Associate · SAA-C03
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
A compilation of what I studied for the certification, organized by the four domains of the exam: secure, resilient, high-performing and cost-optimized architectures.
Foundations
How the exam works and the framework behind every answer.
- 01The examFormat, scoring, the four domains and their weights, what is out of scope and how to read SAA-C03 questions.FormatScoringDomains+3
- 02Well-Architected and global infrastructureThe six Well-Architected pillars, Regions, AZs, edge and hybrid locations, and the shared responsibility model.The frameworkSecurity and reliabilityPerformance and cost+5
Secure architectures
Domain 1, 30% of the exam: access, network and data protection.
- 03Identity and access managementIAM policies and how AWS evaluates them, STS roles, federation, IAM Identity Center, Cognito and Directory Service.IAM building blocksPolicy evaluationRoles and STS+5
- 04Multi-account governanceAWS Organizations, SCPs and RCPs, Control Tower landing zones, AWS RAM sharing and delegated administration at scale.AWS OrganizationsSCPs and RCPsAWS Control Tower+3
- 05Network securitySubnets, security groups versus network ACLs, VPC endpoints, WAF, Shield, Network Firewall, Firewall Manager and encrypted hybrid links.Public and private subnetsSecurity groups vs NACLsVPC endpoints+5
- 06Data protectionKMS and CloudHSM, S3 encryption, TLS with ACM, secrets management, threat detection services and WORM retention locks.AWS KMSAWS CloudHSMS3 encryption+5
Resilient architectures
Domain 2, 26% of the exam: decoupling, high availability and disaster recovery.
- 07Decoupling and messagingSQS, SNS, EventBridge, Step Functions, API Gateway, Amazon MQ and Kinesis: how to build loosely coupled, scalable designs.SQSSNSEventBridge+5
- 08High availabilityMulti-AZ design with Elastic Load Balancing, EC2 Auto Scaling, RDS and Aurora failover, RDS Proxy and Route 53 health checks.Multi-AZ designLoad balancersEC2 Auto Scaling+5
- 09Disaster recoveryRPO and RTO, the 4 DR strategies, AWS Backup, Elastic Disaster Recovery and cross-Region copies for S3, Aurora, DynamoDB and EBS.RPO and RTODR strategiesAWS Backup+5
High-performing architectures
Domain 3, 24% of the exam: storage, compute, databases, networking and data.
- 10Storage performanceBlock, file and object storage on AWS, with the limits and settings that decide which S3, EBS, EFS or FSx option fits.Block, file, objectS3 performanceS3 storage classes+5
- 11Compute performanceEC2 instance families, placement groups, networking and Auto Scaling metrics, plus Batch, EMR, edge compute and Elastic Beanstalk.Instance typesPlacement groupsEnhanced networking+5
- 12Serverless and containersLambda memory, limits and concurrency, ECS versus EKS, Fargate versus EC2, ECR and hybrid containers, and when each one fits.LambdaConcurrencyEvent sources+5
- 13DatabasesChoosing and scaling RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB and ElastiCache, the purpose-built engines, connection proxies and migrations.Amazon RDSAmazon AuroraAmazon DynamoDB+5
- 14NetworkingVPC design, egress, VPC-to-VPC connectivity, PrivateLink and hybrid links with Site-to-Site VPN, Client VPN and Direct Connect.VPC designInternet and egressPeering and Transit Gateway+4
- 15Edge and DNSRoute 53 records and routing policies, CloudFront caching and security, edge functions, Global Accelerator and S3 Transfer Acceleration.Route 53 recordsRouting policiesHealth checks+5
- 16Data ingestion and analyticsStreaming with Kinesis and MSK, data lakes with Glue, Lake Formation and Athena, warehouses, visualization and data transfer.Kinesis Data StreamsAmazon Data FirehoseMSK and video streams+5
Cost-optimized architectures
Domain 4, 20% of the exam: buying capacity, storage, networking and cost tools.
- 17Compute costsPurchase options, Spot, rightsizing and serverless trade-offs that cut the compute bill without losing the availability you need.Purchase optionsSavings Plans vs RIsSpot Instances+4
- 18Storage costsS3 classes, lifecycle and tiering, cheaper EBS and file storage, archive retrieval times and the lowest cost way to move data in.S3 storage classesS3 LifecycleIntelligent-Tiering+5
- 19Network costsData transfer pricing, NAT gateways, VPC endpoints, CloudFront and hybrid links, chosen to keep traffic on the cheapest path.Data transfer pricingNAT gatewaysVPC endpoints+5
- 20Cost managementCost Explorer, Budgets, Data Exports, tags, consolidated billing and the tools that find savings, plus database pricing choices.Cost ExplorerBudgetsAnomaly Detection+5
Resources
What to study and practice with.