Ace AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam (2024 Edition‪)‬

Unlock unparalleled technical depth with this book, expertly integrating the proven methodologies of Tutorials Dojo, the insights of Adrian Cantrill, and the hands-on approach of AWS Skills Builder.


What are the requirements or prerequisites for reading this book?

The target candidate should have at least 1 year of hands-on experience designing cloud solutions that use AWS services


The book contains several testimonials like the one below:

Successfully cleared the AWS Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03 with a score of 824, surpassing my expectations. The exam presented a mix of question difficulties, with prominent topics being Kinesis, Lakeformation, Big Data tools, and S3.


Sample Questions and Detailed Answers included:

Latest AWS SAA Practice Exam - Question 1

A web application hosted on AWS uses an EC2 instance to serve content and an RDS MySQL instance for database needs. During a performance audit, you notice frequent read operations are causing performance bottlenecks. To optimize the read performance, which of the following strategies should you implement? (Select TWO.)

A. Deploy an ElastiCache cluster to cache common queries and reduce the load on the RDS instance.

B. Convert the RDS instance to a Multi-AZ deployment for improved read performance.

C. Use RDS Read Replicas to offload read requests from the primary RDS instance.

D. Increase the instance size of the RDS database to a larger instance type with more CPU and RAM.

E. Implement Amazon Redshift to replace RDS for improved read and write operation performance.

Correct Answer: A. Deploy an ElastiCache cluster to cache common queries and reduce the load on the RDS instance. C. Use RDS Read Replicas to offload read requests from the primary RDS instance.



Amazon RDS Read Replicas provide a way to scale out beyond the capacity of a single database deployment for read-heavy database workloads. You can create one or more replicas of a source DB Instance and serve high-volume application read traffic from multiple copies of your data, thereby increasing aggregate read throughput.

Reference: Amazon RDS Read Replicas


Latest AWS SAA Practice Exam - Question 1:

Secure RDS Access with IAM Authentication

A financial application suite leverages an ensemble of EC2 instances, an Application Load Balancer, and an RDS instance poised in a Multi-AZ deployment. The security requisites dictate that the RDS database be exclusively accessible to authenticated EC2 instances, preserving the confidentiality of customer data. The Architect must choose a security mechanism that aligns with AWS best practices and ensures stringent access control.

What should the Architect implement to satisfy these security imperatives?

Enable IAM Database Authentication for the RDS instance.

Implement SSL encryption to secure the database connections.

Assign a specific IAM Role to the EC2 instances granting RDS access.

Utilize IAM combined with STS for restricted RDS access with a temporary credentialing system.

Correct Answer: A. Enable IAM Database Authentication for the RDS instance.



Here's the detailed explanation and reference link for the answer provided:

Enable IAM Database Authentication for the RDS instance.

IAM database authentication is used to control who can connect to your Amazon RDS database instances. When IAM database authentication is enabled, you don’t need to use a password to connect to a DB instance. Instead, you use an authentication token issued by AWS Security Token Service (STS). IAM database authentication works with MySQL and PostgreSQL. It provides enhanced security because the authentication tokens are time-bound and encrypted. Moreover, this method integrates the database access with the centralized IAM service, simplifying user management and access control.



Reference: IAM Database Authentication for MySQL and PostgreSQL