Preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam can be a daunting process. It’s usually the first certification AWS developers attempt, and the list of topics can be overwhelming for those with less experience. Fortunately, knowing what resources to study and what resources to skip can make your study time much more effective. This article will serve as a guide to some popular study materials.
A Cloud Guru Certified Solutions Architect Course
URL: https://acloud.guru/
Price: $29/month or $99 for the course
Length: ~22 hours + quizzes
Before taking my AWS certification exam, I attended an AWS meetup that included a panel discussion about preparing for AWS certifications. All the panelists had great advice, and they all said the same thing – A Cloud Guru is a must. This course goes in-depth into each topic of the SA exam, with quizzes to test your knowledge as you go and labs that can be completed while staying within the free tier of AWS. As a bonus, it’s amended periodically to keep up with the latest updates to the exam. The video length totals around 22 hours, but you’ll want to give yourself time to review important sections more than once, particularly the lab for setting up a VPC. Keep in mind that as useful as this course is, it alone won’t be sufficient to pass the exam.
A Cloud Guru Forums
URL: https://acloud.guru/forums/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate
Price: Free
Length: 5-30 minutes per post
The forums at A Cloud Guru were an invaluable benefit that greatly enhanced the course. They contain posts about troubleshooting the labs, clarifying questions on difficult topics, and exam experiences from other users. While many discussions are related directly to the A Cloud Guru course, many posts are filled with advice that’s useful even if you choose not to take the course. Do yourself a favor and dedicate some time to reading the posts under the Popular tab to find topics that were only touched on in the course that may come up in the exam.
AWS FAQs
URL: https://aws.amazon.com/faqs/
Price: Free
Length: Variable
The great thing about the AWS FAQs is they have a massive amount of information all in one place. The downside is…it’s a massive amount of information all in one place. The FAQs are far too long and time-consuming to be read end-to-end - the EC2 FAQ is roughly the length of Animal Farm. Furthermore, the FAQs contain plenty of practical knowledge, but the exam requires applying knowledge to real-life situations. Because of this, the FAQs are most useful to round out and expand existing knowledge you’ve gained from other sources and shouldn’t be used as your primary resource. Skimming through the questions until you find something useful to you would be the best way to use the FAQs. A few sections I found particularly valuable include:
- EBS in the EC2 FAQ
- The General section of Key Management Services
- Security and Filtering in VPC
- VPC and EC2 in VPC
AWS Blogs
URL: http://jayendrapatil.com/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/category/trainingand-certification/
Price: Free
Length: 15-60 minutes per blog post
Jayendra Patil’s blog is a great resource when you don’t understand a topic after listening to the A Cloud Guru course. He’s certified for Solutions Architect – Professional and writes his posts in a clear and concise way to get across as much information as possible, often with helpful diagrams. His Learning Path page, in particular, helps ensure you’ve covered each topic listed in the certification description.
The Cloud Assessments blog was less useful and didn’t cover as many technical topics directly related to the exam. It does, however, contain useful non-technical articles related to tips and planning that I found helpful.
Check-in on the Amazon Certifications blog once in a while. Articles are posted infrequently, but it will keep you up to date with any certification news, including training opportunities and new exams that are being offered.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Official Study Guide
URL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119138558
Price: $33.00
Length: 437 pages
The downside of the official study guide to the exam is apparent immediately – it’s a physical book, and it can’t be updated as AWS grows and evolves. This study guide was published in October 2016, and many AWS services have been released and updated since then. If you read it in conjunction with other resources, don’t be surprised to find the study guide telling you AWS is unable to perform a task it can now do. Additionally, this book covers topics unrelated to the exam and goes into great detail about many of the services. This is a benefit if you want to learn more about AWS in general, but not if you’re trying to use your study time as efficiently as possible.
Each chapter ends with several hands-on AWS exercises to be performed in AWS, and while useful and relevant, they consist of text descriptions and can be difficult to complete for less experienced developers, especially compared to the step-by-step walkthrough of A Cloud Guru. Finally, the book boasts online resources including flashcards, but with a website that was slow and unintuitive, I quickly stopped using it.
Migrating applications to the Cloud is quickly becoming a number one priority for clients. Achieving an AWS certification helped me provide maximum value to my clients and navigate all the features AWS has to offer. Here are a couple of examples of the AWS work DragonSpears has done:
- How C2K’s AWS Cloud Migration Enhanced Scalability and Disaster Recovery
- How Greenheart’s AWS Cloud Migration Improved Scalability and Security
For more insight into the AWS certification exam process or developing your application migration strategy to the Cloud, 
