Passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam (SAA-CO2)
With everyone being in quarantine and staying indoors, what better time to pick up some useful certifications. So I wanted to start with the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam. If you have no idea what this is, AWS is Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing provider and this exam is all about using AWS services to design highly available, reliable, scalable and secure systems. Overall, the difficulty of this exam I’d say is medium and took me 2 months to prepare for.
My Background
Prior to starting my preparation for this certification, I had a little bit of experience working with AWS services. I had around 7 months of internship work experience and I had just completed a ‘Cloud Computing’ course at university which focused more on the data analytics side of AWS. In this course, we mainly used EMR and Apache Spark. I wouldn’t say that this course was structured very well, so even after doing this, didn’t feel very confident using AWS.
Step 1: Preparation (~1–2 months)
I started by doing the whole ACloudGuru course. This course is structured well and delivered articulately. Ryan does a really good job explaining difficult concepts to beginners. I definitely recommend starting with an online course to ensure you have a basic understanding of all the AWS services.
This course took me just under a month to complete. I was working full time while doing it, but if you’re not (or better at managing your time), you could definitely complete it in less. Or it might take you longer if you have less time to dedicate to doing it each week. The whole course is 23.5 hours. Finishing the course felt like a milestone in itself, but there’s still a lot of preparation that follows!
Biggest tip for the course, take notes!! My notes ended up being close to 100 pages. This will be your Bible and will be really helpful for the rest of your study, especially when you’re trying to build on your knowledge later on. It will also be really good for you to skim right before the exam to refresh your knowledge.
Step 2: Consolidating Knowledge (~2–4 weeks)
After completing an online course, you’re about 30% complete with your preparation. Now that I had a better understanding of all the AWS services (well, at least I’d heard of all the different services, even if I had forgotten what they actually were or not fully understood what they did), it was time to really consolidate my knowledge and focus on understanding how the services fit together.
I started by reading/skimming all the AWS FAQs. I recommend skimming the services you feel unsure about and properly reading the FAQs for the following important services:
- Amazon EC2 FAQ
- Amazon S3 FAQ
- Amazon RDS FAQ
- Amazon VPC FAQ
- Amazon Route53 FAQ
- Amazon SQS FAQ
I read the AWS Well-Architected Framework white paper which breaks down best practices when designing software solutions to problems. This was a quick read, but covered the important concepts being Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency and Cost Optimisation. There are a few more white papers recommended by other sources, but I didn’t get a chance to read those.
I also re-watched particular sections in the ACloudGuru course I felt a bit unsure about. The topics I found a bit harder were VPCs, Lambda functions and Security. Watching the lectures a second time (with 2x speed most of the time) really helped me consolidate my knowledge. I also found that I really understood the content this time around (instead of me trying to frantically keep up with Ryan’s instructions in the labs).
If possible, I found that it was really helpful to think about how these services could be used in real life. So if you work in software engineering or any other technical role, for example, how could these services apply to the projects you’re working on right now or have worked on? Seeing how these services fit into what you already do will really help you remember the details required to pass this exam.
Step 3: Applying the Knowledge (~2–4 weeks)
By this point, you’re 50% complete with your exam preparation. You have a basic understanding of all the services and how they generally fit in together. But I think the bulk of the work is actually in applying this knowledge.
Completing practice tests are crucial. This will really help you identify areas that you need to work on. First, I worked through all the ACloudGuru end of topic quizzes (as I’d skipped a lot of them while I was completing the course), then I worked through their practice test. The ACloudGuru practice test is fairly straight forward, I scored 83% on my first attempt, but definitely read the summaries and learn from your mistakes.
I also purchased the Udemy practice tests by Jon Bonso. This comes with 6 practice tests which you can pause and redo in your own time. These tests were a game changer. They’re the most similar to the actual exam and will help you identify areas you need to work on. The explanations are also really good to read over. Even if you get the question right, I guarantee you’ll definitely learn something new. These explanations really extended the content I learned from the ACloudGuru course and provided in-depth explanations on topics such as Aurora, Aurora Serverless, Global Accelerator etc. which were skimmed over in the ACloudGuru course.
Also, don’t be discouraged if you’re failing the Udemy practice tests. They’re hard. I failed most of the them on my first attempt. My scores were 72%, 75%, 75%, 67%, 66% and 70%. So I only passed 3 on the first go. Just make sure to review the answers thoroughly so you learn from your mistakes. I kept a separate document with all the questions and explanations I wanted to re-read later. This ended up being roughly 60 pages.
Step 4: Booking the Exam
I booked the test a month before I actually sat the exam. I just need time pressure to get work done, but you could book the test after you’ve finished all your study and feel ready. Just book the test through the AWS Certification Account.
Keep in mind that you can reschedule the test if you need to, as long as you do it 48 hours before your scheduled exam time. It’s important to really make sure you understand the concepts and feel confident before sitting the test. At the end of the day, you’re doing this exam so that you can have a deep understanding of AWS services and can be a solutions architect, so I wanted to avoid any of the “last minute” cramming that I usually do for my university courses (you know, the ones where you cram and immediately forget after the exam). So I’d recommend giving yourself time.
Step 5: Week of the Exam
Now, you’re a few days out from the exam. By this point, you’re 90% complete with your exam preparation. You’ve ironed out services you’re unsure about and now your focus should be on reviewing all the services together.
To do this, I re-read the explanations in the Udemy exam that I’d flagged as important. I rewatched the ‘Building a Fault Tolerant WordPress’ lectures in the ACloudGuru course as it covers many different topics (Elastic Load Balancers, Auto-Scaling, RDS etc.). If there are any other topics you’re still not feeling confident about at this point, re-watch the lectures!
The night before, I read through all my notes from the ACloudGuru course just to refresh my knowledge. By this point, just be confident that you’ve done the work and don’t stress out. Trust that you’ve done your preparation and will ace the exam.
Step 6: Sitting the Exam
The test was an online proctored exam. I think there is an option to do it at a test centre, but given we’re kind of in quarantine right now, I opted for the online version.
The exam consists of 65 questions. It is 140 minutes long with 5 minutes at the start for you to read and agree to the terms and conditions and 5 minutes at the end for the survey (so the exam is 130 minutes).
You can check in to the exam 30 minutes before the start time. During the check in time, you’ll have to do a system test, identity check and take photos of your workspace. Once the proctor contacts you, you’ll need to show your workspace using your web cam. You’ll need to make sure you’re in a room with a closed door and no study materials or clutter on your desk and good internet connection. I had to do my exam in my garage as none of the rooms in my house really met this criteria. Once everything’s been confirmed, the proctor will release your exam and you can start.
The exam was tough. I was able to complete all the questions in 70 mins. Then the next 30 minutes, I went through all my flagged questions. I had roughly 25 flagged. I read through these questions again carefully but there were still a few I wasn’t sure about. Then I had around 30 minutes to go through all the questions again and submitted with 1 minute to spare.
My best advice is to not panic and really read the question. When I was checking my answers, I realised there were a few questions I just didn’t read properly. Read all the options before answering. It helps to justify why the other options are wrong. Basically all the questions are scenario based, so really focus on trying to understand the problem. I can’t stress how important it is to read the question! If you’ve done all the practice exams and reviewed the explanations, you definitely have the knowledge to solve these problems. It’s just a matter of exam technique and really staying focused on the wording of the questions.
The Results
After the test, there’s just a quick survey you need to complete before your results are displayed on the screen.
And yes. I passed. I couldn’t believe it. The 2 months of hard work had paid off. I was so relieved. It was tough, but I made it.
I got my badge 7 hours after sitting the exam. You can share this badge on your LinkedIn or other social media. You worked hard to get here so you should!
The next day, I got my results. They’ll send you an email telling you your results are ready in your AWS certification account. You’ll also get a bunch of vouchers to use for future exams.
Reflection
It was really refreshing to study by choice. I’ve always seen studying as an obligation because I only studied for either school or university where you have a set course and proper deadlines. But with this certification, it was really up to me to pick a date for the exam and organise my own preparation for it. I really enjoyed learning about the different AWS services and though the exam was tough, in the end, it was fun trying to use those services to think of a solution to the problem presented.
Going forward, I might slowly work my way through another course on ACloudGuru. My final uni semester has just started so that will be priority for the next few months. I do look forward to be able to take this new knowledge and apply it at work. I’m still ecstatic that I got through this and good luck if you’re doing the exam soon!
My Notes
I might try to write some notes in my spare time. I’ll link them here:
Every AWS Service
https://medium.com/@ritacheung9/every-aws-service-summary-7c628cfbbdb0
