My AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification Preparation Guide

Ben White

I Recently [September 2019 ] Completed AWS Architect Associate Certification in First Attempt with score of 89%. I want to share my experience and exam preparation tips with you.

My Background about AWS and Cloud Technologies

I had No prior AWS experience or knowledge. But I had previous work experience in Other IaaS Platform. I was well aware about the most of the cloud concepts covered in Exam. It was easy for me to relate the problem and Pain point Any AWS Service was trying to Solve. I think this is very important to understand any AWS Service and motivation behind creating such service. This helped me to understand bigger picture.

Preparation Timeline

AWS suggest you should have minimum One year of working experience on AWS Platform but it’s not mandatory. When i did my research, Most of the people recommending at lest Three to Four months of study (2 -3 hrs everyday). It’s obvious we cannot generalize this. It depends on individual.

Please take your time to study and do not rush and Book the Exam. Give yourself enough time The platform has more than 140 different services and new services are launching every day. It can be very overwhelming and time consuming trying to understand Services. Architect Associate exam does not cover all Services but it still covers lot.
I Personally made mistake by booking exam in advance, Giving myself only three weeks of time for preparation along with my Office work of 8-9 hrs. For last few days i have to push myself to cover all services.

Preparation Resources

I Use Udemy Platform for my regular study, For AWS I took below courses from Udemy.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate 2019. By Ryan Kroonenburg, Faye Ellis
This is one of the most popular course for CSAA Certification. Content of course is very good and up to date. I will surely recommend this course.
I have rated this course as 4.5 Star on Udemy

Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate 2019 by Stephane Maarek
This is also another very good course. This course provide more details and hands on compare to Ryan course. This was my primary source for preparation.
I will definitely recommend this course. I have rated this course as 5 Star on Udemy

**I would Suggest do not rely on any Single Course. Complete at lest two courses of your choice.

Practice Exams
Practice Exams are equally Important. I Used below two practice exams. All Exam questions are scenario based, So it’s become very important to prepare your self for such questions. Both the below Practice Exams includes 6 Practice Tests and quality of question is also good. Real Exam also has similar (But Not exact same) questions. I have rated both these course as 5 Star on Udemy

You might not do well in these practice exams. Read the explanation about the answers and repeat the the test again. Due to limited time i was not able to repeat the test.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice Exams by Neal Davis, Digital Cloud Training
My First Attempt Scores in Test exams 46%,49%,60%,76%,53%,63%. I Was able to pass only 1 Test in my First Attempt

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice Exams By by Jon Bonso, Tutorials Dojo
My First Attempt Scores in Test exams 75%,75%,68%,80%,86%,75%. I took these test at last.

FAQ & Whitepaper
It is Suggested that You should go through FAQ and White Papers before appearing to exam. I haven’t got time to read any White Papers or FAQ

Preparation And Exam Tips

These are not some magical Tips and you must be knowing most of these. Just make sure you check all the boxes.

Hands on using Free tier Do not start you preparation considering exam in mind. Do hands on whenever possible and consider it as you are implementing it for any enterprise level application. Exam will test you for such scenario only.

Taking Note Start taking your notes as soon as possible. Exam covers lot of topics and it’s difficult to remember all stuff. Video tutorial needs lot of time and you might not able to repeat.

Read questions carefully and Take your Time to Understand it Most of the questions are Descriptive and are up to 3 lines . Try to Find Keywords like Cost effective,Manage Service, Minimum Configurations,Availability, Durability etc Keywords will help to select Most appropriate Option. First Try to Eliminate Wrong Answer rather than finding correct one

VPC is Very Important
VPC is very important from Exam point of view and i got lot of question about VPC.You need to understand which service should be in a public subnet versus a private subnets And How Services deployed in Private subnets can interact with Internet and other services.

Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery also covers good portion of exam. Try to Understand and memorize how each services works in case of failure, And How to configure services for Disaster recovery.
E.g Does the service backups data, Where it copies, is it automatic or we need to configure it, How failover works etc.

Reality Check After Certification

Does it mean I am now great cloud architect after Certification? Of course not :)
The real word Enterprise application Brings lof of complexity and different unknown challenges and No exam can test these scenarios.

It’s very important to keep ourself updated with stuff happening around technology space. Any Certification can give me an edge over other candidates While getting job or Can Help me to get better salary But it does not guarantee that I Will be able to solve the Problem.

I want to become good software architect and getting any such certification is Just the one Step Forward.

Please let me know about your AWS Exam experience and Any tips that you want to share.