AssociateAWS

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate — Study Guide & Exam Overview

The AWS Solutions Architect – Associate is one of the most in-demand cloud certifications globally. It demonstrates you can design production-grade, cost-effective, and highly available systems on AWS — a skill set valued across engineering, DevOps, and cloud consulting roles.

Duration

130 min

Passing Score

720 / 1000 points

Level

Associate

Provider

AWS

What This Certification Covers

  • Designing secure, resilient multi-tier architectures on AWS
  • Storage trade-offs: S3, EBS, EFS, FSx, RDS, DynamoDB, and Glacier
  • VPC fundamentals: subnets, route tables, security groups, NACLs, and peering
  • Disaster recovery strategies: RPO/RTO, backup/restore, pilot light, warm standby, and multi-site active-active
  • Cost optimization patterns using Auto Scaling, Spot Instances, and Reserved Capacity

Exam Domain Breakdown

  • Secure Architectures (30%)
  • Resilient Architectures (26%)
  • High-Performing Architectures (24%)
  • Cost-Optimized Architectures (20%)

Exam Format

65 multiple-choice and multiple-response questions, 130 minutes, scored 100–1000 with passing score of 720

Study Tips to Pass Solutions Architect

  1. 1Practice designing multi-tier architectures — draw diagrams to internalize the patterns
  2. 2Master the four disaster recovery strategies and know when to use each based on RPO/RTO requirements
  3. 3Understand every VPC component: you will encounter complex networking scenarios on the exam
  4. 4Study AWS re:Invent architecture talks and AWS Whitepapers for real-world patterns
  5. 5Use AWS Well-Architected Labs for hands-on practice across all five pillars

Ready to test your knowledge? Take a free timed mock exam below.

Official Solutions Architect exam page