(Update) We’ve published new posts recently to support your training for the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Certification: Get ready for the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Certification and The 9 AWS Certifications: Which is Right for You and Your Team?
We’ve also updated the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Certification Learning Path to help you successfully prepare for the AWS certification. On top of that, we’ve also released some great new content to prepare for all AWS certifications, visit Cloud Academy’s AWS library for the latest.
In a post we published a few weeks ago, we were talking about the second step in the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Certification stack, the so-called “Professional Level”, being launched in a matter of days. AWS Solutions Architect is likely the most common certification path out of the three available from AWS, so there was quite a hype growing around the coming-soon professional level. Well, Amazon officially launched the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Level Exam just a few days ago, and lots of you are already thinking about what to study and where and how to be the first to get this prestigious certification. Let’s see a few tips to help you get there.
First things first: achieve the Associate Level certification
It would be nice to be immediately eligible for AWS Professional Level, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, you need to pass the Associate Level exam first. This is a mandatory requirement that Amazon couldn’t help establishing, given that many topics of the Associate Level are preparatory to the Professional Level. So, you can’t aim so high if you haven’t proven to be skilled in basic AWS technologies. If you read our blog in the past, you already know that we have an amazing tool to help you get the certification. It’s called CloudCareer, it has been crafted with love by us to help you both simulate the real exam and fill the holes in your knowledge about AWS, thanks to our exclusive combination of quizzes and learning statements. CloudCareer had success beyond our best expectation, and a lot of people already sent us your feedback to thank and say how useful it has been to achieve the certification. I guess you really want to give it a try.
Know your enemy
The Professional Level exam is not that different from other AWS Certification exams: 3 hours available for you to answer multiple choice and multiple answer questions in one of the 750 testing locations spread in more than 100 countries. It is quite a demanding test, especially considering that many questions can be even more than 200 words long, so ensure you are fast at reading them, or you’ll deplete your time sooner than you might expect. Also, the difficulty level of question is considerably higher than the Associate Level, as it can be easily presumed. Indeed, Amazon recommends to have two or more years of hands-on experience designing and deploying cloud architecture on AWS, “abilities to evaluate cloud application requirements and make architectural recommendations for implementation, deployment, and provisioning applications on AWS” and “capabilities to provide best practices guidance on the architectural design across multiple applications, projects, or the enterprise.“ Jeff Barr, the chief evangelist for AWS, said that “The new AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Professional Level exam validates advanced technical skills and experience and represents the next level of proficiency along the AWS Certified Solutions Architect path, with a focus on the design and development of distributed systems.” Things that you should bear strongly in your mind while approaching this exam.
Thoroughly read the blueprint to find all the details
According to its tradition, AWS released a blueprint with details for this exam as well. If you are about to study for this exam, you really want to print it and put it under your pillow: it contains all the details you need to know about the exam itself. For example, there you’ll find links to training material from AWS, will learn that security weighs one fifth of the whole exam on its own, that you will get four answers for each question and that many of them will just be distracters that look plausibly good answers to eyes with a short sight or a short knowledge. To help you dodge all the bullets that Amazon prepared for you, we are about to expand our CloudCareer to cover Solutions Architect Professional Level Certification. By the very time I’m writing this post, our Content Team is working hard to craft a learning path specifically targeted to help you have success in this effort. We expect to make it available soon to all our CloudCareer subscribers, stay tuned to learn more about it.
