AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Practice Exam

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional certification enables individuals to demonstrate advanced expertise in offering solutions for complex challenges, enhancing security, cost-effectiveness, and performance optimization, as well as streamlining manual tasks. This credential serves as a tool for organizations to recognize skills and essential abilities for driving cloud-based projects forward. The examination assesses candidates' advanced technical proficiency and practical experience in crafting finely tuned AWS solutions aligned with the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

Who should take this exam?

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional certification is for individuals with a minimum of two years of practical experience in crafting and deploying cloud architecture on AWS. Before undertaking this examination, it is advised that candidates possess:

• Proficiency in utilizing AWS CLI, AWS APIs, AWS CloudFormation templates, the AWS Billing Console, and the AWS Management Console, along with familiarity with a scripting language and experience in Windows and Linux environments.
• Capability to offer expert advice on architectural design spanning multiple applications and enterprise projects, with the skill to align business objectives with application and architecture prerequisites.
• Competence in assessing cloud application needs and delivering architectural recommendations for the implementation, deployment, and provisioning of applications on AWS.
• Expertise in designing hybrid architectures employing key AWS technologies such as VPN and AWS Direct Connect, alongside proficiency in establishing a continuous integration and deployment process.

Exam Details

• Exam Name: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
• Exam Code: SAP-C02
• Exam Duration: 180 minutes
• Exam Language: English, French (France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Latin America)
• Number of Questions: 75
• Passing Score: 750

Course Outline

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional Exam covers the following topics - 

Domain 1: Understanding to Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity

1.1 Explain  Architect network connectivity strategies.

• AWS global infrastructure
• AWS networking concepts (for example, Amazon VPC, AWS Direct Connect, AWS VPN, transitive routing, AWS container services)
• Hybrid DNS concepts (for example, Amazon Route 53 Resolver, on-premises DNS integration)
• Network segmentation (for example, subnetting, IP addressing, connectivity among VPCs)
• Network traffic monitoring

1.2 Explain security controls

• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and AWS Single Sign-On
• Route tables, security groups, and network ACLs
• Encryption keys and certificate management (for example, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS], AWS Certificate Manager [ACM])
• AWS security, identity, and compliance tools (for example, AWS CloudTrail, AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer, AWS Security Hub, Amazon Inspector)

1.3 Explain to design reliable and resilient architectures.

• Recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs)
• Disaster recovery strategies (for example, using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery [CloudEndure Disaster Recovery], pilot light, warm standby, and multi-site)
• Data backup and restoration

1.4 Explain Design a multi-account AWS environment.

• AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower
• Multi-account event notifications
• AWS resource sharing across environments

1.5 Explain to determine cost optimization and visibility strategies.

• AWS cost and usage monitoring tools (for example, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Pricing Calculator, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets)
• AWS purchasing options (for example, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, Spot Instances)
• AWS right-sizing visibility tools (for example, AWS Compute Optimizer, Amazon S3 Storage Lens)

Domain 2: Understand to Design for New Solutions

2.1 Explain to design a deployment strategy to meet business requirements

• Infrastructure as code (IaC) (for example, AWS CloudFormation)
  
• Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD)
• Change management processes
• Configuration management tools (for example, AWS Systems Manager)

2.2 Explain to Design a solution to ensure business continuity.

• AWS global infrastructure
• AWS networking concepts (for example, Route 53, routing methods)
• RTOs and RPOs
• Disaster recovery scenarios (for example, backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site)
• Disaster recovery solutions on AWS

2.3 Explain to determine security controls based on requirements.

• IAM
• Route tables, security groups, and network ACLs
• Encryption options for data at rest and data in transit
• AWS service endpoints
• Credential management services
• AWS managed security services (for example, AWS Shield, AWS WAF, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Security Hub)

2.4 Explain to design a strategy to meet reliability requirements.

• AWS global infrastructure
• AWS storage services and replication strategies (for example Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache) Multi-AZ and multi-Region architectures
• Auto scaling policies and events
• Application integration (for example, Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS], Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], AWS Step Functions)
• Service quotas and limits 

2.5 Explain Design a solution to meet performance objectives.

• Performance monitoring technologies
• Storage options on AWS
• Instance families and use cases
• Purpose-built databases

2.6 Explain and determine a cost optimization strategy to meet solution goals and objectives.

• AWS cost and usage monitoring tools (for example, Cost Explorer, Trusted Advisor, AWS Pricing Calculator)
• Pricing models (for example, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans)
• Storage tiering
• Data transfer costs
• AWS managed service offerings

Domain 3: Understand to Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions

3.1 Explain determine a strategy to improve overall operational excellence

• Alerting and automatic remediation strategies
• Disaster recovery planning
• Monitoring and logging solutions (for example, Amazon CloudWatch)
• CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies (for example, blue/green, all-at-once, rolling)
• Configuration management tools (for example, Systems Manager)

3.2 Explain to determine a strategy to improve security.

• Data retention, data sensitivity, and data regulatory requirements
• Automated monitoring and remediation strategies (for example, AWS Config rules)
• Secrets management (for example, Systems Manager, AWS Secrets Manager)
• Principle of least privilege access
• Security-specific AWS solutions
• Patching practices
• Backup practices and methods

3.3 Explain determine a strategy to improve performance.

• High-performing systems architectures (for example, auto scaling, instance fleets, and placement groups)
• Global service offerings (for example, AWS Global Accelerator, Amazon CloudFront, and edge computing services)
• Monitoring tool sets and services (for example, CloudWatch)
• Service level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs)

3.4 Explain determine a strategy to improve reliability

• AWS global infrastructure
• Data replication methods
• Scaling methodologies (for example, load balancing, auto scaling)
• High availability and resiliency
• Disaster recovery methods and tools
• Service quotas and limits

3.5 Identify opportunities for cost optimizations.

• Cost-conscious architecture choices (for example, utilizing Spot Instances, scaling policies, and right-sizing resources)
• Price model adoptions (for example, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans)
• Networking and data transfer costs
• Cost management, alerting, and reporting

Domain 4: Explain to accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization

4.1 Explain to select existing workloads and processes for potential migration.

• Migration assessment and tracking tools (for example, AWS Migration Hub)
• Portfolio assessment
• Asset planning
• Prioritization and migration of workloads (for example, wave planning)

4.2 Explain to determine the optimal migration approach for existing workloads.

• Data migration options and tools (for example, AWS DataSync, AWS Transfer Family, AWS Snow Family, S3 Transfer Acceleration)
• Application migration tools (for example, AWS Application Discovery Service, AWS Application Migration Service [CloudEndure Migration], AWS Server Migration Service [AWS SMS])
• AWS networking services and DNS (for example, Direct Connect, AWS Site-to-Site VPN, Route 53)
• Identity services (for example, AWS SSO, AWS Directory Service)
• Database migration tools (for example, AWS Database Migration Service [AWS DMS], AWS Schema Conversion Tool [AWS SCT])
• Governance tools (for example, AWS Control Tower, Organizations)

4.3 Explain to determine a new architecture for existing workloads.

• Compute services (for example, Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic Beanstalk)
•  Containers (for example, Amazon Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS], Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service [Amazon EKS], AWS Fargate, Amazon Elastic Container Registry [Amazon ECR])
• AWS storage services (for example, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS], Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon FSx, Amazon S3, Volume Gateway)
• Databases (for example, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon OpenSearch Service [Amazon Elasticsearch Service], Amazon RDS, self-managed databases on Amazon EC2)

4.4 Explain to determine opportunities for modernization and enhancements.

• Serverless compute offerings (for example, AWS Lambda)
• Containers (for example, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate)
• AWS storage services (for example, Amazon S3, Amazon EFS)
• Purpose-built databases (for example, DynamoDB, Amazon Aurora Serverless, ElastiCache)
• Integration service (for example, Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, Amazon EventBridge [Amazon CloudWatch Events], Step Functions)