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

It’s now possible to become an AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate with the new SAA-C02 certification. When this new exam is released in June 2020, it will replace the old SAA-C01 exam, which will be phased out. The AWS website has the most recent version of the SAA-C02 Exam Guide.

New services have been added to the SAA-C02 exam blueprint, despite the fact that many of the topics are similar to those in the SAA-C01. Amazon FSx, High-Performance Computing, Amazon Aurora, AWS Global Accelerator, AWS Organizations, AWS Resource Access Manager, AWS Database Migration Service, and AWS DataSync are just a few of the newest AWS offerings.

Let’s take a closer look at the exam’s new blueprint and question structure. What to study for the SAA-C02 AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate test will also be discussed.

The Plan for the Exam

The blueprint has remained mostly intact for the time being. The number of questions remains the same at 65, and the passing score remains 720 out of 1000. To avoid confusion, the revised blueprint does not promote any specific whitepapers; instead, a link to the AWS Training whitepapers website is provided. Both the SAA-C01 and SAA-C02 exams have a distinct topic framework. The graphic on the right shows what I mean.

It has been decided to delete the domain “Define Operationally Excellent Architectures” from the SAA-C02 blueprint. A domain has been removed, and the percentages of coverage for all other domains have altered as a result. For this domain, the major shift is moving from 10% to 18%, so make sure you’ve mastered the art of designing cost-effective structures.

Format of the Test

Fortunately, there’s not a lot of news here, so that’s nice. Similar to the last test, the SAA-questions C02’s follow a similar format. In most cases, the inquiry is followed by a brief description of a hypothetical situation. Their writing is concise and to the point, with little extraneous fluff. If anything, I found the questions to be less unclear and the language of the questions to have improved from the prior exam by Sprintzeal.

Multiple response and multiple choice are the two types of responses available. You will either have one accurate response from three options, or two or more correct replies from five or more alternatives, in the SAA-C02 test pattern. Like the SAA-C01 test, I have yet to come across any questions with more than two alternatives or five answer choices each. Please notify me if you come across anything like this on your test.

What You’ll Learn – What You’ll Use

I’ll go over everything you need to know in detail in order to pass the test. Obviously, this isn’t a full list, but it does offer a few helpful hints for exam preparation.

Storage

• Be familiar with Amazon S3’s various storage levels! You need to know the use cases, features, and limits, as well as the relative expenses, such as retrieval costs, of the product you’re considering Certified Solutions.
• You must also be aware of Amazon S3 lifecycle regulations, which dictate how long data may be stored in specific tiers.

Compute

• You should be familiar with the various methods for scaling an Auto Scaling Group using metrics such as the depth of the SQS queue or the amount of SNS messages being sent out.
• Be aware of your Auto Scaling rules, particularly Target Tracking Policies.
• Learn about AWS’s High-Performance Computing (HPC) service. A thorough understanding of Amazon FSx and HPC use cases is required.
• Be familiar with your assigned groups. Keep in mind that if you want the lowest latency, you’ll want to employ a partition. Suppose you need to support an app that is tightly integrated with another app. Is it better to stay within an AZ or go outside of an AZ?

Network

• AWS Global Accelerator is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• When to utilize AWS Global Accelerator and when to use CloudFront.
• Ensure that you are aware of the various types of VPC endpoints, including those requiring an Elastic Network Interface (ENI) and those requiring a route table entry Certified Solutions.
• For example, should you utilize a VPC peering or a VPC endpoint to connect numerous accounts?
• There are two types of links: private (or encrypted) and public (or open).

Database

• Make sure you’re familiar with Amazon Aurora and Amazon Aurora Serverless before you begin using the service.
• Learn whether RDS databases have Read Replicas and if you can read from a standby in a Multi-AZ environment.
• Be familiar with key-value stores like Amazon DynamoDB.
• The two pillars of good leadership and management
• For example, you’ll need to know how to move an account between AWS Organizations.
• It is important for AWS Organizations to know how to use service control policies related to OUs as well.
• You should be able to name and describe AWS Resource Access Manager.

Integration of applications

• Know how to utilize Amazon’s simple notification service and simple queue service (SNS).
• The distinctions between Amazon Kinesis Firehose and SQS, as well as how and when to utilise each service, should be understood.