AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

Overview

This section gives the information AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam. It includes designing and deploying scalable systems on AWS, lift and shift of an existing on-premises application to AWS, ingress and egress of data to and from AWS Selecting the appropriate AWS service based on data, compute, database, or security requirements, identifying appropriate use of AWS architectural best practices and estimating AWS costs and identifying cost control mechanisms.

Introduction to AWS

This section explores the motivation for using a cloud infrastructure over an on-premises solution. It explains what is cloud computing, how and why Amazon Web Services are used, and models of deployment for AWS.

Amazon S3 Basics

This section focuses on the Simple Storage Solution service, also known as S3. It explains the difference between standard file storage and the object storage of S3 including creating buckets and objects. It explores the redundancy and availability policies for S3 object storage.

Amazon S3 Advanced Features

This section reviews the naming and storage classes in S3. It discusses the usage of the storage classes with object lifecycle management. It covers methods that can be employed to ensure data security including encryption, versioning, multi-factor authentication policies, and pre-signed urls.

Amazon Glacier

This section explores the AWS service Glacier as a backup solution on and off premises data. It covers the difference between Glacier and other AWS storage solutions as well as the points that should be considered when designing a system that uses Glacier for archival system.

Amazon EC2 Basics

This section explores what is EC2 and what value it provides from AWS. It covers different type of instances that are available from Amazon with additional consideration to the operating systems that can be configure with the EC2 instance.

Virtual Private Cloud

This section takes a look at Virtual Private Clouds(VPCs) in Amazon Web Services. It covers VPC basics, (what is it and where is it used), and specific topics like Subnets, Route Tables, Elastic IPs, Endpoints and Peering.

ELB and Auto Scaling

This section discusses Elastic Load Balancing(ELB) and Auto Scaling. ELB distributes traffic across multiple instances. It covers ELB types, configuration, listeners, and more advanced configuration like connection draining, proxy protocol, sticky sessions, health check, Auto Scaling plans, limits, and groups.

Identity and Access Management

This section explores Amazon’s Identity and Access Management(IAM) feature. It explains what IAM is and how it’s used. It discusses the different types of users and groups, how to create and modify them. It shows how to authenticate created users into AWS.

Amazon Relational Database Service

This section dives into Amazon’s Relational Database Service. It explains what are Relational Databases and how they differ from NoSQL type databases. It also compare and contrast relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle.

Amazon Redshift

This section explores Amazon Redshift. It demonstrates Redshift’s role and contrasting it with other relational databases. It discusses Redshift Cluster’s components including Nodes and Keys. It also looks at recovery using Snapshots and security like IAM.

Amazon Dynamodb

This section takes a look at DynamoDB, Amazon’s high performance NoSQL database. It explains the basics of DynamoDB and NoSQL. It also covers Scaling and Partitioning, Security, and Streams.

Amazon Simple Queue Service

This section explores the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) in AWS. It defines SQS, explains what it is and where it’s used. It also covers Message Lifecycle, Visibility Timeouts, Delay Queues, Identities, Messages, and Advanced Features.

Amazon Simple Workflow Service

This section explores the Amazon Simple Workflow Service(SWS) in AWS. It defines SWS, explains what it is and where it’s used. It also covers Workflows, Actors, and Tasks. At the end it demonstrates advanced functions like Task Lists, Long Polling, and Closure.

Amazon Simple Notification Service

This section explores Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) in AWS. It defines SNS, what it is and where it’s used. It covers Clients, Topics, and possible scenarios where SNS may be deployed. At the end it explains advanced features like Fanout, ASW System Alerts, Push services.

DNS and Route 53

This section explores the basics of the Domain Name System (DNS) and it’s implementation inside of AWS’s Route 53. It talks about basic DNS components, the name resolution process and record types. It also demonstrate the Route 53 interface.

Amazon ElastiCache

This section takes a look at AWS’s Amazon ElasticaCache. It shows design considerations through availability zones (AZ), uses Multi-AZ replication, Memcached, Redis, scalability and access control through IAM.

Storage Services

This section explores key services within AWS such as storage services. It talks about Amazon CloudFront including the basics of the services, configuration, distributions, origins and cache control. It also shows Amazon Storage Gateway including the basics, gateway-cached volumes, gateway-stored volumes and gateway-virtual tape library. It also explains the benefits of these services and specifications.

Security Services

This section dives into additional services provided through AWS, focusing in on security services. It talks about AWS Directory services, AWS Key Management Services and Cloud HSM. It also covers AWS CloudTrail.

Analytics Services

This section dives into additional services provided through AWS, focusing in on analytical services. It discusses Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), AWS Pipeline, AWS Snowball and AWS Import/Export.

DevOps Services

This section dives into additional services provided through AWS, focusing in on DevOps services. It talks about AWS OpsWorks, AWS CloudFormation, AWS Elasticstalk, AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Config.

Security on AWS

This section dives into security inside of AWS. It talks about physical security and looks at the responsibility of AWS as well as the responsibility of the customer. It also discusses network security and other various topics like tenant isolation, hypervisors, data transmission security and network monitoring.

Account Security

This section dives into security inside of AWS. It discusses account security, root account, password character length, password policies and multi-factor authentication. It explains access keys, key pairs and X.509 certificates. At the end it explores the auditing services provided by AWS CloudTrail.

Cloud Service Specific Security

This section dives into security inside of AWS. It focuses on service-specific security. It looks at security in AWS’s compute service EC2 and explores instance isolation, host OS and guest OS security, securing API access and EBS security. It also talks about Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) security as well as Virtual Private Cloud Security.

AWS Risk and Compliance

This section explores risk and compliance in AWS. It explains a shared responsibility model and governance concepts. It talks about the evaluation and integration of AWS controls as well as discussing the core areas of the AWS Risk and Compliance program.

Architecture Best Practices

This section finalize the AWS Certified Solutions Architect: Associates certification by bringing together all the technologies with design and implementation through architecture best practices.