AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03) Cheat Sheet

Introduction

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03) exam is a pivotal certification for professionals aspiring to design distributed systems on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. This certification validates your expertise in architecting and deploying robust, scalable, and cost-effective solutions using AWS technologies.

I’m so happy to share that I’ve earned my AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate certification on the first day of December 2023. So below is the cheat sheet I noted while studying and practicing on AWS. Feel free to read and correct me if there is any incorrect information. Thanks!

References

This blog is very long so I will push the references on top first 😁

• AWS VietNam group cheatsheet

The exam content

Domain 1: Design Resilient Architectures

• Key Concepts:
  • Multi-AZ Deployments
  • Disaster Recovery (DR) and Backup Strategies
  • High Availability (HA) Architectures
• Exam Tips:
  • Understand how to design fault-tolerant systems.
  • Know when to use Multi-AZ deployments vs. Read Replicas.
  • Familiarize yourself with AWS Elastic Beanstalk for deploying and managing applications.

Domain 2: Define Performant Architectures

• Key Concepts:
  • Compute and Storage Optimization
  • Scalability and Elasticity
  • Performance Monitoring and Tuning
• Exam Tips:
  • Know the characteristics of various EC2 instance types.
  • Understand how to use Amazon RDS for optimal database performance.
  • Familiarize yourself with AWS Lambda for event-driven architectures.

Domain 3: Specify Secure Applications and Architectures

• Key Concepts:
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • Security Groups and Network ACLs
  • Encryption in Transit and at Rest
• Exam Tips:
  • Master IAM concepts, including roles, policies, and permissions.
  • Understand how to secure data using encryption.
  • Know how to implement network security with VPCs, Security Groups, and NACLs.

Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

• Key Concepts:
  • AWS Pricing Models
  • Resource Tagging for Cost Allocation
  • Reserved Instances and Spot Instances
• Exam Tips:
  • Understand the AWS pricing model and how different services contribute to costs.
  • Utilize resource tagging to manage and allocate costs effectively.
  • Know when to use Reserved Instances and when to leverage Spot Instances.

… In progress …