AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03 WARP 9

Create an aws account to access free-tier services, verify your phone and card details, and sign in to the aws management console for the free plan.

Log in to the Amazon Web Services management console as root user, enter email and password, and sign in, then set up multi-factor authentication.

Learn to set up multi-factor authentication in the AWS management console using a virtual MFA app like Orfi, including QR code pairing, code entry, and securing AWS accounts.

Delve into cloud computing essentials and popular aws features, uncovering the core concepts that underpin cloud services and why aws stands out.

Regions are geographic locations; availability zones are data centers within a region. Three availability zones in a region provide redundancy with low latency, labeled A, B, and C.

Explore Amazon machine images (AMIs) and their role in launching EC2 instances, including marketplace and community AMIs, plus storage options like EBS versus instance store.

Explore elastic cloud compute with AWS EC2, the virtual machines you can scale up or down on demand. Learn instant store vs EBS persistence and instance metadata at 169.254.169.254.

Learn cost optimized EC2 pricing across free tier, on-demand, spot, reserved, and dedicated hosts, with practical guidance on use cases and licensing considerations.

Explore infrastructure as code with CloudFormation and compare it to Terraform, the industry standard. Learn how templates and resource blocks offer reproducible environments, aiding DevOps careers and exam prep.

Improve web app performance by using elasticache to cache repeated requests between the web server and database. Choose Redis for persistence and granular control, or Memcached for simple caching.

Explore serverless computing with Lambda, where you upload stateless code as a Lambda function, run on demand, and scale automatically while billing per millisecond.

Explore autoscaling groups and how they maintain desired capacity. Describe health checks, automatic instance replacement, launch templates, and scaling options from manual to predictive, including on-demand and spot instances.

Discover AWS Fargate, a serverless container option that removes cluster setup and management. It handles networking, storage, and scaling so you only provide code or images.

Use AWS elastic container registry (ECR) to store Docker images for ECS or Fargate. It uses S3 storage, encrypts images at rest, and limits repositories to 50 tags.

Explore ECS, a docker-centric platform managed by Amazon that runs containers in the cloud, bridging Lambda and EC2 and eliminating own cluster management.

EKS is Elastic Kubernetes Service, a managed Kubernetes on AWS that simplifies cluster setup. Kubernetes is a highly in-demand DevOps skill.

Launch and configure an EC2 instance in the AWS management console using Amazon Linux 2. Use a free tier t2.micro, storage, and a key pair for SSH access.

Connect to your AWS EC2 instance via SSH using your private key, set strict permissions, and access it with the public DNS address and the correct username, then exit.

Terminate an EC2 instance when finished to stop charges and realize cloud cost savings, since you are billed for the first hour even if unused, but termination stops billing.

Launch a windows server 2019 base instance, configure rdp on port 3389 with a key to decrypt the password, and connect via the public dns using remote desktop.

Understand cloud formation basics in the AWS console, create stacks with templates, and recognize declarative code, rollback, and reproducible environments, alongside TerraForm as an alternative.

Create an auto scaling group with a launch template for Amazon Linux 2, set desired three, min two, max five, 90% CPU scaling, with 5-minute health grace and 300-second warm-up.

Explore how lambda works by running a basic hello world function, creating a test event, and understanding serverless execution with minimal setup for the solutions architect exam.

Learn to set up and use the AWS CLI for programmatic access, configure credentials, manage S3 buckets, and safely clean up keys after practice.

Explore databases in AWS, learn the different types of databases available on AWS, and apply exam advice on choosing the best or latest product while following practical demos.

Compare relational databases, with tables and links, to non-relational NoSQL models such as key-value and documents, and contrast vertical scaling with horizontal scaling for scalable architectures.

Learn about Amazon RDS, the managed relational database service, with Aurora, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL; automated backups, snapshots, maintenance windows, Multi-AZ availability, and read replicas for speed.

Explore Amazon Aurora, a managed relational database service five times faster than MySQL and three times faster than Postgres, with six copies across availability zones and up to 15 replicas.

Explore Aurora global database, an automated, scalable, low-latency cross-region solution that replicates data with no performance impact, costs one tenth as much, and supports gaming, finance, and travel workloads.

Discover aurora serverless, an on-demand, scalable option for MySQL or Postgres compatibility that spins up and shuts down as needed, ideal for infrequent, unpredictable, or intermittent workloads and cost-effective pay-per-use.

DynamoDB, Amazon's NoSQL service, delivers single-digit millisecond performance, scales horizontally for low-latency data access at any scale, with eventually or strongly consistent reads.

Explore RDS by creating a MySQL database in the free tier, configuring backups and maintenance windows, and learning about endpoints, IAM, read replicas, and final snapshots.

Master networking fundamentals, including VPCs, the essential building blocks of AWS. Develop proficiency for your Solutions Architect career by watching the networking pro course first for a rock solid understanding.

Explore how Route 53 handles DNS for domain registration and routing, covering simple routing, weighted round robin for ab testing, latency-based routing, geo DNS, failover, multivalue routing, and traffic flow.

Explore virtual private clouds, AWS networking with IPv4/IPv6, custom IP ranges, subnets, route tables, gateways, and VPC endpoints that keep traffic inside the AWS network.

Learn how NAT instances let private subnets reach the Internet, disable source-destination checks, set custom routes, and evaluate Bastion servers, ELB, and high availability tradeoffs.

Discover NAT gateway advantages: a managed, highly available aws solution that supports up to 55,000 simultaneous connections, uses a single elastic ip, and requires network lockdown instead of security groups.

Explore network access control lists (NACLs): a stateless, optional VPC layer applied before security groups, with subnet associations and rules that block single IP addresses.

Security groups act as firewalls for EC2 instances, blocking traffic by default and allowing inbound traffic you specify while permitting responses due to being stateful.

Enable private connections from your VPC to AWS services like S3 and DynamoDB with VPC endpoints, keeping traffic inside the Amazon network and routing via interface or gateway endpoints.

Use VPC flow logs to capture IP traffic to and from network interfaces, enabling diagnosis of security group issues, traffic direction, and patterns, with logs publishable to CloudWatch or S3.

Use traffic mirroring to replicate traffic on a specific EC2 instance by adding an elastic network interface, enabling granular monitoring, content inspection, and security tooling within a VPC.

Explore VPC peering to connect two VPCs across regions or accounts, emphasizing no overlapping ranges, edge-to-edge routing, and the non-transitive nature that forbids routing through peered VPCs.

PrivateLink enables internal routing with VPC endpoints, keeping traffic on the internal network to contact AWS services like S3, eliminating the need for an internet gateway.

Direct connect links your local office directly to your VPC via edge locations, offering a lan-like connection to AWS and leveraging MPLS frame tagging as an alternative to site-to-site VPN.

Explore elastic networking in AWS, including elastic network interfaces (ENI) and enhanced networking. Understand elastic fabric adapter (EFA) with OS bypass for low-latency HPC and elastic IP for public access.

Set up a basic VPC with two subnets, an Internet gateway, and routes, deploy two EC2 instances, and test connectivity between public and private networks and external resources.

Build a custom VPC in EU West (Ireland) with public and private subnets, an internet gateway, and security groups to enable SSH and ICMP traffic.

Terminate EC2 instances, delete non-default security groups (default cannot be deleted), and remove the VPC, subnets, and internet gateway to complete the cleanup and learn common gotchas.

Power through the security section to master the technologies you need to pass the AWS certified solutions architect exam and work confidently with AWS in industry.

Master AWS IAM to control access with users, groups, and roles globally. Explore programmatic and console access, roles, managed policies, identity federation, web identity providers, and instant policy changes.

Explore AWS directory service as a managed cloud version of active directory, enabling user and group management, permissions, and on-prem integration with corporate credentials.

Cognito offers an out-of-the-box authentication system, supports username/password and social sign-in via user pools and identity pools, assigns permissions to resources, and offers Cognito Sync.

Use KMS to manage cloud keys for services like S3, whether Amazon provided or your own keys, with actions to create, import, disable, delegate access, and rotate for security.

Cloudtrail records all account activity for governance and auditing, detects unusual activity, and delivers tamper-proof logs to S3, capturing data and management events.

Learn to configure AWS CloudWatch for monitoring and alerting, collect metrics and logs including EC2 and beyond, set alarms and dashboards, and integrate with external tools for deeper insights.

Begin with IAM, the identity and access management that serves as a key AWS building block, showing how to grant users and resources the necessary access and permissions.

Navigate the aws management console to iam, create a user with programmatic access, and use groups and policies to assign permissions and manage credentials.

Learn to use and customize AWS IAM policies in JSON. Reuse existing policies to grant read-only or administrator access with caution.

Explore AWS resource tags and how they support auditing and cost optimization. Tag resources to support auditing and cost optimization, but tagging is not critical right now; then click review.

Create an IAM user with programmatic access and administrator policy, then generate access and secret keys, and secure them by rotating and deleting old keys.

Create a custom IAM policy in the AWS management console to grant read-only access for an HR assistant, using read and list permissions, optional resource scoping, and JSON editing.

Create a new user named Kate and attach the HR read only policy for the AWS management console with an auto-generated password and password reset. Email Kate to log in.

Learn how IAM roles differ from policies and enable EC2 to read from S3 without passwords, with permissions updated instantly for auto-scaling instances.

Compare CloudWatch and CloudTrail to pick the right tool: use CloudTrail for audit trails and CloudWatch for dashboards, alarms, and monitoring CPU utilization on EC2 resources.