My experience with the AWS SysOps Administrator — Associate — Beta Exam (SOA-C02)

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I sat the new AWS SysOps Administrator Associate Beta exam (SOA-C02) on the 26th March 2021. I think it was perhaps the last day available for the Beta exam.

Source: AWS SysOps Administrator Associate Beta Exam (SOA-C02)

I love the idea of an exams testing your practical skills and was very excited when AWS announced the Beta program for this certification (AWS SysOps Administrator — Associate — Beta [SOA-C02]). I believe AWS is headed in the right direction here and should considering implementing this approach for all their associate exams

Registration and exam launch experience:

1. I downloaded the OnVue app and completed the system verification checks to ensure that my laptop had the appropriate internet access and resources.
2. After launching the app, I had to take picture of my identity document and of the surrounding (i.e. Front, Back, Left and Right)
3. After check-in, I was waiting in the queue at position 4 for the proctor to examine my documents and the exam surroundings. It took about 22 mins as I had a minor hiccups with the network and was pushed at the back of the queue. This second time I was at position 3 in the queue.
4. I had to close a some apps such as MS teams that was running in the background in the system tray.
5. After all the necessary checks the exam was launched. In total, it took about 26 mins before the proctor launched the exam.
6. I was notified that the NDA and the exam duration was about 225 mins and asked to continue to the test.

Part 1: Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)

1. I went through the 55 MCQ questions in about 50 to 55 mins.
2. I flagged about 15 questions for review and went back through them for a second pass. I completed the MCQ section in about 55 mins to 65 mins.
3. There were very few areas that the questions exposed the knowledge gaps in my preparation.

📌My primary concern was ensuring adequate time for the lab sections. You have to manage the time for the MCQ and the lab within the 225 mins allotted.

Since this was a beta exam, there were not many blogs describing the exam experience and how to manage time. I however, did find a few useful blogs from Adrian Cantrill [My Thoughts On the SysOps Administrator Associate BETA Exam — (SOA-C02)] and Faye Ellis [What We Learned Taking The New AWS SysOps Administrator — Associate Beta Exam].

Part 2: Lab Experience:

1. There were three hands-on labs.
2. I connected to the lab by clicking on the sign-in button on what looked like an RDP session. I was then presented with the AWS Web Console to complete the labs. The tasks to be completed were displayed in a panel on the right side of the screen.
3. I spent an average of about 20 to 25 mins per lab. The labs covered diverse topics (i.e. which I cannot disclose due to the NDA) and had very clear instructions on what tasks needed to be completed.
4. The lab could be completed by clicking “Next” at the bottom right of the screen. You could not move back to the lab once it has been completed. I spent about 5 mins reviewing the lab instructions and ensuring I had completed all the tasks before moving on to the next lab.

📌One of the issues, I had with the labs was the font size was very small and I had to zoom in and out to view the font clearly or often lean forward to see the text.

P.S. I do not wear glasses and had fairly good vision. I got a warning about moving out of the camera view while leaning forward to read the lab screens and the task instructions.

I finished my exam with about 44 mins left. In hindsight, I could have used that time to go through all the MCQ questions and managed my time a little better.

Preparation

I have active subscriptions to https://LinuxAcademy.com (now acloud.guru) and https://learn.cantrill.io/. The latter being very valuable in gaining high “knowledge units” required for the exam.

I used some deep dive material from LinuxAcademy.com such as the AWS Certified Database — Specialty (DBS-C01) from Kelby Enevold and Mark Richman to reinforce my RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB concepts, Amazon ECS Deep Dive (legacy)

I used the LinuxAcademy AWS Cloud sandbox and specific labs extensively for the exam preparation.

Final Thoughts!

• Plan and manage your time effectively to allow adequate time for both the MCQ and the Lab sections of the exam. I found the labs relatively easy due to the amount of time I spent with the cloud sandboxes.
• Pay careful attention to features and limitations of some of the services in the AWS Storage, Compute and Networking categories as there were questions designed to identify knowledge gaps. I did trip over one of the questions in the storage category.
• Overall it was a great experience, I think AWS needs to follow this exam pattern for all of the associate and specialty exams.