An AWS Solutions Architect is an IT professional who is in charge of delivering applications to AWS cloud infrastructure. However, they are mostly in charge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Choosing the software’s design and assuring that the infrastructure and architecture are in good working order.<\/li>
- Secondly, monitoring systems on a regular basis to verify that all business objectives are satisfied.<\/li>
- With technology implementation, finding a solution to business difficulties.<\/li>
- Then, choosing the appropriate platform, programming language, and framework for a solution.<\/li>
- Making decisions on system upkeep and future scaling.<\/li>
- After that, identifying and mitigating the threats of third-party platforms.<\/li>
- Lastly, ensuring configuration management’s long-term sustainability.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Pathway to becoming an AWS Solutions Architect<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The first and last way to enter this role is to get certified by preparing and passing the AWS Solutions Architect Associate level examination<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"AWS](\"https:\/\/www.testpreptraining.ai\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/aws-sol-arch-exam-pathway.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n1. Understanding the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Those who work as solutions architects should take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect \u2013 Associate (SAA-C02) exam. However, the exam verifies your ability to use AWS technologies to create safe and reliable solutions. This exam further validates your ability for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Creating a solution based on requirements by utilizing relevant AWS services and adhering to architectural principles.<\/li>
- Secondly, providing the company with implementation recommendations based on best practices throughout the workload lifetime. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge Requirement for the Exam:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Anyone with one or more years of hands-on experience for building cost-effective, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems on AWS is eligible for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate<\/a> certification. However, it is recommended that you have the following factors for this exam:<\/li>
- One year of practical AWS experience, including using computing, networking, storage, and database AWS services, as well as AWS deployment and administration services.<\/li>
- Secondly, experience with AWS workload deployment, management, and operation, as well as security controls and compliance needs.<\/li>
- Thirdly, an understanding of using both the AWS Management Console and the AWS Command Line Interface is required.<\/li>
- AWS Well-Architected Framework, AWS networking, security services, and the AWS global infrastructure are all things you should know.<\/li>
- Lastly, the ability to determine whether AWS services are appropriate for a particular technical requirement and to create technical requirements for an AWS-based application.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\u27bc AWS Solution Architect Associate: Exam Format<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
- The AWS Solution Architect Associate certification is an intermediate-level exam with 65 multiple-choice and multiple-response questions. The test will have a time limit of 130 minutes to complete. The exam costs $150 and is accessible in the following languages: English, French (France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Latin America).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
2. Getting familiarity with the Exam Content<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The AWS Solution Architect Exam<\/a> Guide covers a broad range of topics that are both current and relevant. To have a better knowledge of the subject, each section must be read. Start with the most difficult topics and, after you’ve mastered them, you’ll be able to set your learning progress for the rest of the topics. The topics are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) Exam Course Outline<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Task Statement 1: Design secure access to AWS resources.<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Access controls and management across multiple accounts (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Delegate access across AWS<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS federated access and identity services (for example, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM], AWS Single Sign-On [AWS SSO]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Identity providers and federation<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS security best practices (for example, the principle of least privilege) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Security best practices in IAM<\/a>)<\/li>
- The AWS shared responsibility model (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Shared responsibility model<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Skills in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Applying AWS security best practices to IAM users and root users (for example, multi-factor authentication [MFA]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Best practices to protect your account’s root user<\/a>)<\/li>
- Designing a flexible authorization model that includes IAM users, groups, roles, and policies (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> IAM Identities (users, user groups, and roles)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Designing a role-based access control strategy (for example, AWS Security Token Service [AWS STS], role switching, cross-account access) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Define permissions to access AWS resources <\/a>, Delegate access across AWS<\/a>)<\/li>
- Designing a security strategy for multiple AWS accounts (for example, AWS Control Tower, service control policies [SCPs])<\/li>
- Determining the appropriate use of resource policies for AWS services (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Identity-based policies and resource-based policies<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining when to federate a directory service with IAM roles<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Task Statement 2: Design secure workloads and applications.<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Application configuration and credentials security (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Configuration and credential file settings<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS service endpoints (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Service endpoints and quotas<\/a>)<\/li>
- Control ports, protocols, and network traffic on AWS (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Control traffic to subnets using Network ACLs<\/a>)<\/li>
- Secure application access<\/li>
- Security services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Cognito, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Macie) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Amazon Macie<\/a>, Amazon GuardDuty<\/a>, Cognito<\/a>)<\/li>
- Threat vectors external to AWS (for example, DDoS, SQL injection) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Shield<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Skills in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Designing VPC architectures with security components (for example, security groups, route tables, network ACLs, NAT gateways) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> VPC with public and private subnets (NAT)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining network segmentation strategies (for example, using public subnets and private subnets) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> VPC with public and private subnets (NAT)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Integrating AWS services to secure applications (for example, AWS Shield, AWS WAF, AWS SSO, AWS Secrets Manager) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Shield Advanced<\/a>, Authenticating requests<\/a>)<\/li>
- Securing external network connections to and from the AWS Cloud (for example, VPN, AWS Direct Connect) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Virtual Private Network<\/a>, AWS Direct Connect<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Task Statement 3: Determine appropriate data security controls.<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Data access and governance (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Management and Governance<\/a>)<\/li>
- Data recovery (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Elastic Disaster Recovery<\/a>)<\/li>
- Data retention and classification (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Data Classification<\/a>)<\/li>
- Encryption and appropriate key management (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Key Management Service<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Skills in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Aligning AWS technologies to meet compliance requirements (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Security and compliance<\/a>)<\/li>
- Encrypting data at rest (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS KMS concepts<\/a>)<\/li>
- Encrypting data in transit (for example, AWS Certificate Manager [ACM] using TLS) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Using SSL\/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB instance<\/a>)<\/li>
- Implementing access policies for encryption keys<\/li>
- Implementing data backups and replications (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Replicating automated backups to another AWS Region<\/a>)<\/li>
- Implementing policies for data access, lifecycle, and protection<\/li>
- Rotating encryption keys and renewing certificates (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Rotating your SSL\/TLS certificate<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Task Statement 1: Design scalable and loosely coupled architectures.<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- API creation and management (for example, Amazon API Gateway, REST API) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Amazon API Gateway<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS managed services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Transfer Family, Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Secrets Manager) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Secrets Manager<\/a>, AWS Transfer Family (AMS SSPS)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Caching strategies Caching strategies<\/a>)<\/li>
- Design principles for microservices (for example, stateless workloads compared with stateful workloads)<\/li>
- Event-driven architectures (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Event-driven architectures<\/a>)<\/li>
- Horizontal scaling and vertical scaling<\/li>
- How to appropriately use edge accelerators (for example, content delivery network [CDN]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)<\/a>)<\/li>
- How to migrate applications into containers (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Migrate your Applications to Containers at Scale<\/a>)<\/li>
- Load balancing concepts (for example, Application Load Balancer) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Application Load Balancer<\/a>)<\/li>
- Multi-tier architectures (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> multi-tier application<\/a>)<\/li>
- Queuing and messaging concepts (for example, publish\/subscribe) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Pub\/Sub Messaging<\/a>)<\/li>
- Serverless technologies and patterns (for example, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> serverless saga pattern by using AWS Step Functions<\/a>)<\/li>
- Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block)<\/li>
- The orchestration of containers (for example, Amazon Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS], Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service [Amazon EKS]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Orchestrating the containers<\/a>)<\/li>
- When to use read replicas<\/li>
- Workflow orchestration (for example, AWS Step Functions) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Step Functions<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Skills in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Designing event-driven, microservice, and\/or multi-tier architectures based on requirements (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Event-Driven Architecture<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining scaling strategies for components used in an architecture design<\/li>
- Determining the AWS services required to achieve loose coupling based on requirements (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Loosely Coupled Scenarios<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining when to use containers (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Determining task size<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining when to use serverless technologies and patterns<\/li>
- Recommending appropriate compute, storage, networking, and database technologies based on requirements<\/li>
- Using purpose-built AWS services for workloads (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Database<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Task Statement 2: Design highly available and\/or fault-tolerant architectures.<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions, Amazon Route 53) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Global Infrastructure<\/a>, Regions and Availability Zones<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS managed services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Comprehend, and Amazon Polly) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Machine Learning (ML)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Basic networking concepts (for example, route tables) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Configure route tables<\/a>)<\/li>
- Disaster recovery (DR) strategies (for example, backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, active-active failover, recovery point objective [RPO], recovery time objective [RTO]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Distributed design patterns (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Design Interactions in a Distributed System to Prevent Failures<\/a>)<\/li>
- Failover strategies (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Active-active and active-passive failover<\/a>)<\/li>
- Immutable infrastructure (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Use immutable infrastructure with no human access<\/a>)<\/li>
- Load balancing concepts (for example, Application Load Balancer) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Application Load Balancer<\/a>)<\/li>
- Proxy concepts (for example, Amazon RDS Proxy) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Using Amazon RDS Proxy<\/a>)<\/li>
- Service quotas and throttling (for example, how to configure the service quotas for a workload in a standby environment) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS service quotas<\/a>)<\/li>
- Storage options and characteristics (for example, durability, replication) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Replicating objects<\/a>)<\/li>
- Workload visibility (for example, AWS X-Ray) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS X-Ray<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Skills in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Determining automation strategies to ensure infrastructure integrity (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Protecting Compute<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining the AWS services required to provide a highly available and\/or fault-tolerant architecture across AWS Regions or Availability Zones (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Architecture guidelines and decisions<\/a>)<\/li>
- Identifying metrics based on business requirements to deliver a highly available solution<\/li>
- Implementing designs to mitigate single points of failure (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Withstand Component Failures<\/a>)<\/li>
- Implementing strategies to ensure the durability and availability of data (for example, backups)<\/li>
- Selecting an appropriate DR strategy to meet business requirements (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Using AWS services that improve the reliability of legacy applications and applications not built for the cloud (for example, when application changes are not possible)<\/li>
- Using purpose-built AWS services for workloads (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Database<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Task Statement 1: Determine high-performing and\/or scalable storage solutions.<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Knowledge of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Hybrid storage solutions to meet business requirements (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Hybrid Cloud Storage<\/a>)<\/li>
- Storage services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Storage<\/a>)<\/li>
- Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Skills in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Determining storage services and configurations that meet performance demands (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Storage Architecture Selection<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining storage services that can scale to accommodate future needs (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Storage<\/a>)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- Storage services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Storage<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining the AWS services required to provide a highly available and\/or fault-tolerant architecture across AWS Regions or Availability Zones (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Architecture guidelines and decisions<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS managed services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon Comprehend, and Amazon Polly) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Machine Learning (ML)<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS managed services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Transfer Family, Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Secrets Manager) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS Secrets Manager<\/a>, AWS Transfer Family (AMS SSPS)<\/a>)<\/li>
- Encrypting data at rest (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> AWS KMS concepts<\/a>)<\/li>
- Data recovery (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Elastic Disaster Recovery<\/a>)<\/li>
- Determining network segmentation strategies (for example, using public subnets and private subnets) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> VPC with public and private subnets (NAT)<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS service endpoints (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Service endpoints and quotas<\/a>)<\/li>
- Designing a flexible authorization model that includes IAM users, groups, roles, and policies (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> IAM Identities (users, user groups, and roles)<\/a>)<\/li>
- AWS federated access and identity services (for example, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM], AWS Single Sign-On [AWS SSO]) (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Identity providers and federation<\/a>)<\/li>
- Access controls and management across multiple accounts (AWS Documentation:<\/strong> Delegate access across AWS<\/a>)<\/li>
- Anyone with one or more years of hands-on experience for building cost-effective, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems on AWS is eligible for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate<\/a> certification. However, it is recommended that you have the following factors for this exam:<\/li>