By the end of April 2025, the SAA-C03 exam (AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam) will replace the previous SAA-C02 exam.
Individuals aiming to build a career as an AWS Solutions Architect, the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03 exam is a good choice. As it validates the ability to design secure, high-performing, resilient, and cost-optimised architectures using the principles of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. And here, you will be exploring the nuances of how to prepare efficiently for the SAA-C03 exam.
What Is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam (SAA-C03)?
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03 certification is a great start for anyone looking to build a career as an AWS Solutions Architect. It’s designed to help learners to develop the skills to design systems on AWS with high availability, fault-tolerance, and scalability. The exam also tests the abilities for candidates to ensure cost-effectiveness in the design of AWS systems.
One of the foremost details for new AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification exam preparation is the outline of abilities tested in the certification. Candidates should know about the abilities validated by the new AWS SAA exam to gauge the level of difficulty. Most important of all, candidates can get an overall impression of the objectives of the new version of the exam. Here are the three abilities tested in the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam.
- Effective demonstration of knowledge in architecture and deployment of applications on AWS technologies with higher security and resilience.
- Definition of AWS solutions by leveraging architectural design principles under customer requirements.
- Ability to guide the best practices of implementation of AWS solutions to an organisation throughout the lifecycle of a project.
Objectives of AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam (SAA-C03)
The Associate Solution Architect, AWS certification’s objective is to verify your expertise in a variety of crucial domains, as stated by AWS, as being able to:
- Effectively demonstrate your understanding of how to design and deliver reliable apps using AWS technology
- Based on the needs of the client, define a solution utilising architectural design principles.
- Throughout the AWS solutions architect associate certification course, you can gain organization implementation advice based on best practices.
Prerequisites of AWS Certified Solutions Architect Certification Exam (SAA-C03)
Before you dive headlong into SAA-C03 exam preparation, AWS lists numerous prior requirements to be fulfilled. The most important one on the list is work experience. You need at least one year of hands-on experience developing and designing fault-free, cost-effective, responsive and scalable systems on AWS. Along with this, you should also have:
- Working experience in AWS technology
- Strong on-premises IT experience and knowledge of mapping on-premises to cloud
- Experienced working in other cloud services
Requirements for the New AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) Exam
AWS does present some requirements of recommended knowledge and experience that can improve the chances of success of the candidate. Here is an outline of the set of recommended knowledge and experience requirements for the new AWS SAA exam.
- Practical experience in the use of Compute, networking, storage, and database AWS services.
- Practical experience regarding AWS deployment and management services.
- Skills for the identification and definition of technical requirements for AWS-based applications.
- Skills for the identification of AWS services that align with a specific technical requirement.
- Knowledge regarding best practices for the development of applications on AWS platforms with higher security and reliability.
- Comprehensive understanding of the basic architectural principles for the development of solutions on the AWS Cloud.
- Detailed knowledge of the AWS global infrastructure.
- Comprehensive knowledge of network technologies and their relevance to AWS.
- Understanding of security features and tools provided by AWS and their parallels with traditional services.
Domains Covered in the New AWS SAA Exam
| Domain | Weightage |
| Designing Secure Architecture | 30% |
| Creating Resilient Architecture | 26% |
| Designing High-Performing Architecture | 24% |
| Building Cost-Optimised Architecture | 20% |
Each of these domains has several subtopics that include
Designing Secure Architecture
- Designing secure access to AWS resources
- Creating secure apps and workloads
- Determine data security controls
Creating Resilient Architecture
- Designing loosely coupled and scalable architectures
- Developing fault-tolerant and highly scalable architectures
Designing High-Performing Architecture
- Determining scalable storage solutions
- Deploying high-performing compute solutions
- Determining high-performing database solutions
- Determining scalable network architectures
- Determining transformation and data ingestion solutions
Building Cost-Optimised Architecture
- Designing cost-optimised storage solutions
- Creating cost-optimised compute solutions
- Designing database solutions
- Developing cost-optimised network architectures
Additionally, the exam will also include 15 unscored questions and is not be considered in the overall marking. These questions are not identified in the exam as well. AWS evaluates them for future perusal as a scored item and collects data on the candidate’s performance.
Steps to Prepare for the New AWS SAA Exam
Apart from gaining information about the above-mentioned aspects related to the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) exam, candidates must follow specific steps to prepare effectively. Also, you can check out the Tips to prepare for the SAA-C03 exam.
Access the Official Website of the New AWS SAA Exam
The first step for every candidate to start their new Associate Solution Architect, AWS exam preparation is to visit the official AWS website. Candidates should access the official page of the new AWS SAA exam with the code SAA-C03. The page is an excellent source of information regarding the new AWS SAA exam.
The official page is also a reliable source of any new updates regarding the exam. It is very important to stay updated with every aspect of the exams.
Follow the Exam Guide
The next step in the new AWS architect associate exam preparation for a candidate is to download the exam guide. The exam guide is available for download through a direct link on the official page of the AWS SAA certification. In addition, candidates should also download the sample questions through the direct link on the official AWS website.
An exam guide empowers the preparation of candidates, as it helps in maintaining a record of their progress of their preparations. Most important of all, it tells candidates what type of questions and the topics they have to learn for the exam.
The sample questions can further simplify the picture for candidates by helping them identify the format of the exam. Candidates should reflect on the format and how the topics in the exam domains are fabricated into questions. Subsequently, candidates can find a definite direction for their preparations for the new AWS SAA exam.
Explore the Recommended AWS Learning Paths
After studying the exam guide and sample questions, candidates should explore the recommended AWS learning paths for the exam. The recommended AWS learning paths can help candidates build their technical skills required for the exam. Candidates can also try to explore the full Architect learning path on the official website of AWS in later stages.
Read the Recommended AWS Whitepapers
Learning resources are an inevitable aspect of the preparation of every candidate for any exam. The most reliable learning resources for the new AWS SAA exam preparation are the AWS whitepapers and FAQS. Interestingly, AWS provides candidates with links to all recommended whitepapers for the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate course SAA exam on its “AWS Well-Architected” webpage. Candidates can go through the list of AWS whitepapers and understand the different common issues and questions related to the topics in the exam.
- Amazon EC2
- Amazon VPC
- Amazon S3
- Amazon RDS
- Amazon Route 53
- Amazon SQS
- Amazon Athena
- Amazon EMR
- AWS Glue
- AWS cost explorer
- Amazon Kinesis and Quicksight
- Amazon SNS
- Amazon SQS
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk
- Elastic Load Balancing
- AWS Fargate
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon Elasticache
- Amazon Redshift
- Amazon Aurora
- Amazon DynamoDB
- AWS Autoscaling
- AWS Backup
- AWS Cloud Formation
- AWS Cloud Trail
- Amazon EventBridge
- AWS Config
- AWS Systems Manager
- AWS Trusted Advisor
- AWS DMS
- AWS migration hub
- AWS data sync
- AWS Snowball
- Amazon API Gateway
- AWS Direct Connect
- Amazon CloudFront
- Amazon Route 53
- AWS Directory Service
- AWS Certificate Manager
- Amazon Guard Duty
- Amazon Inspector
- AWS KMS
- AWS Shield
- Amazon Elastic Block Store
- AWS Storage Gateway
Online Training Courses are a Helpful Choice
A candidate preparing for the AWS architect associate should always receive the support of training.
- Training courses enhance the probability of success of candidates considerably due to various factors.
- It provides easy access to learning resources such as tutorial videos and demo labs by subject matter experts.
- Online certification training courses ease availability and convenience. Candidates can easily manage their professional and personal lives while finding time to prepare for the new AWS SAA exam conveniently with online training courses.
- Reliable online certification training course providers such as Whizlabs can be the perfect option for strengthening your preparation.
- AWS itself offers the Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate course in two different formats – classroom training and free digital training. Candidates can review sample questions of each topic area and learn about the interpretation of concepts underlying the questions.
Use Practice Tests to Test Your Skills
Once you complete the online training courses for the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA exam, you can feel confident enough to take the exam. However, candidates should take some time and test their skills in practice tests for the AWS SAA exam.
- SAA-C03 practice exams questions are a promising instrument for understanding the exam environment before actually sitting for an exam.
- It also allows learners to understand and improve their acquaintance with the exam’s format.
- Practice tests are also the best tool for candidates to implement their learning in practice and evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses.
- It allows candidates to resolve their weaknesses and ensure better chances of qualifying for the new AWS SAA exam.
Here’s a list of some of the new features included in the AWS SAA C03 exam:
| AWS Data Exchange | AWS Lake Formation | Amazon Kendra |
| Amazon Neptune | Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus | AWS License Manager |
| AmazonFraud Detector | AWS Proton | Amazon Managed Grafana |
| Amazon Kendra | Amazon Elastic Transcoder | AWS Data Pipeline |
| AWS License Manager | Amazon Kinesis Video Streams | AWS Outposts |
| AWS Application Discovery Service | AWS Application Discovery Service | VMware Cloud on AWS |
| Amazon Quantum Ledger Database | AWS AppSync | AWS Wavelength |
| Amazon Timestream | Amazon Fraud Detector |
To Sum Up
Hope this detailed instruction on the AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam – AWS SAA Co3 was clear and brief to you. This is a vital step to upskill your career as an IT professional. Ace your preparation with our SAA C03 – You will find 28 practice tests with 130+ unique questions, 223 video courses curated by industry experts, 70 AWS hands-on labs to enhance your practical exposure, and an AWS sandbox to experiment and validate your theoretical AWS architectural skills. Why wait to level up your A game? Check out our courses and reach out for assistance.
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