The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C01) exam has a new version – AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02). Stay updated with the latest changes to become a AWS Certified Professional.
Looking for a quick recap for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam? Then, get ready for a quick step by step revision guide for the exam using this cheat sheet. However, AWS is one of the most recognized cloud platforms that has maintained its positions in the cloud world. As a result, AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate certification is greatly recommended in today’s job industry. But, on the other hand, this has also leveled up the competition that has increased the difficulty of the exam. So, the best coming way to pass the exam totally relies on the advanced skills and knowledge you have with good study resources.
But, there is no need to worry! we have covered it up all. In this cheat sheet, we will talk about all the essential information with the best available sources to help you in cracking the AWS exam. So, let’s get started with this.
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate: Basic Requirements
The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate certification assesses your technical proficiency in deploying, managing, and operating on the AWS platform. Furthermore, achieving this certification will not only boost your skills and knowledge but also open up enhanced career prospects for you. The certification will help you gain expertise in the concepts of AWS services. Further, on becoming an AWS Certified SysOps Administrator you will be able to showcase your proficiency, and knowledge in managing, deploying, and operating the AWS systems.
Next, there are skills that will be validated throughout the certification. Let’s check them.
Skills Validated by the Certification
- To begin with, you’ll gain the capability to deploy, oversee, and run scalable, highly accessible, and fault-tolerant systems on AWS.
- Secondly, you’ll acquire the knowledge required to effectively manage and regulate the movement of data to and from AWS.
- Select the appropriate AWS service based on compute, data, or security requirements
- Next, to identify appropriate use of AWS operational best practices
- Skills to estimate AWS usage costs and identify operational cost control mechanisms
- Lastly, migrating on-premises workloads to AWS
Coming on the important sections, that you must review is knowledge requirement for the exam.
Knowledge Required for the Exam
- Firstly, minimum of 1 year of hands-on experience with AWS
- Secondly, experience managing/operating systems on AWS
- Then, understanding of the AWS tenets – architecting for the cloud
- Fourthly, hands-on experience with the AWS CLI and SDKs/API tools
- Finally, grasp of network technologies in the context of AWS, along with a comprehensive understanding of security concepts. This knowledge will be supplemented by practical experience in implementing security controls and ensuring compliance with requirements.
Recommended General IT Knowledge
- Firstly, 1–2 years of experience as a systems administrator in a systems operations role
- Secondly, understanding of virtualization technology
- Skills for monitoring and auditing systems experience
- Good knowledge of networking concepts (e.g., DNS, TCP/IP, and firewalls)
- Lastly, ability to translate architectural requirements
Quick Cheat Sheet for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate
If you have knowledge of AWS and the other fields that are mentioned above, then you are all prepared to achieve your desired goal. However, with the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam, you will not only get to improve knowledge but also may get rewarded lavishly. But, for this it is important to choose the best exam preparation resources to crack this exam. So let’s check the essential exam resources and begin with the preparation.
Understand the exam topics
Understanding and getting familiar with the main objectives of the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate Exam is very important. Knowing the exam objectives will provide you an insight into the exam. Moreover, a thorough analysis of the exam guide will let you align yourself more deeply with the major objectives of the exam. And, you will also be able to review and mark the sections and topics you find difficult. However, the topics that are included in this exam are provided below:
Updated Course Outline
Domain 1: Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation
1.1 Implementing metrics, alarms, and filters by using AWS monitoring and logging services
- Identify, collect, analyze, and export logs (for example, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, CloudWatch Logs Insights, AWS CloudTrail logs) (AWS Documentation: Analyzing Log Data with CloudWatch Logs Insights, Define Amazon CloudWatch Logs, CloudWatch Logs Insights Sample Queries)
- Collect metrics and logs using the CloudWatch agent (AWS Documentation: Collecting Metrics and Logs from Amazon EC2 Instances and On-Premises Servers)
- Creating CloudWatch alarms (AWS Documentation: Create a CloudWatch Alarm Based on a Static Threshold, Create a CloudWatch alarm for an instance, Using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms)
- Develop metric filters (AWS Documentation: Creating Metrics From Log Events Using Filters, Creating Metric Filters)
- Creating CloudWatch dashboards (AWS Documentation: Creating a CloudWatch Dashboard, Using Amazon CloudWatch Dashboards)
- Configuring notifications (for example, Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS], Service Quotas, CloudWatch alarms, AWS Health events) (AWS Documentation: Setting Up Amazon SNS Notifications, Configuring Amazon SNS notifications for Amazon SES, Configuring Notifications for CloudWatch Logs Alarms, Monitoring AWS Health events with Amazon CloudWatch Events, Service Quotas, and Amazon CloudWatch alarms)
1.2 Remediating issues based on monitoring and availability metrics
- Troubleshooting or taking corrective actions based on notifications and alarms (AWS Documentation: Amazon CloudWatch Features, Troubleshooting CloudWatch Events)
- Configuring Amazon EventBridge rules to trigger actions (AWS Documentation: Creating a rule for an AWS service, Creating an EventBridge Rule That Triggers on an AWS API Call Using AWS CloudTrail)
- Using AWS Systems Manager Automation documents to take action based on AWS Config rules (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Automation, Systems Manager Automation actions reference, Working with runbooks, AWS Config)
Domain 2: Reliability and Business Continuity
2.1 Implementing scalability and elasticity
- Creating and maintaining AWS Auto Scaling plans (AWS Documentation: AWS Auto Scaling, How scaling plans work)
- Implementing caching (AWS Documentation: Caching Overview, Caching strategies)
- Applying Amazon RDS replicas and Amazon Aurora Replicas (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon Aurora Auto Scaling with Aurora replicas, Replication with Amazon Aurora)
- Implementing loosely coupled architectures (AWS Documentation: Building Loosely Coupled, Scalable, C# Applications with Amazon SQS and Amazon SNS, Loosely Coupled Scenarios)
- Differentiating between horizontal scaling and vertical scaling
2.2 Implement high availability and resilient environments
- Configuring Elastic Load Balancer and Amazon Route 53 health checks (AWS Documentation: Configuring Amazon Route 53 to route traffic to an ELB load balancer, Creating Amazon Route 53 health checks, and configuring DNS failover)
- Differentiating between the use of a single Availability Zone and Multi-AZ deployments. For example, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon FSx, Amazon RDS (AWS Documentation: Regions and Zones, High availability (Multi-AZ) for Amazon RDS, Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling)
- Implementing fault-tolerant workloads. For example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Elastic IP addresses (AWS Documentation: Mounting with an IP address, Amazon EFS: How it works)
- Applying Route 53 routing policies (for example, failover, weighted, latency based) (AWS Documentation: Choosing a routing policy)
2.3 Implementing backup and restore strategies
- Automating snapshots and backups based on use cases (for example, RDS snapshots, AWS Backup, RTO and RPO, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager, retention policy) (AWS Documentation: Working with backups, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager)
- Restoring databases (for example, point-in-time restore, promote read replica) (AWS Documentation: Working with read replicas)
- Implementing versioning and lifecycle rules (AWS Documentation: Lifecycle configuration elements, Managing your storage lifecycle)
- Configuring Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (AWS Documentation: Amazon S3 Replication, Configuring replication, Replicating objects)
- Executing disaster recovery procedures (AWS Documentation: Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR))
Domain 3: Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation
3.1 Provisioning and maintaining cloud resources
- Creating and managing AMIs (for example, EC2 Image Builder) (AWS Documentation: EC2 Image Builder, How EC2 Image Builder works)
- Creating, managing, and troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation (AWS Documentation: Troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation)
- Provisioning resources across multiple AWS Regions and accounts. For example, AWS Resource Access Manager, CloudFormation StackSets, IAM cross-account roles (AWS Documentation: Use CloudFormation StackSets to Provision Resources, Multiple-account, multiple-Region AWS CloudFormation, Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets for Multiple Accounts in an AWS Organization)
- Selecting deployment scenarios and services (for example, blue/green, rolling, canary) (AWS Documentation: Blue/Green deployment with CodeDeploy, Working with deployment configurations in CodeDeploy, Set up an API Gateway canary release deployment)
- Identifying and remediating deployment issues (for example, service quotas, subnet sizing, CloudFormation, and AWS OpsWorks errors, permissions) (AWS Documentation: AWS service quotas, AWS OpsWorks, AWS::EC2::Subnet)
3.2 Automating manual or repeatable processes
- Using AWS services (for example, OpsWorks, Systems Manager, CloudFormation) to automate deployment processes (AWS Documentation: AWS OpsWorks, Use AWS CloudFormation to configure a service role for Automation, AWS CodeDeploy)
- Implementing automated patch management (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager, Patch management overview)
- Scheduling automated tasks by using AWS services (for example, EventBridge, AWS Config) (AWS Documentation: EventBridge Event Examples from Supported AWS Services, Build a scheduler as a service, AWS Config)
Domain 4: Security and Compliance
4.1 Implementing and managing security and compliance policies
- Implementing IAM features (for example, password policies, MFA, roles, SAML, federated identity, resource policies, policy conditions) (AWS Documentation: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Creating a Role for SAML 2.0 federation (console), Policies and permissions in IAM, Identity providers and federation, IAM Identities (users, groups, and roles))
- Troubleshooting and auditing access issues by using AWS services (for example, CloudTrail, IAM Access Analyzer, IAM policy simulator) (AWS Documentation: Logging IAM and AWS STS API calls with AWS CloudTrail, Using AWS IAM Access Analyzer, AWS security audit guidelines, Logging Access Analyzer API calls with AWS CloudTrail)
- Validating service control policies and permission boundaries (AWS Documentation: Service control policies, Permissions boundaries for IAM entities)
- Reviewing AWS Trusted Advisor security checks (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor)
- Validating AWS Region and service selections based on compliance requirements (AWS Documentation: Compliance validation for Amazon EC2, Compliance validation for AWS Identity and Access Management, Regions and Zones)
- Implementing secure multi-account strategies (for example, AWS Control Tower, AWS Organizations) (AWS Documentation: AWS multi-account strategy for your AWS Control Tower landing zone, AWS Control Tower)
4.2 Implementing data and infrastructure protection strategies
- Enforcing a data classification scheme (AWS Documentation: Leveraging AWS Cloud to Support Data Classification, Data Classification)
- Creating, managing, and protecting encryption keys (AWS Documentation: Creating keys)
- Implementing encryption at rest (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS]) (AWS Documentation: AWS Key Management Service, AWS Key Management Service concepts)
- Implementing encryption in transit (for example, AWS Certificate Manager, VPN) (AWS Documentation: AWS Certificate Manager, Protecting data using encryption)
- Securely store secrets by using AWS services (for example, AWS Secrets Manager, Systems Manager Parameter Store) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, Referencing AWS Secrets Manager secrets from Parameter Store parameters)
- Reviewing reports or findings (for example, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Config, Amazon Inspector) (AWS Documentation: Amazon Inspector, Assessment reports, Amazon GuardDuty)
Domain 5: Networking and Content Delivery
5.1 Implementing networking features and connectivity
- Configuring a VPC (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups, NAT gateway, internet gateway ) (AWS Documentation: VPC with public and private subnets (NAT), NAT gateways, Internet gateways, Network ACLs)
- Configuring private connectivity (for example, Systems Manager Session Manager, VPC endpoints, VPC peering, VPN) (AWS Documentation: Create a Virtual Private Cloud endpoint, AWS Systems Manager Session Manager, AWS PrivateLink and VPC endpoints, VPC peering)
- Checking AWS network protection services (for example, AWS WAF, AWS Shield) (AWS Documentation: How AWS Shield works, What are AWS WAF, AWS Shield, and AWS Firewall Manager?)
5.2 Configuring domains, DNS services, and content delivery
- Configuring Route 53 hosted zones and records (AWS Documentation: Creating a public hosted zone, Creating records by using the Amazon Route 53 console)
- Implementing Route 53 routing policies (for example, geolocation, geoproximity) (AWS Documentation: Choosing a routing policy, Creating and managing traffic policies)
- Customizing DNS (for example, Route 53 Resolver) (AWS Documentation: Getting started with Route 53 Resolver, Resolving DNS queries between VPCs and your network, Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service)
- Configuring Amazon CloudFront and S3 origin access identity (OAI) (AWS Documentation: Restricting Access to Amazon S3 Content by Using an Origin Access Identity)
- Configuring S3 static website hosting (AWS Documentation: Hosting a static website using Amazon S3, Configuring a static website on Amazon S3)
5.3 Troubleshooting network connectivity issues
- Interpreting VPC configurations (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups) (AWS Documentation: Route tables for your VPC, Internetwork traffic privacy in Amazon VPC, Network ACLs, VPC Flow Logs)
- Collecting and interpreting logs (for example, VPC Flow Logs, Elastic Load Balancer access logs, AWS WAF web ACL logs, CloudFront logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging web ACL traffic information, Configuring and using standard logs (access logs), VPC Flow Logs, Access logs for your Network Load Balancer)
- Identifying and remediating CloudFront caching issues (AWS Documentation: Amazon CloudFront)
- Troubleshoot hybrid and private connectivity issues (AWS Documentation: troubleshoot network performance issues between Amazon EC2 Linux instances in a VPC, Troubleshoot connecting to your instance, Hybrid Connectivity)
Domain 6: Cost and Performance Optimization
6.1 Implement cost optimization strategies
- Implementing cost allocation tags (AWS Documentation: Using Cost Allocation Tags)
- Identify and remediate underutilized or unused resources by using AWS services and tools (for example, Trusted Advisor, AWS Compute Optimizer, Cost Explorer) (AWS Documentation: AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Tools for Reporting and Cost Optimization, optimize costs using AWS Trusted Advisor)
- Configure AWS Budgets and billing alarms (AWS Documentation: Creating a Billing Alarm to Monitor Your Estimated AWS Charges, Managing your costs with AWS Budgets)
- Assessing resource usage patterns to qualify workloads for EC2 Spot Instances (AWS Documentation: Spot Instances)
- Identify opportunities to use managed services (for example, Amazon RDS, AWS Fargate, EFS) (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon EFS file systems with Amazon ECS, Amazon Elastic Container Service, Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS))
6.2 Implement performance optimization strategies
- Recommend compute resources based on performance metrics (AWS Documentation: List the available CloudWatch metrics for your instances, Metrics analyzed by AWS Compute Optimizer)
- Monitor Amazon EBS metrics and modify the configuration to increase performance efficiency (AWS Documentation: I/O characteristics and monitoring, Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS)
- Implementing S3 performance features (for example, S3 Transfer Acceleration, multipart uploads) (AWS Documentation: Configuring fast, secure file transfers using Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, Multipart upload overview)
- Monitor RDS metrics and modify the configuration to increase performance efficiency (for example, performance insights, RDS Proxy) (AWS Documentation: Managing connections with Amazon RDS Proxy, Using Performance Insights on Amazon RDS)
- Enabling enhanced EC2 capabilities (for example, enhanced network adapter, instance store, placement groups) (AWS Documentation: Enhanced networking on Linux, Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows instances, Placement groups)
AWS Learning Path
For AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate Exam, AWS provides learning path to help you in understanding the topics and get a clear pathway to prepare for the exam.
AWS Training Programs
The training programs and online courses will help you in the preparation of the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate Exam. Training programs will make you understand the topics and concepts as well as it will clear all your doubts. The AWS training programs for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate include:
AWS Technical Essentials
The AWS Technical Essentials introductory course will help you gain an understanding of the AWS products, services, and common solutions. Moreover, you will also gain hands-on expertise on the fundamentals of identifying AWS service. This will make you efficient in making informed decisions about IT solutions based on the requirements of your business.
Systems Operations on AWS
The Systems Operations on AWS course is primarily for training system administrators or the ones in the Development Operations (DevOps) role. This course aims to make you efficient in creating automatable and repeatable deployments of networks and systems on the AWS platform. It covers the specific AWS features and also the tools related to configuration and deployment.
Exam Readiness: AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate Course
Amazon Web Service offers Exam Readiness training in both, classroom, and digital training formats for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate. This will help you get a deeper insight into the objectives and skill requirements of the AWS SysOps Examination. The course is prepared by certified instructors with an aim to guide you with the various AWS tactics. Moreover, the study material is up-to-date with the latest practices.
AWS Whitepapers
The AWS team provides a range of whitepapers aimed at enhancing your technical knowledge. These whitepapers are authored by the AWS team, industry analysts, and other AWS collaborators. Below is a selection of highly recommended AWS whitepapers:
- Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
- AWS Security Best Practices
- Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Development and Test on AWS
- Backup and Recovery Approaches Using AWS
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Connectivity Options
- How AWS Pricing Works
Refer AWS Books
AWS provides a list of endorsed books for individuals preparing to take their certification exam. These books are carefully crafted to facilitate a strong understanding of AWS administration. When preparing for the exam, it’s essential to recognize the value of books. They allow you to focus on challenging topics or revisit them at your convenience. Recommended books for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam include:
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator (SOA-C01) Official Study Guide: Associate Exam by Stephen Cole, Gareth, Chris Fitch, Jerry Rhoads, Michael Roth, Blain Sundrud
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate Guide by Packt
Evaluate yourself with Practice Exam
Engaging in a practice test serves as a valuable strategy to assess your study approach and optimize your performance in the actual exam. It helps in pinpointing areas of weakness that require improvement. Furthermore, utilizing these practice tests for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam offers insights into the question patterns and contributes to enhancing your ability to answer questions effectively.
