A Complete Study Guide for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam

Introduction
An AWS Solutions Architect helps an organization to deploy complex applications on the AWS platform. Ever since Cloud computing gained popularity, companies worldwide have started to migrate their physical infrastructure onto the Cloud. The global level organizations always work on a budget, and AWS Solutions Architects will help them design a Cloud infrastructure based on the organization’s budget. These professionals are responsible for creating a detailed and intricate design of the Cloud Infrastructure they plan to set up. They are also required to focus on the non-functional needs of an organization like reliability, usability, scalability, and performance of the Cloud Infrastructure. Along with this, they’re responsible for minimizing the risk an organization can face on the Cloud computing platform, like security leaks, calculation mistakes, and application downtimes. In order to become an AWS Solutions Architect, you need to clear the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam.

This step-by-step AWS Solutions Architect Associate study guide will help you pace your preparation for the examination.

Why Solution Architect Associate exam?

AWS is the dominating cloud service provider in the market, so any AWS certification will provide added benefits. Some of the advantages of the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam are:

• It is the highest moneymaking AWS IT certification as per the market research.
• It develops your professional expertise in designing applications for the Cloud platform.
• It makes you attractive for the employing organizations.
• It contributes substantial credentials in a growing industry.
• It furnishes you with a better understanding of the entire cloud infrastructure.
• Since passing the exam requires a considerable amount of time from a candidate’s end, it is proof of your commitment.

Exam Details

Domains of the exam
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam comprises the following domains:

Domain 1: Design Resilient Architectures – 30%

• AWS Global Infrastructure (Regions, Edge Locations, Availability Zones, Regions Edge Caches)
• Amazon Route 53
• AWS storage services
• Multi-tiered architectures inside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
• Disaster recovery and business continuity strategies
• Amazon Cloud Front
• Decoupled and event-driven architectures

Domain 2: Design High-Performing Architectures – 28%

• Auto-scaling and application and network elastic load balancers
• Amazon EC2, ECS, and Elastic Beanstalk
• Storage performance with the Elastic File System and Amazon S3 features
• VPC Networking components: Subnets/ENIs/ENA’s/NACLs/Security Groups/NAT Gateways/ Bastion hosts/VPC Endpoints/VPN/Direct Connect/Transit Gateway/AWS Global Accelerator
• AWS Databases
• High availability across Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Aurora
• Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX)

Domain 3: Design Secure Applications and Architectures – 24%

• Deep dive on AWS Identity & Access Management
• Amazon Cognito for web & mobile security
• AWS Organizations – Service Control Policies (SCPs)
• Protecting application with AWS WAF, Firewall Manager, and Shield
• Understand AWS logging mechanisms
• Audit, monitor, and evaluate with AWS Config and AWS CloudTrail
• Data encryption using the AWS Key Management Service (KMS)

Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures – 18%

• AWS storage costs over EFS, Amazon S3, Glacier, AWS Backup, Storage Gateway.
• Savings method and reserved instances for compute instances.
• Cost optimization over the network infrastructure.

How to prepare for your AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam?

In order to achieve the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification on the very first go, you’ll need to focus on the details about how you can get ready for the Solutions Architect Associate exam. Some of the points that you must follow are:

• Follow a Standard Reference : You can always take help from an Exam manual or reference material to get an overall idea of the exam format. It provides you wider practical knowledge and better notions of the exam.
• Use study materials : There are plenty of study materials available for the Solution Architect exams that you can use. Make sure that the study material you have picked corresponds to the AWS certification exam. It will assist you in following the right methodology with its details. It is also suggested that you refer to the most relevant one.
• Training helps a lot : There are a lot of training videos or online training available on the internet for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification exam. InfosecTrain is a leading training provider in the market, offering a wide range of training courses for IT Security and Cloud computing certification exams. You can opt for AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, as it will not only help you clear the exam but will also prepare you for the future implementation of your technical expertise.
• Time Management is important : Time management is a vital part of each commitment, work, or task in your life. So in order to excel in this exam, plan your preparations as ahead of schedule as could be expected. Follow the methodology of SWOT analysis. It will allow you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Try to focus on your shortcomings and commit a decent measure of time each day for reliable preparation.
• Practice : The practice extends your understanding and increases your familiarity with the subject. It reinforces your strengths and helps you to identify your shortcomings. If you are well aware of your strength and flaws, then you can carry your efforts in the conventional direction.
  Step through standard Mock exams so that you evaluate yourself and judge your improvements. Mock tests additionally oblige you with the bonafide exam experience.

Approaches to follow on the day of the exam

Nervousness and stress can contrarily affect your test, and it will be an enormous blow. If you want to achieve the certification in the first go, you must take these little things into consideration:

• Try tobereasonably calm and composed.
• Try not to rely upon the very last-minute preparations as this will increase the pressure.
• Rest soundly before the exam day.
• Try not to famish yourself and keep hydrated during the exam.
• Deal with your time in a smart way during the exam.
• When in a dilemma, apply the elimination approach.
• This is a 130 minutes exam, which includes approximately 65 questions. Keep an eye on the watch, and do review your answers at the end.

AWS Solutions Architect Associate with InfosecTrain

InfosecTrain’s AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Training will expose you to the distinctive challenges of designing the AWS Cloud platform. We are one of the trusted training providers worldwide. Our highly skilled and experienced trainers will help you obtain the necessary skills and technical knowledge to get through this certification exam. At InfosecTrain, the certified experts guide you in laying a strong foundation of the AWS Cloud platform to upskill your knowledge of Cloud Infrastructure to a proficient level.

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Devyani Bisht ( )
Content Writer

“ Devyani Bisht is a B.Tech graduate in Information Technology. She has 3.5 years of experience in the domain of Client Interaction. She really enjoys writing blogs and is a keen learner. She is currently working as a Technical Services Analyst with InfosecTrain. “