The AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C02) exam measures the following skills:
- Designing and deploying scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on AWS
- Selecting the right AWS service based on data, compute, database, or security requirements
- Identifying appropriate use of AWS architectural best practices
- Estimating AWS costs and identifying cost-control mechanisms
- Migrating on-premises workloads to AWS
- Designing resilient architectures that meet business and technical requirements
- Defining performant architectures using AWS best practices
- Securing and managing access to AWS resources
- Designing architectures to ensure compliance with AWS guidelines and standards.
The exam covers a range of AWS services and features, including EC2, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, VPC, Route 53, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, CloudFront, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and AWS Lambda. The exam also includes questions on AWS deployment models, such as serverless, containers, and hybrid architectures.
Prerequisites
To take the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) exam, candidates are recommended to have at least one year of experience designing scalable, fault-tolerant, and highly available systems on AWS. In addition, they should have a good understanding of AWS core services, security best practices, architectural design principles, and be familiar with AWS CLI, SDKs, and APIs. There are no formal prerequisites or required training courses to take the exam. However, AWS recommends that candidates have the following knowledge and experience before taking the exam:
- At least one year of hands-on experience designing and deploying scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on AWS.
- In-depth knowledge of at least one high-level programming language.
- Understanding of core AWS services and their uses, including compute, storage, database, and networking services.
- Understanding of AWS security best practices and compliance standards.
- Familiarity with AWS CLI, AWS SDKs, and AWS CloudFormation.
- Familiarity with general IT concepts, including networking, security, and database technologies.
