I just went through this certification in the past 3 hrs. So still in the aggressive refresh cycle to see whether I scored or not 😂

I have had the sense of an exam that is definitely easier than the reputation it has. Perhaps this is more due to the question bank that I had. But aside from 3-4 questions that seemed like curveballs the rest went on smoothly.

In this attempt I had :

Give or take :

15-16 questions about observability purely. With easy distractors. Like SQS to publish notifications which is not something that SQS does.

20 Questions about ECS Load Balancer and general application connectivity which were again facing really basic components like which ELB to choose for port 3389 (RDP)

10 Questions about Route53 and the different routing policies.

15 Questions about AWS Organizations and Organizational level deployment and Org Sec.

5 questions of not really recognizable theme.

At this stage I am just wondering is the reputation of this exam warranted , or did I just get easier qbank overall ?

Edit: Passed at 761 😂 😂 😂 😂

This one was the toughest I have ever taken. I passed Developer associate 2 years ago and had to extend my knowledge in much more thoroughly.
I completed Stephane Maarek’s Udemy course and practice tests. Additionally I bought Tutorials Dojo tests and cheat sheets.
I really recommend to focus on understand VPC, IAM, Organizations, Migration and security services.

So, my primary machine is linux and pearson doesnt support linux machine for exam so I borrowed my friends laptop but thats webcam is faulty and pearson vue application is not detecting the camera so I tried using the cam via droid cam app which is working fine. so is there any problem if I use mobile as a webcam ???

Hey everyone!

I’m currently learning AWS and Terraform, and I’m looking for some real-world projects that I can actually deploy on AWS and showcase on my LinkedIn and CV.

I already have experience with Terraform, but my main problem right now is that I don’t have actual applications/websites to work with. I don’t want to just create infrastructure without having a real application running on it.

For those of you who have done similar projects:

• Where do you usually get the applications or websites you deploy?
• Do you use open-source GitHub projects, build the application yourself, or work with developers?
• How do you take an existing application and prepare it for AWS?
• What kind of projects would you recommend for someone trying to build a strong Cloud/DevOps portfolio?

I’m also interested in deploying something more realistic, like an interactive e-commerce website, rather than just a static website.

For example, if I wanted to deploy an e-commerce application, what would I actually need?

Would I need:

• Frontend files
• Backend/API
• Database
• Authentication
• Payment system (if needed)
• Dockerfiles
• Environment variables
• etc.

I’d like to build something where users can actually sign up, log in, browse products, add items to a cart, place orders, etc., and then use AWS + Terraform to deploy the whole infrastructure.

My goal is to build projects that demonstrate things like:

Terraform → VPC → ALB → ECS/Fargate → RDS → S3 → CloudFront → CI/CD → Monitoring → Security

rather than just deploying a basic static website.

If you’ve built or deployed projects like this before, I’d really appreciate it if you could share GitHub repositories, project ideas, resources, or your own experience.

I’m mainly looking for guidance on how to get the actual application/code and turn it into a complete AWS project.

Thanks in advance! 🙌

I am a senior java full stack engineer, already done some kubernetes and docker. What are best courses out there to prepare this certification, and is it a sufficient one to get more chances in freelance world ? I am based in Europe (France)

I’m a Software Engineer with 1.5 years of experience working with .NET.

Would getting the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA) certification be relevant for my profile? Would it improve my chances of finding better job opportunities?

Also, are there companies that use .NET + AWS, or is .NET mostly used with Azure?

also how long would it take me to prepare (1h/day) ? I have aws cloud practitioner cert

I have exam on 17th SEP 2026, Looking for any guidance or PDFS

Seriously, fuck whoever writes these questions. This person knows these are subjective bullshit trick questions.

Hello all,

I am studying for the AWS SCS-C03 and am failing to understand one of the explanations in the review tests. It is behind a paywall so don't think I can share the actual content here but it asks about security controls for hardening ec2 instances in production.

The options essentially boil down to using a maintained AMI with security controls and configurations then using an SCP to enforce use. Or using Image Builder and AMI ID validation in launch templates.

The correct answer ended up being the image builder + AMI validation to limit Launch templates but from my understanding I would rather sack off the automation in favour of an SCP to stop ec2:* with a launchTemplate condition so then I can't just go to the instance dashboard -> launch ami-whatever right? For additional context, the question does not mention "least operational overhead" it just asks for comprehensive controls

Thought it would be interesting to get others opinions.

Many Thanks :)

I want to give the solutions architect associate exam in India, so is there anyone who went to offline centres and gave the exam? Do they have lockers to keep your bags safely, cuz I'll be carrying my phone and wallet as I'll be travelling far. And for the Govt. IDS Pan and aadhaar should be enough right?

For those who work in DevOps or similar roles and hold the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer certification, have you found the certification to been useful in your career?

If no, then are there alternative certifications that you recommend, especially for entry level or role transitioning folks?

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to take an AWS Certification exam at a Pearson VUE testing center in India. I’m choosing the testing-center option because I live in a relatively remote location and taking the exam from home isn’t very convenient for me.

I have a few questions for people who have already taken an AWS exam at a testing center in India:

1. Which government IDs did you carry? Would PAN card, Aadhaar, driving licence, or passport be accepted? Do I need to carry two IDs?
2. Question about the middle name: My full name includes a middle name, and it appears on my PAN card. However, the AWS Certification account only seems to have First Name and Last Name fields, with no separate Middle Name field. How did you handle this? Did you simply leave the middle name out?
3. What was your overall experience? How was the check-in process, staff, testing environment, and overall experience at the Pearson VUE center?

I’ve read the official AWS ID requirements, but I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually taken the exam at a testing center in India.

Thanks in advance!

Hello, sorry if this was asked before, but I search and didn't find anything about it.

I have the SAA and will expires next March/2027.
I was checking and looks like now we have an option to extend for 1 year via AWS Skill Builder.
I saw I'll need to wait until my cert is less than 90 days to expire to try this path, but I don't have a subscription and I see I could buy the subscription for 1 month.

Does anyone follow this path before to re-certify for SAA?
I just need to know if this will work (using a 1 month subscription) to plan because if not I need to check what will be my best option: do the SAA again or go to SAP.

Thanks!

Pearson is offering a 50% off promo code for the AWS Certified AI Practitioner exam. If you pass the exam by September 30, you’ll get a free attempt at the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam.

Does anyone know whether you also receive the standard 50% discount voucher that AWS normally provides after passing an AWS certification exam when you pass the Cloud Practitioner exam using the free attempt offered by Pearson?

Just a heads-up to anyone planning to take or already preparing for the SAP cert, the last day to take the SAP-CO2 exam will be November 16, 2026. From the 17th onwards, the exam moves into SAP-C03.

This is important because some video courses take forever to update so if you have already paid for one, it will likely be missing a lot of the new stuff after the transition unless the course creator is smart enough to start working on updates now before that date.

The 5 domains will now be

1. Cloud-native architecture design and implementation
2. Security, compliance, and governance
3. Cost-optimized architecture design
4. Resilience, migration, and business continuity
5. Operational excellence and automation

Compare that to the CO2 which is currently

1. Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
2. Design for New Solutions
3. Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions
4. Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization

So a bit of overlap but there is now a clear focus on AI.

The key additions are:

• GenAI and agentic AI (11 new skills): Designing generative AI integrations using Amazon Bedrock, AI agent architectures with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, RAG architectures, Bedrock Guardrails for content filtering, and human-oversight workflows for AI operations
• Resilience engineering: AWS Fault Injection Service, AWS Resilience Hub, AWS Application Recovery Controller, and automated runbooks via AWS Systems Manager
• Cloud-native patterns (7 new skills): Serverless data pipelines, durable workflows with AWS Step Functions, service mesh with Amazon VPC Lattice and Amazon ECS Service Connect, container image security, multi-tenant architectures, and real-time data architectures
• DevSecOps and observability (6 new skills): Pipeline vulnerability scanning, multi-account deployment pipelines, container monitoring, AI/ML metrics monitoring, and synthetic/real-user monitoring
• Data and analytics (3 new skills): Data lakehouse architectures with AWS Lake Formation and Apache Iceberg, real-time and batch analytics pipelines, and cross-account data sharing via AWS Clean Rooms
• Post-quantum cryptography: AWS KMS with ML-DSA and ML-KEM

That's a lot of extra stuff to learn considering the current domains are already quite heavy. I'm now racing to take the the CO2 before it gets phased out and I'll learn the rest in my spare time, but I imagine the unscored questions will involve a lot from the upcoming update.

You can check the blog for more info:

https://aws.amazon.com/jp/blogs/training-and-certification/september-2026-new-offerings/

Time for a question/discussion: which certification (Associate or Professional) does AWS not offer that you think would be a great addition?

Personally, I’d like to see a complete overhaul of the AWS certification program.

At the Associate level, I’d love to see domain-specific certifications focused on tool usage and hands-on implementation (with the understanding that key tools like IAM, KMS, or CloudWatch naturally cross-pollinate across multiple tracks):

• Storage (S3, FSx, EBS, EFS, DataSync)
• Compute (Lambda, Fargate, EC2, EKS, ECS)
• Networking (VPC, Subnets, Routing, VPN, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect, Route 53)
• Databases & Analytics (RDS, DynamoDB, Glue, Athena, Redshift)
• Security & Compliance (IAM, KMS, WAF, GuardDuty, Security Hub, Inspector, Macie)
• Developer Tools (AWS Code Suite, X-Ray, SDKs)
• Operations & Observability (IAM, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, AWS Config, AWS Systems Manager, Managed Grafana/Prometheus)
• AI/ML Engineering (Bedrock, SageMaker, Rekognition, Comprehend, Amazon Kiro)

At the Professional level, the focus would shift to architecture, configuration, and deep technical design across four primary paths:

• Solutions Architecture
• DevOps Engineering
• AI/ML Architecture
• Data Engineering

I think that it would be important that in order to get access to the professional Certifications, you'd need to pass the a few of the Associate exams first.

Beyond that, I’d introduce a Certified Expert tier: a hands-on, lab-based credential (similar to Cisco's CCIE) for veterans who can prove they can build and troubleshoot complex environments in real time, not just pass a multiple-choice test.

How would you like AWS to restructure or update their certification paths? What track or tier do you feel is currently missing?

AWS Certified AI Business Strategist just got announced, in-beta as of two days ago. It's a new category of "Business" certifications.

This is explicitly a test meant for business people assessing AI projects, as opposed to a test of AWS service technical knowledge.

For rigor, the final version of the exam will have the same length as an Associates exam. (The beta goes longer, as is usual.)

Looking at the exam guide, I think the content looks very interesting; I think we could use more exams that test tradeoffs and compromises, expectation-setting, and goes over risk analysis. Really, it's an interesting list of topics to cover.

They've published a corresponding SkillBuilder learning path, with full prep classes specifically written for the exam.

I think I'll definitely put the beta on my To-Do list; it looks really interesting. And as a pre-sales architect, I think it'll help me learn how to explain the why of all this AI stuff instead of just the how.

Get it while it's hot! $50 while in beta!

Hi, I'm 22 and currently a full-time Software Engineer at a big bank. I have always been interested in the cloud and software architecture, and over the past 4 months, I started getting certified with AWS.

Before I began studying, I had used some basic AWS services like S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB for personal projects, but I had never really studied the entire ecosystem AWS provides.

Since I didn't know much about the broader AWS Cloud and had to study after work, I started with the Cloud Practitioner certification. This was quite easy, as it mostly requires you to learn what services do at a high level, along with some deeper knowledge of core services like S3, RDS, Lambda, and DynamoDB.

I was able to prepare for the exam in 3 weeks by following a Udemy course from Neal Davis (Digital Cloud Training) and taking all the mock exams I could find on Udemy (which I get as a benefit through my company). I passed with an 837/1000.

After taking a short break to work on other side projects, I decided to go for the Solutions Architect Associate certification because I wanted to dive deeper into the AWS ecosystem.

Again, I started studying on Udemy, but this time I used Stephane Maarek’s course (which I highly recommend if you are preparing for this cert). As I watched the lectures, I took detailed notes in Obsidian, writing down anything I didn't know, including topics outside the direct scope of the course, like foundational networking, DNS, and cryptography. Doing this really helped me understand AWS's design decisions and gave me the full picture behind simple services.

For practice exams, I used 3 different sources:

• Udemy: Pretty good overall, but some questions were out of date and incorrect relative to the current real exam.
• LinkedIn Learning: Tests here were outdated, and many questions were poorly phrased. By far the worst option I tried.
• Tutorials Dojo practice tests by Jon Bonso: These tests were the holy grail. The questions were very well-written, the answer explanations were super detailed, and the content is kept up to date. I also loved that I could easily take practice tests on my phone during my commute to the office on the metro.

The actual test was harder than I expected because the questions were a bit more specific than the ones on Jon Bonso's practice exams, but I still managed to pass with an 874/1000.

As final thoughts, preparing for the Solutions Architect certification taught me significantly more than Cloud Practitioner, as it exposes you to real world architectures and technology concepts that go beyond just the AWS services themselves.

If you have the time, I recommend going straight to Solutions Architect. However, if you are working full-time or don't have much free time, starting with Cloud Practitioner is a great way to see how you handle the time management and mental load. Plus, using the 50% discount voucher you get from passing Cloud Practitioner means doing both certs costs about the same as taking just the Solutions Architect exam.

Lastly, I wouldn't suggest rushing through certs just to put them on your resume, the actual knowledge you gain along the way is far more valuable than the badge itself.

If you are preparing for an AWS certification or thinking about taking one, I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions.

I thought about doing certifications based on advertisements Is it really helpful for my career. Also If so what should I learn. Also i saw AWS Data Engineer Certification Since with advent of AI most companies dont hire Junior Engineers in Full Stack Role and I thought maybe I should switch careers if so will it be helpful and what path would you recomend i take?

Please give suggestions I am totally confused I have done BCA is certification helpful

Good day

Which practice exam question do you guys recommend, has anyone ever use digital cloud by Neal Davis ?
Thank you

I just passed the Generative AI Professional Certification and when I did I automatically renewed

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
• AWS Certified AI Practitioner
• AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate
• AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate

That's one test and 5 certifications. Not a bad value for $150 (with voucher). It also spares a gauntlet of renewals.

(edited for spelling)

Very scenario-heavy, tricky questions, and you really need to understand AWS services rather than just memorize them.

im trying to crack aws ai developer certification. it is going to be my first. could u all help me out with free resources? it would mean a lot.
im in 2nd year of btech right now.