AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional Cheat Sheet 

AWS Cloud Computing

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification is one of the most prestigious and comprehensive credentials in the cloud computing world. It is designed for professionals who already have considerable experience working with Amazon Web Services. The exam tests your ability to design, deploy, and evaluate applications on AWS that are scalable, fault-tolerant, highly available, and cost-effective.

With this cheat sheet, candidates can grasp key exam domains, essential AWS services, and strategic design considerations. Whether you are preparing to pass the SAP-C02 exam or aiming to refine your cloud architecture skills, this guide will help you organize and review the most critical knowledge areas.

Overview of the SAP-C02 Exam

The SAP-C02 is the updated version of the Solutions Architect – Professional certification exam. It reflects the latest AWS services and architectural best practices. Below are the key details:

  • Exam duration: 180 minutes
  • Format: 75 questions (multiple choice and multiple response)
  • Cost: 300 USD
  • Delivery method: Testing center or online proctored
  • Recommended experience: Two or more years of hands-on experience designing and deploying cloud architecture on AWS

Core Domains Covered in the SAP-C02 Exam

The exam is divided into four main domains. Each domain carries a weightage that reflects its importance on the exam:

  1. Design for Organizational Complexity – 26%
  2. Design for New Solutions – 29%
  3. Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions – 25%
  4. Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization – 20%

Each of these domains requires not only familiarity with AWS services but also real-world architectural decision-making skills. Let’s explore each of these domains in more detail in the sections below.

Domain 1: Design for Organizational Complexity

This domain focuses on the design of AWS architectures in large-scale environments. You must understand how to manage multi-account AWS environments, design for compliance, and implement governance strategies.

Key concepts:

  • AWS Organizations and Service Control Policies (SCPs)
  • Multi-account design patterns (functional, team-based, or application-based segmentation)
  • Centralized logging using AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config
  • AWS Control Tower for account provisioning and governance
  • IAM identity federation with SAML 2.0
  • Resource access using AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM)
  • Landing zone design and automation using AWS Control Tower or custom solutions
  • Cross-account VPC peering, PrivateLink, and Transit Gateway

Tips:

Understand how to scale architectures securely across different teams or business units. Focus on implementing least privilege access, unified billing, and centralized security controls.

Domain 2: Design for New Solutions

This is the most heavily weighted domain. It evaluates your ability to design secure, scalable, resilient, and high-performance architectures for new AWS workloads.

Compute:

  • Choose between Amazon EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda, and AWS Fargate
  • Use Auto Scaling groups and predictive scaling
  • Deploy EC2 Spot Instances to optimize cost
  • Leverage placement groups for performance-sensitive applications

Storage:

  • Design with Amazon S3 storage classes and lifecycle policies
  • Use Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering and S3 Glacier Deep Archive
  • Implement Amazon EFS and FSx for file systems
  • Leverage Amazon S3 replication (SRR, CRR)

Database:

  • Select between Amazon RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, Redshift, and Neptune
  • Design with high availability using Multi-AZ deployments
  • Use read replicas and caching with Amazon ElastiCache
  • Consider database migrations using AWS DMS

Networking:

  • Design VPC subnets across multiple Availability Zones
  • Use Network ACLs and Security Groups for traffic control
  • Leverage AWS Transit Gateway for multi-VPC networking
  • Implement AWS Global Accelerator or CloudFront for global reach

Security:

  • Apply the principle of least privilege using IAM roles and policies
  • Use AWS KMS for encryption at rest and TLS for encryption in transit
  • Secure web applications with AWS WAF and Shield Advanced
  • Design for compliance using AWS Config and Security Hub

Designing Highly Available and Fault-Tolerant Solutions

AWS designs must be resilient to failure. The exam emphasizes fault-tolerant architectures that operate across Availability Zones (AZs) and regions.

High availability strategies:

  • Use Auto Scaling with Elastic Load Balancers across multiple AZs
  • Deploy databases in Multi-AZ or cluster configurations
  • Leverage Amazon Route 53 failover routing policies
  • Store backups in Amazon S3 with cross-region replication

Fault-tolerance techniques:

  • Use SQS and SNS for decoupled messaging
  • Design with retry logic and exponential backoff
  • Use Circuit Breaker and graceful degradation patterns
  • Architect services to failover to secondary regions when needed

Disaster recovery models:

  • Backup and Restore
  • Pilot Light
  • Warm Standby
  • Multi-site Active/Active

Know when to apply each model based on cost, RTO (Recovery Time Objective), and RPO (Recovery Point Objective).

Infrastructure as Code and Automation

The exam expects a strong understanding of automation and DevOps practices. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) allows repeatable and version-controlled deployment of resources.

Key tools and services:

  • AWS CloudFormation for IaC
  • AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit) for higher-level IaC abstraction
  • Use of AWS Systems Manager to manage fleet configurations
  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk for automated provisioning
  • AWS OpsWorks and Chef/Puppet integrations

Understand how to use nested stacks, change sets, and stack sets in CloudFormation. Be familiar with drift detection and rollback strategies.

Monitoring and Logging

Observability is critical in designing reliable systems. AWS offers several services to monitor performance, detect anomalies, and audit activities.

Monitoring tools:

  • Amazon CloudWatch for metrics, logs, and alarms
  • Use CloudWatch Agent to collect OS-level metrics
  • AWS X-Ray for distributed tracing of application requests
  • AWS Health Dashboard and Personal Health Dashboard

Logging services:

  • AWS CloudTrail for auditing API activity
  • AWS Config for resource compliance tracking
  • Amazon S3 and Athena for centralized log storage and querying
  • Amazon OpenSearch Service (formerly Elasticsearch) for log analysis

Design systems to monitor KPIs and trigger automated remediation using AWS Lambda or Systems Manager Automation.

Cost Optimization Techniques

AWS Solutions Architects must balance performance and cost. The SAP-C02 exam includes scenarios where trade-offs must be made between service capabilities and cost-effectiveness.

Strategies:

  • Use Amazon EC2 Spot Instances for fault-tolerant and stateless workloads
  • Schedule non-critical instances to shut down using AWS Instance Scheduler
  • Choose the correct S3 storage class to minimize cost
  • Use AWS Savings Plans or Reserved Instances for predictable workloads
  • Leverage AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets for cost tracking
  • Use Trusted Advisor to detect underutilized resources

AWS Compute Optimizer can also be used to identify inefficient EC2 instance types and rightsize them.

Data Protection and Encryption

Security is a shared responsibility, and candidates must understand how AWS handles encryption, key management, and compliance.

Encryption services:

  • AWS KMS for key creation and management
  • Use AWS CloudHSM for dedicated FIPS 140-2 Level 3 hardware
  • Enable SSE-S3, SSE-KMS, or SSE-C on Amazon S3
  • Use EBS volume encryption with customer-managed keys

Ensure encryption in transit by enforcing HTTPS with ACM (AWS Certificate Manager). Enable TLS for all network communication where required.

Migration Strategies

Workload migration is a significant part of real-world AWS adoption. This includes rehosting, replatforming, and refactoring workloads.

Common strategies:

  • Use AWS Migration Hub to track migration progress
  • Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) for lift-and-shift
  • Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for database transitions
  • Refactor applications to use Lambda, S3, and DynamoDB
  • Implement hybrid architectures with AWS Direct Connect or VPN

Know the 7 Rs of migration: Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor, Retire, Retain, and Relocate.

Well-Architected Framework

AWS promotes the Well-Architected Framework to help architects design reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems. The five pillars include:

  1. Operational Excellence
  2. Security
  3. Reliability
  4. Performance Efficiency
  5. Cost Optimization

Candidates should understand how to evaluate workloads using the AWS Well-Architected Tool and apply recommendations.

Final Tips for Exam Preparation

  • Read whitepapers such as AWS Security Best Practices and the Well-Architected Framework
  • Use AWS Skill Builder and AWS Training resources
  • Practice with hands-on labs and sandbox accounts
  • Solve at least 500 practice questions before taking the real exam
  • Study the AWS FAQs for core services (EC2, S3, IAM, Lambda, VPC, etc.)

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional Cheat Sheet has explored the exam structure, foundational domains, and key services necessary to begin your preparation. By understanding how to design architectures for high availability, scalability, and cost optimization, you are already laying the groundwork for success.

We will delve deeper into advanced architecture scenarios, multi-region strategies, application integration, hybrid cloud architectures, and design trade-offs. Stay committed, keep practicing, and approach each concept with a mindset of real-world application.

We covered the foundational domains and core AWS services you need to master for the SAP-C02 exam, including organizational complexity, high availability, monitoring, automation, and cost optimization. Part 2 of this cheat sheet continues with deeper insights into advanced architectural strategies, hybrid designs, application integration, multi-region architectures, and real-world design trade-offs.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam demands not only theoretical understanding but also the ability to analyze and choose between competing solutions based on constraints and goals. This part of the series focuses on the more intricate concepts that differentiate professionals from beginners.

Advanced Multi-Region Architectures

Designing multi-region architectures is crucial for global-scale applications requiring high availability, low latency, and fault tolerance. The SAP-C02 exam includes questions about when and how to deploy services across regions.

Key design patterns:

  • Active-Active: Deploy applications in multiple regions and route traffic using Amazon Route 53 latency-based routing or geolocation routing. This model increases availability and reduces latency.
  • Active-Passive (Hot Standby): Deploy the primary workload in one region and keep another region ready to take over. Use Route 53 failover routing and health checks.
  • Backup and Restore: Store backups (such as S3 objects or RDS snapshots) in a second region. Activate the backup region manually during disaster recovery.
  • Pilot Light: Keep minimal resources running in the secondary region and quickly scale them during a disaster event.

Services for global architectures:

  • Amazon Route 53 for intelligent DNS routing
  • AWS Global Accelerator for improved performance and failover
  • Amazon CloudFront for content delivery with edge locations
  • Cross-region replication in Amazon S3, DynamoDB Global Tables, and RDS

Design with regional isolation to avoid cascading failures. Understand the limits of cross-region latency and replication consistency.

Application Integration and Messaging Services

Loose coupling between services improves system scalability and resilience. AWS provides multiple services to enable message-driven and event-driven architecture.

Key services:

  • Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS): Fully managed message queues for decoupling producers and consumers. Supports Standard and FIFO queues.
  • Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS): Pub/sub messaging for decoupling event publishers from subscribers.
  • AWS Step Functions: Serverless orchestration of microservices and workflows.
  • Amazon EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events): Serverless event bus for integrating AWS services and custom applications.
  • Amazon Kinesis: Real-time data streaming for analytics and ingestion.

Best practices:

  • Use dead-letter queues (DLQs) to handle message failures
  • Apply idempotency in consumers to avoid processing the same message multiple times
  • Use Step Functions to replace custom retry and state management logic
  • Monitor queue depth and message age for auto-scaling triggers

Know the differences between services. For example, use SQS when ordering is not essential and SNS for fan-out messaging. Step Functions are ideal for complex workflows with branching logic.

Hybrid Cloud and On-Premises Integration

Real-world organizations often require hybrid architectures to integrate legacy systems, meet compliance standards, or transition workloads over time. The AWS platform supports seamless hybrid deployment strategies.

Hybrid connectivity options:

  • AWS Direct Connect: Dedicated network connection between your data center and AWS. Lower latency and more secure than public internet.
  • AWS Site-to-Site VPN: Encrypted IPsec VPN tunnel over the public internet for connecting on-premises networks to VPCs.
  • AWS Transit Gateway: Central hub for connecting multiple VPCs and on-premises networks.
  • AWS Storage Gateway: Hybrid storage solution that enables on-premises applications to use cloud-backed storage.

Directory services:

  • AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory
  • AD Connector to proxy authentication to on-prem AD
  • IAM Identity Center for unified identity management

Use cases:

  • Disaster recovery to AWS
  • Cloud bursting for peak loads
  • Data synchronization between on-prem databases and Amazon RDS
  • Using AWS Outposts for running AWS services on-premises

Understand which hybrid solution to recommend based on latency, bandwidth, and security requirements. For example, use Direct Connect for high-throughput workloads and Storage Gateway for integrating S3 with legacy file servers.

Edge Services and Content Delivery

Applications serving global audiences must optimize for latency and availability using edge-based services. AWS offers several edge services that improve performance and responsiveness.

Content delivery:

  • Amazon CloudFront: Global CDN that accelerates content delivery and reduces latency. Supports static and dynamic content.
  • Origin types: S3 buckets, EC2 instances, or custom origins
  • Integration with AWS WAF and Shield for DDoS protection

Domain management:

  • Amazon Route 53: Scalable DNS and domain registration service
  • Routing policies: simple, weighted, latency-based, geolocation, failover, and multi-value

Other edge services:

  • AWS Global Accelerator: Improves performance by routing user traffic through the optimal AWS edge location
  • AWS Local Zones: Extension of AWS infrastructure close to large population centers
  • AWS Outposts: Run AWS services on-premises with consistent APIs

Choose the appropriate edge services based on your workload characteristics. CloudFront is ideal for static assets, while Global Accelerator is better for dynamic applications.

Serverless Architecture Patterns

Serverless technologies allow developers to build and run applications without managing infrastructure. The exam includes scenarios involving Lambda, API Gateway, and event-driven designs.

Key serverless services:

  • AWS Lambda: Run code in response to events. Scales automatically and supports multiple runtimes.
  • Amazon API Gateway: Create and manage REST and WebSocket APIs. Fully integrated with Lambda.
  • AWS Step Functions: Coordinate microservices in workflows
  • Amazon DynamoDB: Serverless NoSQL database
  • Amazon S3: Static website hosting with serverless backends

Serverless design principles:

  • Stateless function execution
  • Minimal cold start latency
  • Fine-grained security using IAM roles per function
  • Event-driven triggers (e.g., S3 events, DynamoDB streams, EventBridge)

Use API Gateway for managing access and throttling, and apply caching where appropriate. Understand limitations such as Lambda timeout limits and the need for idempotent operations.

Containers and Microservices

Containers provide lightweight, portable environments for deploying applications. Microservice-based design promotes agility, scalability, and resilience.

Key container services:

  • Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service): Fully managed container orchestration using AWS Fargate or EC2 launch types
  • Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service): Managed Kubernetes control plane
  • AWS Fargate: Serverless compute engine for containers
  • Amazon ECR: Container registry for storing and managing Docker images

Design considerations:

  • Use ECS for simpler deployments and integration with AWS services
  • Use EKS for advanced Kubernetes control and multi-cloud portability
  • Use Fargate when you want to eliminate server management
  • Ensure observability using CloudWatch Container Insights or AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry

Understand service discovery with Cloud Map, container autoscaling, and multi-tenant isolation strategies. Also, know when to choose containers versus serverless functions based on statefulness and latency requirements.

Data Lakes and Big Data Solutions

The professional exam includes advanced data processing and analytics scenarios. AWS offers comprehensive services for ingesting, storing, processing, and visualizing large data sets.

Storage and cataloging:

  • Amazon S3 as the central data lake storage
  • AWS Glue for data cataloging and ETL
  • AWS Lake Formation for data lake security and governance

Data processing:

  • Amazon EMR for big data frameworks like Hadoop, Spark
  • Amazon Athena for serverless SQL queries on S3 data
  • AWS Glue Jobs for serverless ETL
  • Amazon Redshift for data warehousing
  • Amazon Kinesis for real-time streaming analytics

Design for schema-on-read, data partitioning, and query optimization. Choose the right tool for batch versus real-time processing.

Identity and Access Management

Managing access to AWS resources is a foundational skill. IAM is at the heart of security and compliance.

Core services and features:

  • IAM users, groups, roles, and policies
  • IAM policy structure: statements, actions, resources, conditions
  • Resource-based policies (e.g., S3 bucket policies, Lambda permissions)
  • Service Control Policies (SCPs) in AWS Organizations
  • IAM Access Analyzer for policy validation
  • IAM identity federation and SAML integration

Best practices:

  • Follow least privilege principle
  • Use roles instead of sharing credentials
  • Enable MFA for all accounts
  • Rotate credentials regularly

Understand policy evaluation logic including explicit deny, identity-based vs. resource-based policies, and policy simulation.

Design Trade-Offs and Decision Making

The SAP-C02 exam challenges you with questions involving trade-offs in architecture. You must choose solutions that optimize one or more pillars of the Well-Architected Framework without compromising others significantly.

Common trade-offs:

  • Cost vs. performance: Use Spot Instances to reduce cost, but assess risk of interruption
  • Durability vs. latency: S3 offers high durability but may have higher latency compared to EBS
  • Complexity vs. manageability: Use managed services (e.g., RDS, DynamoDB) to reduce operational overhead
  • Security vs. ease of access: Enforcing strong access controls may increase friction for end users

Make decisions based on business priorities, compliance requirements, and user experience. Think in terms of real-world architecture, not just theoretical capabilities.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional Cheat Sheet has taken you deep into the world of advanced architecture and service integration. From hybrid networks and edge delivery to containers, messaging, and trade-off decisions, you’ve explored a full range of skills required to architect robust and scalable AWS solutions.

In this series, we will focus on exam strategy, study techniques, real-world case study examples, sample questions with explanations, and how to approach scenario-based problems under time pressure. Mastering these techniques is essential to passing this elite certification.

We explored the major services, architectural strategies, and best practices relevant to the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) exam. This final part focuses on exam strategies, real-world case studies, common mistakes to avoid, study techniques, and sample question breakdowns to help you ace the exam with confidence.

The SAP-C02 exam is known not just for its technical depth but also for its emphasis on business-driven architecture and real-world scenarios. That’s why understanding how to think like a professional architect under pressure is crucial to your success.

Mastering the Exam Mindset

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam is different from associate-level exams. It expects you to design scalable, resilient, and cost-effective architectures with deep justification and prioritization.

Key mindset principles:

  • Always think multi-AZ and multi-region for resilience.
  • Prioritize cost optimization without sacrificing performance.
  • Minimize operational overhead with managed services.
  • Implement least privilege and layered security.
  • Choose simplicity over complexity when possible.
  • Validate trade-offs: nothing is free in cloud architecture.

Before answering any question, understand what the business needs and what the constraints are (e.g., budget, compliance, latency, availability).

Proven Study Strategy

Success in SAP-C02 demands a structured and thorough study approach. Here’s a 6-phase preparation plan you can follow.

Phase 1: Understand the Exam Blueprint

  • Download and review the official exam guide from AWS.
  • Note the weight of each domain.
  • Identify your weak areas (e.g., hybrid networking, migration, or automation).

Phase 2: Deep Dive into AWS Services

  • Study core services in depth: EC2, VPC, S3, RDS, Lambda, IAM, Route 53, CloudFormation.
  • Use the AWS documentation, FAQs, and re:Invent videos.
  • Focus on real-world use cases for each service.

Phase 3: Hands-On Practice

  • Create multiple AWS free-tier accounts or use sandbox environments.
  • Build solutions from scratch: multi-tier web apps, VPC peering, S3 lifecycle rules, IAM policies.
  • Use CloudFormation to automate infrastructure.

Phase 4: Solve Practice Questions

  • Aim for 500–1000 quality practice questions.
  • Use reputable platforms that explain why the right answer is correct and why others are not.
  • Track incorrect answers and revisit related topics.

Phase 5: Simulate Full Exams

  • Take at least 2–3 timed mock exams.
  • Simulate the pressure of a 180-minute, 75-question test.
  • Analyze your time management and weak areas after each test.

Phase 6: Review and Refine

  • Review Well-Architected Framework pillars.
  • Read AWS whitepapers: security, cost optimization, high availability.
  • Join study groups or online communities.

Common Exam Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Even well-prepared candidates can fall into traps if they don’t understand how the exam is structured. Here are frequent mistakes:

1. Rushing Through Scenarios

SAP-C02 is loaded with long scenario-based questions. Each may include detailed architecture diagrams, business constraints, or compliance needs. Skimming or guessing can lead to wrong answers.

Tip: Read the last line first (the actual question), then go back and review the full scenario.

2. Choosing Technically Correct But Suboptimal Answers

Many options will be technically feasible, but only one will be best for the business goal.

Tip: Consider cost, latency, management complexity, and SLA when comparing choices.

3. Ignoring Constraints

Some questions emphasize a need for low cost, low latency, or minimal changes. Ignoring these can lead to wrong architecture decisions.

Tip: Always match your answer to constraints given in the scenario.

4. Misunderstanding Key Services

Some services are tricky. For example:

  • AWS Global Accelerator vs. CloudFront
  • S3 Standard vs. Intelligent-Tiering
  • VPC Peering vs. Transit Gateway

Tip: Learn when and why each service is appropriate.

Sample Question Breakdown

Here are three practice scenarios with explanations to show how to approach exam questions.

Scenario 1: Database Replication

Question:
A company wants to replicate its production Amazon RDS MySQL database to a read-only copy in another region for disaster recovery. Which solution meets this requirement with minimal operational overhead?

A. Take manual snapshots and copy to the destination region
B. Enable Multi-AZ deployment
C. Use AWS DMS with ongoing replication
D. Create a read replica in another region

Correct answer: D

Explanation:
Cross-region read replicas allow for automatic, continuous replication of RDS MySQL databases with minimal management. AWS DMS is more complex and best suited for heterogeneous migrations. Multi-AZ is limited to same-region. Manual snapshots are not real-time.

Scenario 2: Hybrid DNS Resolution

Question:
An enterprise is building a hybrid architecture with on-prem DNS and AWS. They want internal EC2 instances in a VPC to resolve on-prem domain names. What is the most scalable solution?

A. Use VPC Peering
B. Deploy a BIND server on EC2
C. Enable Route 53 Resolver outbound endpoints
D. Create custom hostnames for EC2

Correct answer: C

Explanation:
Route 53 Resolver outbound endpoints allow DNS queries to be forwarded from AWS to on-premises environments via DNS over VPC. This is scalable and managed.

Scenario 3: Web Application Availability

Question:
A company runs a web application on EC2 in a single region and wants to improve availability. What’s the best solution?

A. Use a Multi-AZ ELB
B. Use Route 53 to route to another region
C. Enable Auto Scaling in the current AZ
D. Deploy the app in a second region with Route 53 failover routing

Correct answer: D

Explanation:
To ensure regional high availability, a second region is required. Multi-AZ ELB or scaling within the same AS does not protect against regional failures.

Using the AWS Well-Architected Tool

One underrated study strategy is to apply the AWS Well-Architected Framework using the free AWS Well-Architected Tool.

How to use it:

  • Build a test workload (e.g., a web application).
  • Go through each pillar: security, reliability, performance, cost, operations.
  • Answer questions and review recommendations.
  • Identify gaps in your architecture knowledge.

This not only solidifies theoretical concepts but also gives you practical, scenario-based experience.

Last-Minute Review Checklist

Before you sit for the exam, go through this checklist to ensure you’re fully prepared.

Must-Know Services:

  • IAM, STS, KMS, Organizations
  • EC2, Auto Scaling, Launch Templates
  • Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions
  • RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, DMS
  • CloudFront, Route 53, Global Accelerator
  • VPC, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect, VPN
  • CloudWatch, X-Ray, CloudTrail, Config
  • CloudFormation, CDK, Systems Manager
  • S3, EFS, FSx, Storage Gateway

Must-Read White Papers:

  • AWS Well-Architected Framework
  • AWS Security Best Practices
  • AWS Overview of Monitoring and Logging
  • Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
  • AWS Disaster Recovery Whitepaper

Resources and Tools for Preparation

Here are recommended tools and platforms for practice and review:

  • AWS Skill Builder (official AWS learning platform)
  • Tutorials Dojo (high-quality practice exams and cheat sheets)
  • Whizlabs and ACloudGuru for scenario-based learning
  • Reddit (r/AWSCertifications) for peer advice
  • AWS Documentation and FAQs
  • Practice Labs: qwiklabs, cloudacademy

Create a dedicated study folder with bookmarks, notes, flashcards (e.g., Anki), and quick reference sheets.

Test Day Strategy

On exam day, stay calm, focused, and follow a methodical approach:

  • Arrive early or log in at least 30 minutes prior to your scheduled time.
  • Read the question’s last line first to identify what is being asked.
  • Flag long questions and revisit if they take more than 2 minutes.
  • Eliminate obviously wrong options first.
  • Don’t panic if you feel the exam is hard — everyone feels that way.
  • Use your intuition when stuck, based on AWS best practices.

Time management is key. You’ll need to answer each question in about 2.4 minutes on average.

Conclusion

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam is more than a test of your AWS knowledge. It’s a rigorous assessment of your ability to make design decisions based on multiple variables — including cost, performance, security, governance, and scalability — in real-world environments.

In this 3-part cheat sheet series, you’ve learned:

  • The exam structure and domain breakdown
  • Essential AWS services and design patterns
  • Advanced topics like hybrid cloud, edge computing, and containers
  • Real-world exam strategy and mindset
  • Sample questions and study methodology

With consistent practice, hands-on experience, and a strategic approach, you can pass this exam and advance to the top tier of cloud professionals.