The SAA-C03 exam is a pivotal certification for IT professionals seeking to validate their expertise in designing and deploying scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on Amazon Web Services (AWS). As of its latest iteration, the SAA-C03 is designed to test candidates on their ability to effectively use AWS services and tools in real-world scenarios. This article provides a detailed overview of the SAA-CO3 exam, including its objectives, structure, preparation strategies, and key resources.

Overview of the SAA-C03 Exam

Exam Purpose and Audience

The SAA-C03 certification is intended for individuals who have experience designing distributed applications and systems on the AWS platform. The exam is suitable for:

• Solutions architects
• Solutions design engineers
• AWS cloud practitioners looking to deepen their technical knowledge

Exam Details

• Exam Code: SAA-C03
• Format: Multiple-choice and multiple-response
• Duration: 130 minutes
• Cost: $150 USD
• Language: Available in multiple languages including English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese
• Prerequisites: While there are no formal prerequisites, AWS recommends at least one year of experience designing distributed applications and systems on AWS.

Key Exam Domains of SAA-C03 Exam

The SAA-C03 exam is structured around several key domains, each covering specific areas of AWS knowledge and skills. The exam domains are:

Design Resilient Architectures (30%)

• High Availability and Fault Tolerance: Design architectures that provide fault tolerance and high availability. Candidates should understand the use of AWS services such as Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), Amazon Route 53, and AWS Auto Scaling to achieve these objectives.
• Backup and Recovery: Implement backup and recovery solutions using AWS services like AWS Backup, Amazon S3, and Amazon RDS snapshots.
• Decoupling Mechanisms: Design for decoupling using AWS services such as Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, and AWS Step Functions.

Define Performant Architectures (28%)

• Performance Efficiency: Optimize performance by selecting appropriate AWS services and architectural patterns. Understand the characteristics of various AWS compute, storage, and database services.
• Capacity Planning: Determine the right sizing and scaling strategies for AWS resources.
• Monitoring and Performance Metrics: Use AWS CloudWatch and other monitoring tools to track performance and identify bottlenecks.

Specify Secure Applications and Architectures (24%)

• Security Features and Best Practices: Implement AWS security best practices, including IAM policies, VPC security, encryption, and compliance.
• Data Protection: Ensure data protection using services like AWS KMS, AWS WAF, and Amazon Macie.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM): Configure IAM roles, policies, and access controls to secure resources and manage permissions.

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures (18%)

• Cost Management: Understand how to estimate and control costs using AWS pricing models, cost calculators, and cost management tools.
• Cost Optimization Strategies: Design architectures that are cost-efficient, including the use of reserved instances, spot instances, and autoscaling.
• Billing and Pricing: Interpret AWS billing reports and optimize spending based on resource utilization and cost.

Preparation Strategies of SAA-C03 Exam

Understand the Exam Blueprint

Start by reviewing the official AWS exam guide and blueprint. This document outlines the key areas covered in the exam and the percentage weight of each domain.

Hands-On Practice

Gaining hands-on experience with AWS services is crucial. Use the AWS Free Tier and AWS Labs to get practical experience. Building real-world projects and scenarios helps solidify your understanding.

Training Resources for SAA-C03 Exam

• AWS Training and Certification: AWS offers online courses, including the “Architecting on AWS” series, which is designed specifically for the SAA-C03 exam.
• AWS Whitepapers and Documentation: Review AWS whitepapers on best practices and the AWS Well-Architected Framework. These documents provide deep insights into AWS architecture and design principles.

Study Guides and Practice Exams for SAA-C03 Exam

Several third-party study guides and practice exams can help you prepare. Resources such as:

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Study Guide by Ben Piper
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate SAA-C03 Practice Tests by Jon Bonso

These resources provide valuable practice questions and explanations.

Join Study Groups and Forums

Participating in study groups, forums, and online communities (such as AWS re

or LinkedIn groups) can provide additional support and insights from fellow candidates and professionals.

^{Questions For SAA-C03}

Question # 1

A company is developing a mobile game that streams score updates to a back end processor and then posts results on a leaderboard A solutions architect needs to design a solution that can handle large traffic spikes process the mobile game updates in order of receipt, and store the processed updates in a highly available database The company also wants to minimize the management overhead required to maintain the solution. What should the solutions architect do to meet these requirements?

A. Push score updates to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Process the updates in Kinesis Data Streams with AWS Lambda Store the processed updates in Amazon DynamoDB.
B. Push score updates to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. Process the updates with a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances set up for Auto Scaling Store the processed updates in Amazon Redshift.
C. Push score updates to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic Subscribe an AWS Lambda function to the SNS topic to process the updates. Store the processed updates in a SQL database running on Amazon EC2.
D. Push score updates to an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue. Use a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances with Auto Scaling to process the updates in the SQS queue. Store the processed updates in an Amazon RDS Multi-AZ DB instance.

Answer: A

Question # 2

A company runs an SMB file server in its data center. The file server stores large files that the company frequently accesses for up to 7 days after the file creation date. After 7 days, the company needs to be able to access the files with a maximum retrieval time of 24hours.Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Use AWS Data Sync to copy data that is older than 7 days from the SMB file server to AWS.
B. Create an Amazon S3 File Gateway to increase the company’s storage space. Create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the data to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 7 days.
C. Create an Amazon FSx File Gateway to increase the company’s storage space. Create an Amazon S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the data after 7 days.
D. Configure access to Amazon S3 for each user. Create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the data to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after 7 days.

Answer: B

Question # 3

A company has an organization in AWS Organizations that has all features enabled. The company requires that all API calls and logins in any existing or new AWS account must be audited. The company needs a managed solution to prevent additional work and to minimize costs. The company also needs to know when any AWS account is not compliant with the AWS Foundational Security Best Practices (FSBP) standard. Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

A. Deploy an AWS Control Tower environment in the Organizations management account Enable AWS Security Hub and AWS Control Tower Account Factory in the environment.
B. Deploy an AWS Control Tower environment in a dedicated Organizations member account Enable AWS Security Hub and AWS Control Tower Account Factory in the environment.
C. Use AWS Managed Services (AMS) Accelerate to build a multi-account landing zone(MALZ) Submit an RFC to self-service provision Amazon Guard Duty in the MALZ.
D. Use AWS Managed Services (AMS) Accelerate to build a multi-account landing zone(MALZ) Submit an RFC to self-service provision AWS Security Hub in the MALZ.

Answer: A

Question # 4

A solutions architect is designing a user authentication solution for a company. The solution must invoke two-factor authentication for users that log in from inconsistent geographical locations. IP addresses, or devices. The solution must also be able to scale up to accommodate millions of users. Which solution will meet these requirements’?

A. Configure Amazon Cognito user pools for user authentication Enable the nsk-based adaptive authentication feature with multi-factor authentication (MFA)
B. Configure Amazon Cognito identity pools for user authentication Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA).
C. Configure AWS Identity and Access Management (1AM) users for user authentication Attach an 1AM policy that allows the Allow Manage Own User MFA action
D. Configure AWS 1AM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) authentication for user authentication Configure the permission sets to require multi-factor authentication(MFA)

Answer: A

Question # 5

A solutions architect needs to design the architecture for an application that a vendor provides as a Docker container image. The container needs 50 GB of storage available for temporary files. The infrastructure must be server less. Which solution meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

A. Create an AWS Lambda function that uses the Docker container image with an AmazonS3 mounted volume that has more than 50 GB of space
B. Create an AWS Lambda function that uses the Docker container image with an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume that has more than 50 GB of space
C. Create an Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) cluster that uses the AWS Far gate launch type Create a task definition for the container image with an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) volume. Create a service with that task definition.
D. Create an Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) cluster that uses the Amazon EC2 launch type with an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume that has more than 50 GB of space Create a task definition for the container image. Create a service with that task definition.

Answer: C

Question # 6

A company uses AWS Organizations to run workloads within multiple AWS accounts. A tagging policy adds department tags to AWS resources when the company creates tags. An accounting team needs to determine spending on Amazon EC2 consumption. The accounting team must determine which departments are responsible for the costs regardless of AWS account. The accounting team has access to AWS Cost Explorer for all AWS accounts within the organization and needs to access all reports from Cost Explorer. Which solution meets these requirements in the MOST operationally efficient way’?

A. From the Organizations management account billing console, activate a user-defined cost allocation tag named department Create one cost report in Cost Explorer grouping by tag name, and filter by EC2.
B. From the Organizations management account billing console, activate an AWS-defined cost allocation tag named department. Create one cost report in Cost Explorer grouping by tag name, and filter by EC2.
C. From the Organizations member account billing console, activate a user-defined cost allocation tag named department. Create one cost report in Cost Explorer grouping by the tag name, and filter by EC2.
D. From the Organizations member account billing console, activate an AWS-defined cost allocation tag named department. Create one cost report in Cost Explorer grouping by tag name and filter by EC2.

Answer: B

Question # 7

A company is building an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) cluster for its workloads. All secrets that are stored in Amazon EKS must be encrypted in the Kubernetesetcd key-value store. Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key Use AWS Secrets Manager to manage rotate, and store all secrets in Amazon EKS.
B. Create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key Enable Amazon EKSKMS secrets encryption on the Amazon EKS cluster.
C. Create the Amazon EKS cluster with default options Use the Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver as an add-on.
D. Create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key with the ahas/aws/ebsalias Enable default Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume encryption for the account.

Answer: B

Question # 8

A retail company has several businesses. The IT team for each business manages its own AWS account. Each team account is part of an organization in AWS Organizations. Each team monitors its product inventory levels in an Amazon DynamoDB table in the team’s own AWS account. The company is deploying a central inventory reporting application into a shared AWS account. The application must be able to read items from all the teams’ DynamoDB tables. Which authentication option will meet these requirements MOST securely?

A. Integrate DynamoDB with AWS Secrets Manager in the inventory application account. Configure the application to use the correct secret from Secrets Manager to authenticate and read the DynamoDB table. Schedule secret rotation for every 30 days.
B. In every business account, create an 1AM user that has programmatic access. Configure the application to use the correct 1AM user access key ID and secret access key to authenticate and read the DynamoDB table. Manually rotate 1AM access keys every 30days.
C. In every business account, create an 1AM role named BU_ROLE with a policy that gives the role access to the DynamoDB table and a trust policy to trust a specific role in the inventory application account. In the inventory account, create a role named APP_ROLE that allows access to the STS Assume Role API operation. Configure the application to use APP_ROLE and assume the cross-account role BU_ROLE to read the DynamoDB table.
D. Integrate DynamoDB with AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). Generate identity certificates to authenticate DynamoDB. Configure the application to use the correct certificate to authenticate and read the DynamoDB table.

Answer: C

Question # 9

A company built an application with Docker containers and needs to run the application in the AWS Cloud. The company wants to use a managed sen/ice to host the application. The solution must scale in and out appropriately according to demand on the individual container services The solution also must not result in additional operational overhead or infrastructure to manage Which solutions will meet these requirements? (Select TWO)

A. Use Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) with AWS Far gate.
B. Use Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) with AWS Far gate.
C. Provision an Amazon API Gateway API Connect the API to AWS Lambda to run the containers.
D. Use Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) with Amazon EC2 worker nodes.
E. Use Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) with Amazon EC2 worker nodes.

Answer: A,B

Question # 10

A company uses Amazon S3 as its data lake. The company has a new partner that must use SFTP to upload data files A solutions architect needs to implement a highly available SFTP solution that minimizes operational overhead. Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Use AWS Transfer Family to configure an SFTP-enabled server with a publicly accessible endpoint Choose the S3 data lake as the destination
B. Use Amazon S3 File Gateway as an SFTP server Expose the S3 File Gateway endpoint URL to the new partner Share the S3 File Gateway endpoint with the new partner
C. Launch an Amazon EC2 instance in a private subnet in a VPC. Instruct the new partner to upload files to the EC2 instance by using a VPN. Run a cron job script on the EC2 instance to upload files to the S3 data lake
D. Launch Amazon EC2 instances in a private subnet in a VPC. Place a Network Load Balancer (NLB) in front of the EC2 instances. Create an SFTP listener port for the NLB Share the NLB hostname with the new partner Run a cron job script on the EC2 instances to upload files to the S3 data lake.

Answer: A

Conclusion

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam is a significant step for IT professionals looking to advance their careers in cloud architecture. By understanding the exam domains, leveraging AWS resources, gaining hands-on experience, and utilizing study materials, candidates can effectively prepare for and pass the exam. Achieving this certification not only validates your skills but also enhances your ability to design and implement robust AWS solutions, positioning you for success in the cloud computing field.

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