AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate Exam Learning Path

AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate Exam Learning Path

AWS Solution Architect – Associate exam basically validates the following 2 abilities

  • Identify and gather requirements in order to define a solution to be built using architecture best practices.
  • Provide guidance on architectural best practices to developers and system administrators throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Refer to the AWS Solution Architect – Associate Exam Blue Print

AWS Solution Architect - Associate Exam Break up

AWS Cloud Computing Whitepapers

AWS Solution Architect – Associate Exam Contents

NOTE: With recent feedback from users AWS SA-A Exams have questions for new Lambda, ALB, ALB vs Classic Load Balancer, ECS, API Gateway services

Domain 1.0: Designing highly available, cost-efficient, fault-tolerant, scalable systems

  1. Identify and recognize cloud architecture considerations, such as fundamental components and effective designs. Content may include the following:

2 Domain 2.0: Implementation/Deployment

  1. Identify the appropriate techniques and methods using Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS CloudFormation, AWS OpsWorks, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to code and implement a cloud solution.
    Content may include the following:
    1. Configure an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
    2. Operate and extend service management in a hybrid IT architecture
    3. Configure services to support compliance requirements in the cloud
    4. Launch instances across the AWS global infrastructure
    5. Configure IAM policies and best practices

3 Domain 3.0: Data Security

  1. Recognize and implement secure practices for optimum cloud deployment and maintenance. Content may include the following:
  2. Recognize critical disaster recovery techniques and their implementation.
    Content may include the following:

4 Domain 4.0: Troubleshooting

  1. Content may include the following:

NOTE: I have just marked the topics inline with the AWS Exam Blue Print. So be sure to check the same, as it is updated regularly and go through Whitepapers, FAQs and Re-Invent videos.

AWS Solution Architect – Associate Exam Resources

Braincert-AWS-Certified-SA-Associate-Practice-Exam

Udemy AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate Practice Tests

  • Purchased the acloud guru AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate course from Udemy (should get it for $10-$15 on discount) helps to get a clear picture of the the format, topics and relevant sections
  • Opinion : acloud guru course are good by itself but is not sufficient to pass the exam but might help to counter about 50-60% of exam questions
  • DolfinEd Udemy AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam Mastery 2018
    • Covers the exam topics in detail, is extensive, scenario based practice questions and visual aids.
    • Very good rating and user feedback (~ 4.7)

  • Signed up with AWS for the Free Tier account which provides a lot of the Services to be tried for free with certain limits which are more then enough to get things going. Be sure to decommission anything, if you using any thing beyond the free limits, preventing any surprises 🙂
  • Also, used the QwikLabs for all the introductory courses which are free and allow you to try out the services multiple times (I think its max 5, as I got the warnings couple of times)
  • Update: Qwiklabs seems to have reduced the free courses quite a lot and now provide targeted labs for AWS Certification exams which are charged
  • Read the FAQs atleast for the important topics, as they cover important points and are good for quick review
  • Did not purchase the AWS Practice exams, as the questions are available all around. But if you want to check the format, it might be useful.
  • You can also check practice tests

430 thoughts on “AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate Exam Learning Path

  1. Associate architect is relatively simple. Read and understand all the IAM, VPC, EC2, S3 documentation, read the FAQs for the next most popular other services, read the recommended white papers, do some sample exams on Cloud Guru / Linux Academy, play with EC2/VPC a bit, you’ll likely pass. Doing a Cloud Guru or Linux Academy course will make it easier but doesn’t replace the reading.

    1. Thanks Tim, agreed A Cloud Guru and Linux Academy helps you to get started but not clear the exams for sure. Also CSAA is relatively simple once you clear it 😉

  2. Hi Jayendra,

    I appeared for architect associate and scored 90%.Lot of websites offer sample questions but they are misleading.Other than your blog and whitepapers,I didn’t refer additional resources.Thanks a lot!!

    1. thats Awesome Bhuvana .. congrats and thanks .. Happy to help 🙂
      Let me know if any feedback to improve ..

      1. 🙂 It would be great if you can provide guidance for Specialty exams as well.

        Thanks in advance!

  3. Where can I find the sample questions and whitepapers in your website for AWS certified solutions architect- associate exam.

  4. Hi Jayendra
    I found your blog while I am googling for practice questions for CSA exam. Your blog is very informative & it clarified few of my open questions.

    I am preparing for AWS-CSA(Certified Solution Architect-Associate) certification and I have gone through all the material & videos of Linux Academy. Have got good understanding of the concepts but I want to try testing myself by taking up some quiz. I am currently looking for Practice questions & answers for my preparation. Can you please share me, if you any ?

    Thanks in advance.

    Thanks,
    Ravi

  5. Hi Jayendra,

    Completed AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate Exam!

    Thanks for sharing !!!

  6. Hi Jayendra.I work in Amazon and I really love this blog. I am going to appear for all 3 associate exams shortly and going through your blog has given me a confidence of passing. Acloud.guru was the only other source which I found as good as your blog. Keep it up for the good writing and sharing !!

  7. Jayendra, thanks again for these helpful resources.

    I studied for the SysOps Associate exam first and passed. I am now moving on to Solution Architect Associate. I’m comfortable / familiar with the Sys Ops topics. Which topics are specific to Solution Architect that are not on SysOps that I should focus my time on to pass Solution Architect given that I have the SysOps knowledge already?

    Thanks

    1. You can refer to the SA – Associate Blog Post.
      Topics like VPC, IAM, S3, EC2, EBS are mainly common.
      However, there are lot other topics that you need to cover like Auto Scaling, ELB, Storage Gateway, Route 53, RDS Multi-AZ & Read Replicas, CloudFront, Storage Options Whitepaper etc.

    1. Thanks Ankit, STS is something already covered. Have got feedback for Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB and ELB vs ALB as well.

      1. Sir, 55 question was come in my exam. there is any change in the pattern of AWS SAA exam ?

  8. My exprience with AWS CSA Associate exam –
    A couple lines on my background before I start.
    I have 20 years exprience in software engineering. I am mostly hands on but on occasion I was into leadership.
    All my experience is on Microsoft Stack.
    I wanted to do my certification in aws because I wanted to get my feet wet with non MS eco system.

    I have gone trhough a cloud guru course
    I have done all practice exams on BrainCert
    I have done all practice exams on Whizlabs
    I have done all questions on cloudacademy.
    I have read sections on Jayendrapatil.com and paracticed questions on his blog.
    (Reading jayendrapatil.com is a must. It is probably beyond associate level. But if you read and try those questions, you can not go wrong. THIS GUY IS A ROCK STAR FOR AWS CERTIFICATION !!! )
    I have heard 20-30 hours of re-invent videos
    I have watched videos on SSL/TLS

    Since I have no hands on experience on aws, I used more resources than usual.
    I took the exam and passed with 85%.
    Here are my thoughts. Obviously they don’t reflect anyone else’s viewpoint but me.
    Hope you find them useful.

    A Cloud Guru can ease you into the exam preparation and helps you to scope the breadth and depth of content.
    It is nice and friendly place you like to start. But it is not sufficient to pass.
    I got some areas which are not covered in acloud guru. Lamdas, cloud front path patterns, DirectConnect and VPN fault tolerance etc.
    Also cloud guru content does not put you in that (tricky and twisty) exam groove.
    The best relavant questions are on BrainCert.com. some of the questions from braincert.com you can see on jayendrapatil.com.
    Whizlabs questions are easy and not really upto the exam standard but still decent content if you want to cover more surface area.
    I am not too impressed at the cloud academy questions and their relavance with the exam.
    Like someone mentioned cloud academy is picking up some unexplored corners from aws documentation, rather than creating a scnario which forces to analyze (or elimininate options).

    Now coming to the actual questions. Most questions have 2 bad answers. one correct and one looks correct.
    when you have to pick more than one option, you get get 1 or 2 immediately, the second or third one requires some analysis/ elimination.
    Here is the areas I can point you to based on my experience
    API Gateway Features, Lamda Basics, EFS Basics, Setting up ECS tasks with IAM permissions, cloudfront path patterns. Ec2 instances showing up in ECS cluser, Direct Connect / VPN fault tolerance (read DiretConnect on jayendrapatil.com),
    Kinesis Streams Vs firehose, DynamoDB VS Elastic cache, which services provide encryption at rest, which services can trigger lamdas, EBS replication across regions, Cloudfront origins, why and when to use DynamoDB,
    reserved instance features, graceful shutdown of application and spot instances, what does STS provide , SQS and priority, auto scaling termination policy, auto scaling cool down timers, SNS supported end points.

    over all it was not very straight forward exam to just walk in and pass/ace. I took the full 1 hr 20 mins and reviewed quickly once before hitting submit.

    your experience may vary !! good luck

  9. Jayendra, Dude i cant thank you enough for all this effort that you have put in to setup these blogs. I have cleared my Solution Architect exam and i am so thankful to you. Most of the questions on the exam were from the questions that you have listed below in the various topics. You have also covered all the critical topics and concepts so well.

    You are doing a great service here my friend

    THANKS AGAIN, GOD BLESS YOU

  10. I took my AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam today, sadly I failed. Most of the questions are API Gateway, Lambda, ECS, VPC Cross Account, Security, IAM. Hope to pass next time. 🙁

    1. You can surely clear it next time. I have added the topics to the blog as I got feedback from multiple users about this new topics.

  11. Dear Jayendra,

    It is wonderful reading your blog and as also the interaction from other aspirants and exam takers. I have been trying to take up the exam for the last 2 years but have been unable to do so because of time constraints. I have now dedicated my time to pass both the associate as well as the pro exam. Any help from you in the for of study notes, sample exam questions etc. which would help me to cross the first hurdle of associate exam would be highly appreciated.

    Could you please send me the same to mail mail @ prash.rao@outlook.com.

    Many thanks for your blog. Really helpful.

    Prashanth

  12. I am very happy write this that, I took SAA exam yesterday 7th sept 2017. I passed with 81% 🙂

    First of all Let me say thanks to Jayendra for such a excellent detail blogs, which helped me lot to clear my concepts and buy me confidence to go for this exam.

    How I prepared for this:

    Jayendra’s blog will lay the foundation for this exam.
    cloud guru course with hands on will help you to understand and those concepts at high level.

    Jayendra’s question set are more than enough to prepare for this exam. I solved the Whizlabs tests to feel the exam pattern and format.

    Topics in my exam:

    1. Couple of questions on Lambda (which services invoke lampda, how to improve performance of function)

    2. API gate way : advantages of API gateway.

    3. Application load balancer : dynamic port and Path base hosting. No questions on classic load balancer

    4. Cross account access: how to allow permission for the dev user in production. ( by creating cross role in production account)

    5. OPS works – def of OPS works

    6. def of Beanstalk

    7. SQS – decoupling

    8. Cloudwatch – restarting the hung instance by scanning logs

    9. Spot instance – pricing

    10. Shared responsibility of AWS

    11. Kinesis stream VS Kinesis fire hose: User want to access stream and process streams. I selected Kinesis stream.

    12.Cloud Front: origin servers can be either S3,ELB. There were different choices for RDS, dynamoDB etc

    13. Dynamo db : two questions: web session storing ( once question was pretty clear and had only Dynamo db as option along with other RDS, Second question was checking on storing session in tabular structure having option of Elastic cache and Dynamo db. I selected Dynamo db. Not sure though).

    14. S3: Access . bucket Policy

    15. No questions on Direct connect,

    16. EBS: how to create encrypted EBS volume from unencrypted volume.

    17. Route 53: Select correct options for alias record. 1. Zone apex record 2. Can map against DNS entry 3. Can’t set TTL

    18. there was a question to share the data for a application to all users on a file system. the system should be scalable or shrink as per the data size. Options were S3,EFS,EBS. I selected EFS.

    19. Few questions on VPC. Server A can ping Server B but Server B can’t ping Server A. Out bound traffic is not allowed to both instance, what changes should user do to get this done.

    20.VPC flow logs for tracing logs in VPC

    21.IAM Roles are global: You can use same role created to another Ec2 instance in different region

    22. auto scaling: termination policy

    23.STS : 2 question on the temp access. ( web federation )

    24. No questions ECS

    25. VPC Peering

    26. AWS Import/Export use case.

    It was very easy exam if you read all Jayendra’s blogs and get your had dirty with VPC,EBS,EC2,S3,ELB,AUTO scaling.

    I finished the exam in 1 hour and reviewed it for next 20 mins.

    Best luck!!

    1. Does any of these questions sounds familiar to you!! I bet it does……lol. Also, AWS is changing their test within 3 months from now to BETA version. So take this old test ASAP. Best of luck and Thank You “Jayendrapatil..keep up the good work.

      SQS – Poll based decouple the components of application
      SNS – PUSH based notifications – Send messages (Email or Text messages)
      Elastic Transcoder – Convert media files from their original source format in to different formats that will play smartphones, tablets, PC’s etc…

      Inbound Traffic – Is traffic that is coming into a router interface from outside.
      Outbound Traffic – Is traffic inside the router that leaves through an interface.

      Security groups
      1. Act as a firewall for associated Amazon instances, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level.
      2. Are stateful, when you add inbound rule it automatically adds Outbound rule.

      Alias Records are used to map resource record sets in your hosted zone to Amazon Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, Amazon CloudFront distributions, AWS Elastic Beanstalk environments, or Amazon S3 buckets that are configured as websites. Alias records work like a CNAME record in that you can map one DNS name (example.com) to another ‘target’ DNS name (elb1234.elb.amazonaws.com).

      Business Intelligence – Think of Redshift
      Big Data consuming and bringing into the cloud – Think Kinesis
      Big Data Processing – Think Elastic Map Reduce (EMR)

      EC2 – EBS Backed
      1. Are persistent & can be detached and reattached to other EC2 instances
      2. EBS volumes can be stopped; data will persist
      3. Store Data long term

      Instance Store
      1. Are not persistent (Ephemeral) & cannot be detached and reattached to other instances.
      2. They exist only for the life of that instance.
      3. Shouldn’t be used for long-term data storage

      OpsWorks
      1. Orchestration Service that Uses Chef
      2. Chef consists of recipes to maintain a consistent state
      3. Look for the term “chef” or “recipes” or “cook books” and think of OpsWorks
      4. AWS OpsWorks provides a simple and flexible way to create and manage stacks and applications.
      5. AWS OpsWorks, you can provision AWS resources, manage their configuration, deploy applications to those resources, and monitor their health.

      Elastic Transcoder
      1. Media Transcoder in the cloud
      2. Convert media files from their original source format into different formats that
      play on smartphones, tablets, PC’s

      VPC Peering
      1. The connection between two VPCs that enables you to route traffic between them using private IP addresses.
      2. Instances within the same network can communicate with each other
      3. You can create a VPC peering connection between your own VPCs, and another AWS account within a single region.
      4. Does not rely on a separate piece of physical hardware
      5. No single point of failure for communication or a bandwidth bottleneck.

      Cross-Account Access
      1. Customers use separate AWS accounts for their development and production resources.
      2. Easier to work productively within a multi-account (or multi-role) AWS environment by
      making it easy for you to switch roles within the AWS Management Console.

      Cross account access: how to allow permission for the dev user in production. (by creating
      cross role in production account)

      API Gateway
      1. Fully Managed

      What are the benefits of API gateway?

      Low cost and efficient
      Scales effortlessly
      You can throttle requests to prevent attacks
      Can connect with cloud-watch to log all requests

      What does this Error mean “Origin Policy cannot be ready at the remote resource”?

      Enable CORS on API Gateway

      You are developing a highly available web application using stateless web servers. Which services are suitable for storing session state data? Choose 3 answers.

      A. Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
      B. Relational Database Service (RDS)
      C. CloudWatch
      D. ElastiCache
      E. DynamoDB
      F. AWS Storage Gateway

      What services should store session data? Two are correct

      A: DynamoDB
      B: RDS
      C: S3
      D: Elastic Cache

      Storing session in tabular structure?

      A: Elastic Cache
      D: DynamoDB

      Which services invoke lambda function to improve performance?

      A: Dynamo DB
      B: Elastic Cache

      User want to access stream and process streams.

      Kinesis stream

      Which service allows you to process nearly limitless streams of data in flight?

      A. Kinesis Firehose
      B. Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR)
      C. Redshift
      D. Kinesis Streams

      Your entire AWS infrastructure lives inside of one Amazon VPC You have an Infrastructure monitoring application running on an Amazon instance in Availability Zone (AZ) A of the region, and another application instance running in AZ B. The monitoring application needs to make use of ICMP ping to confirm network reachability of the instance hosting the application.

      Can you configure the security groups for these instances to only allow the ICMP ping to pass from the monitoring instance to the application instance and nothing else” If so how?

      A. No Two instances in two different AZ’s can’t talk directly to each other via ICMP ping as that protocol is not allowed across subnet (iebroadcast) boundaries
      B. Yes Both the monitoring instance and the application instance have to be a part of the same security group, and that security group needs to allow inbound ICMP
      C. Yes, the security group for the monitoring instance needs to allow outbound ICMP and the application instance’s security group needs to allow Inbound ICMP
      D. Yes, Both the monitoring instance’s security group and the application instance’s security group need to allow both inbound and outbound ICMP ping packets since ICMP is not a connection-oriented protocol

      Choose the correct AWS database service for the following requirements:

      > Large volumes of structured data to persist and query using standard SQL and existing business intelligence tools
      > High performance at scale as data and query complexity grows

      A. Amazon DynamoDB
      B. Amazon RDS
      C. Amazon ElastiCache
      D. Amazon Redshift

      Comments:
      Amazon Redshift is a fast-managed petabyte-scale data warehouse service that makes it simple and cost-effective to efficiently analyze all your data using your existing business intelligence tools.

      You have an existing website called example.com that points to a specific IP address. You now want to create three subdomains that point to the same IP address. To reduce maintenance which domain record type should you choose?

      A. CNAME
      B. A
      C. MX
      D. TXT

      Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes provide durable block-level storage for use with Amazon EC2 instances (virtual machines). Amazon EBS volumes are off-instance storage that persists independently from the running life of a single Amazon EC2 instance.

      Which type would you choose for I/O-intensive workloads, relational databases, and NoSQL databases?

      A. Amazon EBS Magnetic
      B. Amazon EBS Provisioned IOPS
      C. Amazon EBS ZX1
      D. Amazon EBS General Purpose

      Which of the following in NOT part of security group?

      A. List of usernames
      B. List of protocols
      C. IP address ranges
      D. Ports

      Which of the following is the correct statement regarding Availability Zones?

      A. A collection of regions that together make up an Availability Zone.
      B. A distinct location within a region that is insulated from failures in other Availability Zones
      C. Another name for an entire region which contains AWS instances.
      D. The timeframe a particular service is available for use by authorized users

      Which Amazon service would you use for content delivery?

      A. CloudFront
      B. ELB
      C. SES
      D. SQS

      Which service provides an automated security assessment that helps improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS. The service automatically assesses applications for vulnerabilities or deviations from best practices.

      A. Amazon Redshift
      B. EC2
      C. Elastic Beanstalk
      D. Amazon Inspector

      Which product is ideal for transferring anywhere from terabytes to many petabytes of data in and out of the AWS cloud securely, especially in cases where you don’t want to make expensive upgrades to your network infrastructure, frequently experience large backlogs of data, are in a physically isolated environment, or are in an area where high-speed Internet connections are not available or cost-prohibitive. In general, if loading your data over the Internet would take a week or more, you should consider what?

      A. Amazon S3
      B. AWS Snowball
      C. Amazon EBS Magnetic
      D. Amazon CloudFront

      You have developed a new web application that offers users the chance to buy music at a discounted rate through partnerships with local recording companies. You want to host this app in AWS but you don’t want the overhead of managing the infrastructure. Which option should you choose?

      A. EC2
      B. CloudFront
      C. Amazon Redshift
      D. AWS Elastic Beanstalk

      Amazon Glacier is an extremely low-cost storage service that provides highly secure, durable, and flexible storage for data archiving and online backup.

      Which of the following will you NOT be charged for when using Glacier?

      A. Storage (per GB per month)
      B. Data transfer in (per GB per month)
      C. Requests (per thousand UPLOAD and RETRIEVAL requests per month)
      D. Data transfer out (per GB per month)

      Which service would you use to control access to content by allowing or blocking web requests based on criteria that you specify, such as header values or the IP addresses that the requests originate from. This service helps to protect against common web exploits that could affect application availability, compromise security, or consume excessive resources.

      A. EC2
      B. S3
      C. CloudFront
      D. AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall)

      Which of the below instances is used normally for massive parallel computations?

      A. Spot Instances
      B. On-Demand Instances
      C. Dedicated Instances
      D. This is not possible in AWS

      DDoS attacks at their core create an availability problem, as the goal of attackers is to render resources unusable for legitimate end users. Consequently, you can leverage failover capabilities within AWS to reduce your vulnerability to availability problems caused by DDoS attacks.

      Which of the following is a protocol exhausting attack?

      A. HTTP GET/POST flood
      B. SYN flood
      C. None of these
      D. UDP flood

      You are working with a customer who has 10 TB of archival data that they want to migrate to Amazon Glacier. The customer has a 1-Mbps connection to the Internet. Which service or feature provides the fastest method of getting the data into Amazon Glacier?

      A. Amazon Glacier multipart upload
      B. AWS Storage Gateway
      C. VM Import/Export
      D. AWS Import/Export

      An Auto-Scaling group spans 3 AZs and currently has 4 running EC2 instances. When Auto Scaling needs to terminate an EC2 instance by default, Auto Scaling will:

      Choose 2 answers

      A. Allow at least five minutes for Windows/Linux shutdown scripts to complete, before terminating the instance.
      B. Terminate the instance with the least active network connections. If multiple instances meet this criterion, one will be randomly selected.
      C. Send an SNS notification, if configured to do so.
      D. Terminate an instance in the AZ which currently has 2 running EC2 instances.
      E. Randomly select one of the 3 AZs, and then terminate an instance in that AZ.

      An instance is launched into a VPC subnet with the network ACL configured to allow all inbound traffic and deny all outbound traffic. The instance’s security group is configured to allow SSH from any IP address and deny all outbound traffic. What changes need to be made to allow SSH access to the instance?

      A. The outbound security group needs to be modified to allow outbound traffic.
      B. The outbound network ACL needs to be modified to allow outbound traffic.
      C. Nothing, it can be accessed from any IP address using SSH.
      D. Both the outbound security group and outbound network ACL need to be modified to allow outbound traffic

      A customer is leveraging Amazon Simple Storage Service in eu-west-1 to store static content for a web-based property. The customer is storing objects using the Standard Storage class. Where are the customers objects replicated?

      A. A single facility in eu-west-1 and a single facility in eu-central-1
      B. A single facility in eu-west-1 and a single facility in us-east-1
      C. Multiple facilities in eu-west-1
      D. A single facility in eu-west-1

      A company is building a two-tier web application to serve dynamic transaction-based content. The data tier is leveraging an Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) database. What services should you leverage to enable an elastic and scalable web tier?

      A. Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2, and Auto Scaling
      B. Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon RDS with Multi-AZ, and Amazon S3
      C. Amazon RDS with Multi-AZ and Auto Scaling
      D. Amazon EC2, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon S3

      Which services allow the customer to retain full administrative privileges of the underlying EC2 instances? Choose 2 answers

      A. Amazon Relational Database Service
      B. Amazon Elastic Map Reduce
      C. Amazon ElastiCache
      D. Amazon DynamoDB
      E. AWS Elastic Beanstalk

      You are working with a customer who is using Chef Configuration management in their data center. Which service is designed to let the customer leverage existing Chef recipes in AWS?

      A. Amazon Simple Workflow Service
      B. AWS Elastic Beanstalk
      C. AWS CloudFormation
      D. AWS OpsWorks

      How can an EBS volume that is currently attached to an EC2 instance be migrated from one Availability Zone to another?

      A. Detach the volume and attach it to another EC2 instance in the other AZ.
      B. Simply create a new volume in the other AZ and specify the original volume as the source.
      C. Create a snapshot of the volume, and create a new volume from the snapshot in the other AZ.
      D. Detach the volume, then use the ec2-migrate-voiume command to move it to another AZ.

      A client application requires operating system privileges on a relational database server. What is an appropriate configuration for a highly available database architecture?

      A. A standalone Amazon EC2 instance
      B. Amazon RDS in a Multi-AZ configuration
      C. Amazon EC2 instances in a replication configuration utilizing a single Availability Zone
      D. Amazon EC2 instances in a replication configuration utilizing two different Availability Zones

      Which of the following are characteristics of Amazon VPC subnets?

      Choose 2

      A. Each subnet spans at least 2 Availability Zones to provide a high-availability environment.
      B. Each subnet maps to a single Availability Zone.
      C. CIDR block mask of/25 is the smallest range supported.
      D. By default, all subnets can route between each other, whether they are private or public.
      E. Instances in a private subnet can communicate with the Internet only if they have an Elastic IP

      You have a web application running on six Amazon EC2 instances, consuming about 45% of resources on each instance. You are using auto-scaling to make sure that six instances are running at all times. The number of requests this application processes is consistent and does not experience spikes. The application is critical to your business and you want high availability at all times. You want the load to be distributed evenly between all instances. You also want to use the same Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for all instances. Which of the following architectural choices should you make?

      A. Deploy 6 EC2 instances in one availability zone and use Amazon Elastic Load Balancer.
      B. Deploy 3 EC2 instances in one region and 3 in another region and use Amazon Elastic Load Balancer.
      C. Deploy 3 EC2 instances in one availability zone and 3 in another availability zone and use Amazon Elastic Load Balancer.
      D. Deploy 2 EC2 instances in three regions and use Amazon Elastic Load Balancer.

      You run an ad-supported photo sharing website using S3 to serve photos to visitors of your site. At some point you find out that other sites have been linking to the photos on your site, causing loss to your business. What is an effective method to mitigate this?

      A. Remove public read access and use signed URLs with expiry dates.
      B. Use CloudFront distributions for static content.
      C. Block the IPs of the offending websites in Security Groups.
      D. Store photos on an EBS volume of the web server.

      You are tasked with setting up a Linux bastion host for access to Amazon EC2 instances running in your VPC. Only clients connecting from the corporate external public IP address 72.34.51.100 should have SSH access to the host. Which option will meet the customer requirement?

      A. Security Group Inbound Rule: Protocol – TCP. Port Range – 22, Source 72.34.51.100/32
      B. Security Group Inbound Rule: Protocol – UDP, Port Range – 22, Source 72.34.51.100/32
      C. Network ACL Inbound Rule: Protocol – UDP, Port Range – 22, Source 72.34.51.100/32
      D. Network ACL Inbound Rule: Protocol – TCP, Port Range-22, Source 72.34.51.100/0

      You have decided to change the instance type for instances running in your application tier that is using Auto Scaling. In which area below would you change the instance type definition?

      A. Auto Scaling policy
      B. Auto Scaling group
      C. Auto Scaling tags
      D. Auto Scaling launch configuration

      Which technique can be used to integrate AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) with an on-premise LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directory service?

      A. Use an IAM policy that references the LDAP account identifiers and the AWS credentials.
      B. Use SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) to enable single sign-on between AWS and LDAP.
      C. Use AWS Security Token Service from an identity broker to issue short-lived AWS credentials.
      D. Use IAM roles to automatically rotate the IAM credentials when LDAP credentials are updated.
      E. Use the LDAP credentials to restrict a group of users from launching specific EC2 instance types

      When using the following AWS services, which should be implemented in multiple Availability Zones for high availability solutions?

      Choose 2 answers

      A. Amazon DynamoDB
      B. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
      C. Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
      D. Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
      E. Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

      You launch an Amazon EC2 instance without an assigned AVVS identity and Access Management (IAM) role. Later, you decide that the instance should be running with an IAM role. Which action must you take in order to have a running Amazon EC2 instance with an IAM role assigned to it?

      A. Create an image of the instance, and register the image with an IAM role assigned and an Amazon EBS volume mapping.
      B. Create a new IAM role with the same permissions as an existing IAM role, and assign it to the running instance.
      C. Create an image of the instance, add a new IAM role with the same permissions as the desired IAM role, and deregister the image with the new role assigned.
      D. Create an image of the instance, and use this image to launch a new instance with the desired IAM role assigned.

      In order to optimize performance for a compute cluster that requires low inter-node latency, which of the following feature should you use?

      A. Multiple Availability Zones
      B. AWS Direct Connect
      C. EC2 Dedicated Instances
      D. Placement Groups
      E. VPC private subnets

      Please select the Amazon EC2 resource which can be tagged.

      A. key pairs
      B. Elastic IP addresses
      C. Placement groups
      D. Amazon EBS snapshots

      What are characteristics of Amazon S3?

      Choose 2 answers

      A. S3 allows you to store objects of virtually unlimited size.
      B. S3 offers Provisioned IOPS.
      C. S3 allows you to store virtually unlimited amounts of data.
      D. S3 should be used to host a relational database.
      E. Objects are directly accessible via a URL

      How can you secure data at rest on an EBS volume?

      A. Attach the volume to an instance using EC2’s SSL interface.
      B. Write the data randomly instead of sequentially.
      C. Encrypt the volume using the S3 server-side encryption service.
      D. Create an IAM policy that restricts read and write access to the volume.
      E. Use an encrypted file system (EFS) on top of the EBS volume.

      Which Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud feature can you query from within the instance to access instance properties?

      A. Instance user data
      B. Resource tags
      C. Instance metadata
      D. Amazon Machine Image

      After creating a new IAM user which of the following must be done before they can successfully make API calls?

      A. Add a password to the user.
      B. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication for the user.
      C. Assign a Password Policy to the user.
      D. Create a set of Access Keys for the user.

      A customer wants to leverage Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Glacier as part of their backup and archive infrastructure. The customer plans to use third-party software to support this integration. Which approach will limit the access of the third-party software to only the Amazon S3 bucket named “companybackup”?

      A. A custom bucket policy limited to the Amazon S3 API in the Amazon Glacier archive “company-backup”
      B. A custom bucket policy limited to the Amazon S3 API in “company-backup”
      C. A custom IAM user policy limited to the Amazon S3 API for the Amazon Glacier archive “company-backup”.
      D. A custom IAM user policy limited to the Amazon S3 API in “company-backup”.

      A company has an AWS account that contains three VPCs (Dev, Test, and Prod) in the same region. Test is peered to both Prod and Dev. All VPCs have non-overlapping CIDR blocks. The company wants to push minor code releases from Dev to Prod to speed up time to market. Which of the following options helps the company accomplish this?

      A. Create a new peering connection Between Prod and Dev along with appropriate routes.
      B. Create a new entry to Prod in the Dev route table using the peering connection as the target.
      C. Attach a second gateway to Dev. Add a new entry in the Prod route table identifying the gateway as the target.
      D. The VPCs have non-overlapping CIDR blocks in the same account. The route tables contain local routes for all VPCs.

      A company needs to monitor the read and write IOPs metrics for their AWS MySQL RDS instance and send real-time alerts to their operations team. Which AWS services can accomplish this?

      Choose 2 answers

      A. Amazon Simple Email Service
      B. Amazon CloudWatch
      C. Amazon Simple Queue Service
      D. Amazon Route 53
      E. Amazon Simple Notification Service

      A company needs to deploy services to an AWS region which they have not previously used. The company currently has an AWS identity and Access Management (IAM) role for the Amazon EC2 instances, which permits the instance to have access to Amazon DynamoDB. The company wants their EC2 instances in the new region to have the same privileges. How should the company achieve this?

      A. Create a new IAM role and associated policies within the new region
      B. Assign the existing IAM role to the Amazon EC2 instances in the new region
      C. Copy the IAM role and associated policies to the new region and attach it to the instances
      D. Create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) of the instance and copy it to the desired region using the AMI Copy feature

      An existing application stores sensitive information on a non-boot Amazon EBS data volume attached to an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud instance. Which of the following approaches would protect the sensitive data on an Amazon EBS volume?

      A. Upload your customer keys to AWS CloudHSM. Associate the Amazon EBS volume with AWS CloudHSM. Re-mount the Amazon EBS volume.
      B. Create and mount a new, encrypted Amazon EBS volume. Move the data to the new volume. Delete the old Amazon EBS volume.
      C. Unmount the EBS volume. Toggle the encryption attribute to True. Re-mount the Amazon EBS volume.
      D. Snapshot the current Amazon EBS volume. Restore the snapshot to a new, encrypted Amazon EBS volume. Mount the Amazon EBS volume

      A customer has a single 3-TB volume on-premises that is used to hold a large repository of images and print layout files. This repository is growing at 500 GB a year and must be presented as a single logical volume. The customer is becoming increasingly constrained with their local storage capacity and wants an off-site backup of this data, while maintaining low-latency access to their frequently accessed data. Which AWS Storage Gateway configuration meets the customer requirements?

      A. Gateway-Cached volumes with snapshots scheduled to Amazon S3
      B. Gateway-Stored volumes with snapshots scheduled to Amazon S3
      C. Gateway-Virtual Tape Library with snapshots to Amazon S3
      D. Gateway-Virtual Tape Library with snapshots to Amazon Glacier

      You are deploying an application to track GPS coordinates of delivery trucks in the United States. Coordinates are transmitted from each delivery truck once every three seconds. You need to design an architecture that will enable real-time processing of these coordinates from multiple consumers. Which service should you use to implement data ingestion?

      A. Amazon Kinesis
      B. AWS Data Pipeline
      C. Amazon AppStream
      D. Amazon Simple Queue Service

      A photo-sharing service stores pictures in Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and allows application sign-in using an OpenID Connect-compatible identity provider. Which AWS Security Token Service approach to temporary access should you use for the Amazon S3 operations?

      A. SAML-based Identity Federation
      B. Cross-Account Access
      C. AWS Identity and Access Management roles
      D. Web Identity Federation

      You manually launch a NAT AMI in a public subnet. The network is properly configured. Security groups and network access control lists are property configured. Instances in a private subnet can access the NAT. The NAT can access the Internet. However, private instances cannot access the Internet. What additional step is required to allow access from the private instances?

      A. Enable Source/Destination Check on the private Instances.
      B. Enable Source/Destination Check on the NAT instance.
      C. Disable Source/Destination Check on the private instances.
      D. Disable Source/Destination Check on the NAT instance.

      A company is deploying a two-tier, highly available web application to AWS. Which service provides durable storage for static content while utilizing lower Overall CPU resources for the web tier?

      A. Amazon EBS volume
      B. Amazon S3
      C. Amazon EC2 instance store
      D. Amazon RDS instance

      You have a load balancer configured for VPC, and all back-end Amazon EC2 instances are in service. However, your web browser times out when connecting to the load balancer’s DNS name. Which options are probable causes of this behavior?
      Choose 2 answers

      A. The load balancer was not configured to use a public subnet with an Internet gateway configured
      B. The Amazon EC2 instances do not have a dynamically allocated private IP address
      C. The security groups or network ACLs are not property configured for web traffic.
      D. The load balancer is not configured in a private subnet with a NAT instance.
      E. The VPC does not have a VGW configured.

      A company is deploying a new two-tier web application in AWS. The company has limited staff and requires high availability, and the application requires complex queries and table joins. Which configuration provides the solution for the company’s requirements?

      A. MySQL Installed on two Amazon EC2 Instances in a single Availability Zone
      B. Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ
      C. Amazon ElastiCache
      D. Amazon DynamoDB

      You have a distributed application that periodically processes large volumes of data across multiple Amazon EC2 Instances. The application is designed to recover gracefully from Amazon EC2 instance failures. You are required to accomplish this task in the most cost- effective way.

      Which of the following will meet your requirements?

      A. Spot Instances
      B. Reserved instances
      C. Dedicated instances
      D. On-Demand instances

      A customer is running a multi-tier web application farm in a virtual private cloud (VPC) that is not connected to their corporate network. They are connecting to the VPC over the Internet to manage all of their Amazon EC2 instances running in both the public and private subnets. They have only authorized the bastion-securitygroup with Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access to the application instance security groups, but the company wants to further limit administrative access to all of the instances in the VPC. Which of the following Bastion deployment scenarios will meet this requirement?

      A. Deploy a Windows Bastion host on the corporate network that has RDP access to all instances in the VPC.
      B. Deploy a Windows Bastion host with an Elastic IP address in the public subnet and allow SSH access to the bastion from anywhere.
      C. Deploy a Windows Bastion host with an Elastic IP address in the private subnet, and restrict RDP access to the bastion from only the corporate public IP addresses.
      D. Deploy a Windows Bastion host with an auto-assigned Public IP address in the public subnet, and allow RDP access to the bastion from only the corporate public IP addresses.

      Which of the following statements are true about Amazon Route 53 resource records?
      Choose 2 answers

      A. An Alias record can map one DNS name to another Amazon Route 53 DNS name.
      B. A CNAME record can be created for your zone apex.
      C. An Amazon Route 53 CNAME record can point to any DNS record hosted anywhere.
      D. TTL can be set for an Alias record in Amazon Route 53. E. An Amazon Route 53 Alias record can point to any DNS record hosted anywhere.

      You have a content management system running on an Amazon EC2 instance that is approaching 100% CPU utilization. Which option will reduce load on the Amazon EC2 instance?

      A. Create a load balancer, and register the Amazon EC2 instance with it
      B. Create a CloudFront distribution, and configure the Amazon EC2 instance as the origin
      C. Create an Auto Scaling group from the instance using the CreateAutoScalingGroup action
      D. Create a launch configuration from the instance using the CreateLaunchConfiguration action

      With which AWS orchestration service can you implement Chef Recipes?

      A. CloudFormation
      B. Elastic Beanstalk
      C. Opsworks
      D. Lambda

      What events can be triggered by an AWS Lambda function?

      Object uploads to Amazon S3
      Amazon SNS notifications
      API actions

      You are designing a web application that stores static assets in an Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket. You expect this bucket to immediately receive over 150 PUT requests per second. What should you do to ensure optimal performance?

      A. Use multi-part upload.
      B. Add a random prefix to the key names.
      C. Amazon S3 will automatically manage performance at this scale.
      D. Use a predictable naming scheme, such as sequential numbers or date time sequences, in the key names

      In the shared security model, AWS is responsible for which of the following security best practices (check all that apply):

      Penetration testing
      Operating system account security management
      Threat modeling
      User group access management
      Static code analysis

      Your AWS environment contains several reserved EC2 instances dedicated to a project that has just been canceled. Your supervisor wants to stop incurring charges for these reserved instances immediately and recuperate as much of the reserved instance cost as possible.
      What can you do to avoid being charged for them?

      Choose the 2 correct answers:

      A. What are characteristics of Amazon S3
      B. Terminate the instances as soon as possible
      C. Sell the reserved instances on the AWS Reserved Instance Marketplace
      D. Stop the instances as soon as possible

      What URL might you query on an EC2 instance in order to find the public AND private IP address of an instance?

      A. http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/
      B. http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data/
      C. http://169.254.169.169/latest/meta-data/
      D. http://169.254.169.169/latest/meta-data/

      You design an application that checks for new items in an S3 bucket once per hour. If new items exist, a message is added to an SQS queue. You have several EC2 instances which retrieve messages from the SQS queue, parse the file, and send you an email containing the relevant information from the file. You upload one test file to the bucket, wait a couple hours and find that you have hundreds of emails from the application. What is the most likely cause for this volume of email?

      A. This is expected behavior when using short polling because SQS does not guarantee that there will not be duplicate messages processed.
      B. Your application does not issue a delete command to the SQS queue after processing the message.
      C. You can only have one EC2 instance polling the SQS queue at a time.

      This is expected behavior when using long polling because SQS does not guarantee that there will not be duplicate messages processed. What is true about EBS?
      (choose 3 correct answers)

      A. You can share the snapshot with other AWS accounts
      B. The snapshots are just stored as another EBS volume
      C. Snapshots are automatically encrypted
      D. The snapshots are stored in S3
      E. Snapshots are incremental in nature and only

      You are excited to have just been employed by a large scientific institution that is at the cutting edge of high-performance computing. Your first job is to launch 10 Large EC2 instances which will all be used to crunch huge amounts of data and will also need to pass this data back and forth between each other. Which of the following would be the most efficient setup to achieve this?

      A. Use the largest EC2 instances currently available on AWS, but make sure they are all in the same Availability Zone
      B. Use Placement Groups and launch the 10 instances at the same time.
      C. Use Placement Groups. Make sure the 10 Instances are spread evenly across Availability Zones.
      D. Use the largest EC2 instances currently available on AWS, but make sure they are all in the same region.

      You’re building a mobile application game. The application needs permissions for each user to communicate and store data in DynamoDB tables. What is the best method for granting each mobile device that installs your application to access DynamoDB tables for storage when required?

      A. Create an IAM group that only gives access to your application and to the DynamoDB tables. Then, when writing to DynamoDB, simply include the unique device ID to associate the data with that specific user.
      B. Create an IAM role with the proper permission policy to communicate with the DynamoDB table. Use web identity federation, which assumes the IAM role using AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity, when the user signs in, granting temporary security credentials using STS.
      C. Create an Active Directory server and an AD user for each mobile application user. When the user signs into the AD sign-on, allow the AD server to federate using SAML 2.0 to IAM and assign a role to the AD user which is the assumed with AssumeRoleWithSAML
      D. BCJC should create a new stack that contains the Python application code and manages separate deployments of the application via the secondary stack using the deploy lifecycle action to implement the application code.

      A user has created a VPC with public and private subnets using the VPC wizard. The user has not launched any instance manually and is trying to delete the VPC. What will happen in this scenario?

      A. It will not allow to delete the VPC since it has a running route instance
      B. It will terminate the VPC along with all the instances launched by the wizard
      C. It will not allow to delete the VPC as it has subnets with route tables
      D. It will not allow to delete the VPC since it has a running NAT instance

      A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a virtual network dedicated to the user’s AWS account. A user can create a subnet with VPC and launch instances inside that subnet. If the user has created a public-private subnet, the instances in the public subnet can receive inbound traffic directly from the Internet, whereas the instances in the private subnet cannot. If these subnets are created with Wizard, AWS will create a NAT instance with an elastic IP. If the user is trying to delete the VPC it will not allow as the NAT instance is still running.

      Which AWS services that you can access to underlying host? (Multiple choice)

      A. ElastiCache
      B. EMR
      C. EC2
      D. DynamoDB
      E. Elastic Beanstalk
      F. RDS

      What are the characteristics of Dynamo DB? (choose 3 correct answers)

      A. It is used for SQL databases like SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle
      B. Gives you a fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability
      C. When reading data from Amazon DynamoDB, users can specify whether they want the read to
      be eventually consistent or strongly consistent
      D. It is a managed service provided by AWS
      E. There is a limit of stored data or throughput of data

      An instance is launched in private VPC subnet. All security, NACL and routing definition configured as expected. A custom NAT instance is launched. Which of the following answer is right for configuring custom NAT instance?

      A. NAT instance should have public is address configured
      B. Source/Destination check should be disabled
      C. NAT instance should be launched in public subnet
      D. NAT instance should have elastic IP address configured

      You are configuring a new VPC for one of your client for a cloud migration project. Only a public VPN will be in place. After you created your VPC, you created a new subnet, a new internet gateway and attached your internet gateway with your VPC. As you created your first instance in to your VPC, you realized that you cannot connect the instance even it is configured with elastic IP. What should be done to access the instance?

      A. A route should be created as 0.0.0.0/0 and your internet gateway as target
      B. A NACL should be created and allow all outbound traffic
      C. A NAT instance should be created, and all traffic should be forwarded to NAT instance
      D. Attach another ENI to instance and connect via new ENI

      How can an instance be copied to another region?

      A. There is no way to copy an instance to another region
      B. First instance’s root volume is detached. Then a new instance is created in another region. Finally, detached volume can be attached to new instance as root device
      C. By stopping instance and using copy option
      D. By creating an AMI and copy it to another region

      What is the most secure option to connect to instances without Internet connectivity in private subnet VPC?

      A. Enable internet connectivity and configure NACL and security group to connect to the instances
      B. Enable internet connectivity and configure security group to connect to the instances
      C. Using a bastion host server to connect to the instances
      D. Configure IAM policy to restrict access to the instances

      Which record type queries are free when using Route 53?

      A. TXT
      B. MX
      C. Alias
      D. AAAA

      About the charge of Elastic IP Address, which of the following is true?

      A. Elastic IP addresses can always be used with no charge.
      B. You can have one Elastic IP (EIP) address associated with a running instance at no charge.
      C. You can have 5 Elastic IP addresses per region with no charge.
      D. You are charged for each Elastic IP addressed.

      You have assigned one Elastic IP to your EC2 instance. Now we need to restart the VM without EIP changed. Which of below you should not do?

      A. Reboot and stop/start both works.
      B. When the instance is in VPC public subnets, stop/start works.
      C. When the instance is in VPC private subnet, stop/start works.
      D. Reboot the instance.

      Which of the below mentioned steps will not be performed while creating the AMI of instance stored-backend?

      A. Define the AMI launch permissions.
      B. Register the AMI
      C. Bundle the volume
      D. Upload the bundled volume

      Which of the following are features of enhanced networking? (Choose 3 answers)

      A. More Packets Per Second (PPS)
      B. Lower latency
      C. Multiple network interfaces
      D. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing
      E. Less jitter

      The user just started an instance at 3 PM. Between 3 PM to 5 PM, he stopped and started the instance twice. During the same period, he has run the Linux reboot command by SSH once and triggered reboot from AWS console once. For how many instance hours will AWS charge this user?

      A. 2
      B. 3
      C. 4
      D. 5

      How can we attach our instance store volume to another instance?

      A. We can stop the instance. Detach the volume. And attach to another instance
      B. We can use “force detach” and then attach to another instance
      C. We can use “detach volume” and then attach to another instance.
      D. We cannot detach or attach instance store volume

      You have an Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) security group with several running EC2 instances. You change the security group rules to allow inbound traffic on a new port and protocol, and launch several new instances in the same security group. The new rules apply:

      A. To all instances, but it may take several minutes for old instances to see the changes.
      B. Immediately to the new instances only.
      C. Immediately to all instances in the security group
      D. Immediately to the new instances, but old instances must be stopped and restarted before the new rules apply.

      How can software determine the public and private IP addresses of the Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute instance that it is running on?

      A. Use an ipconfig or ifconfig command
      B. Query the local instance metadata.
      C. Query the local instance userdata.
      D. Query the appropriate Amazon CloudWatch metric.

      You receive a Spot Instance at a bid of $0.05/hr. After 30 minutes, the Spot Price increases to $0.06/hr. and your Spot Instance is terminated by AWS. What was the total EC2 compute cost of running your Spot Instance?

      A. $0.02
      B. $0.00
      C. $0.05
      D. $0.06
      E. $0.025

      (Note: if you bid on a price, and AWS restart the instances for marketplace and price changes within the marketplace, the customer pays the CURRENT price). Similar question but bid starts at $0.20/hr. and you bid $0.22/hr., after 90 minutes, the instance is terminated by AWS and new price is $0.22/hr. Which price would you pay? ANS: $0.25. Anytime instance restart, Amazon charges you per hour. So 90 minutes, user will be charged for 2hrs.

      You have an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with a public subnet. Three Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances currently running inside the subnet can successfully communicate with other hosts on the Internet. You launch a fourth instance in the same subnet, using the same Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and security group configuration you used for the others, but find that this instance cannot be accessed from the Internet. What should you do to enable Internet access?

      A. Deploy a NAT instance into the public subnet
      B. Modify the routing table for the public subnet
      C. Assign an elastic IP address to the fourth instance
      D. Configure a publicly routable IP address in the host OS of the fourth instance.

      A startup company hired you to help them build a mobile application, that will ultimately store billions of images and videos in Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). The company is lean on funding, and wants to minimize operational costs, however, they have an aggressive marketing plan, and expect to double their current installation base every six months. Due to the nature of their business, they are expecting sudden and large increases in the traffic to and from S3, and need to ensure that it can handle the performance needs of their application. What other information must you gather from this customer in order to determine whether S3 is the right option?

      A. In order to build the key namespace correctly, you must understand the total amount of storage needs for each S3 bucket.
      B. You must find out the total number of requests per second at peak usage.
      C. You must know how many customers the company has today, because this is critical in understanding what their customer base will be in two years.
      D. You must know the size of individual objects being written to S3, in order to properly design the key namespace.

      You are deploying an application an Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) that must call AWS APIs. What method of securely passing credentials to the application should you use?

      A. Embed the API credentials into your JAR files.
      B. Pass API credentials to the instance using instance user data.
      C. Store API credentials as an object in Amazon Simple Storage Service
      D. Use AWS Identity and Access Management roles for EC2 instances

      A VPC public subnet is one that:

      A. Includes a route in its associated routing table via a Network Address Translation (NAT) instance.
      B. Has a Network Access Control List (NACL) permitting outbound traffic to 0.0.0.0/0
      C. Has at least one route in its associated routing table that uses an Internet Gateway (IGW).
      D. Has the Public Subnet option selected in its configuration.

      In reviewing the Auto Scaling events for your application, you notice that your application is scaling up and down multiple times in the same hour. What design choice could you make to optimize for cost while preserving elasticity? (Choose 3 answers)

      A. Modify the Auto Scaling group termination policy to terminate the oldest instance first.
      B. Modify the Amazon CloudWatch alarm period that triggers your Auto Scaling scale down policy.
      C. Modify the Auto Scaling group termination policy to terminate the newest instance first
      D. Modify the Auto Scaling policy to use scheduled scaling actions.
      E. Modify the Auto Scaling group cool-down timers.

      What action is required to establish an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) VPN connection between an on-premises data center and an Amazon VPC virtual private gateway?

      A. Modify the main route table to allow traffic to a network address translation instance.
      B. Assign a static Internet-routable IP address to an Amazon VPC customer gateway.
      C. Establish a dedicated networking connection using AWS Direct Connect.
      D. Use a dedicated network address translation instance in the public subnet

      Which of the following is a durable key-value store?

      A. Amazon Simple Queue Service
      B. Amazon Simple Workflow Service
      C. Amazon Simple Storage Service
      D. Amazon Simple Notification Service

      You have an application running in us-west-2 that requires six Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances running at all times. With three AZs available in that region (us-west-2a, us-west-2b, and us-west-2c), which of the following deployments provides 100 percent fault tolerance if any single AZ in us-west-2 becomes unavailable? (Choose 2 answers)

      A. Us-west-2a with two EC2 instances, us-west-2b with two EC2 instances, and us-west-2c with two EC2 instances
      B. Us-west-2a with four EC2 instances, us-west-2b with two EC2 instances, and us-west-2c with two EC2-instances
      C. Us-west-2a with three EC2 instances, us-west-2b with three EC2 instances, and us-west-2c with no EC2 instances
      D. Us-west-2a with three EC2 instances, us-west-2b with three EC2 instances, and us-west-2c with three EC2 instances.
      E. Us-west-2a with six EC2 instances, us-west-2b with six EC2 instances, and us-west-2c with no EC2 instances

      Which route must be added to your routing table to allow connections to the Internet from your subnet?

      A. Destination: 0.0.0.0/0 –> Target: 0.0.0.0/32
      B. Destination: 192.168.1.257/0 –> Target: your Internet gateway
      C. Destination: 0.0.0.0/0 –> Target: your Internet gateway
      D. Destination: 10.0.0.0/32 –> Target: your virtual private gateway
      E. Destination: 0.0.0.0/32 –> Target: your virtual private gateway

      What are the characteristics of Subnet? (choose 2 correct answers)

      A. A subnet can be across multiple availability zones
      B. Default subnets are assigned a /16 netblocks
      C. Network traffic entering and exiting each subnet can be allowed or denied via network Access Control Lists (ACLs)
      D. A subnet can be across multiple regions
      E. Default subnets are assigned a /20 netblocks

      In Which case do you have full authority of the underlying host? (choose 2 correct answers)

      A. EC2
      B. EMR (Elastic Map Reduce)
      C. Simple DB
      D. Dynamo DB
      E. RDS

      After the Government organization you work for suffers it’s 3rd DDOS attack of the year you have been handed one part of a strategy to try and stop this from happening again. You have been told that your job is to minimize the attack surface area. You do have a vague idea of some of the things you need to put in place to achieve this. Which of the following is NOT one of the ways to minimize the attack surface area as a DDOS minimization strategy?

      A. Eliminate non-critical Internet entry points.
      B. Reduce the number of necessary Internet entry points.
      C. Configure services such as Elastic Load Balancing and Auto Scaling to automatically scale.
      D. Separate end user traffic from management traffic.

      What is the difference between an availability zone and an edge location?

      A. Edge locations are used as control stations for AWS resources
      B. None of the above
      C. An availability zone is an Amazon Resource within an AWS region whereas an edge location will deliver cached content to the closest location to reduce latency
      D. An availability zone is a grouping of AWS resources in a specific region; an edge location is a specific resource within the AWS region

      Which of the following AWS services allow you access to the underlying operating system?
      Choose the 2 correct answers:

      A. RDS
      B. S3
      C. EMR
      D. Elastic Beanstalk

      You are a consultant tasked with migrating an on-premise application architecture to AWS. During your design process you have to give consideration to current on-premise security and determine which security attributes you are responsible for on AWS. Which of the follow does AWS provide for you as part of the shared responsibility model?
      Choose the 2 correct answers:

      A. Virtualization Infrastructure
      B. Instance Security
      C. Physical Network Infrastructure
      D. User access to the AWS environment

      Which is an operational process performed by AWS for data security?

      A. Secure wiping of EBS data when an EBS volume is unmounted
      B. Background virus scans of EBS volumes and EBS snapshots
      C. Background virus scans of EBS volumes and EBS snapshots
      D. Decommissioning of storage devices using industry-standard practices

      Company B provides an online image recognition service and utilizes SQS to decouple system components for scalability. The SQS consumer’s readers’ poll the image queue as often as possible to keep end-to-end throughput as high as possible. However, Company B is realizing that polling in tight loops is burning CPU cycles and increasing costs with empty responses. How can company B reduce the number of empty responses?

      A. Enable short polling on the SQS queue by setting the ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to a number > 0
      B. Enable short polling on the SQS message by setting the ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to a number = 0
      C. Scale the component making the request using auto scaling based off the number of messages in the queue
      D. Enable long polling by setting the ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to a number > 0

      You need to import several hundred megabytes of data from a local Oracle database to an Amazon RDS DB instance. What does AWS recommend to use to accomplish this?

      A. Oracle Data Pump
      B. Oracle Export/Import Utilities
      C. DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER
      D. Oracle SQL Developer

      A user has created a VPC with two subnets: one public and one private. The user is planning to run the patch update for the instances in the private subnet. How can the instances in the private subnet connect to the internet?

      A. Use the internet gateway with a private IP
      B. Allow outbound traffic in the security group for port 80 to allow internet updates
      C. The private subnet can never connect to the internet
      D. Use NAT with an Elastic IP

      A user has created a VPC with public and private subnets using the VPC wizard. Which of the below mentioned statements is true in this scenario?

      A. AWS VPC will automatically create a NAT instance with the micro size
      B. VPC bounds the main route table with a public subnet and a custom route table with a private subnet
      C. VPC bounds the main route table with a private subnet and a custom route table with a public subnet
      D. User has to manually create a NAT instance

      A user has created a VPC with a subnet and a security group. The user has launched an instance in that subnet and attached a public IP. The user is still unable to connect to the instance. The internet gateway has also been created. What can be the reason for the error?

      A. The internet gateway is not configured with the route table
      B. The private IP is not present
      C. The internet gateway is not configured with the security group
      D. The outbound traffic on the security group is disabled

      You are attempting to connect to an instance in Amazon VPC without success you have already verified that the VPC has an Internet Gateway (IGW) the instance has an associated Elastic IP (EIP) and correct security group rules are in place. Which VPC component should you evaluate next?

      A. The configuration of the Routing Table
      B. The configuration of a NAT instance
      C. The configuration of the internet Gateway (IGW)
      D. The configuration of SRC/DST checking

      After launching an instance that you intend to serve as a NAT (Network Address Translation) device in a public subnet you modify your route tables to have the NAT device be the target of internet bound traffic of your private subnet. When you try and make an outbound connection to the Internet from an instance in the private subnet, you are not successful. Which of the following steps could resolve the issue?

      A. Attaching an Elastic IP address to the instance in the private subnet
      B. Disabling the Source/Destination Check attribute on the NAT instance
      C. Attaching a second Elastic Network interface (ENI) to the NAT instance, and placing it in the private subnet
      D. Attaching a second Elastic Network Interface (ENI) to the instance in the private subnet, and placing it in the public subnet

      An instance is launched into a VPC subnet with the network ACL configured to allow all inbound traffic and deny all outbound traffic. The instance’s security group is configured to allow SSH from any IP address and deny all outbound traffic. What changes need to be made to allow SSH access to the instance?

      A. The outbound network ACL needs to be modified to allow outbound traffic.
      B. Both the outbound security group and outbound network ACL need to be modified to allow outbound traffic.
      C. The outbound security group needs to be modified to allow outbound traffic.
      D. Nothing, it can be accessed from any IP address using SSH.

      You are currently hosting multiple applications in a VPC and have logged numerous port scans coming in from a specific IP address block. Your security team has requested that all access from the offending IP address block be denied for the next 24 hours. Which of the following is the best method to quickly and temporarily deny access from the specified IP address block?

      A. Create an AD policy to modify Windows Firewall settings on all hosts in the VPC to deny access from the IP address block
      B. Modify the Network ACLs associated with all public subnets in the VPC to deny access from the IP address block
      C. Modify the Windows Firewall settings on all Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that your organization uses in that VPC to deny access from the IP address block
      D. Add a rule to all of the VPC 5 Security Groups to deny access from the IP address block

      You have two Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances inside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in the same Availability Zone (AZ) but in different subnets. One instance is running a database and the other instance an application that will interface with the database. You want to confirm that they can talk to each other for your application to work properly. Which two things do we need to confirm in the VPC settings so that these EC2 instances can communicate inside the VPC? Choose 2 answers

      A. That the default route is set to a NAT instance or Internet Gateway (IGW) for them to communicate.
      B. Both instances are the same instance class and using the same Key-pair.
      C. A network ACL that allows communication between the two subnets.
      D. Security groups are set to allow the application host to talk to the database on the right port/protocol

      When you put objects in Amazon S3, what is the indication that an object was successfully stored?

      A. A success code is inserted into the S3 object metadata.
      B. Each S3 account has a special bucket named_s3_logs. Success codes are written to this bucket with a timestamp and checksum.
      C. Amazon S3 is engineered for 99.999999999% durability. Therefore, there is no need to confirm that data was inserted.
      D. A HTTP 200 result code and MD5 checksum, taken together, indicate that the operation was successful.

      A company is storing data on Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). The company’s security policy mandates that data is encrypted at rest. Which of the following methods can achieve this?
      Choose 3 answers

      A. Use Amazon S3 server-side encryption with AWS Key Management Service managed keys
      B. Use Amazon S3 server-side encryption with customer-provided keys
      C. Use Amazon S3 bucket policies to restrict access to the data at rest.
      D. Use SSL to encrypt the data while in transit to Amazon S3
      E. Use Amazon S3 server-side encryption with EC2 key pair.
      F. Encrypt the data on the client-side before ingesting to Amazon S3 using their own master key

      When an EC2 instance that is backed by an S3-based AMI Is terminated, what happens to the data on the root volume?

      A. Data is automatically deleted
      B. Data is automatically saved as an EBS snapshot.
      C. Data is automatically saved as an EBS volume.
      D. Data is unavailable until the instance is restarted

      In AWS, which security aspects are the customer’s responsibility? Choose 4 answers

      A. Life-cycle management of IAM credentials
      B. Patch management on the EC2 instances operating system
      C. Encryption of EBS (Elastic Block Storage) volumes
      D. Decommissioning storage devices (AWS responsibility)
      E. Security Group and ACL (Access Control List) settings
      F. Controlling physical access to compute resources (AWS responsibility)

      A customer is hosting their company website on a cluster of web servers that are behind a public-facing load balancer. The customer also uses Amazon Route 53 to manage their public DNS. How should the customer configure the DNS zone apex record to point to the load balancer?

      A. Create an A record aliased to the load balancer DNS name
      B. Create a CNAME record aliased to the load balancer DNS name.
      C. Create an A record pointing to the IP address of the load balancer
      D. Create a CNAME record pointing to the load balancer DNS name.

      For which of the following use cases are Simple Workflow Service (SWF) and Amazon EC2 an appropriate solution? Choose 2 answers

      A. Using as an endpoint to collect thousands of data points per hour from a distributed fleet of sensors
      B. Managing a multi-step and multi-decision checkout process of an e-commerce website
      C. Orchestrating the execution of distributed and auditable business processes
      D. Using as an SNS (Simple Notification Service) endpoint to trigger execution of video transcoding jobs
      E. Using as a distributed session store for your web application

      Which procedure for backing up a relational database on EC2 that is using a set of RAIDED EBS volumes for storage minimizes the time during which the database cannot be written to and results in a consistent backup?

      F. Detach EBS volumes, 2. Start EBS snapshot of volumes, 3. Re-attach EBS volumes
      G. Suspend disk I/O, 2. Start EBS snapshot of volumes, 3. Wait for snapshots to complete, 4. Resume disk I/O
      H. Stop the EC2 Instance. 2. Snapshot the EBS volumes
      I. Suspend disk I/O, 2. Create an image of the EC2 Instance, 3. Resume disk I/O
      J. Orchestrating the execution of distributed and auditable business processes
      using as an SNS (Simple Notification Service) endpoint to trigger execution of video transcoding jobs
      K. using as a distributed session store for your web application

      A company has configured and peered two VPCs: VPC-1 and VPC-2. VPC-1 contains only private subnets, and VPC-2 contains only public subnets. The company uses a single AWS Direct Connect connection and private virtual interface to connect their on-premises network with VPC-1. Which two methods increase the fault tolerance of the connection to VPC-1? Choose 2 answers

      A. Establish a hardware VPN over the internet between VPC-2 and the on-premises network. (Peered VPC does not support Edge to Edge Routing)
      B. Establish a hardware VPN over the internet between VPC-1 and the on-premises network
      C. Establish a new AWS Direct Connect connection and private virtual interface in the same region as VPC-2 (Peered VPC does not support Edge to Edge Routing)
      D. Establish a new AWS Direct Connect connection and private virtual interface in a different AWS region than VPC-1 (need to be in the same region as VPC-1)
      E. Establish a new AWS Direct Connect connection and private virtual interface in the same AWS region as VPC-1

  13. Hi Jayendra, I have passed AWS CSA exam today. Thanks a lot for putting so much effort in keeping these blogs up to date. My exam pattern was similar to Nandkishor.

    1. Congratulations on your certification. Can you please share the practice exam material?
      Really Appreciate that.

  14. Hello All,
    Just now i came to know about the Jay’s Blog. Feel great on the Jay’s efforts in preparing this…. I am preparing for the CSA exam. i am yet to browse the blog completely. as of now i am referring Acloudguru , Linux academy and will add this blog now for preparation.
    I welcome the suggestions on preparation recommended for the exam .

    Regards,
    csvenkat.

  15. Dear Jayendra,
    I just cleared my AWS SA and I want to thank you for an awesome blog you have here which is full of information. It helped me immensely and I am now getting ready for Sys OPs and hoping to repeat the same with your blog’s help !!! God Bless !!

  16. Dear Jayendra,

    I cleared AWS SA i really appreciate your help in making this real. i watched acloud guru that helped in understanding the concept also read your white papers and also used Brain cert many of the questions are on the question. God bless from United states

  17. Hello Jayendra,
    I just came across your blog. I finished my course on linuxacademy and took whizlabs but still failed my SAA. Right now I am going thru your blog to get more knowledge for my next attempt. Do I have to go over each whitepaper under “AWS Whitepapers” and each section under “AWS Services” to clear my SAA exam? or do I have to go over https://jayendrapatil.com/aws-solution-architect-associate-exam-learning-path/

    Please advise.

    Thanks
    -Praveen.

    1. Hi Pravenn, I would recommend go through FAQs for the services, read through the blog topics and try Braincert practice exams. Also, know the reasoning for right as well as wrong answers, that would help you eliminate options during exams

  18. Hi Jayendra,

    Your blog is excellent, it help me a lot to recollect all important points before going to take my exam. Yesterday I cleared my AWS – CSA Associate. Thank you so much by keeping this blog updated.

    -Srinu

  19. Thank you so much for the blog.. I completed my SA associate exam today with 85%.. your blog was most elaborate and the questions in every page helps us to understand the concept..I have purchased braincert as well.. Now my target is solution architect professional.. Can you please provide some inputs on that?

    1. thats great Keerthana, congrats. For SA-Prof, I would recommend going for Linux Academy course as it is more detailed and Braincert practice tests for preparation. Go through the blog for important topics and whitepapers. Prof. exam is quite exhaustive and needs good preparation.

  20. Hi Jayendra,

    I will be taking the Solutions Architect Associate exam this weekend what will be your suggestion that I should read at this point in time.

    I am still not confident enough to face the exam. I need your valuable suggestion.

    Thank you

    1. Go through the important topics and FAQs. If you are not confident, would recommend you try Braincert practice tests and try to map all the concepts for the right and wrong answers.

    2. Hello,

      On 24th Oct, questions came from below topics.

      Spot instance charge
      API gateway benefits
      Quickly transfer 10tb data to glacier – aws export import
      How to track access to ec2 in vpc. Option was vpc flow logs, cloud trail etc
      Deploy lamp stack with less human resource(option beanstalk/code deploy)
      Bastion host questions
      Study Load balancer type difference
      What service will do Dynamic port configure
      Which help in instance increase in auto scale. (option were lock down/ cool down cloud watch etc)
      Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
      NAT instance / NAT gateway…check the difference/use
      Elastic store which will shrink and expand (EFS)
      Cross zone balancing in ELB, benfits
      Availability of S3/RRS
      Use of kinesis

  21. Hi Jayendra

    Thank you for keeping the blog updated and filled with details, please continue to do so. It is very helpful for us.
    One question – how to know if I’m ready for the exam? Any thoughts? Actually
    I have planned for the exam in a week. I have gone through acloudguru, your blog notes. I have tried all the Wizhlabs and TheCertSchool practice tests and some of the braincert tests. I have got between 75% to 85% score in these practice tests.
    Is it ok for me to proceed to the exam spending couple of days refreshing all the above? Or Is it necessary to get more than 90% in all these practice tests before sitting for the actual exam?

    Thank you.

    1. It necessary to know the concepts well enough, even if you do not score on the tests. But if you know whats right and whats wrong and why that should be enough to appear for the exam.

  22. Hi Jayendra

    Advertisement on your blog regarding AWS exam test is not appropriate.
    It is not fully complete and on 1 exam test is available out of 6

  23. Hi Jayendra
    Thanks for this awesome information.
    I’m an analyst and have never worked on anything related to this.
    Is there any prerequisite before I take this exam?
    Can you please suggest some reading material for the basic concepts?

  24. Hello Jayendra,

    Thank you for this awesome blog. Passed SA Accociate exam. Saw this blog only 3-4 days before the exam. The Dumps i referred had wrong answers, but was cleared by your blog with explanation. Thanks a lot. As you said, knowing all the concept is must.Out of 500 questions referred only 15 came, but will get an idea. Practicing aws labs also helped a lot.

  25. Jayendra

    Do you know what is the passing score currently for Solution Architect Associate Exam?

    Thank you
    Ramya.

  26. Currently studying for the exam and just found this site… great resource!

    One question I have, there is discussion about reading the FAQ’s along with whitepapers.

    I found a link to the FAQs (https://aws.amazon.com/faqs/) but is there a link / location for the whitepapers?

    Or would the FAQ’s be sufficient?

    Thanks!

  27. Hello Jayendra,

    Passed the Solution Architect Associate exam with 89% score.
    Thanks for sharing this blog. It really helped a lot.

    Thanks,
    Kishnaz

  28. Hi Jayendra,

    Thank you very much for this great blog! Please continue to update it.

    I cleared my AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam 95%. Looking forward to the Professional level.

    Thank you

    1. Ramya,

      Please can you update on the topics that came up in the questions? which areas did it cover? any new topics have been added to the questions. Please advise. that would really help the test takers.

    2. Hi Ramya,

      Congrats for the accomplishment. I plan to take the exam in few days.
      Can you please highlight us on the topic came for exam and any new concept .

      Regards
      Sriram

  29. The questions were very similar to what has posted above. Whizlabs and brain cert practice questions are very helpful. No other new topics other than Api Gateway, Lamda, ALB.
    Good luck to you!

  30. Thankyou Jayendra for the wonderful coverage of all the topics. This really helped me to PASS the exam y’day . My exam had questions from IAM, 1 ECS, VPC,S3, Lambda, Route 53, EC2, RDS, Elasticache, Autoscaling. The questions were not lengthy but answer choices were close enough. More ‘choose 2’ options questions.

  31. Thanks Jayendra a lot.
    I cleared solutions Architect exam yesterday.
    Your blog was really helpful.

  32. Thanks a lot Jayendra for the beautiful blog.

    I cleared my AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam today. The exams question were mostly similiar to what are discussed in ur blog, Whizlab and Braincert.

    Apart from the Core and major topics, I got questions from the below topics
    – Kinesis usecase ( mainly on Kinesis firehose and streams usecase)
    – NAT gateway ( A webserver hosted in a NAT setup with 7Gbps traffic)
    – Couple of ALB Q ( ECS with dynamic port mapping, path based routing)
    – Lambda ( Event source generation services S3, DynamoDB, ELB, Route53,Redshift)
    – API gateway & cors ( combined usecase )
    – Trusted Advisor ( under utilization of EC2 instance)
    – STS
    – DynamoDB
    – Spot Instance pricing
    – Identification of Rough EC2 instance details ( cloud trail, vpc flow)
    – Auto-scaling ( changing ec2 image, one scenario q on number of Autoscaling grp)

      1. It wasn’t hard. The questions were straightforward and English statements were simple to understand. Answer options were also not confusing. If you understand the concepts well you can answer without difficulty.

        Regards
        Sriram

  33. Thank you Rajendra for your
    Lightning quick response and additional informations you have provided. I am aiming to do the exam associate exam in the next 10 days. We are lucky that we found you. Thanks again.
    BR
    Shiva

  34. Hi,
    What is the future prospect after AWS Solution Architect certification ? I am an experienced IT pro with development background with 12+ yrs exp.

    Best Regards
    AB

    1. Future prospect are good with AWS experience. AWS SA certification would just get you started.

  35. any hints on when the current SAA exam is being retired or replaced with the new one under beta now?

  36. Hello Jayendra ,
    Is the blueprint has change for AWS SAA exam, I am preparing from few months and scheduled exam on 29th JAN 2018.
    Is number of questions and timings are change?
    AWS Solution Architect – Associate Exam Blue Print
    Thanks in advance!!!

    1. Hi Dnyaneshwar, haven’t heard back of any changes. However, new topics have been introduced.

  37. I took exam on Nov 22 and passed SAA.

    I did 2.5 months of cloudguru. In last 10 days I found this blog.
    CloudGuru is good intro if you have no experience with AWS. But that is NOT enough.
    You need lot of in-depth reading on AWS whitepapers/faqs.
    Jayendra you have done an excellent job. I passed because of you.

    Areas to cover –
    S3, databases – when to use S3 and dynamoDB
    Know how to set up the route table for public, private subnets – web layer, DB layer, data center – saw questions here
    Load Balnacer (saw specific question on classic ELB)
    API Gateway Features (throttling, caching),
    Edge locations,Cloudfront origins, cloudfront path patterns.
    Lamda Basics,
    EFS Basics, IAM permissions,
    Ec2 instances showing up in ECS cluster,
    Direct Connect
    Kinesis Streams Vs firehose, DynamoDB VS Elastic cache,
    CloudFormation Vs ElasticBeanStalk
    OpsWorks
    Route53 (saw a question – zone apex, A record, CNAME)
    which services provide encryption at rest,
    which services can trigger lamdas,
    EBS replication across regions,
    why and when to use DynamoDB,
    reserved instance features,
    graceful shutdown of application and spot instances,
    what does STS provide , SQS and priority,
    auto scaling termination policy,
    auto scaling cool down timers, SNS supported end points.

    Overall exam is not straight forward. Good understanding of all AWS stack is required. Attempt questions on this blog.
    READ AWS whitepapers – I read last minute. Please read them as you prepare.

  38. Cleared AWS CSA on Nov 29th with 85%. Thanks Jayendra , I followed your blog and questions to get more practice.
    Basically I followed

    AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam Mastery-2018 from Udemy -Eissa Sheriff from DolfiNED. Excellent course. You will feel the confidence and scenario based explanation

    Thanks,
    valli

  39. I passed my AWS Architect Associate exam yesterday with 89 score (still cant believe that 😉 ).

    Exam Topics coverage for my exam-
    There were 55 Qs. Exam started with relatively tough Qs on start and mostly were API Gateway and DyamoDB. I almost choked on seeing so many Qs on API Gateway in depth and all were in 1st 15 Qs of exam. Then it started with medium tough Qs from 20 to 40 Qs and end it were preety easier Qs last 15. I know it might be purposefully formulated like this to make your nerves breakdown but being patient and moving on is the key as it gets relatively better as you progress in exam. I was doubtful for anwsers for around 15 Qs (so anwered it what thought is best in 1st glance) and flagged them for review at end. Believe me It helps a lot instead of choking on 1 Q and missing easier part at the end.

    Lots of Questions on Core Services –
    EC2 , EBS, DynamoDB, S3.
    EC2 – Userdata, Metadata, SSH, choosing Access keys and passwords – difference for EC2 login, and other preety easy Qs, choosing NAT Gateway over NAT instance – know main differences
    EBS – Know IOPS limits to use for GP2 and IO1 volumes and which to use for given scnerio based on IOPS limits. Snapshots & Encrytion and few other easier Q
    Atlest 7 Questions on API gateway & 6 on DyamoDB (Please study it in depth from all available resources on Amazon realted to these 2 services – it was weighted quite heavily and really tough Qs for API especially) –
    DynamoDB use cases – Atlest 5 Questions where i had to choose DyanmoDB
    Know difference between usecases where to use Elasticache and DynamoDB – Got 2 similar Qs with one small difference based on which u need to choose elasticache in one and DynamoDB in other.
    Only 2-3 Qs on VPC
    Direct connect and VPN use cases # mixing possibilities.
    Only 2 Qs on RDS – Especially Read replica and Standby RDS instance use case, MultiAZ and Stanby RDS instance differences.
    Autoscaling and ELB’s – relatively medium and easy level Qs (Around 4 Qs), Byhard the Autoscaling termination policy (Quite tedious Q asked but if you know chart by hard u can answer it correctly)
    Route 53 – only 1 Q (scnerio based – make choice between ELB or route 53)
    EFS – 1 Q (Sharing)
    IAM – 3 Questions (pretty easier Qs),
    S3 – Scenraio based Qs (Around 3-4) – use case, choose appropriate S3 storage between STD, IA, RRS and Glacie in data lifecycling scnerio (was quite logical)
    SQS & SWF (Around 2 Qs) – Pretty easy use case Qs, Know the differnces so u can choose correct one.
    VPC flow logs vs cloudwatch logs monitoring for network monitoring – which will you use or will you use both?
    Lambda – 2 questions
    Cloudwatch logs and cloudwatch events – difference and use cases
    Cloudtrail – API logs monitoring
    STS – which login types are covered by STS – Federated (SAML – AD connector, Amazon, FB, Google).
    Does IAM Roles or cross account access comes under STS?
    Know difference between AD connector and Simple AD and its use cases.
    Cross account access – use cases
    Kinesis Streams vs Firehose VS Analytics # Know the difference which to use when?
    ECS & EMR – 1 question each – was quite medium Q for ECS and tough one for EMR.
    AWS shared responsibility model
    Other Qs – VPC peering, IAM Roles, RDS on EC2, Storage Gateway.
    No questions on Redis, Memcached, Data Pipeline, Cognito, Workspaces, WAF, Billing, AWS support, Elastic Beanstalks, Opsworks.

    Exam Tips (Based on my study) –
    1. Do Acloudguru course from Ryan on UDemy with all its Questions and Answers (Its the best) # make your own notes out of it.
    2. Do Eissa course “AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam Master” on Udemy for in depth of core services – VPC, EC2, EBS, ELB & Autoscaling – really helped me gain mastery over these hard core subjects (No need to do Q&A sections in this course as such in depth scnerios will not be asked. No need to do S3 & RDS from this as I felt doing S3 and RDS from just Acloudguru course is good enough for exam as Qs for these topics were less and relatively easy) – Make your notes.
    3. Practise on Free tier or buy Qwiklabs and practise the Architect Associate Quest and few other free labs on it. Really helps to get into the depth and understanding services more better.
    4. Read FAQs for VPC, S3, EC2, EBS, DynamoDB, API Gateway (Quick glance on Qs in good enough)
    5. Whitepapers – No need to read any of whitepaper (AWS cloudguru covers them all and is good enough). Security whitepaper is only important if you really want to read it (Do it if you have time else skip this whitepaper as well).
    6. Do revision for your exam with your notes from above 2 courses and jayendrapatil’s and
    chrisfwilliams blogs – really helps for quick last minute reviews in short and (
    https://jayendrapatil.com/aws-certification-exam-cheat-sheet/
    http://mistwire.com/2016/05/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-study-notes/)
    7. Do as many practise exams as possible available on Udemy, Simplilearn (Free test), Free exam Apps available on Android, Sybex book (300 Q). No real exam Qs with any of them but preety close atleast for 7-8 Questions. But it gives a quest of how and what type of Qs can came and helps you for readiness for exam. Don’t byhard any Qs & Answers from here – just do them once to check your prepardness. If you have less time, just do Braincert and you can skip other Udemy and Sybex book Qs – main thing to check explanations for each answer that develops in depth knowledge of theory and they have links to AWS for proof of anwers # read them as well for any tough Qs that helps a lot ). Braincert is designed more close enough to actual exam based question framing and its expalinations gain more insight into theory.

    Final tip –
    Knowing the theory deep enough and little bit of practical labs practise is the real thing that makes you pass with flying colours. Dont rely on any Dumps as Qs are really new and logical answering based on your knowledge is the key to pass with flying colours. You need lots of patience for stuyding AWS from so many resources. I studied for almost 6 months (Average 12 hours weekly doing theory, labs, practise Qs, FAQs topic by topic and then simulating it all together in last 3 weeks with revising all of theory).

    All the Best!!!

  40. passed my AWS Architect Associate exam today with 81%.

    Thanks Jayendra . I followed your Blogs & practice questions , Linux academy &
    Cloud Guru Course.

    Thanks – Vishal

  41. Passed my exam today with 97%. Thanks so much for your wonderful blogs, it was so helpful for the preparation.

    Ryan & ACG course – Provides excellent hands-on overview of all the core services and with in few minutes of videos, you get that confidence that you are on safe hands. Really Hats off to Ryan and his method of teaching. Practice all the labs and VPC, VPC, VPC and VPC. Explore all the options on the console, while doing your labs. Like, what all you can do while the service is stopped, running, pending, what you can and can’t update. Pay close attention to the videos, there are few small things you can miss and that can be crucial for the preparation.

    DolfinEd Course & Linux Academy – One of the course, gives a real deep theoretical understanding on the core services – EC2, ELB(best explanation among all the videos), Autoscaling(again top notch), S3, RDS & EBS. Highly recommend.

    AWS Official book: Good additional supplementation to the videos. Not really required, but I am a book reader, so won’t complain.

    AWS User documentation: This really helped me in filling the gaps from the videos. Absolutely required, if you want get the deep knowledge. Highly recommend for the core services.

    Jayendra patil Blogs: Again deep theoretical understanding on the major services and nice explanation of the exam blueprint. Excellent Practice questions. Check this out w/o fail.

    Practice exams: Whizlabs and Braincert(all in all around 1000 questions). I compare Braincert to the level of AWS official exam. Good thing about them is that they pick questions from FAQ’s and also provide good explanation of the right and wrong answers. I used to get average 80% on both Braincert and Whizlabs. If you are new to AWS like me, then these are absolutely needed to get real exam experience.

    FAQ’s: VPC, EC2, S3, ELB, SQS, ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, R53, Dyanmo DB, RDS. Read FAQ’s during your final days of preparation and this will help you to revise the topics and get additional knowledge about the services. Not sure, if I really got questions straight out of FAQ’s though.

    Whitepapers: Best Practices( to me this whitepaper is really critical to understand AWS architecture), Security(read twice), Ryan’s Well Architected Framework video.

  42. Hi Jayendra

    I am planning to do Certification on AWS ASA. Can you please provide rith path so i can clear the exam. I am very thankful if you take time to guide me.please provide the notes as well if you can zxkrishna229@gmail.com

  43. I just passed. Was tough tbh. Wouldn’t have passed if it wasn’t for your website so thanks very much. I would say only about 5% of questions were similar to yours on the site. Your questions still helped a lot to see which areas I still needed to learn for the exam.

    Thanks again.

    1. hi scott ,

      can u please let us know which exam you passed and what were the topics/questions that appeared?

  44. hi Jayendra,

    i bought the Udemy AWS mastery course via link posted here. I aspire to clear AWS SA-A exam. Your blog is good but i also wish more people post with new changed format that we are hearing. Also want to know if the format will keep changing or gets stable after 6 months or so?

    1. Hi Ashish, it all depends on the users to provide feedback about the exam. AWS exams don’t change completely, but they do keep on adding new topics and questions. Also, it does not keep up with the latest enhancements.

  45. Hi Jayendra,
    I am taking the AWS SA-Associate test on 2nd Jan. I have been scoring about 70% in some of the sample tests. I had gone thru the Udemy course. Could you share some tips would would be useful for increasing my confidence?

    subbu007@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Subbu

  46. Hi Jayendra

    I am planning to do Certification on AWS Associate Solution Architect. Can you please provide right path so i can clear the exam. I am very thankful if you take time to guide me.please provide the notes as well if you can, currently i am a full stack java developer

  47. Hello Jay,
    please do send me the resources and preparation stuff for AWS Associate SA exams.

  48. Hello Jayendra,

    I have started studying for Certification on AWS Associate Solution Architect. Your website is a tremendous help in this effort. Studied VPC, subnet and signed up AWS Free tier for hands on. But appears free tier does not allow VPC any longer. Can you please suggest alternate options? Should I transition to paying plan for one month? Hopefully, it will allow all hands on VPC. How to do hands-on for all other contents? Will free tier allow it?

    Appreciate any input you may have. Regards,

    Bhaskar

    1. I think the default VPC should still be free and you can create subnets within it. You don’t need to pay for any plan but just pay for what you use. Try qqiklabs where you can try VPC basic labs for free.

      1. Hello Jayendra,

        The AWS free tier now allowing me to go to VPC portion of AWS console and create it. QwikLabs looking credit to be purchased for all their labs ( https://qwiklabs.com/quests/6 ,
        https://qwiklabs.com/quests/10 ). I am planning to utilize AWS free tier for all these lab. Is this the problem everybody facing and this path they are taking as lab hands on? I am planning to do Certification on AWS Associate Solution Architect. Appreciate any input from your end.

        For some strange reason, I am not able to log onto first Linux EC2 instance after its creation. Error: Network Error, Connection timed out.

        During EC2 creation, I tried both Public IP and Private IP. Created new Security Group, opened SSH port 22 for the whole world. And then used Putty from my Windows 10 machine.

        Appreciate any input. Thanks

  49. Hi Jayendra,

    Thanks a lot for creating and maintaining a blog for AWS. Cleared AWS SAA today.

    Thanks Again.
    Sarath

  50. Hey Jayendrapatil,

    You are doing awesome job! I’m preparing for AWS solution architect associate certificate. Can you please forward the resources and preparation stuff to me too.

    Thanks…

  51. Passed my AWS SA-A exam today with 97%, on Dec 30, 2017. Thanks Jayendra for the excellent blog. I followed your suggestions on this site. I did BrainCert and Whizlabs practice tests. Most questions look familiar, though they are not exact the same as in practice tests. I will continue to study sysops using this blog. Thank you very much.

  52. Hello All,

    I passed my CSA exam on 27th December.
    My preparation strategy :

    1. Linuxacademy video (Got 2 month free using Microsoft login. Google it)
    2. Cloudguru course on udemy. Though I skipped the common topics as they were covered in Linuxacademy
    3. Checked FAQs on AWS website for S3, VPC, DynamoDB, EC2, Lambda, API Gateway, EBS, Route 53, Cloud front and ELB.
    4. Went through all questions in the Sybex book – AWS Certified Solutions Architect Official Study Guide: Associate Exam
    5. Went through this blog and checked the content as well as the questions
    6. Purchased Braincert Practise exams

    Linux academy and Cloudguru course is good but not exhaustive.
    FAQs and this website fills some gap in learning.
    Last bit I covered by checking the questions.

    The exam itself was average in difficulty. Got 55 questions instead on 60 to answer.
    Also got a paper and pen in which I dumped all the by-hearted information
    such as numbers/seconds/min/max size before starting the exam.

    Passed with 95% marks 🙂

    1. Congratulations!

      FAQs are so long and dry, how does one stick to reading all the pages? Is there a strategy that one can employ?

  53. Hi Jayendra,
    Planning to appear for Solutions Architect Asscociate exam on 15h Jan’18.
    Can you pls share some helpful info,docs,questions & Tips ?

    Regards,
    Raj

      1. I am curious what is the additional material. I will be taking my CSAA exam in nexg few days. Thought this blog was all it. Can you also please for the material to my email?

        1. frankly as i have mentioned earlier there is nothing additional, i just mail the resource links thats more concise then the blog as a starting point if you have gone through the blog already. If you have, the information is already there.

  54. Hi Jay

    Could you share some preparation material for taking up exams?

    Thanks in advance for the help!

    Shuba

      1. Hi Jayendra,

        Can you also send me some study material for the CSAA exam? Thanks in advance:)

        1. Sent on email, its just a brief summary of the preparation blog but might help …

  55. Passed today!!

    Very hard test in my opinion. Many questions on API. This blog helped very much. I studied ACG, FAQ, Whitepapers.

    Do not underestimate, it took me the entire 80 mins

    1. Congratulations!

      Were there many scenario based questions with lot to read?

      Can you please shed some light on the complexity and time consumption?

  56. Hi Jayendra

    I have booked a slot for AWS Associate exam for 3rd April’18. Can you share any material for my preparation, please?

    Thanks

  57. Hi jj,

    Once you have went through linux academy and cloud guru videos and few questions. Then skimming through FAQs won’t be hard since it will be repetitive in most parts.

    1. Took the ACG Final Practice and the Exam simulator (2 times).

      Took Whizlabs 4 tests. Will be taking couple more today/trow.

      Going through the FAQs long scrolling – feels boring, time consuming and mainly how much one can remember besides the main concepts.

      ACG covered the Whitepaper summaries.

      Any additional Services, referring to this site.

      Main concern – besides the above, is chewing through the FAQs – is the time worth it?

  58. Hi Jayendra,

    I was preparing solution architect exam and seen very good things on this blog. Really awesome page.
    Can you please share some material and if any sample question ?

    kindly help.
    randheer2004@gmail.com

  59. Just passed the Associate Solution Architect exam with an 87%. This blog and all the information on it was super helpful.

    I bought the official [Sybex] AWS study guide, read it cover to cover and did all the chapter practice questions plus all the online practice exam questions.
    Watched all the ACloudGuru videos from Ryan Kroonenberg.
    Purchased the BrainCert exams and did all of them- these were awesome. (Recognized several questions on the exam from these!)
    Took the official AWS practice exam. 20 questions.
    Read the FAQ’s on the major services, EC2, S3, ELB, EBS, Rt53, IAM, APIGateway, Lambda and CloudFront.

  60. Hi Jayendra,

    Thank you so much for putting the time and effort into your blog. I passed my exam and relied heavily on your notes, so I credit a lot of my success to you. You’re doing amazing things for your “students”! Keep up the amazing work.

    Bridget

  61. Hey Jayendrapatil,
    Very good blog ! Thanks. I’m preparing for AWS solution architect associate certificate. Can you please forward the resources and preparation stuff to me too.

  62. Hello Jayendra,

    I wanted to thank you for the work you’ve done building and maintaining this site. It was an important tool for me and it certainly accelerated my learning process. I passed on 12/22/17 with a score of 83%. The test was pretty difficult for me because my background is networking and the test is certainly directed towards system administrators and developers. I used the follow method to prepare:

    -First I did my own internet searches and basic reading.
    -Two multi-day instructor led courses. (These were no better than watching videos).
    -Used Amazon’s test description in conjunction with Google to study.

    Then:

    -I reviewed all the material and questions here.
    -I used the Braincert practice tests.

    I think the practice questions here and on Braincert are very similar to the type of questions that you’ll see on the exam and the questions will help expose weaknesses that you don’t know you have. I did recognize a few questions as being identical but I did not feel like the site was just dumping actual questions which is good, that’s not what I was looking for.

  63. Hey Jayendra,

    Today! I have taken AWS Solution Architect Associate exam and successfully scored 81%. Really I would like to thank you for your suggestions and guidance for which you have done this site. Your site is really Awesome in terms of preparing the exam for AWS. As suggested in the comment, I have taken brain-cert practice tests before taking the exam. Surprised that most of the questions were same what I had practiced, which was really helpful to complete the exam quickly within 30 mins.

    I would like to share my experience here how I prepared the exam for last 6 Months. However, I have to admit myself that I have to do a lot of practice to be a master in AWS. The followings are my guidelines for becoming AWS Architect:

    1) AWS Udemy Courses.

    Beginners:
    Linux Academy is a really good one for beginners who wants to know AWS architecture.
    AWS Certified Solutions Architect (associate)
    https://www.udemy.com/linux-academy-aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-free/

    Intermediate:
    AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate 2018
    https://www.udemy.com/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate/
    AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional 2018
    https://www.udemy.com/aws-certified-solutions-architect-professional/

    Expert:
    AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate – Mastery 2018
    https://www.udemy.com/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-exam/learn/v4/overview

    Random Clicks:
    https://masteringaws.wordpress.com/
    http://buddytutor.com/tags/aws-certified-architect-associate
    http://mistwire.com/2016/05/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-study-notes/

    Some AWS whitepapers
    https://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/architecting-for-the-aws-cloud-best-practices/
    https://media.amazonwebservices.com/AWS_Amazon_VPC_Connectivity_Options.pdf
    https://media.amazonwebservices.com/AWS_Development_Test_Environments.pdf
    http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws_pricing_overview.pdf

    Hope this helps. Good Luck.!

  64. Hi Jayendra,

    I have registered my AWS SA Exam on 24-Feb-2018.

    I am referring this blog and planning scan contents multiple times along with other material as suggested. Lets see…

    If you have anything useful pls do send me..

    Thanks..

  65. Hi Jayendra,

    I am preparing solution architect exam and came across this blog. This blog is really good for guidance moreover you always get time to respond queries.
    Can you please share some material and if any sample question which will help me to pass exam?

    Thanks in advance.
    indreshkushwaha@gmail.com

    1. I have mostly documented in the blog post, just sent across a brief summary that might help …

    1. i have mostly documented in the blog post, just sent across a brief summary that might help ….

  66. HI Jayendra,

    Can you please confirm me the answer to the following question? I gues for 1 answer is c, and for 2 answer is c. Please help.

    1.An order processing website issuing EC2 instances to process messages from an SQS queue. A user reported an issue that their order was processed twice and hence charged twice. What action would you recommend ensuring this does not happen again? Choose the correct option

    Your answer
    A. Insert code into the application to delete messages after processing
    B. Increase the visibility timeout for the queue
    C. Modify the order process to use SWF
    D. Use long polling rather than short polling

    2.You have EC2 instances in three availability zones, with a load balancer configured on all the three AZs. You observe that one availability zone is receiving more traffic as compared to other AZs, how can you solve this problem effectively

    Your answer
    A. Disable sticky sessions
    B. Reduce the frequency of the health checks
    C. Enable cross zone load balancer
    D. Amazon recommends to use two availability zone behind ELB

    3. A web company is looking to implement an external payment service into their highly available application deployed in a VPC. Their application EC2 instances are behind a public facing ELB. Auto scaling is used to add additional instances as traffic increases. Under normal load the application runs 2 instances in the Auto Scaling group but at peak it can scale 3x in size. The application instances need to communicate with the payment service over the Internet, which requires whitelisting of all public IP addresses used to communicate with it. A maximum of 4 whitelisting IP addresses are allowed at a time and can be added through an API. How should they architect their solution?

    Your answer
    A. Route payment requests through two NAT instances setup for High Availability and whitelist the Elastic IP addresses attached to the NAT instances
    B. Whitelist the VPC Internet Gateway Public IP and route payment requests through the Internet Gateway.
    C. Whitelist the ELB IP addresses and route payment requests from the Application servers through the ELB.
    D. Automatically assign public IP addresses to the application instances in the Auto Scaling group and run a script on boot that adds each instances public IP address to the payment validation whitelist API.

  67. Hi Jayendra,

    I am preparing for AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam.
    Can you please share any relevant documents.

    Thank you.
    Nandini

  68. Hi Sir,
    I am planning to take CSA-A certification by March 2018. Have gone through udemy videos of Ryan. And few white papers as listed.

    Going through your blog currently. Is there any pattern change or new topics included?

    As the time limit is very less, kindly send any further material /recommendations which would help to clear the exam.

    Thanks in Advance!

    1. I have already updated the path for the new topics which have been added to the exams, be sure to cover all the topics marked.

    1. would suggest to go through the blueprint and each of the sections which topics. That would cover almost all thats needed.

    1. The whitepapers mentioned in the blog post are the keys ones for CSA-A. Also concentrate on the individual topics.

  69. Hi Jayendra,

    I am preparing for AWS SAA Exam and my exam date is Feb. 17 2018. I am in my last week for preparation.

    From comments above, I saw you sharing brief summary document for the preparation. It would be great if you could share it with me as I am looking for a document which I can go through on a day before exam.

    EmailID: panth5shah@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Panth Shah

    1. Its usually a brief summary of preparation guide, i would suggest go through questions, practice tests, cheat sheets and FAQs.

  70. Hi Jay, I’ve just started preparing CSA-A and preparing to appear exam before 12-Aug-2018. As per Amazon, we cannot take old pattern exam after 12-Aug-2018. Can you please guide me how to navigate your blog. I’m kind of lost where to start in this blog. Also, could you please share brief summary to my email. Thanks Jana.

    1. I would suggest you to start with a cloud guru course, that will give you an overview of every service with hands on experience. After that it will be very easy to go through this blog and clear the exam. It can be achieved in 2 months, though i cleared in one month preparation.

  71. Hi Jay,

    Please let me know two main important white papers to pass CSA-A Exam. your response is much appreciated

  72. Hi Jay,

    Can you please let me know important AWS FAQ’s I have to read for CSA-A Exam, thank you very much indeed for your help.

    Cheers,

  73. Cleared solution architect associate exam!!
    Thanks so much for the awesome blog!!

    I wanted to know can i directly go for solution architect professional exam?? Or should i first go for sysops certification before professional solution architect ?

  74. Cleared my CSA certification yesterday with 83% score. Thanks a lot Jayendra for excellent blog and study material. It really helped me to clear the certification.

  75. Thanks a lot Jayendra for creating these blogs /reference material . I cleared the exam today with a score 89 % . Referred your material and found it very useful . Would be great to be in touch on linked in ..Thanks

  76. Hi Jay,

    I have one doubt about new changes for aws services, for example in 29 nov 2017 aws announced support for inter-region vpc peering. so we have to consider this change in exam question ? please let me know iam planning to give exam next month. i want to know exam questions also reflect this changes.

    your response is much appreciated. since it happens to many services

    Thanks,

    1. usually not, the change is too recent to be coming in the exams. 99% the latest changes won’t reflect in the exam, but read the question and answer option twice for such scenarios just to make sure.

  77. Just passed my AWS: SA Associate today – This blog was key in helping me fill the gaps ACloudGuru is missing. Thank you so much for giving me something to help focus my studies of the FAQs/Whitepapers on. I really appreciate this amazing resource, Jay.

    Best,

    Ryan Barker

  78. You are doing awesome job! I’m preparing for AWS solution architect associate certificate. Can you please forward the resources and preparation stuff to me too.

  79. Hi Jay,
    Thank you for you all information about AWS. I have cleared the exam.

    I do not have any prior experience on AWS and my current company does not offer any work related to that.

    Can you please help me with what is require to switch the job?
    I am a java developer with 7 years experience. Will AWS certification be enough to switch the job. What else is required? How can I get the handon practice

    1. You need gain hands on by practicing on free tier and can also use qwiklabs to try out different stuff. Check out the re-invent videos, very information.
      Try to give interviews, to know the real world questions.

  80. Hi Jayendra, can you please answer these questions for me?

    You have been asked to design a fault-tolerant and scalable web application across three Availability Zones. The presentation logic will reside on the web servers behind an ELB Classic Load Balancer, and the application logic will reside on a set of app servers behind a second load balancer.

    How should you use Auto Scaling groups?

    A. Deploy one Auto Scaling group that includes all the web and app servers across all Availability Zones.
    B. Deploy three Auto Scaling groups: one for each Availability Zone that includes both web and app servers.
    C. Deploy two Auto Scaling groups: One for the web servers in all Availability Zones and one for the app servers in all Availability Zones.
    D. Deploy six Auto Scaling groups: a web server group in each Availability Zone and app server group in each Availability Zone.

    My choice is “C”

    Your security team requires each Amazon ECS task to have an IAM policy that limits the task’s privileges to only those required for its use of AWS services.

    How can you achieve this?

    A. Use IAM roles for Amazon ECS tasks to associate a specific IAM role with each ECS definition.
    B. Use IAM roles on the Amazon ECS container instances to associate IAM roles with each ECS task on that instance.
    C. Connect to each running Amazon ECS container instance and add discrete credentials.
    D. Root each Amazon ECS task programmatically to generate new instance metadata for each task.

    My choice is “B”

    You have been asked to design a NAT solution for your company’s VPC-based web application. Traffic from the private subnets varies throughout the day from 500 Mbps to spikes of 7 Gbps.

    What is the most cost-effective and scalable solutions?

    A. Move the Internet gateway for the VPC to a public subnet; route all internet traffic through the Internet gateway.
    B. Create an Amazon EC2 NAT instance with a second elastic network interface (ENI) in a public subnet route all private subnet Internet traffic through the NAT gateway.
    C. Create a NAT gateway in a public subnet route all private subnet Internet traffic through the NAT gateway.
    D. Create an Auto group of Amazon EC2 NAT instance in a public subnet; route all Private subnet Internet traffic through the NAT gateway.

    May choice is “C”

    You bid $0.22 for an Amazon EC2 Spot instance when the market price was $0.20. For 90 minutes, the market price remained at $0.20. Then the market price changed to $0.25, and your instance was terminated by AWS.

    What was your cost of the running the stance for the entire duration?

    A. $0.47
    B. $0.20
    C. $0.40
    D. $0.22

    May choice is “D”

    You are trying to use SSH to connect from your laptop to an Amazon EC2 instance over the Internet. You cannot establish a connection.

    What could be the problem?

    A. The security group deny any allow any outbound TCP traffic to your laptop IP address.
    B. May be up Security group and outbound ACL outbound with the Amazon EC2 instance
    C. The network ACL is set to deny all outbound TCP traffic to your laptop IP address.
    D. The IAM access key on your laptop does not have console access to the Amazon EC2 instance.

    May choice is “D”

    1. 2 should be A.
      4 should be B as you pay the spot price and not the bid price.
      5 should be C.

  81. Hi Jay,

    I have cleared AWS SA-A today. I want to thank you for the guidance you are providing with this website.

    Most of the questions appeared in the actual exam are from the Braincerts and from the sample questions from your posts. A few are different but they could be easily answered.

    My preparation:

    1.Gone through AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate course from Udemy
    2.practiced AWS concepts via AWS free tier account.
    3.practiced all the tests from Braincert exams.

  82. Hi Jayendra,

    Have you gotten chance to update your blog based on the latest AWS certified architect exam – Feb 2018?

  83. Hi Jayendra,

    I have cleared the exam today with 91%, thanks to your blog and acloudguru course. I didn’t see any new topics in the exam.

    Again, thank you so much for maintaining this blog.

    Sarindu.

  84. I would like to reflect on my experience with the CSA-A exam. I sat the existing test and not the revised one (Feb 2018). I would like to thank the time and effect other students have contributed to this invaluable forum.

    I watched the videos and wrote notes on aCloudguru’s Udemy course and although think it provides a great foundation it’s not enough. I highly recommend another Udemy course (ie mastery) which I completed (not the labs) and felt it was more comprehensive.

    Then I purchased whizlab and practiced their exams twice. Whizlabs covered 5-7 questions in the actual exam but matches the exam format and type of questions. Like most people I found on occasion whizlabs questions/answer vague so I then referred to the FAQ’s to verify the answer.

    In reflection, I should have reviewed aCloudGuru’s forum and Jay’s more in-depth as I found many more questions that matched the one’s I had in the exam.

    Not covered in the exam.
    • ALB, Placement groups, Elastic Beanstalk, EMR

    Covered in the exam
    • SQS (decoupling applications with 2 queues {premium + free})
    • VPC peering
    • DynamoDB – single-digital millisecond latency
    • CloudFormation template syntax (static/*) ??
    • SWF (1 question)
    • AWS Services that use native encryption at rest
    • IAM roles (many questions about not storing access keys /secret password and providing services access to other services)
    • IAM groups (some users in a department needs access the other services used by another department)
    • ECS – task definitions
    • Cloudwatch with Trustadvisor (checking services not being serviced in another region)
    • Using Cloudwatch to filter on applications error keywords
    • Userdata – scripts
    • Enhanced networking (using 20 x EC2 instances large but need better performance)
    • Unable to ssh via the Internet to EC2 instance. Why?
    • Lambda function invocations (which AWS services are invoked by Lambda functions)
    • EBS volume encryption (unencrypt to encrypt)
    • Kinesis FH vs Kinesis streams (large ingestion of data, sent to S3)
    • Reserved instance features
    • Spot instance – total cost after 90mins + application can gracefully recover
    • API GW features – caching and CORS
    • S3 and S3-RRS (thumbnails)
    • Auto-Scaling groups (ELB for web servers and ELB for database servers; how many ASG’s launched)
    • Shared responsibility model (Customer responsibility / AWS responsibility)
    • RDS read replica’s
    • CloudFront (origins)
    • EC2 provisioned IOPS (which one to choose with 1000 IOPS average ad 2000 IOPS burst)
    • SNS
    • STS (client uses on-prem AD &/or federation server, which service is used)

    Good luck fellow Engineers!!

    1. All the questions are on the blog. I do not have any other questions. You can check for practice exams, they are paid.

  85. Hello sir,

    Planning to give the exam on 16th Mar
    Can you please share some SAMPLE questions

  86. 1. Which of the following requires a custom CloudWatch metric to monitor?
    A. Memory Utilization of an EC2 instance
    B. CPU Utilization of an EC2 instance
    C. Disk usage activity of an EC2 instance
    D. Data transfer of an EC2 instance

    Is the answer A or C kindly confirm

    2. When creation of an EBS snapshot is initiated,but not completed,the EBS volum

    A. Cannot be used until the snapshot completes

    B. Can be used in read-only mode while the snapshot is in progress

    C. Can be used while the snapshot is in progress

    D. Cannot be detached or attached to an EC2 instance until the snapshot completes

    Is the answer A or C kindly confirm

    3. Which of the following are characteristics of Amazon VPC subnets?(select 2
    A Each subnet spans at least 2 Availability Zones to provide a high-availability environment
    B Each subnet maps to a single Availability Zone
    C A CIDR block mask of /25 is the smallest range supported
    D By default all subnets can route between each other,whether they are private or public
    E Instances in a private subnet can communicate with the Internet only if they have an Elastic IP
    Is the answer B&D or B&E kindly confirm
    4. Per the AWS Acceptable Use Policy,penetration testing of EC2 instances
    A May be performed by the customer on their own instances,only if performed from EC2 instances
    B May be performed by AWS,and is periodically performed by AWS
    C May be performed by AWS,and will be performed by AWS upon customer request
    D Are expressly prohibited under all circumstances
    E May be performed by the customer on their own instances with prior authorization from AWS

    Is the answer B or E kindly confirm

    5. You need to pass a custom script to new Amazon Linux instances created in your Auto Scaling group.Which feature allows you to accomplish this?
    A User data
    B EC2Config service
    C IAM roles
    D AWS Config

    Is the answer A or B kindly confirm

    6. An Auto-Scaling group spans 3 AZs and currently has 4 running EC2 instances.When Auto Scaling needs to terminate an EC2 instance,by default AutoScaling will: (Select 2)
    A Terminate the instance with the least active network connections.If multiple instances meet this criterion one will be randomly selected
    B Terminate an instance in the AZ which currently has 2 running EC2 instances
    C Send an SNS notification if configured to do so
    D Randomly select one of the 3 AZs,and then terminate an instance in that AZ
    E Allow at least five minutes for Windows/Linux shutdown scripts to complete before terminating the instance

    Is the answer B&C or C&D kindly confirm

    7. Which of the following notification endpoints or clients are supported by Amazon Simple Notification Service?(select two)
    A Email
    B CloudFront distribution
    C File Transfer Protocol
    D Simple Network Management Protocol
    E Shor message service

    Is the answer A&D or A&E kindly confirm

    8. A company is building software on AWS that requires access to various AWS services.Which configuration should be used to ensure that AWS credentials (i.e,Access Key ID/Secret Access Key combination) are not compromised
    Enable Multi-Factor Authentication for your AWS root account XX
    Assign an IAM role to the Amazon EC2 instance
    Store the AWS Access Key ID/Secret Access Key combination in software comments XX
    Assign an IAM user to the Amazon EC2 instance XX

    Is the answer A or B kindly confirm

  87. What is a realistic time frame to prepare and study for the exam? Can it be done in 1 months time? Studying 2 hours per day? More or less on some days.

  88. Hello Jaya,

    I am planning to write CSA Associate exam in next month. kindly help me out to clear the exam

  89. Hello Jayendra,

    I have cleared the exam on 15 March , thanks to your blog

    Thank you so much for maintaining this blog.

    1. hey miilinnd congrats..please give some feedback of question based on new services like api gateway ‘awslambda.,kenisis, ecs,and some other area in which we need to focus

    2. Miilinnd congratulations Can you please also share the questions you faced that was helpful so that it may helps others and to contribute to the blog to keep it going. Thanks.

  90. hi jayendra sir i am trying to schedule myaws CSA exam. but they are showing notification .your request is failed please try again later ..please tell me process of scheduling exam.. sir please help me

  91. anyone please help me how schedule CSA exam..is it necessary to have aws account to schedule your exam..please help me anyone

  92. Hi,

    Have been following your blog for a while but going by the interaction with recent test takers they have started to ask more about newer services of AWS.

    So can you please suggest me some preparation plan, I’m a bit messed up with my prep, so that can I can streamline the things properly. If you could mail me some kind of definitive resources or docs to ace this exam.

    Thanks in advance

  93. Hello Jayendra,

    When we have to choose following service in AWS , Pls provide some scenario.

    1 NAT instance
    2 NAT Gatway
    3 Bation Host

    1. NAT is to basically allow instances in the private instances communicate with internet, without themselves being exposed.
      NAT instance is something you create, a normal server acting as a NAT. It is good for testing and POC as you need to monitor and make it HA.
      NAT gateway is AWS managed which is HA as well and you don’t have to do the upgrades and maintenance. It comes with a cost factor.
      Refer to Comparison @ https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonVPC/latest/UserGuide/vpc-nat-comparison.html

      Bastion is to allow external users to connect to the instances in private instances. This limits the point of contact and area of exposure from external attacks, also allows you to host instances in private subnets.
      Refer AWS documentation @ https://aws.amazon.com/quickstart/architecture/linux-bastion/

      So basically Bastion is to access instances in private subnet, while NAT is for allowing instances in private subnet access internet.

  94. Hi Jayendra, Thank you for this blog and detailed explanation of AWS services. I’ve cleared the CSA Associate exam with 81% .

    Thank you.!!

    1. hi mayur,

      congratulations for passing exam. Can you please also share the questions you faced so that it helps others

  95. Hello Jayendra,

    Could you please help me to clarify the following questions:

    Q1) Your company runs an application that generates several thousand 1-gb reports a month. Approximately 10% of these reports will be accessed once during the first 30 days and must be available on demand. After 30 days, reports are no longer accessed as a part of normal business processes but must be retained for compliance reasons.
    Which architecture would meet these requirements with the lowest cost?
    A. Upload the reports to amazon s3 standard storage class. Set a lifecycle configuration on the bucket to transition the reports to Amazon Glacier after 30 days
    B. Upload the reports to amazon s3 standard-infrequent access storage class. Set a lifecycle configuration on the bucket to transition the reports to Amazon glacier after 30 days
    C. Upload the reports to amazon glacier. When reports are requested, copy them to amazon s3 standard storage class for access. Delete the copied reports after they have been viewed
    D. Upload the reports to amazon s3 standard-infrequent access storage class. When reports are requested, copy them to amazon s3 standard storage class for access. Delete the copied reports after they have been viewed

    My Answer – B

    ===========
    Q2) You’ve been tasked with choosing a datastore to persist GPS coordinates for a new app. The service needs consistent, single-digit-millisecond latency at any scale. In order to support future growth, the datastore must also support cross-region replication. Which AWS service meets your requirements?

    A. Amazon redshift
    B. Amazon dynamodb
    C. Amazon s3
    D. Amazon rds

    My Answer – B
    ===========

    Q3) You are designing a high-performance computing(HPC) cluster. You will launch 20 Amazon EC2 r3.2xlarge instances into a placement group. You need the highest packet-per-second performance and lowest latency for your application

    Which configuration should you use?

    A. Enable enhanced networking on all the Amazon EC2 instances
    B. Assign a minimum of two elastic network interfaces per Amazon EC2 Instance
    C. Launch the Amazon EC2 instance across multiple Availability Zones
    D. Enable EBS optimization on all the Amazon EC2 instances

    My Answer – A
    ===========

    Q4) Your application provides data transformation services. Files containing data to be transformed are first uploaded to Amazon S3 and then transformed by a fleet of spot EC2 instances. File submitted by your premium customers must be transformed with the highest priority. How should you implement such a system?

    A. Use a single SQS queue. Each message contains the priority level. Transformation instances poll high-priority messages first
    B. Use two SQS queues, one for high priority messages, the other for default priority. Transformation instances first poll the high priority queue; if there is no message, they poll the default priority queue
    C. Use a DynamoDB table with an attribute defining the priority level. Transformation instances will scan the table for tasks. sorting the results by priority level
    D. Use router 53 latency based-routing to send high priority tasks to the closest transformation instances.

    My Answer – B
    ===========

    Q5) You have created an API powered by API gateway and AWS Lambda. Because of a new feature release, you expect traffic volume on your API to increase 10-fold
    Which configuration should you use?

    A. Use a multiple copy of the Lambda function, each with API Gateway as the trigger. You are changed per request not per function
    B. Use one Lambda function with API Gateway as the trigger. AWS Lambda will allocate capacity to match the rate of incoming events
    C. Use one Lambda function with API Gateway as the trigger. Increase the amount of memory configured for the Lambda function
    D. Use multiple API Gateway endpoints, each triggering a Lambda function

    My Answer – C

  96. Hi Jayendra,

    I have scheduled CSA exam next monthend, can you please send the preparation to my email id.

    Thanks and Regards
    Suraj

  97. Hi jayendra,

    Need ur help, I am 8 years IT experience guy with mostly spent time in Microsoft technology like. Net, CRM ETC. I m searching for Job chage in current hot technology. is it good for me to move to AWS and do prepare for CSA associate?

    1. Certification will surely help to get you upto speed with the technology, however cannot guarantee you a job. Cloud market is good, but real time hands-on experience counts more. So you would need to prepare yourself. You should also explore option for Azure given your Microsoft background.

  98. Hi Jayendra,

    When I schedule the exam, I found there are two AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam versioin.
    One is AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate.
    Another is AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (Released February 2018)

    Which one should I schedule is better?

    Thanks.

    1. Both basically cover the same services, but the 2018 focuses more on the architecture and design aspects.
      Both will give you enough idea of AWS services to get started. Old one have a lot of resources so its good for preparation.

  99. Could you send preparation guide as I am starting fresh preparation for AWS – CSA

  100. Hi Jayendra,

    I have passed AWS – CSAA with 95% and your blog helped me alot to understand services in detail. I really appreciate for maintaining this blog.

    Thank you very much

  101. Congratulations. Can you share your feedback and exam experience and study preparation and methods.

  102. I have passed the certification CSAA today with 89%… I would personally recommend this blog and braincert exams which will help you attain a good score…
    Have a thorough understanding on each concept…. Below listed are the ones from
    which i got few questions VPC,Dynamodb-4,RDS,cloudfront pattern,ECS tasks,API gateway,cloudwatch,cloudtrail,Lambda,EFS.

    Thank you Jayendra for this wonderful blog..

  103. Hello Jaye,

    Please share something about Alias record and CNAME in DNS Route 53?

  104. Hello Sir,
    Hope you are well.
    I want to ask you that, all these blogs & questions will sufficient for crack the exam of sysops.
    Please let me know.

    1. I have tried to cover all the topics for the exam and also the questions are a good practice. If you are clear with the concepts, you should be good to clear the exam.

  105. Thanks Jayendra for your nice and well explained blog on AWS. It helped me to understand some of the things very well and cheat sheets are really good.
    Your blog did play some role in me clearing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate level exam with good score.

    -Anand

  106. Jayendra sir can u please share so tips and step regarding AWS SA-A,I will be giving my exam next month

    1. The concepts really remain the same … however the new exam is focussed more on architecture and design.
      Old one has more resources. If you just want to learn AWS even the old one would give you a good start.

  107. Hello Jayendra.
    Thanks for helping through this blog. Have cleared the exam with 91% today.

    Rajan Arora

  108. Hello Jayendra

    I have cleared the exam with 91 percent yesterday. Thanks for helping and writing the blog. It really helped to get clarified some topics easily.

    Regards..
    Rajan

  109. Dear Jayendrapatil,

    I’m planning to write CSA Associate exam in next month. I am preparing for last 3 months and bit confused with other blogs . kindly help me out to clear the exam.

    Regards

  110. Hello Sir,

    Thank you for setting up this blog, it really helps in summarizing the contents. Its valuable to have a good understanding of the topics.

    Thank you sir, your feedbacks helped and i passed the CSA exam with 87%.

    Regards ,
    Rithik

  111. Hi Jayendra,
    Thanks for wonderful blog, i passed my Developer associate exam now i wanted to apply for solution architect associate but i see there is two certification in this category – AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (Released February 2018) and AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate. Any idea about the new released one, this is 130 minutes exam however other is only 80 minutes

    1. Haven’t check for the new one yet. But would be updating the blog shortly for the same.

      1. Could you please check it soon. I dont want to go for exam without checking your blog. As jayendrapatil is the success mantra for getting certified in AWS.

  112. Hi Qazi,
    Thank you so much for sharing the question. If you could also share the answers. I

  113. Jayendrapatil,

    I am planning on taking the exam in the next month or two can you please send me the preparation summary of SAA to rdg987@gmail.com
    Do you recommend I take the new or old exam?

    Thanks in advance!

    1. Hi Rob, haven’t checked on the new one yet.
      Old Exam has lot of resources, while New exam focuses more of architecture and design concepts.
      But it hardly makes a difference i feel if are getting started with AWS, both the exams cover similar topics so if you give any one you would have a good idea of how AWS works and what its services have to offer.
      The choice is yours 🙂
      I haven’t covered the new exam yet and would be doing it next month, hopefully.

  114. A photo sharing service stores pictures in Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and allows application signin using an Open ID Connect compatible identity provider. Which AWS Security Token approach to temporary access should you use for the Amazon S3 operations?
    A. SAML-based identity Federation
    B. Cross-Account Access
    C. AWS identity and Access Management roles
    D. Web identity Federation

    Ineed Answer A or D ?

  115. Hi Jayendra

    I am planning to do Certification on AWS SA. Can you please provide rith path so i can clear the exam. I am very thankful if you take time to guide me.please provide the notes as well if you can hye6woo@gmail.com

    1. Go through the topics, you need to be sure you cover the sublinks in the topics as well. As the topics have been divided further.
      For e.g. the above link is the part of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

  116. Which of the following requires a custom cloudwatch metric to monitor
    A. Memory utilization of an EC2 instance
    B. CPU utilization of an EC2 instance
    C. Disk usage activity of an EC2 instance
    D. Data transfer of an EC2 instance

    answer C correct ?

  117. Dear Jayendra,

    I am planning to appear the associate level soon (in a week or two), but can you suggest if shall I go with the new one (80 questions in 130 minutes) or the old one (60 questions in 80 minutes)?

    Thanks

    1. I feel most of the services and concepts are the same covered by the old and the new exam.
      So if you want to get started with AWS either of them would help and should not matter.
      Haven’t got a chance to look into the new exam. There are not many resources available yet for these exams.

  118. Thank you Jayendra for your blog. I have passed in the Solutions Architect Associate.

  119. I passed the AWSCSAA exam yesterday after studying for about 1 month. This blog was a big help but I also watched several courses on Pluralsight. I have 20 years of development, database and networking experience so that helped quite a bit also. This was my 12th certification and now I’m going to prepare for the Professional level certification.

  120. I passed the AWSCSAA exam yesterday after studying for about a month. I have 20 years of development, database and networking experience so that certainly helped along with this site. I also watched many courses on Pluralsight which I would recommend trying. This was my 12th certification and I’m now preparing for the Professional level certification.

  121. Disk usage activity is monitored by default by cloud watch. It should be disk full percentage which is not present in the options. What is your thought, Jayendra?

  122. Hi Alex,

    Disk usage activity is monitored by default by cloud watch. The correct answer should be disk full percentage of EBS which is not present in the option.

    What is your thought, Jayendra?

  123. On June 5th,2018 I cleared Solutions Architect-Associate exam with 93%.
    Acloud guru Trianing videos and Jayendra Patil Blog are the primary source of my preparation to pass the certification. I personally think Jayendra Patil blog helped me a lot. Thank you so much. I really appreciate Jayendra Patil in helping so many people in achieving the AWS certifications.

  124. Congrats Sri

    How long did you prepare? Did you take any of the other practice questions banks? Did you practice any hands on labs?

  125. hi Jayendra, I’m preparing the the AWS SAA exam. Could you please send me the quick summary materials to help the preparation? Greatly appreciate it!

    Request to folks passing the exam, could you please mention the new vs old exam that you have taken?

  126. Hi Jitendra,

    Your blogs are very interesting. Can it be downloaded in some PDF/Word format by any chance?

    Br,
    Vikash

  127. Hi Jayendra,

    Can your blog be downloaded in pdf/word format for ready reference?

    Br,
    Vikash

    1. I don’t have it as pdf/word, but maybe you can do it for individual pages.

  128. Hey Jay,

    Looks like this question is asked few times but still would like to confirm once:
    So as you suggested things keep changing in AWS very frequently so wondering if AWS updates their answer for old questions paper.
    E.g. EBS Volume size can’t be increased earlier but now we can!
    We could’t attach IAM role to EC2 instance once launch but now we can do so..Wondering if we do see these question in our exam, how should we plan to answer?

    Thanks in advance!!

    1. For the old exam, if the same question appears be sure they are not updated yet and are outdated.
      For the new exams hopefully they have it in sync with the latest AWS enhancements.

  129. Thanks a lot Jayendra, your Blog is fantastic. I passed my exam reading your Blog, sample questions, cheat sheet. Also Braincert tests helped a lot, 40-50% f questions were from there.

  130. Great website, cover every bit of necessary topic to pass the exam — passed the old version with 93% today. I used your website, and took mock test in braincert ; I also purchased the offical study guide, which I think is great help — a handful of questions came straight out from the review questions of the book.

  131. Hi jayendra / Xin,

    I have schedule my aws associate exam on July 18. Could you pls send me the review questions of the book pls.

    Thanks

  132. Hi jayendrapatil,
    Many thanks for your blog, I am planning to write AWS CSA Associate in the nex week with old version, please share me the brief summary and the preparation docs over my email ahmedmaheralshamari@gmail.com

    waiting your feedback and appreicte your support

    Best Regards
    Ahmed

  133. Hi Jayendra,

    Many thanks for the blog. I’m planning to take AWS Solution architect-Associate exam in July18. Can you please send me preparation guide on old version on rajkumar2112@gmail.com

    Thanks in advance.
    ~Raj

  134. Thanks Jayendrapatil. I’ve cleared AWS CSA (old) today with 89%. Your blog really helped me. 90% questions from Braincert + Whizlab practice tests.

  135. Hi Jothsna,
    First of all congrats for passing the exam.
    I am planning to take up the exam soon, have been preparing from last 3-4 months only.
    Could you please help me with the exact link of braincert tests sets and the price ?

  136. Hi Jothsna,
    First of all congrats for passing the exam.
    is the BrainCert is enought or must to purchase the Whizelab also ?

  137. Hi Jay

    My hearty thanks to all the information which you are trying to bring to the table for Cloud enthusiast.Just cleared AWS Solutions Architect Associate (Old Version) yesterday and scored 89%.

    I have no hesitation in recommending your blog to my community over here.

    AWeSome work Jay.

    Also Whizlabs and Braincert did the trick.I would suggest people to try practice tests before appearing for the exam as this will give lot of confidence and will help you in time management.

    I got lot of similar questions from Braincert in my exam.

  138. Hi Jay

    I cleared my Aws solutions architect exam
    Thanks much for this awesome blog

  139. Hi Jay, I am planning to write solution architect certification – Associate(old version) soon. could you please kindly send prep materials to my email id anandhram.tcs@gmail.com? Thanks in advance!

  140. Hi Jay, I am planning to write solution architect certification – Associate(old version) soon. could you please kindly send prep materials to my email id hitcdodiya@hotmail.com? Thanks in advance!

  141. Hi Jay

    I cleared my Aws solutions architect exam
    Thanks much for this awesome blog

  142. Hi Jayendra,
    I am planning to write solution architect certification – Associate(old version) soon.
    could you please kindly send prep materials to my email id avinash.kabs@gmail.com.

    Thanks in advance!

  143. Hi All,

    I am planning to write solution architect certification – Associate exam.
    could you please share preparation materials to my email id aadikvc@gmail.com.

    Thanks in advance!

  144. Hi Jayendra,

    I am planning to write AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate exam in coming weeks, Could you please share the preparation tips and material?

    Thanks in advance !!

    Regards,
    Hitesh

      1. I plan to write latest Feb 2018 one although not really sure if it will be right choice.

        1. write the new one … its inline with the latest services as compared to the old one. So better to start with it.

  145. Hi Jayendra,

    Could you please provide me with the AWS SAA exam preparation materials and tips.

    Regards,
    Hitesh

    1. Thanks iiaiyaraja, seems fine. But I am checking the issue seems some rogue plugin.

  146. I’m planning to write AWS CSA Associate in the next week with old version, please share me preparation materials and suggestions.

  147. Great Work Jayendra. Excellent Bog, Kudos!
    I recently passed Solutions Architect associate exam and came across your blog when I decided to start preparing for professional exam. Your blog could have helped me scored better in associate exam though it is helping me a lot to prepare for pro exam.

    Below question appeared in my exam. Hope it will help others as I didn’t see such question in any blog.

    Q. You bid for a spot instance at price 0.22. Your request for spot instance is executed as soon as current spot market price fell to $0.20
    After 90 minutes spot instance market price increased to $0.25 and your instance is terminated. How much you are charged for your usage?
    A. $0.22
    B. $0.20
    C. $0.40
    D. $0.42

    Correct Answer is B $0.20
    Reference: AWS Architecture Best Practice Document

    Spot Instances are ideal for workloads that have flexible start and end times. Your Spot Instance is launched when your bid exceeds the current Spot market price, and will continue run until you choose to terminate it, or until the Spot market price exceeds your bid. If the Spot market price increases above your bid price, your instance will be terminated automatically and you will not be charged for the partial hour that your instance has run. You are charged the Spot market price (not your bid price) for as long as the Spot Instance runs.

  148. I passed my AWS CSAA exam today….thank you Jayendra for the awesome blog and learning path!

  149. I passed my AWS associate exam today with 83% . Thanks a lot jayendra for blog

  150. Hi jayendra, I passed my AWS associate exam today with 83% . Thank you for your blog

  151. Hi Jayendra,

    I’m planning to write AWS CSA Associate old version, could you please share me preparation materials and suggestions to awsraj@yahoo.com. Thank you for your contributions to the community.

    Thanks
    Raj

  152. Hi Jayendra,

    I cleared the AWS CSAA with score of 87%. I give major credit to you for the blog. This is such a wonderful blog and please keep up the good work. I wrote the old one. Booked the exam couple of months ago but studied religiously for one month ~2 to 3 hours a day.

    To others who are curious to know about my background and preparation :

    I have AWS work exp for close to 1.5 years. However, not with all services though. Only EC2, S3, IAM, KMS, Lambda. So I had to prepare a lot close to 70 hours of studying.

    1) AWS Whitepapers – It was tough for me to study online.If i read stuff online then I would spend close to 11 hours a day with laptop (8 in office and 3 for exam ) which is certainly bad for your eyes and concentration levels.Hence, I took printout of the important ones and started. Spent around $6 for the printouts.

    2) AWS FAQs – A must read. You cannot get away without reading this and a good knowledge base from your professional front as well

    3) This Blog – Awesome, Organised, faster to cover various topics and highlights the important points required for the exam

    4) Braincert – I purchased the practice exams for $18 and helped me big time. Accurate and updated answers and very close to the questions from the exam. My thinking in this case was better to invest $18 rather than $150 again in case you did not go through.

    Thanks Jayendra and all the best to others.

    1. great score Sai and Congrats … thanks for the feedback and way to gooo ….

    1. I do not have practice tests, most of questions are listed at the end of the topics.

  153. Can any one please confirm if I can convert existing on demand instance to reserved instance? if yes how? please send me link from AWS if possible. thanks

    1. You don’t need to convert. There is no separate reserved instance. You buy reserved instances and launch instances as you do. AWS will match the reserved instances to the instances launch and bill accordingly.

  154. Hi,

    First of all, Sir, gained a lot of confidence because of your blog. Very thankful. Great efforts. This was the only reading material that I have used. It’s full fledged, no less than some reference book.

    Passed my exam with 72%.

    I have 4 years of Mainframe experience. So this was totally new area for me. Sharing my feedback here.

    Materials used:
    1) Udemy AWS SAA course

    2)As revision, I also refered a youtube series:- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP8SSDsTtyQ5hmlp04UFFvw
    Because of the easy narration, it helped me believe AWS is not as tough to understand as it seemed to me after my first introduction to AWS concepts.

    3) From the above 2nd reference, I got to know about Jayendra Patil’s blog, and it is such a treasure.
    For the entire last week, I covered all the relative topics from these blog. The point to point description under every link here helps covering everything in details and yet in appropriate amount of time.
    I read all the topics linked through the blueprint of exam, cheat sheets, couple of whitepapers (not all).

    4) Braincert practice tests.
    Most of the questions (30 to 35) were similar to ones from these tests. The total number of these questions may not be enough to clear the test. So a thorough conceptual understanding is a must.

    Topics I found in the exam:- Follow the entire updated blueprint page of your respective exam on this blog. Those are the exact topics. If time permits, go even deep in reading for these individual topics. The only topic I covered from AWS FAQs was EFS.

    Keys for the exam:- Thorough conceptual understanding, practice tests, aws hands-on practice

    Advice from the mistakes I made:- Plan your studies. Don’t keep these rich available materials like these blogs, whitepapers etc to complete in the eleventh hour. They are very useful.

    Hope this adds a little confidence to fellow aspirants. (especially any with no experience in cloud world). All the best!

  155. Sir
    I want to do the certificate.
    AWS SAA exam pattern is going to change in 12th August.
    Shall i go through this pattern or wait for new one..

    1. Both the exams are already available. After 12th August, only the new one would be available.
      Go for the new pattern, as it cover new topics in details and also newer enhancements.

  156. Hi Sir-
    Thankful to you for always response.

    I prepared for OLD format, and planning to before Aug 12.

    Could you please tell me, OLD topics are enough for OLD exam or newer topics also coming in Exam?

    If newer questions are coming i will have to revisit newer topics and take new exam.

    Thanks,

  157. Thank you Jayendra for the awesome blog. I followed Official guide, a couple of Udemy courses, but it was your blog which gave me ample real time practice and confidence to pass the exam. I scored 85 % in the old exam. My exam was with 55 questions, with questions on API Gateway,S3, troubleshooting questions combining EC2,NACL and SGs

  158. Sure Ashish. Per my rememberance
    1. properties of S3 objects
    2. Choosing the storage class to minimize the cost
    3. Benefits of API Gateway
    4. Choosing between NACL and SGs for security
    5. how to encrypt an exist EBS volume
    6. where to store key value based service
    7 where to store session data to create stateless systems
    8. Decoupled architectures by sqs
    9.. Calculating cost of reserved instance (same question mentioned in this blog where after 90 minutes AWS terminates it)
    10. Choosing between reserved,spot and on demand instances (where they mentioned the app is designed to recover from failures)
    11. Choice of logs to understand who launched the EC2 between cloud trail and flow logs
    12.Valid origins of Cloudfront
    13 services that can invoke lambda
    14. where to enable cors
    15 . Role of AWS in AWS shared resp model
    16 where instance is not accessible due to public ip being missing
    17. Question related to Nat gateway/Bastion host
    18. Configuring the SGs and NACL for Nat Gateway
    19. When to use VPC Peering
    20. how to allow SSH to an instance at SGs inbound setting from a single customer IP
    21. Migrating data from in/out of AWS using Import/Export
    22 choosing between Application and Classic Load Balancer
    23 Which service uses Chef in Devops
    24 Use of IAM roles
    25 How to give cross account access by changing the bucket policy or IAM role policy
    26. Use of SAML based SSO
    27. where do we configure instance type in Auto scaling, ASG or LC
    28 . Choosing between alias and cname in Route 53
    29 . Scenario where in team just want to focus on writing code , do not want to manage infrastructure – Elastic bean stalk

    1. Bharat/Jayendra,
      Can you post to which questions and answers from BrainCert or provide correct solutions?
      Thanks

  159. Thanks Bharat,
    Bharat/Jayendra – After preparation when i take Practise test, I felt SCenario based question i am unable to answer…With this note..Will you please suggest me..

    OLD format – is having more scenario based questions, Or New format..?
    Which is more difficult OLD or New….
    It would really help me to take good decision…I feel NEW format is difficult than OLD format…
    Your words will be highly helpful..

    Thanks

    1. While I do not know much about new exam (apart from distribution of questions mentioned on the AWS official site), but I feel if we get the concepts right, it should be fine. As along with me, a candidate (head of big data analytic of a reputed firm with 20 years of experience), cleared it(the new exam) reading the official guide only(with1 month reading) and he said he do not have any hands on experience in AWS. And also the old exam is getting decommissioned on August 12th 2018, after that we wont be having option choosing between these two. While preparing the scenario based questions I referred official guide, udemy questions and Jayendra’s blog (skipping the question marked as Professional, due to lack of time and I feel those can be skipped for associate level ). And Jayendra(and many members) have mentioned as a part of strategy solving the scenario based questions, we can easily eliminate 2 of options, and finding out right between the two, for example in my exam there was a question which asked to have restricted SSH access from single IP address, I eliminated 2 options seeing the CIDR block range by seeing ip/24 ip/16 and marked the right answer seeing the protocol and port for ssh . And also there are scenario based question we need to remember default retention time for services like SQS, where you could easily make out the right one. Wish you post some questions, we ll try eliminating the wrong ones and finding the right answer,

  160. Sure Thanks..This helps…What is passing percentage please for OLD? i see some says 65 and some 70

    1. The passing percentage is variable and AWS does not disclose the percentage and its not fixed. I have heard people passing at 60-62% and some of them failing at 70% as well.

  161. Hi Jay,

    I have passed AWS Solution Architect Associate exam (old) on Saturday 4th August. Your blog really helped me a lot while preparation for this exam and revision before exam.

    Thank you for your help here! Please keep updated this blogs with latest things and also possible highlight new updates so it will be easy to understand.

    Thanks
    Hari Patil

  162. Hi Jayendra Bhai,

    I have passed AWS Solutions architect associate exam (old) on 7th August with 72%.
    I do not have any AWS experience prior but your blog helped me with understanding the concepts and practice questions cleared the concepts with how they are used in real world scenarios.

    Thanks for your wonderful blog and keep smiling and keep sharing the knowledge.. 🙂

    Regards,
    Amit

  163. Hello Jayendra,

    I have passed the AWS Solution Architect Associate with 90% score recently. Wanted to thank you Jayendra for this wonderful blog and the vibrant community that helped me with lots of useful info. I studied the Official guide from front cover to back cover, did all the labs. And answered all questions at the end of each chapter of the official guide with reason, and analysis. These helped.

    Do you have any suggestion for “AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty” course, preparation, exam tips? Will you consider opening a separate section for this? Thanks

    1. Congrats Bhaskar for the great score.
      Nothing as of now, but planning to add soon.

  164. HI Jayendra,

    I passed AWS SAA exam on Aug 11th . Your blog is an great asset not only to exam aspirants but also who want to grow their knowledge. Thanks for the effort.

  165. Hi Jayandra,

    I am planning to do AWS SAA certification, Can you share the syllabus and sample questions for new pattern (after august 12)

  166. Hi Jay

    Thanks for such a nice blog and guidance.

    I cleared my SAA exam couple of days and still waiting for % score.

    Can you please guide me what could be the next step, I am confused. My background is in networks form last 6 years.

    SA professional or other two associate exams ?

    1. With experience in networks, you may want to check if SysOps is relevant to what you want to do.
      Associate exam might be easier to crack before you go to professional ones. Also, this would allow you to have a shot at both SA-Prof and DevOps.
      You can also check if instead of Prof or Associate, do you want to take the Network Speciality?

  167. Thanks Jayendra

    I will think about network specialty after SA Prof.

    Thanks for your guidance.

  168. hi Jayendra, thanks a bunch for posting these tips. I am thinking ti take new exam and was wondering if same resources would be useful. Can you please send me any material, additional exam questions etc on my email address- bhitrasasa@yahoo.com
    thanks again, Namrata

  169. Hi Jayendra,

    I am planning to take AWS Certified Solutions architect associate exam in Last Nov 2018 .
    As i am searching for the practice tests for that and found whizlabs having 7 practice tests and Braincert having 1 practice test . So , could you please suggest for which test should i go ?

  170. Hi Jayendra,

    what you have done wrt the documentation is really helpful and the best i have found online. Just 1 request, could you update the Q&A such that the answers are not bold and it is listed at the last with the option name. When i go through the options i want to test my knowledge and choose the answer and refer to the last to see if its correct. As the correct answer is bold, i am just not able to go through the options and choose the right/best option available. if not now atleast in the next update of the Q&A.

    Thanks and regards,
    Rajesh

    1. Agreed Rajesh, but somehow I am not able to get a good plugin to do the same inline with the content. Will continue to explore.

  171. Hi Jayendra,

    I am planning to take AWS Certified Solutions architect associate exam this September.
    Can you please send me any material, additional exam questions etc on my email iakrastev@gmail.com

    Thanks and regards,
    Ivaylo

    1. Hi Ivaylo, all the resource are pretty much list. Be sure to cover all the topics in detail.

  172. Hi Jayendra,

    I am planning to take up the new Solutions Architect Associate exam this month. Do we need to follow any additional material for the new exam or is it sufficient if I cover the topics listed above?

    Thanks,
    Ramanathan S

    1. Hi Ramanathan, I haven’t update the blog for the new exam. Planning to do so this month.

  173. Hi Jayendra

    I want to change my career from academic to Industry as Devops Engineer. Planning to take certification on AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate. Going through your blogs.. Any special suggestions please.

  174. Hi Jayendra,

    Have you updated your blog for the new exam SAA C02?

    BR,
    Nilesh

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