AWS Solutions Architect Exam Coverage Map: [Candidate name]
Study plan and coverage map for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Associate (SAA-C03) and Professional (SAP-C02; SAP-C03 registration
opens 27 October 2026 and the last SAP-C02 sitting is 16 November 2026)
exams. It maps every exam domain and task statement
number to templates in this library that practise the skill on a real
design, then tracks a skills self-rating, a hands-on lab log, practice
exam results, a weak-area plan and an exam-day plan. Domain names,
task numbers and weights follow the official AWS exam guides as checked
on 2026-10-23; all other text is original. Replace every [bracketed]
value and every row marked Example.
Document control
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Document ID | [CERT-AWS-001] |
| Candidate | [Name], [@handle] |
| Target exams | [SAA-C03 / SAP-C02 / SAP-C03] |
| Exam guide versions checked | [SAA-C03 guide, checked YYYY-MM-DD], [SAP guide version, checked YYYY-MM-DD] |
| Target exam dates | [YYYY-MM-DD (Associate)], [YYYY-MM-DD (Professional)] |
| Study budget | [n] hours over [n] weeks |
| Sample workload used for practice | [Workload name, for example a three-tier web application with an analytics pipeline] |
| Version | [0.1] |
| Status | [Planning / Studying / Booked / Passed / Retake planned] |
| Owner | [@candidate] |
| Approvers/reviewers | [@mentor], [@manager] |
| Last updated | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Classification | [Personal / Internal] |
Approvals
| Role | Name | Decision | Date |
|---|
| Candidate | [@name] | [Plan agreed] | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Mentor or study lead | [@name] | [Reviewed] | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Manager (training budget) | [@name] | [Approved / Not required] | YYYY-MM-DD |
Revision history
| Version | Date | Author | Change summary |
|---|
| 0.1 | YYYY-MM-DD | [@name] | Plan created from SAA-C03 and SAP-C02 exam guides |
| 0.2 | YYYY-MM-DD | [@name] | Example: First self-rating and practice exam added |
| 1.0 | YYYY-MM-DD | [@name] | Example: Associate passed; Professional plan moved to SAP-C03 guide |
Contents
1. Exam selection and versions
1.1 Which exam
| Question | Associate (SAA-C03) | Professional (SAP-C02 / SAP-C03) |
|---|
| Recommended experience (per AWS) | At least 1 year of hands-on experience designing cloud solutions on AWS | 2 or more years of experience using AWS to design and implement cloud solutions |
| Formal prerequisite | None | None (the Associate is not required) |
| Typical candidate | Designs single workloads on AWS | Designs across many accounts, workloads and teams; leads migrations |
| Choose it when | You need a structured grounding in the core services and the Well-Architected pillars | You already design multi-account environments and want to validate breadth and judgement |
1.2 Version status (checked 2026-10-23)
| Exam | Version status | Key dates | Source |
|---|
| Solutions Architect Associate | SAA-C03 is the current version; no successor announced on the official page | Italian-language version retires after 31 December 2026 | aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-associate |
| Solutions Architect Professional | SAP-C02 is current; SAP-C03 is the updated version | SAP-C03 registration opens 27 October 2026; last day to sit SAP-C02 is 16 November 2026 | aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-professional |
| SAP-C03 content | Domain list and weights not yet published on the official exam guide index on 2026-10-23 | Check the official exam guide from 27 October 2026 | docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-certification/latest/examguides |
1.3 Version decision
| Decision | Choice | Reason |
|---|
| Professional version to sit | [SAP-C02 on or before 16 November 2026 / SAP-C03 once available] | Example: SAP-C03, because the study window ends in January and SAP-C02 will no longer be available |
| Study materials version | [Course and version] | Example: Use SAP-C02 materials for shared foundations, then switch to the SAP-C03 guide once published |
2. Exam facts and rules
| Fact | SAA-C03 | SAP-C02 | Source |
|---|
| Duration | 130 minutes | 180 minutes | Official certification pages |
| Questions | 65 (50 scored, 15 unscored) | 75 (65 scored, 10 unscored) | Official exam guides |
| Question types | Multiple choice and multiple response | Multiple choice and multiple response | Official exam guides |
| Scoring | Scaled 100 to 1,000; minimum pass 720; compensatory model (overall score only) | Scaled 100 to 1,000; minimum pass 750; compensatory model | Official exam guides |
| Price | USD 150 plus local taxes and exchange differences | USD 300 plus local taxes and exchange differences | Official certification pages |
| Unanswered questions | Scored as incorrect; no penalty for guessing | Scored as incorrect; no penalty for guessing | Official exam guides |
| SAP-C03 facts | Not applicable | Check the official SAP-C03 page and guide | Official certification page |
Two rules follow from the facts. First, answer every question: a blank scores the same as a wrong answer. Second, the compensatory model means a weak domain can be offset by strong ones, but the section feedback on the score report is coarse; plan to be competent in every domain.
3. Domain weights and study allocation
3.1 SAA-C03 domains
| Domain | Name | Weight (share of scored content) | Task statements | Base hours (Example: 100-hour budget) |
|---|
| 1 | Design Secure Architectures | 30% | 1.1 to 1.3 | 30 |
| 2 | Design Resilient Architectures | 26% | 2.1 to 2.2 | 26 |
| 3 | Design High-Performing Architectures | 24% | 3.1 to 3.5 | 24 |
| 4 | Design Cost-Optimized Architectures | 20% | 4.1 to 4.4 | 20 |
| Total | 100% | 14 tasks | 100 |
3.2 SAP-C02 domains
| Domain | Name | Weight | Task statements | Base hours (Example: 150-hour budget) |
|---|
| 1 | Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity | 26% | 1.1 to 1.5 | 39 |
| 2 | Design for New Solutions | 29% | 2.1 to 2.6 | 43.5 |
| 3 | Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions | 25% | 3.1 to 3.5 | 37.5 |
| 4 | Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization | 20% | 4.1 to 4.4 | 30 |
| Total | 100% | 20 tasks | 150 |
3.3 Gap-adjusted allocation
Adjusted hours for a domain = budget x (weight x gap) / sum of (weight x gap), where gap = 4 minus the domain self-rating from section 7.
Example for SAA-C03 with self-ratings 3.0, 2.5, 2.0 and 3.5: gaps are 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 0.5. Weight x gap gives 0.30, 0.39, 0.48 and 0.10, which sum to 1.27. With 100 hours the adjusted hours are about 24, 31, 38 and 8. Keep a floor of at least 10% of the budget for every domain, so set domain 4 to 10 and take 3 hours from domain 3 (35), which also absorbs the rounding surplus.
| Domain | Weight | Self-rating | Gap | Weight x gap | Adjusted hours | With floor |
|---|
| 1 (Example) | 0.30 | 3.0 | 1.0 | 0.30 | 24 | 24 |
| 2 (Example) | 0.26 | 2.5 | 1.5 | 0.39 | 31 | 31 |
| 3 (Example) | 0.24 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.48 | 38 | 35 |
| 4 (Example) | 0.20 | 3.5 | 0.5 | 0.10 | 8 | 10 |
| Total | 1.00 | | | 1.27 | 101 (rounding) | 100 |
4. Associate coverage map (SAA-C03)
4.1 Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures (30%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Services and concepts to compare | Lab ID |
|---|
| 1.1 | Secure access to resources across accounts | IAM Solution Design (security/iam-solution-design), Landing Zone Design (architecture/landing-zone-design) | Role model with federation, permission boundaries and service control policies | IAM roles and policies, IAM Identity Center, STS, Organizations SCPs, resource policies | LAB-001 |
| 1.2 | Secure workloads and applications | Network Architecture Design (architecture/network-architecture-design), Cloud Security Reference Patterns (security/cloud-security-reference-patterns) | VPC with public and private tiers, edge protection and secrets handling | Security groups, network ACLs, WAF, Shield, Secrets Manager, VPN, Direct Connect | LAB-002 |
| 1.3 | Data security controls | PKI and Certificate Architecture (security/pki-certificate-architecture), Data Residency and Sovereignty Assessment (compliance/data-residency-sovereignty-assessment) | Key and certificate plan, encryption at rest and in transit, retention rules | KMS key policies, ACM, S3 encryption and lifecycle, backup and replication | LAB-003 |
4.2 Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures (26%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Services and concepts to compare | Lab ID |
|---|
| 2.1 | Scalable and loosely coupled designs | Event-Driven Architecture Design (architecture/event-driven-architecture-design), API Management Platform Design (architecture/api-management-platform-design) | Event and queue design that decouples the order flow | SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Step Functions, API Gateway, Lambda, containers | LAB-004 |
| 2.2 | Highly available and fault-tolerant designs | Resilience Tiering and HA/DR Design (architecture/resilience-tiering-ha-dr-design), Disaster Recovery Plan (ops/disaster-recovery-plan) | Tiered RTO and RPO, multi-AZ design, DR strategy choice | Backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site; Route 53 failover; RDS Proxy | LAB-005 |
4.3 Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures (24%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Services and concepts to compare | Lab ID |
|---|
| 3.1 | Storage that performs and scales | Infrastructure Design (architecture/infrastructure-design) | Storage selection table by access pattern | S3, EBS volume types, EFS, FSx | LAB-006 |
| 3.2 | Elastic compute | Capacity Plan (ops/capacity-plan), Back-of-Envelope Estimation (system-design/back-of-envelope-estimation) | Scaling policy with metrics and limits | EC2 Auto Scaling, Lambda memory sizing, ECS, EKS, Fargate, Batch | LAB-007 |
| 3.3 | High-performing databases | Database Design (architecture/database-design), Distributed Cache Design (system-design/design-distributed-cache) | Engine and type choice with read replicas and caching | Aurora, RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, connection proxies | LAB-008 |
| 3.4 | Scalable network architectures | Network Architecture Design (architecture/network-architecture-design) | Topology for global and hybrid access with load balancing | CloudFront, Global Accelerator, ALB, NLB, PrivateLink, Direct Connect | LAB-009 |
| 3.5 | Data ingestion and transformation | Streaming Solution Design (architecture/streaming-solution-design), Data Platform Architecture (architecture/data-platform-architecture) | Ingestion, lake and transformation design | Kinesis, Glue, Athena, Lake Formation, DataSync, EMR | LAB-010 |
4.4 Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures (20%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Services and concepts to compare | Lab ID |
|---|
| 4.1 | Cost-optimized storage | FinOps Cost Review (ops/finops-cost-review) | Storage tiering and lifecycle with monthly cost | S3 storage classes and lifecycle, EBS types, backup and archive tiers | LAB-011 |
| 4.2 | Cost-optimized compute | TCO Analysis (architecture/tco-analysis) | Purchase option mix for steady and burst load | On-Demand, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, Spot, instance families, Graviton | LAB-012 |
| 4.3 | Cost-optimized databases | Database Design (architecture/database-design) | Database cost comparison including backups and retention | RDS versus DynamoDB, serverless options, snapshot policy | LAB-008 |
| 4.4 | Cost-optimized networks | Network Architecture Design (architecture/network-architecture-design) | Data transfer cost model by path | NAT gateway placement, VPC endpoints, Transit Gateway versus peering, CDN | LAB-013 |
5. Professional coverage map (SAP-C02)
5.1 Domain 1: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity (26%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Lab ID |
|---|
| 1.1 | Network connectivity strategy | Network Architecture Design (architecture/network-architecture-design), Hybrid and Multicloud Architecture (architecture/hybrid-multicloud-architecture) | Multi-VPC and hybrid connectivity with hybrid DNS | LAB-101 |
| 1.2 | Security controls across the organisation | Cloud Security Reference Patterns (security/cloud-security-reference-patterns), Zero Trust Architecture Plan (security/zero-trust-architecture) | Central security event pipeline and cross-account access model | LAB-102 |
| 1.3 | Reliable and resilient architectures | Resilience Tiering and HA/DR Design (architecture/resilience-tiering-ha-dr-design) | DR design per tier with RTO and RPO evidence | LAB-103 |
| 1.4 | Multi-account environment | Landing Zone Design (architecture/landing-zone-design) | Account structure, central logging and governance model | LAB-104 |
| 1.5 | Cost optimisation and visibility | FinOps Cost Review (ops/finops-cost-review) | Tagging strategy and cost allocation by business unit | LAB-105 |
5.2 Domain 2: Design for New Solutions (29%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Lab ID |
|---|
| 2.1 | Deployment strategy | Platform Golden Path (architecture/platform-golden-path), Deployment Runbook (ops/deployment-runbook) | IaC pipeline with rollback strategy | LAB-106 |
| 2.2 | Business continuity | Disaster Recovery Plan (ops/disaster-recovery-plan), Game Day Plan (ops/game-day-plan) | DR test plan and results | LAB-103 |
| 2.3 | Security controls from requirements | Security Architecture (security/security-architecture), IAM Solution Design (security/iam-solution-design) | Least-privilege design and attack mitigation for a public web application | LAB-102 |
| 2.4 | Reliability strategy | Resilience and Load Shedding Design (system-design/resilience-load-shedding-design) | Loose coupling, quotas and failover design | LAB-107 |
| 2.5 | Performance objectives | Performance Test Plan (quality/performance-test-plan), Distributed Cache Design (system-design/design-distributed-cache) | Caching, buffering and replica design with test results | LAB-108 |
| 2.6 | Cost strategy for new solutions | TCO Analysis (architecture/tco-analysis) | Pricing model choice and data transfer model | LAB-105 |
5.3 Domain 3: Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions (25%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Lab ID |
|---|
| 3.1 | Operational excellence | Observability Specification (ops/observability-spec), Chaos Experiment (ops/chaos-experiment) | Logging, alerting and automated remediation improvements | LAB-109 |
| 3.2 | Security improvement | Access Review (ops/access-review), Security Review (security/security-review) | Least-privilege audit and patch and backup process | LAB-110 |
| 3.3 | Performance improvement | Cloud Architecture Review (architecture/cloud-architecture-review) | Bottleneck analysis and rightsizing proposal | LAB-108 |
| 3.4 | Reliability improvement | AWS Well-Architected Review (architecture/aws-well-architected-review) | Single points of failure register and remediation | LAB-107 |
| 3.5 | Cost optimisation of existing estate | FinOps Cost Review (ops/finops-cost-review) | Underused resource report and billing alarms | LAB-105 |
5.4 Domain 4: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization (20%)
| Task | Paraphrase of the task area | Practise with (library template) | Practice deliverable | Lab ID |
|---|
| 4.1 | Select workloads for migration | Application Migration Assessment (architecture/application-migration-assessment), Migration Wave Plan (project/migration-wave-plan) | Portfolio assessment with 7 Rs and TCO | LAB-111 |
| 4.2 | Migration approach | Data Migration Strategy (architecture/data-migration-strategy), Cutover Plan (project/cutover-plan) | Transfer mechanism choice for data, applications and databases | LAB-112 |
| 4.3 | New architecture for existing workloads | Modernization Assessment (architecture/modernization-assessment) | Compute, container, storage and database platform choices | LAB-113 |
| 4.4 | Modernisation opportunities | Event-Driven Architecture Design (architecture/event-driven-architecture-design), Build vs Buy Analysis (architecture/build-vs-buy-analysis) | Decoupling and serverless proposal with purpose-built databases | LAB-004 |
5.5 Coverage check
| Exam | Tasks | Tasks mapped to a template | Tasks with a completed deliverable | Tasks with a lab | Coverage |
|---|
| SAA-C03 (Example) | 14 | 14 | 9 | 12 | 64% deliverables |
| SAP-C02 (Example) | 20 | 20 | 6 | 13 | 30% deliverables |
| [Exam] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [%] |
6. SAP-C03 transition plan
6.1 What is known (checked 2026-10-23)
| Item | Status | Action |
|---|
| SAP-C03 registration | Opens 27 October 2026 per the official certification page | Check the page and the exam guide index on or after that date |
| Last SAP-C02 sitting | 16 November 2026 | Book SAP-C02 only if you are ready before that date |
| SAP-C03 domains and weights | Not published on the official exam guide index on 2026-10-23 | Check the official exam guide; do not rely on third-party lists |
| Emerging topics in the SAP-C02 guide | Unscored pretest questions on security and responsible AI controls for generative and agentic AI (content filtering, access control for AI applications, human approval workflows) | Treat as a likely direction; add study time in section 6.2 |
6.2 Transition actions
| Action ID | Action | Trigger | Owner | Status |
|---|
| TR-001 (Example) | Download the SAP-C03 exam guide and record its version in Document control | Guide published | [@candidate] | Open |
| TR-002 (Example) | Rebuild section 5 tables with the SAP-C03 domains, weights and task numbers | TR-001 done | [@candidate] | Open |
| TR-003 (Example) | Map new AI-related tasks to Generative AI Well-Architected Review (architecture/genai-well-architected-review) and Enterprise AI Platform Reference (architecture/enterprise-ai-platform-reference) | TR-002 done | [@candidate] | Open |
| TR-004 (Example) | Re-run the self-rating (section 7) against the new task list | TR-002 done | [@candidate] | Open |
| TR-005 (Example) | Check that practice materials are labelled for SAP-C03 | Before purchase | [@candidate] | Open |
7. Skills self-rating and readiness
7.1 Rating scale
| Rating | Meaning | Evidence required |
|---|
| 0 | Not familiar | None |
| 1 | Can explain the concepts | Notes |
| 2 | Can choose between options for a simple case | Practice questions above 60% on the task |
| 3 | Has designed and built it | Completed deliverable or lab |
| 4 | Can defend trade-offs under constraints and teach it | Deliverable reviewed by a peer, practice above 85% |
7.2 Self-rating register
| Task | Rating (0-4) | Evidence | Date | Next step |
|---|
| SAA 1.1 (Example) | 3 | LAB-001 and IAM design reviewed | YYYY-MM-DD | Practise cross-account role scenarios |
| SAA 2.2 (Example) | 2 | Practice 64% | YYYY-MM-DD | Complete DR strategy comparison in LAB-005 |
| SAA 3.5 (Example) | 1 | Notes only | YYYY-MM-DD | Build LAB-010 |
| SAP 1.4 (Example) | 3 | Landing zone design for sample workload | YYYY-MM-DD | Add central logging evidence |
| [Task] | [0-4] | [Evidence] | YYYY-MM-DD | [Step] |
7.3 Readiness score
Readiness = sum over domains of weight x (domain average rating / 4).
Example for SAA-C03 with domain averages 3.0, 2.5, 2.0 and 3.5: 0.30 x 0.75 = 0.225; 0.26 x 0.625 = 0.1625; 0.24 x 0.5 = 0.12; 0.20 x 0.875 = 0.175. Readiness = 0.6825, about 68%.
| Exam | Domain averages | Readiness | Booking threshold (Example) | Decision |
|---|
| SAA-C03 (Example) | 3.0 / 2.5 / 2.0 / 3.5 | 68% | 80% and two practice exams at or above 80% | Not ready: follow section 10 |
| [Exam] | [Averages] | [%] | [Threshold] | [Decision] |
The booking threshold is a personal planning rule, not an AWS figure. Set it so that you sit the exam with margin above the passing standard.
8. Hands-on lab log
| Lab ID | Task(s) | Objective | Design variation tried | Result and lesson | Cost | Cleaned up | Date |
|---|
| LAB-001 (Example) | SAA 1.1 | Cross-account role assumption with IAM Identity Center | Compared resource policy access with role assumption | Resource policies suit single-service sharing; roles suit broad access | USD 0 | Yes | YYYY-MM-DD |
| LAB-005 (Example) | SAA 2.2, SAP 1.3 | Warm standby in a second Region for the sample workload | Compared pilot light with warm standby recovery time | Pilot light took 38 minutes to serve traffic; warm standby 6 minutes | USD 14 | Yes | YYYY-MM-DD |
| LAB-010 (Example) | SAA 3.5 | Stream ingestion to a data lake and query | Compared JSON with Parquet for query cost | Parquet reduced scanned data by about 80% in this test | USD 3 | Yes | YYYY-MM-DD |
| LAB-104 (Example) | SAP 1.4 | Multi-account structure with guardrails | Detective versus preventive guardrails | Preventive controls blocked a public bucket in the sandbox | USD 0 | Yes | YYYY-MM-DD |
| [LAB-NNN] | [Tasks] | [Objective] | [Variation] | [Lesson] | [USD] | [Yes / No] | YYYY-MM-DD |
8.1 Sandbox controls
- Use a dedicated sandbox account inside an organisation, never a production account.
- Set a budget with an alert at [USD amount] and a second alert at [USD amount].
- Tag every lab resource with the lab ID; delete by tag at the end of each session.
- Do not store real personal or customer data in lab resources.
9. Practice exam results and error analysis
9.1 Results
| Attempt ID | Date | Source and version | Exam | Score | Domain 1 | Domain 2 | Domain 3 | Domain 4 | Time used |
|---|
| PX-001 (Example) | YYYY-MM-DD | [Official practice question set] | SAA-C03 | 47 of 65 (72%) | 80% | 65% | 60% | 85% | 118 of 130 min |
| PX-002 (Example) | YYYY-MM-DD | [Practice provider, new set] | SAA-C03 | 54 of 65 (83%) | 85% | 80% | 78% | 90% | 110 of 130 min |
| [PX-NNN] | YYYY-MM-DD | [Source] | [Exam] | [n of n (%)] | [%] | [%] | [%] | [%] | [min] |
9.2 Error classification
| Cause | Meaning | Fix |
|---|
| Knowledge gap | Did not know the service capability or limit | Study and lab the task |
| Trade-off error | Knew the options but picked one that ignored a constraint (cost, effort, operations) | Practise ranking options against all stated constraints |
| Misread | Missed a keyword such as "least operational overhead" or "most cost-effective" | Underline constraints on the whiteboard before reading options |
| Overthinking | Assumed facts not in the question | Answer only from what the scenario states |
| Time pressure | Rushed the last questions | Pace at about 2 minutes per Associate question and 2.4 per Professional question |
| Attempt | Knowledge gap | Trade-off error | Misread | Overthinking | Time pressure | Total wrong |
|---|
| PX-001 (Example) | 8 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 18 |
| [PX-NNN] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [n] |
10. Weak-area plan
| Weak ID | Task | Weight of domain | Gap (4 minus rating) | Priority (weight x gap) | Action | Deliverable | Retest date | Status |
|---|
| WK-001 (Example) | SAA 3.5 | 0.24 | 3 | 0.72 | Build LAB-010; write the ingestion section of a data platform design | Data Platform Architecture draft for the sample workload | YYYY-MM-DD | Open |
| WK-002 (Example) | SAA 2.2 | 0.26 | 2 | 0.52 | Compare DR strategies with measured recovery times | Resilience tiering table with four strategies | YYYY-MM-DD | Open |
| WK-003 (Example) | SAA 4.4 | 0.20 | 2 | 0.40 | Model data transfer costs for three network paths | Cost table in the network design | YYYY-MM-DD | Open |
| [WK-NNN] | [Task] | [Weight] | [Gap] | [Priority] | [Action] | [Deliverable] | YYYY-MM-DD | [Status] |
11. Study schedule and exam-day plan
11.1 Schedule
The Example plan below sits the Associate first, then reuses its labs for the Professional. Keep one buffer week before each exam and move the milestone if readiness in section 7 is below your threshold.
11.2 Exam-day checklist
12. Post-exam notes and recertification
12.1 Result
| Exam | Date | Result | Scaled score | Section feedback (from score report) | Notes for next time |
|---|
| [SAA-C03] | YYYY-MM-DD | [Pass / Fail] | [Score] | [Meets / Needs improvement by section] | [Own notes, no exam content] |
12.2 Recertification
| Item | Rule (checked 2026-10-23) | Your date |
|---|
| Validity | Renewing adds 3 years; the certification must be active to renew | Expires YYYY-MM-DD |
| Renew Associate | Retake the latest version, or pass the Solutions Architect Professional exam | Plan by YYYY-MM-DD |
| Renew Professional | Retake the latest version | Plan by YYYY-MM-DD |
| Maintain (alternative) | Complete maintenance on AWS Skill Builder within 90 days of expiry (active Monthly, Annual or Team subscription), which adds 1 year | [Yes / No] |
13. Glossary and references
13.1 Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| Content domain | Weighted section of the exam outline |
| Task statement | Numbered skill area inside a domain, with knowledge and skill lists in the official guide |
| Scaled score | Score converted to a 100 to 1,000 scale so different exam forms are comparable |
| Compensatory scoring | Only the overall score must pass; sections can offset each other |
| Unscored question | Pretest question that does not affect the score and is not identified |
| RTO and RPO | Maximum acceptable downtime, and maximum acceptable data loss measured in time |
| 7 Rs | Migration strategies (retire, retain, rehost, relocate, repurchase, replatform, refactor) |
| Weight x gap | Priority measure used in sections 3 and 10 |
13.2 References
| Reference | Version or date checked | Use |
|---|
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, certification page, aws.amazon.com | Checked 2026-10-23 | Duration, questions, price, version notes |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam guide, docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-certification | Checked 2026-10-23 | Domains, weights, task numbers, scoring |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional, certification page, aws.amazon.com | Checked 2026-10-23 | SAP-C03 registration date, last SAP-C02 date, duration, price |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02) exam guide, docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-certification | Checked 2026-10-23 | Domains, weights, task numbers, scoring, emerging topics |
| AWS Certification exam guides index, docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-certification/latest/examguides | Checked 2026-10-23 | SAP-C03 guide availability |
| AWS Certification recertification page, aws.amazon.com/certification/recertification | Checked 2026-10-23 | Renewal and maintenance rules |
| AWS Well-Architected Framework, docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected | Six pillars | Design reasoning behind the exams |
Standard and licence note
Based on the public AWS Certification exam guides for SAA-C03 and SAP-C02
and the AWS certification pages, as checked on 2026-10-23. Only domain
names, task statement numbers, weights and published exam facts are used;
task areas are paraphrased in original words and no exam guide text,
knowledge lists or exam questions are reproduced. The SAP-C03 content
outline was not yet published at the time of writing: check the official
exam guide before you rely on section 5 for a SAP-C03 attempt. This
template is original text written for this collection. Check the current
official exam guide before use. AWS, Amazon Web Services and AWS
Certified Solutions Architect are trademarks of their owners; this
template is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
Template licence: MIT.