Passed earlier today, so no idea year yet on actual mark or breakdown – probably for the best as I did find it tough, so I don’t think I cleared it by much.
Might have been my time management, or the length of some of the question (and answers), but even at 3 hours I had to speed up towards the end. That is a long time for full concentration which is needed as a lot of it is making sure you have understood the question properly. There were a number where there were missing a couple of non-technology words would have made me think through the question all wrong (least expensive, least disruptive, etc).
Primary source for study was the Cloud Guru course (no surprise there). I went through the white papers after completing the course. I hadn’t planned it, but as a lot of the white papers follow a similar format, reading them one after another I was able to get a lot of detail while reading quickly. Not sure it was anything clever like speed reading or skimming, but that was my experience.
Secondary source was Jayendra’s Blog his study note, specifically;
http://jayendrapatil.com/aws-solution-architect-professional-certification-exam-preparation-guide/
I wasn’t sure how well I was prepared, so I did get the Udemy practice tests as well (I got it for $12.99). I didn’t do them under test conditions, so didn’t know exactly how ready I was. This is as if I felt I didn’t the detail of the answers (even the ones I knew were wrong), then I’d pause the test and go over that subject. I never recall question detail after coming out of an exam, but this method certainly improved my understanding of areas like CloudFront and Cloud Formation which were key in the exam.
Common topics;
Security (IAM policies, roles, organizations)
Lots of needing to know best storage option, including storage gateway.
Options for hybrid / on-prem. I think this is one area where the course covered it very well.
Serverless – these are ones I took most time over, maybe due to me being more infrastructure focussed rather than app.
Having a broad knowledge of purpose of all the various AWS services. Just knowing what (for example) Kibana, Macie, Mechanical Turk, do were helpful in ruling in / out options when they were mentioned.
4 Answers
Congratulations!!! Thank you very much for sharing your inputs…. Had a couple of questions….
1. Which specific cloudguru’s course did you take? 2. I am assuming you cleared your AWS SA – Associate, how much time do you think one has to put in after completing associate to be in a decent shape for this exam
Once again Many Congratulations!!!!
Specifically, I was referring to the ‘AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional 2019’ course.
And, yes I did do the Associate exam first. With regard to time, my example may not be valid here. I have just had a month long gap between the finish of one role and the start date for a new one, so I had lots of available time to study. So I had one month between the two exams. (and thanks).
Gordonaitchison how long would it take for someone who has cleared the Associate exam to prepare for the Professional exam
Azam, as above, I did Professional just a month after Associate, but I would not take that a guide as there are too many variables (experience , study time available , etc).
Deepak how long would it take for someone who has cleared the Associate exam to prepare for the Professional exam
Azam based on what Gordonaitchison responded above, it depends on how much time you are able to put in everyday; He had lot of time available so 1 month was enough for him; but if you are working and have lesser number of hours to put in everyday then the time needed will go up. I am assuming with 2 to 3 hours of dedicated time every day, 2 months time should be good enough. This is just my take…
Congrats! I think jayendrapatil‘s blog is not updated yet. It is showing the domains for the old SAP-C00 exam. Anyways, you are an AWS Pro now!
yeah, jayendrapatil’s blog is already out-dated
Hey John and Mukul I cleared my Associate last week. I went through the course materials of Developer and SysOps but not planning to take any of them. I am beginning my preparations for the Architect Professional exam today. Do you guys think that if I dedicate full time for preparation I could take the exam in under 2 weeks or would that be too risky and rushed. I am preparing from LA and purchased Bonso and Dojo practice sets from Udemy. Could you guys give me some input if this is possible and how could I approach this
thank you for sharing these tips and congratulations for passing the exam! There are a lot of practice tests in Udemy, which one did you used?
On my receipt it is just called ‘AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Practice Exam’. Went backin to it, and it does state that it has been updated for the Feb 2019 version. Ah, I just noticed the distinction – I got the Jon Bonso one. 4 * 75 question exams.
Congrats