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How to build a career as an AWS Solution Architect Associate?

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AWS is the justified head in the cloud area thanks to its marvellous server space and the strong scalability and safety it brings to the businesses that practice it. There is no uncertainty that AWS certification is valuable and unlocks the door for a lot of possibilities, not just for system admins but also for DevOps engineers and developers. With both little and large companies encompassing AWS, there has been a radical demand for approved and experienced AWS Solutions Architects.

Taking this professional path is one of the smartest decisions you can get. It is extremely profitable, and as long as the candidate takes their AWS certification path thoughtfully, their chances of operating in multinational companies and advancing their career even considerably are great. All things apart, in this article we are going to discuss a career as an AWS Solution Architect Associate!

Who is an AWS Solutions Architect?

An AWS solutions architect actually assists as an in-house concierge and authority of AWS assistance. Solutions architects are the go-to sources for which EC2 situation and how many to rotate up. They are the people who can set up security, networking, accommodation, and routing. They are the jackscrew-of-all-trades.

Despite the title, the ability of a solutions architect to choose the conventional AWS services is especially valuable, and the most reliable way to validate that occupation is with the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate certification. 

The professional is also accountable for:

  • Connecting business golas to technology-enabled results
  • Making the advanced cloud-based solutions and trnsmitting the current workloads to the cloud
  • Safing an institution from application and software downtime risks, breaches, circulation errors, and more
  • Using the Amazon’s best operations to plan, make and scale the AWS cloud implementation

Certification Path- To become an AWS Solution Architect Associate, one must pass the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam. This certification helps associations to identify and grow talent with significant skills for working cloud initiatives. Getting AWS Solutions Architect – Associate confirms the capacity to create and execute distributed systems on the AWS.

Who should take this exam?

AWS Solutions Architect Associate examination is dedicated to anyone with 1 or more further years of hands-on experience creating available, fault-tolerant, cost-efficient, and scalable distributed arrangements on AWS. 

Before you take the exam, we suggest you have:

  • 1 year of hands-on expertise with the AWS technology, comprising using networking, compute, storage, and database AWS assistance as well as AWS management and deployment services.
  • Experience in managing, deploying, and working workloads on AWS as well as executing security controls and compliance needs.
  • Familiarity with utilizing both the Management Console and the (CLI) Command Line Interface.
  • Getting the Well-Architected Framework, AWS security services, networking, and the AWS global structure.
  • Abilities to recognize which AWS services satisfy a given technical need and to define the technical needs for an AWS-based application.

Responsibilities of an AWS Solution Architect Associate

An individual must also concentrate on the job-specific duties of an AWS solutions architect. These abilities are necessary for directing the fundamentals of different AWS solution architect positions.

  • Interacting with sales and customers is an essntial part of the job of an AWS solution architect. Therefore, interpersonal abilities are very necessary for the role of an AWS solutions architect.
  • The major share of duties of an AWS solutions architect work with solving queries for addressing customer requirements and business objectives.
  • AWS solution architects have to work many tasks such as troubleshooting, writing scripts, or operating on migrations. Hence, adaptability is a role-specific skill needed for AWS solution architects.
  • The diversity of responsibilities thrown at an AWS solution architect every single day implies the requirement for time management. So, candidates for the AWS architect job role should have time management qualities such as task prioritization and day-planning.

Let us get to the most significant part- the Course Structure!

AWS Solution Architect Associate Skills Measured

The AWS Solutions Architect Associate guide shows the weightings, test fields, and goals only. Even though it is not a complete listing of the content on this exam. The table of content records the main content specialties and their weightings.

New AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) Exam Course Outline

Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures
Task Statement 1: Design secure access to AWS resources.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

Task Statement 2: Design secure workloads and applications.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

Task Statement 3: Determine appropriate data security controls.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures
Task Statement 1: Design scalable and loosely coupled architectures.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

  • Designing event-driven, microservice, and/or multi-tier architectures based on requirements (AWS Documentation: Event-Driven Architecture)
  • Determining scaling strategies for components used in an architecture design
  • Determining the AWS services required to achieve loose coupling based on requirements (AWS Documentation: Loosely Coupled Scenarios)
  • Determining when to use containers (AWS Documentation: Determining task size)
  • Determining when to use serverless technologies and patterns
  • Recommending appropriate compute, storage, networking, and database technologies based on requirements
  • Using purpose-built AWS services for workloads (AWS Documentation: Database)
Task Statement 2: Design highly available and/or fault-tolerant architectures.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

  • Determining automation strategies to ensure infrastructure integrity (AWS Documentation: Protecting Compute)
  • Determining the AWS services required to provide a highly available and/or fault-tolerant architecture across AWS Regions or Availability Zones (AWS Documentation: Architecture guidelines and decisions)
  • Identifying metrics based on business requirements to deliver a highly available solution
  • Implementing designs to mitigate single points of failure (AWS Documentation: Withstand Component Failures)
  • Implementing strategies to ensure the durability and availability of data (for example, backups)
  • Selecting an appropriate DR strategy to meet business requirements (AWS Documentation: Plan for Disaster Recovery (DR))
  • Using AWS services that improve the reliability of legacy applications and applications not built for the cloud (for example, when application changes are not possible)
  • Using purpose-built AWS services for workloads (AWS Documentation: Database)
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
Task Statement 1: Determine high-performing and/or scalable storage solutions.

Knowledge of:

  • Hybrid storage solutions to meet business requirements (AWS Documentation: Hybrid Cloud Storage)
  • Storage services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS]) (AWS Documentation: Storage)
  • Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block)

Skills in:

  • Determining storage services and configurations that meet performance demands (AWS Documentation: Storage Architecture Selection)
  • Determining storage services that can scale to accommodate future needs (AWS Documentation: Storage)
Task Statement 2: Design high-performing and elastic compute solutions.

Knowledge of:

  • AWS compute services with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Batch, Amazon EMR, Fargate) (AWS Documentation: AWS Batch on AWS Fargate, Compute Services)
  • Distributed computing concepts supported by AWS global infrastructure and edge services (AWS Documentation: Global infrastructure)
  • Queuing and messaging concepts (for example, publish/subscribe) (AWS Documentation: Pub/Sub Messaging)
  • Scalability capabilities with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, AWS Auto Scaling) (AWS Documentation: Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling)
  • Serverless technologies and patterns (for example, Lambda, Fargate) (AWS Documentation: Serverless)
  • The orchestration of containers (for example, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS) (AWS Documentation: Orchestrating the containers)

Skills in:

  • Decoupling workloads so that components can scale independently (AWS Documentation: Event-Driven Architecture)
  • Identifying metrics and conditions to perform scaling actions (AWS Documentation: Monitor CloudWatch metrics)
  • Selecting the appropriate compute options and features (for example, EC2 instance types) to meet business requirements (AWS Documentation: Amazon EC2 Instance Types)
  • Selecting the appropriate resource type and size (for example, the amount of Lambda memory) to meet business requirements
Task Statement 3: Determine high-performing database solutions.

Knowledge of:

  • AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions) (AWS Documentation: Global infrastructure)
  • Caching strategies and services (for example, Amazon ElastiCache) (AWS Documentation: Caching strategies)
  • Data access patterns (for example, read-intensive compared with write-intensive) (AWS Documentation: Best practices for Amazon RDS)
  • Database capacity planning (for example, capacity units, instance types, Provisioned IOPS)
  • Database connections and proxies (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon RDS Proxy)
  • Database engines with appropriate use cases (for example, heterogeneous migrations, homogeneous migrations) (AWS Documentation: Heterogeneous database migration)
  • Database replication (for example, read replicas) (AWS Documentation: Working with read replicas)
  • Database types and services (for example, serverless, relational compared with non-relational, in-memory) (AWS Documentation: Database)

Skills in:

  • Configuring read replicas to meet business requirements
  • Designing database architectures (AWS Documentation: Database Architecture Selection)
  • Determining an appropriate database engine (for example, MySQL compared with PostgreSQL) (AWS Documentation: Best practices for Amazon RDS)
  • Determining an appropriate database type (for example, Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB)
  • Integrating caching to meet business requirements
Task Statement 4: Determine high-performing and/or scalable network architectures.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

Task Statement 5: Determine high-performing data ingestion and transformation solutions.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures
Task Statement 1: Design cost-optimized storage solutions.

Knowledge of:

  • Access options (for example, an S3 bucket with Requester Pays object storage) (AWS Documentation: Using Requester Pays buckets for storage transfers and usage)
  • AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing) (AWS Documentation: Using Cost Allocation Tags)
  • AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report) (AWS Documentation: Analyzing your costs with AWS Cost Explorer)
  • AWS storage services with appropriate use cases (for example, Amazon FSx, Amazon EFS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS) (AWS Documentation: Storage)
  • Backup strategies (AWS Documentation: AWS Backup)
  • Block storage options (for example, hard disk drive [HDD] volume types, solid state drive [SSD] volume types) (AWS Documentation: Amazon EBS volume types)
  • Data lifecycles (AWS Documentation: Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager)
  • Hybrid storage options (for example, DataSync, Transfer Family, Storage Gateway)
  • Storage access patterns
  • Storage tiering (for example, cold tiering for object storage) (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon S3 storage classes)
  • Storage types with associated characteristics (for example, object, file, block) (AWS Documentation: Storage)

Skills in:

Task Statement 2: Design cost-optimized compute solutions.

Knowledge of:

  • AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing) (AWS Documentation: Using Cost Allocation Tags)
  • AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report) (AWS Documentation: AWS Cost Explorer)
  • AWS global infrastructure (for example, Availability Zones, AWS Regions) (AWS Documentation: Global infrastructure)
  • AWS purchasing options (for example, Spot Instances, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans) (AWS Documentation: Instance purchasing options)
  • Distributed compute strategies (for example, edge processing) (AWS Documentation: Amazon SageMaker Distributed Training Libraries)
  • Hybrid compute options (for example, AWS Outposts, AWS Snowball Edge) (AWS Documentation: Compute Services)
  • Instance types, families, and sizes (for example, memory optimized, compute optimized, virtualization) (AWS Documentation: Memory optimized instances)
  • Optimization of compute utilization (for example, containers, serverless computing, microservices)
  • Scaling strategies (for example, auto scaling, hibernation) (AWS Documentation: Warm pools for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling)

Skills in:

  • Determining an appropriate load balancing strategy (for example, Application Load Balancer [Layer 7] compared with Network Load Balancer [Layer 4] compared with Gateway Load Balancer) (AWS Documentation: Elastic Load Balancing FAQs)
  • Determining appropriate scaling methods and strategies for elastic workloads (for example, horizontal compared with vertical, EC2 hibernation) (AWS Documentation: Best practices for EC2 Spot)
  • Determining cost-effective AWS compute services with appropriate use cases (for example, Lambda, Amazon EC2, Fargate)
  • Determining the required availability for different classes of workloads (for example, production workloads, non-production workloads) (AWS Documentation: Workloads)
  • Selecting the appropriate instance family for a workload
  • Selecting the appropriate instance size for a workload (AWS Documentation: Tips for Right Sizing)
Task Statement 3: Design cost-optimized database solutions.

Knowledge of:

  • AWS cost management service features (for example, cost allocation tags, multi-account billing) (AWS Documentation: Using Cost Allocation Tags)
  • AWS cost management tools with appropriate use cases (for example, Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost and Usage Report) (AWS Documentation: AWS Cost Explorer)
  • Caching strategies (AWS Documentation: Caching strategies)
  • Data retention policies
  • Database capacity planning (for example, capacity units) (AWS Documentation: Read/write capacity mode)
  • Database connections and proxies (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon RDS Proxy)
  • Database engines with appropriate use cases (for example, heterogeneous migrations, homogeneous migrations) (AWS Documentation: Heterogeneous database migration)
  • Database replication (for example, read replicas) (AWS Documentation: Working with read replicas)
  • Database types and services (for example, relational compared with non-relational, Aurora, DynamoDB) (AWS Documentation: Database)

Skills in:

  • Designing appropriate backup and retention policies (for example, snapshot frequency)
  • Determining an appropriate database engine (for example, MySQL compared with PostgreSQL) (AWS Documentation: Best practices for Amazon RDS)
  • Determining cost-effective AWS database services with appropriate use cases (for example, DynamoDB compared with Amazon RDS, serverless)
  • Determining cost-effective AWS database types (for example, time series format, columnar format) (AWS Documentation: AWS Cloud Databases)
  • Migrating database schemas and data to different locations and/or different database engines (AWS Documentation: Best practices for AWS Database Migration Service)
Task Statement 4: Design cost-optimized network architectures.

Knowledge of:

Skills in:

  • Configuring appropriate NAT gateway types for a network (for example, a single shared NAT gateway compared with NAT gateways for each Availability Zone) (AWS Documentation: NAT gateways)
  • Configuring appropriate network connections (for example, Direct Connect compared with VPN compared with internet) (AWS Documentation: AWS Direct Connect FAQs)
  • Configuring appropriate network routes to minimize network transfer costs (for example, Region to Region, Availability Zone to Availability Zone, private to public, Global Accelerator, VPC endpoints)
  • Determining strategic needs for content delivery networks (CDNs) and edge caching (AWS Documentation: Working with Content Delivery Networks (CDNs))
  • Reviewing existing workloads for network optimizations (AWS Documentation: Optimize over time)
  • Selecting an appropriate throttling strategy (AWS Documentation: Throttle API requests for better throughput)
  • Selecting the appropriate bandwidth allocation for a network device (for example, a single VPN compared with multiple VPNs, Direct Connect speed) (AWS Documentation: Site-to-Site VPN single and multiple connection)

Market Demand and Salary

Cloud computing skills are in huge demand. 63% of IT leaders say it’s harder to find qualified engineers. One can find AWS Solution Architect jobs for fresher roles. Moreover, the applicants may get a genuine salary even as a fresher in the AWS Solution Architect position. According to the 2019 IT Skills and Salary Survey, AWS certified solutions architects can get an average yearly salary of $130,883 in the United States and Canada. One can even make more salary with experience, exceptional skills, and getting the associate-level and professional-level credentials.

Let us provide you with some astonishing preparatory resources!

Learning Resources to Refer!

  • Exploring AWS Learning Paths– This learning path is designed for software developers, voice developers, solutions architects, UI developers, voice designers, and others. Majorly for those who perform a role involving AWS Solution Architect Associate. Also, anyone with beginner-level coding experience who needs to learn to build, test, and publish AWS Solution Architect Associate skills can refer to this.
  • Testprep Online Tutorials– AWS Solution Architect Associate Online Tutorial improves your knowledge and gives a depth learning of the exam concepts. Moreover, they also cover exam specifications and policies. Therefore, learning with Online Tutorials will result in strengthening the preparation.
  • Testprep Online Course- Online courses are one of the most attractive paths of learning for the exam. Subject matter experts make them. Further, the course will give the candidate a solid foundation of the exam concepts. Additionally, this online course guides the candidate along the learning curve.
  • Try Practice Test–  AWS Solution Architect Associate practice exams are the one who garauntees the aspirant about their preparation. The practice test will help the candidates to acknowledge their weak areas so that they can work on them. There are many practice tests available on the internet nowadays, so the candidate can choose which they want. We at Testprep training also offer practice tests which are very helpful for the ones who are preparing. 

Final Words

Amazon Web Services certifications have become a principal credential, partly as the need for cloud experts is so prominent today and these certifications present an attractive way of confirming one’s proficiency in a particular domain. The candidate just has to obtain-in-depth perception of the domain, take up the AWS Associate-level exam, and get amazing industry knowledge. You can also update to the expert level later on in your career exploration. Stay updated and prepare thoroughly!

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