For quite some time, I wanted to take my cloud knowledge to a new level. Since I work a lot with cloud infrastructure professionally, it quickly became clear to me: AWS is a must. So, I decided to take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam. In this post, I’d like to share my experience – from preparation and technical setup to the actual exam itself.

1. Learning and Preparation

Before I even started studying, I wanted to understand what to expect. The Solutions Architect – Associate exam tests a wide range of topics: architectural principles, high availability, security, cost optimization, and many services like EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, or VPC.

I divided my preparation into three phases:

Phase 1: Refreshing the basics
I started with the free AWS Skill Builder, where there’s an official course called "Exam Prep: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate". It gives you a good sense of the structure and depth of the questions. Additionally, I bought two topic-related courses on Udemy to deepen my knowledge further – they offered many practical examples and explanations that helped me a lot in understanding more complex subjects.

Phase 2: Intensive training
Then I used Udemy courses from instructors like Stéphane Maarek and Tutorials Dojo. I found the many hands-on labs particularly helpful – for example, setting up a VPC or an Auto Scaling group. These exercises helped me a lot to truly understand the concepts.

Phase 3: Exam simulations
In the last two weeks before the exam, I focused on practice exams. The questions on platforms like Whizlabs or Tutorials Dojo were often very similar to the real ones – sometimes almost identical in the way they were phrased.
I tried not only to know the correct answer but also to understand why the other answers were wrong – that’s crucial!

2. Equipment and Room Requirements

I decided to take the exam online from home – convenient, but with clear rules.

Technical requirements:

• A reliable laptop or PC
• A stable internet connection (LAN preferred)
• A working webcam and microphone

Before the exam, a Pearson VUE tool automatically checks whether your camera, sound, and network are fine.

Room preparation:
The room must be clean and quiet – no books, no notes, no other person in the room. I even had to briefly show my walls by moving the camera around. My desk was completely empty, and I placed my smartphone far away. That may seem a bit strict, but it ensures fairness.

3. Registration and Identity Check

Registration is done through the AWS Certification Portal. There, you can choose whether to take the exam online or in a test center.

After registration, you receive an email with all the steps. On the day of the exam, I simply clicked “Start Exam”. Then a chat window opened with the proctor.

The proctor checked my identity using my ID, asked me to show the entire room with the webcam, and verified that there were no unauthorized items nearby. After a few minutes, everything was ready – and the exam could begin.

4. The Exam Process

The exam lasts 130 minutes and consists of about 65 multiple-choice questions. Some questions are short and direct, others quite long and describe complex architectural scenarios.

I got into the habit of first answering all the questions I was sure about and marking the rest. In the end, I still had enough time to calmly review about 10 difficult questions.

A small tip:

Read the questions very carefully – sometimes a single word (“cost-effective”, “highly available”, or “fault tolerant”) changes the entire meaning.

After I submitted the last question, the system immediately displayed: “Your result will be available in next 5 days.”
Then, the email came: “Congratulations! You passed the exam!”
That was a great feeling!

5. Useful Resources and Tips

If you want to pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam, these resources can help you:

• AWS Skill Builder: Official, free learning platform
• AWS Whitepapers: Especially “Well-Architected Framework” and “Security Best Practices”
• Udemy: Courses by Stéphane Maarek or Neal Davis
• Tutorials Dojo / Jon Bonso Practice Exams: Realistic practice questions
• AWS Free Tier: To try out services without costs

Conclusion

The path to the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate was not only a technical challenge for me but also a personal journey. I learned a lot about modern cloud architecture and understood how important good design in AWS really is.

So if you’re thinking about taking this step: Do it! With patience, curiosity, and solid preparation, you can succeed. And the certification opens many doors in the IT world.

Good luck and have fun on your own AWS adventure!