AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03): Architecture and Exam Preparation

Strengthen your ability to design secure, resilient, high-performing, and cost-effective architectures on AWS through a focused SAA-C03 preparation course. Combine detailed explanations and architecture diagrams with targeted code examples, guided labs, scenario-based quizzes, cheat sheets, and interview questions. The eight-hour course prioritizes architectural trade-offs and exam-style reasoning rather than exhaustive service coverage.

Level: intermediate · 24 lessons · about 8 h · Free · AI-assisted course created by Sandip Das

What you will learn

• Select AWS identity, access, encryption, and network controls for secure architecture scenarios.
• Design resilient architectures using multi-AZ deployments, load balancing, decoupling, and recovery strategies.
• Choose compute, storage, database, and networking services to meet workload performance requirements.
• Compare AWS architecture options and recommend cost-effective configurations for stated constraints.
• Interpret SAA-C03-style scenarios, identify requirements, and justify service choices and trade-offs.
• Build and validate small AWS architecture exercises, then remove resources to limit ongoing charges.

Course outline

1. Architecture Reasoning and Secure Foundations

Translate exam scenarios into requirements and design identity, data-protection, and network boundaries.

1. SAA-C03 Domains and Scenario Reasoning (20 min) · free preview
   Review the requested exam blueprint, refresh Region and Availability Zone concepts, and practice extracting constraints with a diagram and decision checklist.
2. IAM Roles, Policy Evaluation, and Cross-Account Access (20 min)
   Trace authorization with small policy examples, temporary credentials, role trust, permissions boundaries, and explicit denies.
3. Encryption and Private Data Access (20 min)
   Compare encryption at rest and in transit, KMS access requirements, and policy-based S3 protection through exam-style data-security scenarios.
4. VPC Routing and Network Security Boundaries (20 min)
   Diagram a two-AZ VPC, route-table paths, security groups, network ACLs, and private service access while identifying NAT cost exposure.

2. Compute, Load Balancing, and Availability

Choose compute models and design a health-aware, horizontally scalable application with protected entry points.

1. EC2, Lambda, and Container Compute Decisions (20 min)
   Compare EC2, Lambda, and managed container options at architecture level, including workload shape, operational responsibility, placement, and execution limits.
2. Load Balancers, Auto Scaling, and Multi-AZ Design (20 min)
   Connect protocol requirements, target health, launch templates, and scaling policies in a two-AZ application diagram.
3. Edge Delivery, Traffic Routing, and Operational Signals (20 min)
   Compare Route 53, CloudFront, and Global Accelerator roles, add WAF and Shield protections, and choose CloudWatch signals for validation.
4. Guided Lab: Validate and Clean Up a Small Compute Workload (20 min)
   Use a console-first, tightly scoped EC2 exercise with a supported image and role-based access; inspect health and metrics, then terminate resources and check retained storage and addresses without deploying a full load-balanced stack.

3. Storage Performance, Protection, and Lifecycle

Select object, block, and file storage and validate S3 access and recovery with cost-aware cleanup.

1. Choose S3, EBS, EFS, or FSx (20 min)
   Use a storage decision matrix to compare object APIs, instance block devices, and shared file protocols without exhaustive service coverage.
2. EBS Performance and Snapshot Recovery (20 min)
   Reason about IOPS versus throughput, SSD versus HDD, and snapshot recovery without assuming AWS automatically backs up every volume.
3. S3 Storage Classes, Lifecycle, and Protection (20 min)
   Balance retrieval needs, minimum billable durations, versioning, asynchronous replication, and Object Lock using a compact decision sheet.
4. Guided Lab: Private S3 Access and Version Recovery (20 min)
   Create a small private, versioned bucket, inspect an access-policy example, recover an overwritten test object, and delete all versions and the bucket; avoid Object Lock and paid replication in this exercise.

4. Database Availability, Performance, and Access Patterns

Compare relational and key-value designs using availability, read scaling, access patterns, and cost constraints.

1. Relational and Key-Value Database Selection (20 min)
   Choose RDS, Aurora, or DynamoDB from data relationships, transactions, queries, and operational needs; introduce DMS only as a migration decision.
2. RDS and Aurora: Failover Versus Read Scaling (20 min)
   Compare Multi-AZ DB instances, Multi-AZ DB clusters, traditional read replicas, and Aurora compute and storage availability.
3. DynamoDB Keys, Indexes, and Capacity Modes (20 min)
   Use a small access-pattern worksheet to choose partition and sort keys, indexes, and on-demand or provisioned capacity.
4. Database Performance, Caching, and Troubleshooting (20 min)
   Diagnose read-heavy and uneven workloads, compare caching with read scaling, and answer short scenario questions using measured performance signals.

5. Decoupling, Failure Handling, and Disaster Recovery

Design asynchronous processing and recovery strategies, then validate a small queue-processing exercise.

1. SQS, SNS, and Event-Driven Service Choices (20 min)
   Diagram buffering, fan-out, and independent scaling; contrast EventBridge routing, Step Functions orchestration, and API Gateway entry points where they resolve a requirement.
2. Reliable SQS-to-Lambda Processing (20 min)
   Trace visibility timeouts, retries, at-least-once delivery, dead-letter handling, and partial batch response behavior with a short handler example.
3. Guided Lab: Observe Queue Processing and Cleanup (20 min)
   Create one SQS queue and a minimal Lambda consumer, send test messages, inspect logs and a controlled retry, and remove the event mapping, function, queue, logs, and exercise role.
4. RTO, RPO, Backups, and Recovery Validation (20 min)
   Compare backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, and active-active designs, emphasizing service-specific backup support and application-level restore checks.

6. Cost Optimization and Integrated Exam Practice

Evaluate compute and network economics, audit lab cleanup, and defend architecture choices through focused quizzes and interview practice.

1. Right-Sizing and Compute Purchasing Trade-Offs (20 min)
   Compare On-Demand, Spot, Savings Plans, and Reserved Instances at exam depth, using utilization and interruption tolerance rather than unverified price claims.
2. Storage, Database, and Network Cost Decisions (20 min)
   Combine S3 lifecycle, DynamoDB capacity, NAT hourly and processing charges, and cross-AZ traffic in architecture-level cost comparisons.
3. Cost-Safe Lab Planning and Teardown Audit (20 min)
   Build a reusable preflight and cleanup checklist, check account and service eligibility without assuming free usage, and verify that exercise resources and retained data are removed.
4. Integrated Architecture Review and Exam-Style Defense (20 min)
   Review a supplied architecture diagram across all four domains, complete a short original scenario quiz, and consolidate a decision cheat sheet and interview answers; this is not a full-length practice exam.

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