What is AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Certification?

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification is an advanced IT certification that validates your skills in the design and deployment of efficient, fault-tolerant, and scalable Cloud applications with Amazon Web Services.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional is suitable if you have at least two years of experience in Cloud architecture design and development, especially within the AWS ecosystem.

The certification is offered by Amazon and is the logical next step if you have already passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification.

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

Amazon is the biggest player in the public Cloud market.

According to a Gartner report, AWS dominates nearly half of the $32 billion Cloud market and generated more revenue than the next three largest public Cloud providers combined.

Companies worldwide are migrating their data, processing, information, and software to AWS infrastructure. As a result, the demand for competent AWS professionals, especially those who could leverage AWS tools to design solutions to solve complex problems, is skyrocketing.

Therefore, having an AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification would increase your chances of getting a lucrative job in Cloud computing.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification exam is SAP-C01. The exam costs $300, and it consists of multiple choice questions. You have 180 minutes to complete the exam.

The certification exam has multiple choice questions with either one correct response or multiple correct responses.

Now, let’s take a look at the…

Skills Measured by the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification

AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification equips you with high-level, theoretical and practical knowledge of designing and deploying complex AWS solutions.

The core content of the certification broadly covers the tools, strategies, techniques and ways that you can design and build AWS solutions.

Some of the key skills covered by the certification include:

• Understanding application requirements and recommending AWS strategies, implementation, and deployment
• AWS CLI, AWS APIs, AWS CloudFormation templates, the AWS Billing Console, and the AWS Management Console
• AWS Well-Architected Framework
• Understanding storage in AWS
• AWS Security
• Migration
• Cost control
• Billing, and
• Improvement of existing solutions

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

Design for Organizational Complexity (12.5%)

• Understanding cross-account authentication and access strategy for complex organizations
• Understanding design networks for complex organizations, and
• Designing multi-account AWS environments for complex organizations

Design for New Solutions (31%)

• Understanding security requirements and controls while designing and implementing a solution
• Designing a solution in context of reliability requirements
• Designing a solution to ensure business continuity, and
• Solution design to meet performance objectives

Migration Planning (15%)

• Using existing workloads and legacy processes for potential migration to the cloud
• Choosing migration tools based on AWS knowledge
• Determining a cloud architecture for an existing solution, and
• Developing a strategy for migrating existing on-premises workloads to the cloud

Cost Control (12.5%)

• Selecting pricing models for AWS solutions
• Making strategies for cost optimization, and
• Identifying ways to reduce cost in an existing solution

Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions (29%)

• Troubleshooting solution architectures
• Improving existing solutions for operational excellence
• Increasing reliability of an existing solution
• Increasing performance of an existing solution
• Improving security of an existing solution, and
• Improving deployment of an existing solution

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

Let’s now look at the…

Pre-requisites for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Certification

Anyone can attempt the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification exam. But Amazon recommends having at least two or more years of hands-on experience in designing and deploying cloud architecture on AWS.

Because this certification is advanced, it’s not easy for beginners to pass the exam without any experience or through preparation.

If you are a beginner and want to pursue a career in AWS Solutions Architecture, first get your AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, then get your AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, before doing AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional.

Amazon also recommends AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional if you are familiar with AWS CLI, AWS APIs, AWS CloudFormation templates, the AWS Billing Console, and the AWS Management Console.

You can use Amazon’s Exam Readiness page to further assess whether you are ready for this advanced certification.

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

To prepare for this exam there are several options available.  Let’s take a look at these options in more detail.

Self-Study Resources

The internet is full of self-study resources which could be used to prepare for AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification. Let’s talk about these resources.

Books

Using books to prepare for a certification exam is one of the best ways to gain a thorough grasp of the subject matter.

The AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification is full of complex, interconnected and advanced technical concepts, so a book can be a valuable exam prep tool.

One of the best books to prepare for the exam is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional All-in-One Exam Guide .

Keep in mind that you should not limit your preparation to books only. AWS is a relatively new technology, and you should try to understand the objectives with the help of multiple resources.

Whitepapers and Learning Paths

This is perhaps the single best free resource out there.  It summarizes all the important information related to AWS Solutions Architecture.

It’s a bundle of whitepapers which give you an overview of all the important components, elements, and technical strategies used to design efficient, fault-tolerant and cost-effective solutions using AWS.

These white papers include the all-important AWS Well-Architected Tool, AWS Management Console, texts on important concepts of AWS Solutions design and much more.

You should also take a look at Amazon’s Learning Library which is full of free courses on important topics related to AWS Solutions Architect certification.

Video Training

Let’s face it, technical concepts are sometimes difficult to understand by reading just text.

Audio-visual media helps you to understand and retain difficult information. That’s why video training is so popular among the AWS Solutions Architect Professional community.

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 use PluralSight’s video training for the AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification. Also check out Lynda’s and Cloud Academy’s video resources.

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

Instructor-Led Training

You can use instructor-led training if you want to learn directly from an expert.

With this type of training, you will get an opportunity to directly ask questions and get answers to exam objectives that you don’t fully understand.

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 however, that instructor-led training programs are usually very expensive.

For example the two courses recommended by Global Knowledge to get you ready for the exam costs over $2700 US dollars.

Practice Tests

It’s not easy to solve many exam questions in 180 minutes if you haven’t practiced beforehand.

In order to pass the exam, it’s recommended that you do as many practice tests as you can.

Start with Amazon’s sample questions for the AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification. You can also register on the AWS website and attempt a model test in a timed environment.

Practice tests by BrainCert, and Whizlabs are also useful.

Practice Labs

The AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification exam has several practical, scenario-based questions which often take a lot of time to solve if you have not practiced beforehand.

Therefore, it is recommended that you do some practice labs to help you get acquainted with specific AWS Architecture scenarios.

Amazon has a special portal where you can prepare with different practice labs.

Now, let’s take a look at…

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

The AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification makes you a suitable candidate for many lucrative jobs.

The key role of an AWS Solutions Architect is to design fault-tolerant, efficient and scalable Cloud-based solutions.

Companies worldwide want to migrate to the Cloud, and AWS remains their top choice.

Therefore, they need professionals who could design, build. and oversee the development of customized solutions.

Some of the jobs which should interest you after passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification include:

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

Keep in mind that just having the certification won’t guarantee you a job.

To increase your chances of getting a well-paying job, you should ensure that you get some practical experience.

This experience will exponentially increase your odds of getting a lucrative job in the Cloud computing industry.

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

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Certification

The Global Knowledge 2020 IT Skills and Salary survey shows that the AWS Certified Solutions Architect is the one of the top-paying IT certifications.

According to jobs platform PayScale, the average salary for AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification holders is around $128,000 US dollars.

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

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

The best advice comes from those who have actually achieved the certification. Let’s see how they prepared and what their thoughts are after successfully passing the exam.

Here’s a comment from Reddit user “ironjohnred”

“Study materials used

AWS whitepapers

AWS FAQs

I am not a videos learner, so I stuck to mostly the reading material for learning topics.

Took the free Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional course online at AWS.

 Practice Tests

Jon Bonso tests

I only took them once, but reviewed my wrong answers multiple times, esp. the morning of the test

Test scores : 72/80/78/80

These tests were pretty good. The actual test questions were far more verbose than these tests.

Had a free voucher for an AWS practice test (one of the benefits of passing a previous AWS cert). Took the practice test 2 days before and got a 78.

 Other Tips

Used the 50% off voucher (another benefit) when I registered for the test. So I paid $150.

The FAQS are very very useful. Dont ignore them. These are goldmines of info about the services.

The exam questions can be quite verbose. Be prepared for that.

Restrict yourself to not spend too much time on a question or you will be rushed to finish.

The total time you have is 180 min for 75 Q. I spent a max of 2 min a question on the first go around.

Flagged the ones I knew I needed more time.

After the first go through I had 50 min left for reviewing flagged q.

I had flagged about 30 q and went through them quickly for the second run through.

Finished the test with about 2 min left”

https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/eztgyt/passed_aws_certified_solutions_architect/

Here’s a comment from Reddit user “sek10ng”

“I passed my AWS Solution Architect Professional (SAP-C01), and it is amazing to finally unlock this massive achievement!

If I would give a few main tips (that I don’t see other talks about freq), that would be:

Practice reading speed when doing practice exam, and on the real exam click next question when you got around 80% confidence on your answer

Take myself as an example, after I can pick an answer and have 80% confidence, I used to go read every single word on the question again to make 100% sure I am correct. However that is not a good approach for this exam due to the time limit.

Better click next question as soon as you know you probably get the right answer, (or a random guess if you can’t get any answer) and get back later.

So my thought process is: DynamoDB with write issue? Let me see if there are SQS as an option… There is only one SQS option, let me select that and go to the next question!

Looks for the Absent of keyword in the questions & answers

People always said about looking for the right keywords, but looking for the missing keyword sometimes makes as much of an impact!

Absent of cost requirement: Assume unlimited budget

Absent of region in redundancy: Assume can accept Multi AZ and no need regional fail-over

Absent of requirement on type storage: If no, assume can change the storage to other type like S3, EFS and others

And more…

Repeat review common solution architect pattern until they are in your “frequently access” part of your mind

I got a sets of self-made flash card for all the common architecture & difficult concept on the exam, and randomly review them daily before exam

Daily study is good, which help consolidate your concept. I made a study blog every single day for a month prior to the exam.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/hmjxrb/passed_my_aws_solution_architect_professional/

 Here’s another comment from Reddit user “arjabbar”

“I will say that the professional level exam was way harder than I expected. I failed my first time taking it a couple of weeks ago. I prepped for it the same way I prepped for the associate level exam. The first attempt I used ACloudGuru. I ran through all the videos, took as the practice exams on there, and read a few whitepapers. Doing just that definitely wasn’t enough because I got a 684.

This time I prepped by taking the Jon Bonso practice exams. The first time I took one of his practice exams, I researched on the internet before submitting each answer. I took all 4 that way. Then I ran back through all the tests except this time without looking up anything until after the test was finished. I took another practice exam that I found on Whizlabs. So all in all, I used 3 resources to pass this exam.

I owe a huge thanks to the Jon Bonso practice exams. I felt like those exams prepared me the most. The questions on the actual exam were right on par with what was provided on the Jon Bonso exams.

The only thing I would not recommend, is taking the practice exams offered by Vue or PSI. First off, there’s only one version of that exam, meaning that the one from PSI is exactly the same as the one from Vue. Taking the exam multiple times is pointless because the there’s only 1 version of the test. Many people might have known this already without wasting $40, but I didn’t. Also, the Jon Bonso practice exams were $10, and you get 4 exams with 75 questions a piece for that price. That’s way better than paying $40 for a practice exam with ~20 questions from PSI.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/cxnzbu/finally_passed_the_aws_solutions_architect/

The Truth About AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

The world is facing a severe shortage of Cloud experts. Over 69% of the enterprise world is moving its business-critical applications to the Cloud.

Therefore, having the AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification will help you to grab the attention of recruiters.

If you pass the certification, and gain some practical experience, you are certainly in for a shining career in the Cloud industry. You can also complement this certification with other  certifications offered by Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA.

Is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Certification for You?

An AWS certification is a valuable building block for a strong career in Cloud computing. This certification will prove to the industry that you have a sound understanding of AWS Architecture.

If you already have some experience with AWS and want to increase your salary and take your Cloud career to the next level then the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification is for you.

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

The answer is a resounding yes.