7 AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam Tips

One of the most in-demand qualifications for cloud engineers is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate certification. While the focus of this article will be on exactly how to pass it, especially if you are not a cloud engineer, it is important to note why this certification can be so valuable.

While there are other players in the public cloud space, Amazon Web Services (AWS) certifications are the most sought-after because Amazon holds the largest public cloud market share. Whether you are a hands-on engineer or a consultant by trade, having this on your resume is extremely beneficial.

Let’s be clear: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate is not an easy exam. It is not a test where you can simply buy a stack of practice exams, run through them over and over, and expect to pass. The exam is very scenario-focused. Anyone wanting to know how to prepare for AWS certification should note this well: AWS writes their questions in such a way that only someone with true hands-on experience and an understanding of their services can pass.

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How Do I Pass the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam? Careerera

The AWS solutions architect associate exam is one of the most difficult certification exams in the world. There are many certifications for various things such as the PMP certification and the CISSP certification, but it is the AWS solutions architect associate exam which takes the crown when it comes to difficulty.

How to Qualify an AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam?

Naturally, given the difficulty of the exam many people wonder, “How Do I Pass the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam?” on the first attempt. This is a very valid question and, in this article, we will discuss all the ways in which one can maximize his chances of passing the AWS solutions architect associate exam in the first attempt.

Before starting we must remember one thing – the AWS platform is a beast of a platform and is vast beyond comprehension. So, for a beginner looking to take the AWS solutions architect associate exam it will not be possible to cover all the topics and services related to the AWS platform.

However, one can make one’s best attempt to cover all the core concepts and topics which are most relevant and pertinent to the AWS platform. A candidate for the AWS solutions architect associate exam in particular should keep himself updated on all the most recent advances and developments in the field of AWS.

Which services are tested most frequently on the exam?

1. Amazon EC2 -

This service is used to create virtual machines which are offsite. It is also used to manage things such as ports, security, and storage because of its many features. It allows the users to utilize AWS’ vast computing capabilities on-demand. With a ‘scale as you grow’ philosophy the user is not trapped into an agreement in which they will have to purchase excessive resources from Amazon.
They only have to make use of as many resources as they need. The Amazon EC2 web interface allows the software developers to configure and resize the compute machines to their heart’s content with minimal friction and absolutely no confusion whatsoever. All decent AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification courses teach how to make use of this service.

2. Amazon RDS -

The full form of Amazon RDS is Amazon Relational Database Service. It is an extremely useful service launched by Amazon. It is used by software developers to create a database with all the features of a full-fledged offline database in a matter of minutes.

The main purpose of Amazon RDS is to set up relational databases in the cloud. These databases can be set up, operated, and scaled very easily and very smoothly. Amazon provides a very seamless and slick interface which is ideal for operating the databases thus created.

The databases are very cost-effective and can be resized very easily. They provide all facilities to carry out administrative tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching and backups. With the help of these databases, one will be able to give their applications fast performance, high availability, security and compatibility.

3. Amazon S3 -

The full form of Amazon S3 is Amazon Simple Storage Service. It is a service which provides a lot of expediency to software developers in the matter of storage. Software developers can create objects through programming and they can then store those objects which they have coded into the Amazon S3 service.

This service is responsible in a large part for having made AWS the leading cloud services provider in the world. Truly Jeff Bezos must have been inspired by a divine vision when he conceived of this service. This service leads the industry in terms of scalability, data availability, security, and performance.

How difficult is the AWS solutions architect associate exam?

As we have mentioned before, the AWS platform is vast beyond comprehension. It contains multitudes of services and all of them have their own various configuration options and switches. This means that for a candidate who is just starting his journey of becoming a AWS certified solution architect associate it is not possible to master the whole platform immediately.

It will take many years and a lot of practical and hands-on experience before he is able to do so. But the AWS solutions architect associate exam has a very extensive syllabus and is thus prohibitively difficult for the candidates. Its syllabus contains the following domains of knowledge -

• Design Resilient Architectures - 34%
• Define Performant Architecture – 24%
• Specify Secure Applications and Architectures – 24%
• Design Cost-Optimized Architectures – 10%
• Define Operationally Excellent Architectures – 8%

Some tips which will help to clear the exam -

1. Read as many AWS whitepapers as possible -

The AWS whitepapers explain many core concepts of the AWS platform in very technical, precise, and accurate language. For a candidate preparing for the AWS solutions architect associate exam, it is very beneficial to read the whitepapers as they will illuminate many technical and hard to grasp concepts of the AWS platform in a detailed and scientific way.

2. Make use of the process of elimination for multiple correct answers -

On the AWS solutions architect associate exam there will be many questions which will have multiple options. For those questions the candidate should first try to identify and eliminate the incorrect options so that they have to contemplate a fewer number of options while trying to find the correct answer.

3. Try to spot questions which have hints and details about other questions -

Many times, there will be questions on the exam which will contain hints and details pertinent to other questions on the exam. So, the candidate should keep a weather eye out for such questions and read all questions carefully with this aspect of the exam kept in mind firmly. This trick is taught in many AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification courses.

4. Take an AWS solution architect associate course -

The best way to pass the AWS solutions architect associate exam is to take an AWS solution architect associate course. This will help the candidate because they will be studying under the guidance of seasoned and experienced instructors who will be able to bring their world-class teaching skills and subject matter expertise to bear to make the learners fully prepared for the exam.

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Become an AWS Certified Solutions Architect

Learn and get skilled up on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Amazon EC2 provides secure and scalable computing on demand and also make cloud computing easier for developers. Learn to create and manage Amazon EC2 to build and deploy your application in the AWS platform.
To know more, visit our Website:
https://www.dotnettricks.com/paths/become-aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate

#aws developer #aws learning path #aws certification learning path #aws solution architect certification path

7 Best AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam Tips

Cloud architects with the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate qualification are in high demand, with good reason—the AWS exam sets the bar high. What’s the best way to prepare for it?

One of the most in-demand qualifications for cloud engineers is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate certification. While the focus of this article will be on exactly how to pass it, especially if you are not a cloud engineer, it is important to note why this certification can be so valuable.

While there are other players in the public cloud space, Amazon Web Services (AWS) certifications are the most sought-after because Amazon holds the largest public cloud market share. Whether you are a hands-on engineer or a consultant by trade, having this on your resume is extremely beneficial.

 

 

Let’s be clear: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate is not an easy exam. It is not a test where you can simply buy a stack of practice exams, run through them over and over, and expect to pass. The exam is very scenario-focused. Anyone wanting to know how to prepare for AWS certification should note this well: AWS writes their questions in such a way that only someone with true hands-on experience and an understanding of their services can pass.

7 Steps to Passing the Exam: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam Tips

And now for the details of exactly how to go about AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam preparation even if you do not have any formal engineering or AWS training.

1. Earn the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification

Yes, this article promises steps on how to earn your Solutions Architect - Associate certificate, but if you do not have prior AWS engineering experience or knowledge, I would strongly recommend passing this first. This exam is just a 1,000-foot overview and can be passed in just two weeks if you study daily.

Honestly, even if you do have prior experience with AWS, it may still be good to take this as the certification exams cover AWS services that you may have never actually used.

Here’s what you need to pass this exam in only two weeks:

• Take the A Cloud Guru (ACG) Certified Cloud Practitioner course. You will want a full subscription to this—not just the standalone Udemy version—because you will need to use ACG heavily for the AWS Solutions Architect exam. ACG also has a section of hands-on AWS labs that are incredibly helpful for passing the exam.
• Take these practice exams. Note: These practice exams represent only the most difficult questions on the exam. If you are struggling on the practice exams but still close to passing, then you should do well on the actual test itself. The actual test is much easier than these.

TIPS FOR PASSING

• Take notes throughout the course and organize them so you can use that as part of your study guide for the Solutions Architect exam.
• Re-watch all of Ryan’s summaries on the day of your exam at 2x speed. This is incredibly helpful to recap everything you need to know.

2. Complete ACG’s AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Course

While this course alone is not enough for a complete newbie to pass, it is still an incredible course and will be the foundation of your exam prep. It covers everything on the test, in one way or another, with some gaps here and there (we’ll get to that).

TIPS FOR THE COURSE

• Take detailed notes and build an organized study guide.
• Use the A Cloud Guru app and download the lectures for offline listening. Play lectures and summaries over again while doing things like driving or walking your dog. My prep strategy involved a lot of daily immersion, like this.
• Do not skip the hands-on labs. In my opinion, using AWS is the best way to learn AWS. This will really help internalize the content from the lectures.

3. Deep Dives on Specific AWS Services

As mentioned above, the ACG course lectures alone are not enough for most people to pass. There are a few services that will come up on the exam a lot, and you will need a strong understanding of them in order to pass. The best way to learn what you need is to just use them with hands-on labs.

The areas to deep dive are as follows:

AMAZON VPC

I struggled with an overall understanding of VPCs initially, and Cole Morrison’s article and its analogies helped immensely. I strongly suggest reading it if you are confused about VPCs. Also:

• Complete the ACG Hands-on Labs for VPCs. These are outside of the course from step #2, in the Hands-on Lab section. Filter on “AWS” and “VPC” and complete each lab. They are only a few minutes apiece but are incredibly helpful.
• The exam is very heavy in VPC questions. Learn to build one from memory.
• Understand the differences between using a VPN and Direct Connect.

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AMAZON S3

Take parts of the A Cloud Guru S3 Masterclass course. You do not need to take this entire course for the exam, just a few areas that come up often, including:

• Bucket policies vs. access control lists
• S3 encryption options
• Storage types
• Lifecycle policies

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AMAZON RDS

Take the ACG Intro to RDS course, with a focus on areas that come up often, which include:

• Multi-AZ Replication
• Read Replicas
• Understand snapshots

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AMAZON KINESIS

Be sure that you understand AWS Analytics and data warehousing tools at a high level:

• Kinesis: Streams vs. Firehose vs. Analytics
• Kinesis vs. Redshift vs. EMR (you will get scenario-based questions with these)
• Athena’s differences from Kinesis

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AMAZON LAMBDA AND SERVERLESS COMPONENTS

Take the ACG Intro to Lambda course but focus on:

• Limits/timeouts
• Events and what services are generally used with Lambda triggers

Serverless will probably show up more and more on AWS exams over time, so you’ll want to know this.

4. Read the AWS Storage Services Overview Whitepaper

You will get many scenario-based questions about what kind of storage to use. You’ll want to know the differences between them and when to use each (e.g., EFS vs. EBS, S3, DynamoDB vs. RDS)

5. Learn the Test-taking Strategies for This Exam

When presented with a scenario-based question, read the kicker first. Scenario-based questions always start with a large paragraph, followed by a “kicker” that actually asks you the question. Read the kicker and then read the scenario. Example:

“You are building a transcription service for a company in which a fleet of EC2 worker instances processes an uploaded audio file and generates a text file as an output. You must store both of these frequently accessed files in the same durable storage until the text file is retrieved by the uploader. Due to an expected surge in demand, you have to ensure that the storage is scalable and can be retrieved within minutes.

“Which storage option in AWS can you use in this situation that is both cost-efficient and scalable?”

The kicker here is the last line. Pay attention to exactly what they’re asking. Many times, they’ll present multiple solutions that would work, but you have to select the ones that meet the specific requirements (in this case, cost efficiency and scalability).

Use process of elimination for every question. Questions will almost always have one or two options that are definitely not the answer. If you can get rid of these right off the bat, your odds of selecting the right one will improve. While this may seem obvious, it is really important to use on the AWS SA exam because in many cases, they will try to trick you. Look for the obvious tricks and mentally cross them out.

Read questions twice. Most of the questions are designed to be tricky. Do not just glance and then answer immediately. One small nuance in the wording can easily change what the right answer is, and if you go too fast, you can make the wrong choice.

Use the “Mark for Review” feature. The real exam will allow you to mark answers for review and then go back at the end to check them again. When a question is tough, select the best choice and then mark it for review at the end based on how much time you have left. Use this feature.

Use questions to answer other questions on the real exam. This is one of the main reasons to use “Mark for Review.” In many cases, one question can actually give you the answer to another question. On my exam, I noticed this a few times and was able to go back and adjust a previous answer because of that. This is why you want to “mark for review” anything you are unsure of.

6. Take Udemy Practice Exams

Purchase this set of Udemy practice exams and work through them. Note that these practice exams are incredibly difficult and represent the most challenging questions you would be presented with on the exam. The actual test is easier than these.

As a rule of thumb, if you are passing these practice exams (even just barely), you should be good to pass the real thing with room to spare.

7. Optional: Take this Udemy course to fill in the gaps.

If you are finding that there are still some gaps in your knowledge and you can’t pass the practice exams, purchase this course. I would not go through this entire course, but rather focus on the areas where you have knowledge gaps. The practice exams will show you where these gaps are.

Udemy courses also have a very cool feature where you can simply search for a keyword, and it will show you everywhere in the entire course that this word is mentioned, which you can then click on and listen to that portion. So for example, if you keep missing questions about AWS KMS, you could just search that in the Udemy course, and it will show you every section where it was discussed.

As with Cloud Practitioner, be sure to rewatch all of the ACG Solutions Architect Summary lectures on 2x speed the morning of your exam. This helps a lot with recapping everything you’ve learned.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam Prep: Practice Makes Perfect

As with any test, studying will ensure success, and the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam is no different. While it may take up some of your free time, the benefits are worth it. Besides validating your technical skills, this certification will foster your expertise, making you more attractive to potential recruiters, which will only continue to advance your career in the long haul.

Good luck, and please reach out with any tips you’ve found helpful!

Original article source at: https://www.toptal.com/

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AWS Cost Allocation Tags and Cost Reduction

Bob had just arrived in the office for his first day of work as the newly hired chief technical officer when he was called into a conference room by the president, Martha, who immediately introduced him to the head of accounting, Amanda. They exchanged pleasantries, and then Martha got right down to business:

“Bob, we have several teams here developing software applications on Amazon and our bill is very high. We think it’s unnecessarily high, and we’d like you to look into it and bring it under control.”

Martha placed a screenshot of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) billing report on the table and pointed to it.

“This is a problem for us: We don’t know what we’re spending this money on, and we need to see more detail.”

Amanda chimed in, “Bob, look, we have financial dimensions that we use for reporting purposes, and I can provide you with some guidance regarding some information we’d really like to see such that the reports that are ultimately produced mirror these dimensions — if you can do this, it would really help us internally.”

“Bob, we can’t stress how important this is right now. These projects are becoming very expensive for our business,” Martha reiterated.

“How many projects do we have?” Bob inquired.

“We have four projects in total: two in the aviation division and two in the energy division. If it matters, the aviation division has 75 developers and the energy division has 25 developers,” the CEO responded.

Bob understood the problem and responded, “I’ll see what I can do and have some ideas. I might not be able to give you retrospective insight, but going forward, we should be able to get a better idea of what’s going on and start to bring the cost down.”

The meeting ended with Bob heading to find his desk. Cost allocation tags should help us, he thought to himself as he looked for someone who might know where his office is.

#aws #aws cloud #node js #cost optimization #aws cli #well architected framework #aws cost report #cost control #aws cost #aws tags

What to Study to Prepare for Solutions Architect Exam

You made a decision to become a solutions architect. Great choice! One of the ways to achieve it is to pass an appropriate certification. At the moment, the most popular are AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, and Google Cloud Architect. Getting certified verifies that you acquired certain knowledge and you are able to design complex systems. I am going to guide you through the necessary basics for preparing for the AWS Solutions Architect exam. However, those basics can be successfully applied for other certifications.

Becoming a solutions architect is not an easy task. It requires being a good engineer in the first place. That means you already know algorithms well and know how to apply them efficiently. A good developer has experience in designing systems with complex architecture. Take some time preparing well for it and focus on the following basics.

Computation power

This is the essential pillar in any cloud system. No matter what is behind the scene in the cloud — real physical server or virtual environment. The things which are important for us are a dedicated place to run the app and an ability to handle the workload properly. Therefore, it is key to understand the concept of provisioning different types of computation systems. If the application consumes a lot of computing resources, then the system should have enough CPU and RAM. If the application performs many I/O operations, then the system needs to have a focus on provisioning that. Understanding the necessity of the application helps to define the requirements for the system. For example on Amazon, Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) is a service providing computing capacity. It has various types of instances to satisfy different demands. Making a proper choice can also save costs.

#aws #certification #aws-solutions-architect #cloud #solutions-architecture #cloud