My reflection on passing AWS Solution Architect Professional Exam with 87%
It took me 1.5 years to jump from AWS CSA Associate to Professional. During this time, I have worked on a couple of enterprise projects that use AWS as the cloud provider. These projects have helped me understand AWS architectures not only in paper but also in real world scenarios. One example is Amazon Cognito and AWS STS. Study on STS for the exam lets me realize that the Cognito service we use to allow web users to sign in with Google IDs is actually using STS under the hood (more specifically the AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity API call). This topic on web identity federation did show up in my exam.
My overall score is 87%. Here is the breakdown:
Topic Level Scoring:
1.0 High Availability and Business Continuity: 90%
2.0 Costing: 75%
3.0 Deployment Management: 85%
4.0 Network Design: 85%
5.0 Data Storage: 100%
6.0 Security: 85%
7.0 Scalability & Elasticity: 81%
8.0 Cloud Migration & Hybrid Architecture: 85%
I have prepared the exam for 4 months. I started with Linux Academy’s CSA Pro course. I went through all the materials twice, then moved on to Jayendra’s blog. I made sure I understood his notes on each topic, answered the questions at the end of each blog and took notes myself when I felt the topic was important.
I took the AWS official practice exam in early October when I was 2/3 way through the learning path from Jayendra’s blog. Although I failed it miserably, I did find my weak points which were security and network. I focused on those two areas from then on until I felt confident again.
In the last month, I ordered two practices tests, Whizlabs and Braincert. I took all the tests at least once. I made sure I understood their explanation on not only the correct answers but also the wrong answers.
On the exam date (12/20), after almost 3 hours’ brain war, I finally saw the “Congratulations on passing ….” message, I felt all my hard study had paid off.
The pro exam definitely seemed daunting at the beginning. There are so many materials to go over. But after finishing one topic after another, especially when I can relate what I have studied into my work project and vice versa, I started to enjoy more reading and understanding the under-the-hood mechanisms. Now I know what I get is not just a picture of certification I can publish on my blog. :-)
Cheers!
