configuration to increase performance efficiency (AWS Documentation: I/O characteristics and monitoring, Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS)
- Implementing S3 performance features (for example, S3 Transfer Acceleration, multipart uploads) (AWS Documentation: Configuring fast, secure file transfers using Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, Multipart upload overview)
- Monitor RDS metrics and modify the configuration to increase performance efficiency (for example, performance insights, RDS Proxy) (AWS Documentation: Managing connections with Amazon RDS Proxy, Using Performance Insights on Amazon RDS)
- Enabling enhanced EC2 capabilities (for example, enhanced network adapter, instance store, placement groups) (AWS Documentation: Enhanced networking on Linux, Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows instances, Placement groups)
Tips and Tricks to Prepare for AWS SysOps Administrator Exam
Take Experience in the AWS experience first
Candidates are generally anticipated to possess one to two years of practical experience as a systems administrator, coupled with an extra year of direct involvement with AWS, in preparation for the exam. However, even if you lack practical on-the-job experience as an AWS administrator, there’s still an avenue for advancement. By leveraging Amazon’s AWS Free Tier, you have the opportunity to establish your personal AWS lab environment. Although this may not precisely replicate real-world experience, it can serve as a viable entry point if you’re endeavoring to carve a path into an AWS-related role.
Take a tour to the Official Site
Begin by navigating to the official AWS website as your initial and paramount action. This will grant you access to comprehensive information about the exam, including its duration, prerequisites, and the nature of the questions you can anticipate. This step will offer you a clear insight into the certification exam. While certain specifics, such as the passing score and the number of questions, might not be explicitly available on the official site, we can offer you an anticipated overview based on past exam instances.
- Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes
- Passing Score: 65-72% (not fixed)
- Number of Questions: 70-80 MCQs
Take a look at the Exam Blueprint
Before you start preparing for the exam, it will be of great help if you get yourself familiarized with the topics being covered in the exam. AWS official site holds the BluePrint for all the AWS Certifications including the, “AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate certification”.
Dive and Research into it
Regardless of your level of experience, AWS offers valuable assistance in enhancing and enriching your understanding of the platform and its various applications. Amazon’s AWS Cloud Computing whitepapers are an excellent resource that offers both an overarching perspective on AWS services and in-depth explorations of specific topics, including storage solutions, fault tolerance, best practices in security, and the intricacies of multi-tier architectures.
Polish the Crucial first
For IT professionals seeking to master the language of AWS and acquire a comprehensive grasp of its services, Amazon’s whitepapers prove invaluable. They equip you with the depth of knowledge needed to navigate AWS effectively. Additionally, taking advantage of training resources provided by CBT Nuggets’ AWS experts is highly advisable. It’s crucial to engage with both fundamental concepts and Amazon’s vendor-specific nuances. Given the diverse range of capabilities within AWS, even if you’re not a frequent user of a particular service, understanding its functions remains essential.
Once you’ve established a solid foundation, you can progress to Anthony Sequeira’s newly developed AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate course, which serves as an excellent guide for preparing and succeeding in the Certification exam.
Practice Practice Practice!
After completing your course and training, the practice phase becomes crucial. Opting for the certification exam without preparation is not advisable. Before committing to the certification exam, it’s strongly recommended to engage in practice tests. TestPrepTraining offers specialized exercises tailored for the SysOps Administrator-Associate exam. Within these resources, you’ll encounter a variety of significant questions presented in a worksheet format, with answers revealed upon assessment completion. This process aids in identifying areas of weakness and pinpointing specific aspects that require improvement.
Are you ready to go?
Before jumping to exam there are few more key points to consider like – Online videos, White papers, and FAQs, etc.
To prepare for the certification exam white papers are one of the most essential keys. The below enlisted whitepapers are very important from the exam point of view. Especially Security Process, Storage Options (S3), etc. for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator exam are the must-read.
- AWS Security Best Practices
- Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
- Development and Test on AWS
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Connectivity Options
- Backup and Recovery Approaches using AWS
- How AWS Pricing Works
White-Papers
To be confident enough for the exam thoroughly go through the whitepapers. If required, read every whitepaper more than once to understand the key concepts.
Videos
Watching a few of the good videos for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate certification exam will be beneficial. It will also save you a lot of time to read the documentation (some of you may find reading tiring or boring).
FAQs
Prepare for the certification exam FAQs i.e. Frequently Asked Questions are one of the most important keys. On the AWS website there is a FAQs section for each of the Certification all your questions about Amazon Web Services will be clarified by it.
Signup for the Exam!
Yes you’ve reached final step of your preparation i.e. to sign-up and create your account and then schedule your exam. Go to the AWS official site click to Training and Certifications and then sign-in if already registered, or sign-up to create your account. Once done schedule your exam as per the convenience.
Start preparing for the new version: AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) Now!
