AWS Solutions Architect Associate
Design resilient, cost-optimised architectures — SAA-C03 prep.
Taught by Prakash Shrestha · Cloud Solutions Architect
What you'll learn
- Design a multi-AZ VPC with public and private subnets, NAT and VPC endpoints
- Build highly available compute using EC2, Elastic Load Balancing and Auto Scaling
- Select S3 storage classes, lifecycle rules and database engines that match access patterns
- Secure workloads with least-privilege IAM, SCPs, KMS encryption and Secrets Manager
- Decouple applications with SQS, SNS, EventBridge and Lambda, and choose a disaster recovery strategy
- Answer SAA-C03 scenario questions by matching requirements to the most cost-effective design
About this course
This AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate course prepares you for the SAA-C03 exam and, just as importantly, for designing real systems on AWS. It is for developers, system administrators and cloud practitioners with some hands-on AWS experience who want to move from knowing services to combining them well. You will design multi-AZ VPCs, build resilient compute with EC2, Elastic Load Balancing and Auto Scaling, choose between S3, EBS, EFS and FSx, compare RDS, Aurora and DynamoDB, lock down access with IAM, KMS and Organizations, and build decoupled serverless architectures with Lambda, SQS and EventBridge. Every lesson ties back to the four exam domains and the Well-Architected Framework, with CLI, CloudFormation and policy examples and scenario-style questions. The Cloud Practitioner level of knowledge, or equivalent experience, is recommended. Independent study material, not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Course content
8 lessons- 1The SAA-C03 Blueprint and Thinking Like an ArchitectHow the exam is scored, how scenario questions are built, and how to set up a safe practice account.Preview
- 2Designing Networks with Amazon VPCSubnets across Availability Zones, routing, security groups versus NACLs, endpoints and hybrid connectivity.
- 3Resilient Compute with EC2, Load Balancers and Auto ScalingInstance and storage choices, picking the right load balancer, and scaling policies that keep apps healthy.
- 4Storage Design with S3, EBS, EFS and FSxS3 storage classes and lifecycle rules, protecting objects, and choosing block, file or hybrid storage.
- 5Databases: RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB and CachingHigh availability versus read scaling, DynamoDB design basics, and caching layers that improve performance.
- 6IAM, Encryption and Account GuardrailsHow AWS evaluates permissions, multi-account guardrails with Organizations, and encryption and secrets.
- 7Serverless, Decoupling and Disaster RecoveryQueues, topics and events, a Lambda consumer for SQS, and the four disaster recovery strategies.
- 8Cost Optimisation and Scenario PracticeThe cost levers architects use, a method for timed scenarios, and worked SAA-C03 style questions.