How I passed AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate (SAA-C02) Exam?

AWS Solutions Architect — Associate certification is a sought after certification in the industry. In this article, I share my experience of preparing for the exam, and some helpful tips.

AWS Solutions Architect Associate (image source: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-associate/)

My Experience

I passed the exam in November 2021. Here is what I felt about the exam:

1. The exam seems to be heavily focused on VPC and EC2 components of AWS. You may have seen this mentioned in almost all online posts or threads that you’ve read about exam preparation. It is absolutely true.
2. I found that the exam questions were focused on situations for transitioning from on-premise architecture to cloud architecture. That’s also the reason why there are more questions about EC2 and VPC architecture. So, while going through AWS services, think about scenarios where each of the services could be applicable for certain scenarios.
3. I think having a high level understanding of where each of AWS services fit in different categories makes it easier to tackle exam questions. For example: since I already had experience using AWS services for few years before I took the exam, I classified the services in four main domains — Storage, Compute, Identity, Security. By doing so, I didn’t have to memorize each and every details of all the…