What is AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification?

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate is an mid-level certification offered by Amazon.

You would usually pursue this certification after gaining basic hands-on experience in Amazon’s Cloud platform, or passing the Amazon Cloud Practitioner certification.

This certification validates your skills in the design, planning, and deployment of AWS Cloud-based solutions.

An AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate understands a business’s IT challenges and uses the best available, cost-efficient, fault-tolerant, and scalable solutions to solve them.

The certification equips you with the necessary skills to design a solution to solve a complex problem using architectural design principles based on, customer requirements, available AWS solutions, and best practices of project management.

Amazon recommends that you have at least one year of experience implementing solutions using the AWS Cloud.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect will help you get jobs in a diverse range of areas in the Cloud computing sector, including Cloud Engineer, Cloud Solutions Architect, Cloud Operations Engineer, Cloud Developer, and AWS Engineer.

Most of the jobs involve consulting, problem solving, and project management.

According to Robert Half’s 2020 Salary Report, Cloud computing is one of the top in-demand skills.

With nearly half of the public Cloud market share, Amazon is the biggest vendor.  As a result, the demand for AWS professionals is rising.

In a Jefferson Frank survey, Cloud professionals said that an AWS Solutions Architect certification is one of the two certifications that are most likely to have a positive impact on one’s earning potential.

The duration of the exam is 130 minutes, and costs $150 US dollars.

There are two types of questions in the exam. The first is multiple-choice questions with only one correct response, while the second is multiple-choice questions with multiple correct answers.

Now, let’s take a look at the…

Skills Measured by AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

The main objective of the certification is to equip you with skills that you can use to implement  AWS technology for cloud-based solutions.

In summary the skills you will learn are:

• Making architectural decisions based on AWS architectural principles, design patterns, and best practices
• Using AWS services to make an existing infrastructure scalable, reliable, and available
• Using AWS Managed Services to enable greater flexibility and resiliency in an infrastructure
• Learning EC2, Identity Access Management, S3, and Load Balancing in AWS
• Applications in AWS
• IAM, AWS Directory Service, and
• All about Databases in AWS

On a more granular level these are the skills that you will develop:

Design Resilient Architectures (30%)

• Design a multi-tier architecture solution
• Design highly available and/or fault-tolerant architectures
• Design decoupling mechanisms using AWS services, and
• Choose appropriate resilient storage

Design High-Performing Architectures (28%)

• Identify elastic and scalable compute solutions for a workload
• Select high-performing and scalable storage solutions for a workload
• Select high-performing networking solutions for a workload, and
• Choose high-performing database solutions for a workload

Design Secure Applications and Architectures (24%)

• Design secure access to AWS resources
• Design secure application tiers, and
• Select appropriate data security options

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures (18%)

• Identify cost-effective storage solutions
• Identify cost-effective compute and database services, and
• Design cost-optimized network architectures

For a more complete curriculum, download the latest AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam objectives.

Let’s now look at the…

Pre-requisites for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification

Anyone can attempt the certification exam, but Amazon highly recommends that you have at least one year of experience in AWS technologies such as compute, networking, storage, database, deployment, and security.

Your best option would be to get the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification before embarking on the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate. This will lay a strong foundation, upon which you could build your advanced AWS learning.

How to Prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification Exam

To prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, there are several options available.

Let look at these options in more detail.

Self-Study Resources

Many students use self-study resources to prepare for the exam.

Using self-study resources has become much easier due to YouTube, online courses, white-papers, forums, and books. Let’s take a look at some of these resources.

Books

Books provide in-depth coverage of the concepts you need to cover to pass the exam. Books are usually designed and written based on the exam objectives. Therefore, your preparation with books will be structured and focused.

The best book to prepare for the exam is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Official Study Guide.

If you think books aren’t for you, or if you want to complement your understanding from books with visual and easy-to-grasp explanations, there are several other resources which you can use.

AWS Ramp-Up Guide

Amazon has designed a “ramp-up” guide for AWS Solutions Architect certification preparation.

This guide links to useful resources that can be used for exam preparation. The guide has links to whitepapers, courses, classrooms, digital training, and videos.

Whitepapers and Learning Paths

It is recommended that you read AWS whitepapers published by Amazon if you want to pass the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification.

These whitepapers talk in detail about the different approaches and tools used in developing AWS architecture to solve complex problems.

These whitepapers also explain in detail the dynamics of Amazon’s Well-Architected Framework.

Amazon has also designed a special learning path for AWS Solutions Architect Certified Associate candidates.

This learning path includes “Architecting on AWS – Accelerator,” a five-day course that covers topics from two other courses in this path, Architecting on AWS, and Advanced Architecting on AWS.

Another important part of this learning path is the Exam Readiness Intensive Workshop: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, which covers Architecting on AWS and Exam Readiness.

Video Training

If you think you understand complex concepts more easily with videos, you are in for a treat as the Internet is full of in-depth and easy-to-understand videos for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification.

A free video prep method is to print out the exam objectives, and then search for YouTube videos that cover each objective.  This might take some time and effort but it’s free.

You can also check out PluralSight’s video training for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification. You can also find many videos on AWS Solutions Architecting on Amazon’s training portal.

Also, don’t forget to check out the AWS YouTube channel.

Instructor-Led Training

If you prefer to learn directly from an AWS expert, you can use instructor-led training resources.

With this type of training you will have the ability to directly ask questions to the instructor.

You can fill out this request form and Amazon will get back to you with more details of their private training programs based on your requirements.

Keep in mind that, instructor-led training is usually expensive. For instance, a 5 day training program  offered by an Amazon-approved trainer costs around $1800 US dollars.

Practice Tests

The AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification exam is full of technical questions, based on practical scenarios which test your problem-solving and architecture skills.

It’s not easy to solve numerous multiple choice questions in a short amount of time.

The only way to refine your time-management and problem-solving skills is to do as many practice questions as you can.

You can start with Practice tests by Simplilearn and Whizlabs.

You can also register on the AWS website and attempt a model test in a timed environment.

Practice Labs

The certification exam has many practical questions where you are tested based on your ability to apply the concepts covered in the exam objectives.

You should do as many practice labs as you can to train your mind to think critically, creatively, and quickly.

Amazon has a portal where you can access many AWS practice labs.

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What Jobs can you get with an AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification?

The primary function of an AWS Solutions Architect is to design fault-tolerant, efficient, cost effective, and scalable Cloud-based solutions.

With an AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification, you can become eligible for the following roles:

• Solutions Architect
• Data Engineer
• Senior Solutions Architect
• Cloud Solutions Architect
• Cloud Engineer
• Cloud Operations Engineer
• AWS DevOps Architect
• AWS Cloud DevSecOps Architect, and
• AWS Enterprise Architect

However, it is important to keep in mind that just passing the Solutions Architect Associate certification is not enough to secure these lucrative jobs.

Your first priority should be to enter the industry as soon as you can. If you can’t, try to create your own projects or get some freelance work. Hands-on experience always gets attention of recruiters and companies.

You can also consider going for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification to give you more of an edge.

Now, let’s talk about how much money you can make with the…

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification

Given the dominance of AWS in the public Cloud industry, the demand for smart individuals skilled in designing and developing efficient and scalable Cloud solutions for companies is rising.

According to the Global Knowledge 2020 IT Skills and Salary survey, AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate is the one of the top-paying IT certification.

According to PayScale, the average salary for AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification holders is around $ 113,044 US dollars.

Let’s see what other people think about this certification.  Here are a few…

Observations from Successful AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification Holders in the Industry

This certification is getting interest from thousands of individuals due to the enormous demand in the industry.

Let’s look at some feedback from people who passed the certification to see what tips and tricks we can learn.

Here’s a comment from Reddit user “farhandarzada”

“I invested a lot of time in answering practice exams. I’ll have to say that out of all the preparation steps I did, this is the most crucial one. I don’t think I could have passed the very hard exam without these AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate practice tests of Tutorials Dojo and Jon Bonso. Out of all the test simulations I took, theirs are the most comprehensive and completely covered all the topics that appeared in the exam. It’s also very important to note that their very detailed explanations helped me better understand the differences between similar services. The exam is very tricky and without a good grasp of these differences, you will definitely not be able to select the correct answer. I gained a very good grasp of the core services by thoroughly reading their explanations on why a certain option is the best answer and why the rest of the options are not. The handy cheat sheets (https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-cheat-sheets/) that they have included as additional references ultimately gave me those extra points that enabled me to pass the exam.

I read a lot of AWS whitepapers and FAQs. These documentations are quite tough to digest all in one sitting so what I did was to gradually read them during my daily commute to and from work, learning bits and pieces here and there”

Here’s a comment from Reddit user “productionse”

“I was able to pass my AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam last week. Here are some recommendations:

RIGHT AWAY, PAY FOR AND TAKE THE AWS PRACTICE EXAM – It is $20 on the aws.training website. It is an EXACT REPLICA of the exam you will be taking at the exam center. I took this the night before, and I did extremely well. When I sat down at the test, and realized it was the same format, same font, same everything as the practice exam, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I strongly recommend paying for and taking the practice exam way before you even start studying to get a feel if this is the correct cert for you.

Training Websites – Pluralsight was decent. Cloud.guru was good, although the practice exams seemed a little odd.

AWS OnSite Training – This was expensive (~$500 company paid) but totally worth it. The instructor went over everything that was on the exam and was 100% spot on. Even the 3 or 4 practice questions the instructor asked were almost word for word on the exam. One of the questions was sort of a trick question (the one about 4 instances, and 3 AZs) and I immediately recognized it.

Take your time! – I took the exam, flagged some answers, then reread ALL questions again. Use the FULL allotted time for the exam.

Topics – Lots of easy questions on S3, tons of questions on CloudFront (like a LOT!) I never used it before in real world. High Availability vs Fault Tolerance is very important. Know the two, and explain the two. They are very similar, but VERY different! AWS managed services are typically always the answer. If it is between onsite service, or AWS service, always choose AWS. Study Lambda benefits”

Here’s a comment from Reddit user “andreal”

“Hi everyone! Yesterday I passed the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam.

I saw someone posted a Github repository with the notes, so I decided to fork it and add my own notes. You can find it here: https://github.com/peorth80/aws-solutions-architect-associate-notes if you are interested.

Some comments:

Don’t study from exam dumps.

Study concepts more than “answers”. (IE, understand in which cases you need to use SQS, Microservices, docker, etc).

Read the answer VERY well.

Don’t spend a lot of time on a single answer. Just flag it and move it to the next.

Don’t get nervous. I flagged the first 10 questions, and I panicked. Later on I came back to them and I was able to answer them”

The Truth About AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

Small and large businesses worldwide are deploying AWS.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification will make you eligible to apply for high paying Cloud-related jobs with confidence.

However, the certification is not a shortcut to success. You need to ensure that you can demonstrate that you can use AWS to solve big or small problems. Show a practical mindset. Companies prefer candidates who have gotten their hands dirty with actual projects.

You should also complement the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification with more Cloud industry certifications offered by Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA.

Is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification for You?

AWS is a relatively new technology, and a certification is one of the best way to prove your AWS skills.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate will help you gain the attention of recruiters and companies looking for competent  AWS professionals.

So, is AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification worth it?

If you’re looking to take your Cloud career to the next level and make yourself eligible for high paying and exciting Cloud jobs then the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate is definitely worth it.