Bridging to Certification

AWS Academy Cloud

Architecting

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Introduction
Bridging to Certification

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Module objectives This module prepares you to do the following:
• Identify how to prepare for the AWS Certified
Solutions Architect – Associate exam.
• Find resources to prepare for the exam.

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Module overview
Presentation sections
• Solutions Architect – Associate certification domains
• Solutions Architect – Associate certification exam resources
• Additional resources

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About AWS Certification exams
Exam content Exam scoring
• Content is divided into domains and • Exams have a pass or fail
task statements. designation.
• Each domain is weighted. • Unanswered questions are scored as
• Questions include multiple choice incorrect.
and multiple response types. • Each exam includes some unscored
questions that do not affect your
score.

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About the Solutions Architect – Associate Certification
Recommended candidate for exam Knowledge and skills validated by the exam

• Performs a solutions architect • Ability to design solutions based on the AWS

role Well-Architected Framework
• Has at least 1 year of hands-on • Ability to complete the following tasks:
experience designing cloud • Design solutions that incorporate AWS services to meet
solutions that use AWS services. current business requirements and future projected needs.
• Design architectures that are secure, resilient, high-
performing, and cost-optimized.
• Review existing solutions and determine improvements.

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Solutions Architect – Associate Certification
domains and task statements
Bridging to Certification

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Solutions Architect – Associate content domains

Domain 1 (30%) Domain 2 (26%) Domain 3 (24%) Domain 4 (20%)

Design Secure Design Resilient Design High- Design Cost-
Architectures Architectures Performing Optimized
Architectures Architectures

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Certification content domain 1 task statements
Design Secure 1.1: Design secure access to AWS resources.
Architectures 1.2: Design secure workloads and applications.
(30%)
1.3: Determine appropriate data security controls.

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Certification content domain 2 task statements
Design Resilient 2.1: Design scalable and loosely coupled architectures.
Architectures 2.2: Design highly available and/or fault-tolerant
(26%) architectures.

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Certification content domain 3 task statements
Design High- 3.1: Determine high-performing and/or scalable storage
Performing solutions.
Architectures 3.2: Design high-performing and elastic compute
(24%) solutions.
3.3: Determine high-performing database solutions.
3.4: Determine high-performing and/or scalable network
architectures.
3.5: Determine high-performing data ingestion and
transformation solutions.

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Certification content domain 4 task statements
Design Cost- 4.1: Design cost-optimized storage solutions.
Optimized 4.2: Design cost-optimized compute solutions.
Architectures
(20% ) 4.3: Design cost-optimized database solutions.
4.4: Design cost-optimized network architectures.

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Solutions Architect – Associate Certification
exam preparation resources
Bridging to Certification

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AWS Certification resources
Webpage address Description
https://aws.amazon.com/certification AWS Certification overview: Includes links to resources and
information about each certification
https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certifi AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Certification:
ed-solutions-architect-associate Includes details about the Solutions Architect – Associate exam
with links to exam guide, sample questions, and available
training

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Free exam readiness resources
Title Description
Exam Guide • PDF document that explains the test and the certification domains in detail
• Appendix includes technologies and concepts that might appear on the exam, and in-
scope and out-of-scope AWS services and features
Sample questions • PDF document with ten questions that demonstrate the format of the questions used on
the exam
• Includes rationales for the correct answers
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – • 3-hour virtual event that explores topic areas and how they map to architecting on AWS
Associate webinar and to specific areas of study
• Requires registration
Exam Prep Standard Course: AWS • Digital training course that walks you through each of the domains, explaining what you
Certified Solutions Architect – should know
Associate • Includes reviews of exam-style questions
• Requires an AWS Skill Builder account
Exam Prep Official Practice Question • 20 exam-style questions delivered online in a format similar to the certification exam
Set: AWS Certified Solutions • Includes detailed feedback and recommended resources to help you prepare for your
Architect - Associate exam
• Requires an AWS Skill Builder account

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Exam readiness with an AWS Skill Builder subscription

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Additional resources
Bridging to Certification

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AWS Well-Architected Framework

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Centralized hubs for finding AWS resources
Description Webpage
AWS Architecture Center https://aws.amazon.com/architecture
AWS Documentation https://docs.aws.amazon.com
(services)
AWS Frequently asked https://aws.amazon.com/faqs
questions (FAQs)
Getting Started Resource https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started
Center
AWS Builder Labs https://aws.amazon.com/training/digital/aws-builder-labs
(Subscription-based hands-
on labs)
AWS Ramp-Up Guides https://aws.amazon.com/training/ramp-up-guides

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Architecture Center resource categories
Best practices Video series Libraries
• Organized by • Focused on practical • Organized into
technology category use cases searchable and
• Presented in the • Presented by AWS filterable collections
context of a project's Solutions Architects, • Includes the following:
lifecycle steps AWS Partners, and • Reference
customers architectures
• Whitepapers
• Quick Starts

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Suggested AWS Video Series for architecting

This is My Architecture Back to Basics

AWS Cloud customers and partners explain AWS SAs explain a specific architectural
elements of their specific architectural building block independent of a particular
solutions. cloud solution.
https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/this-is- https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/back-to
my-architecture -basics
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AWS service documentation at docs.aws.amazon.com
Select a service from the Product guides and references section
• User guides, developer guides, and best
practices are good sources for certification
exam preparation.
• Helpful sections in these resources include
the following:
• What is
• How it works
• Getting started

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AWS FAQ resources
Product-related Cloud computing concepts Cloud comparison tool

• Select a product to • Choose a question or • Choose a topic or follow

navigate to its product follow the link to the the link to the Cloud
page FAQ. Cloud Computing Comparison tool to search
• Examples include the Concepts Hub to search for comparisons by topic.
following: for questions by topic. • Examples include the
• Amazon EC2 Auto • Examples include the following:
Scaling FAQ following: • ETL vs. ELT
• Amazon S3 FAQ • What is machine • Artificial Intelligence vs
learning (ML)? Machine Learning
• What is Data Mining?

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Getting Started Resource Center links
Hands-on Tutorials Decision guides
• Filter by technology category and • Select a technology category to read
tutorial type (Getting Started guides, the related guide.
How-To guides, and tutorials). • Available directly at
• Available directly at https://aws.amazon.com/getting-start
https://aws.amazon.com/getting-start ed/decision-guides
ed/hands-on

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AWS Builder Labs
Browse the catalog of self-paced labs available.
• Self-paced labs run in an AWS environment
similar to the labs in the course.
• Labs require a Skill Builder subscription.

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AWS Ramp-Up Guides
Explore the following guides by role, solution, or industry area.
• Downloadable guides with curated links from AWS
classroom and digital curricula, video library, and
AWS Builder Labs
• The Solutions Architect Ramp-Up Guide which
includes specific resources from many of the resource
types highlighted in this module.
• To access the Solutions Architect Ramp-Up Guide see
https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/ramp-up_
guides/Ramp-Up_Guide_Architect.pdf

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Module wrap-up
Bridging to Certification

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Module summary
This module prepared you to do the following:
• Identify how to prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam.
• Find resources to prepare for the exam.

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Thank you

Corrections, feedback, or other questions?

Contact us at https://support.aws.amazon.com/#/contacts/aws-academy.

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