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AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03) - Study Outline

中文 · GitHub source Facts verified against official AWS documentation: 2026-08-19

Exam overview

The SAA-C03 exam is for individuals in a solutions architect role. It validates the ability to design solutions based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework: meeting current and projected business requirements while keeping architectures secure, resilient, high-performing, and cost-optimized, and reviewing existing solutions for improvement.

  • Format: 65 questions (50 scored + 15 unscored), multiple choice and multiple response.
  • Duration: 130 minutes.
  • Scoring: scaled score 100-1,000; minimum passing score 720; compensatory scoring (no per-section pass required).
  • Recommended experience: at least one year of hands-on experience designing solutions with AWS services.

Official resources

Content domains

The official exam guide defines four content domains and their weightings:

  1. Design secure architectures.
  2. Design resilient architectures.
  3. Design high-performing architectures.
  4. Design cost-optimized architectures.

Read the exam guide for the detailed task statements; this outline mirrors the original knowledge base structure.

Cloud Practitioner foundation (CLF-C02)

The original knowledge base starts with Cloud Practitioner material, which remains a useful foundation:

  • Cloud benefits: on-demand, pay-as-you-go, elasticity, global reach.
  • Design principles of the AWS Cloud.
  • Security and compliance concepts, IAM, and access management.
  • Core technology and services: compute, storage, database, networking, AI/ML, analytics.
  • Billing, pricing, and support.

Official guide: CLF-C02 exam guide

Foundations of cloud computing

  • On-demand self-service and pay-as-you-go pricing.
  • Economies of scale and variable vs. capital expense.
  • Service models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.
  • Elasticity, scalability, and agility compared with traditional data centers.

Cloud technology and services

  • Global infrastructure: Regions, Availability Zones, edge locations.
  • Core services by category: compute, storage, database, networking, security, analytics, integration.
  • Related runbooks in this knowledge base cover each service in depth (see the index).

AWS ecosystem and shared responsibility model

  • Shared responsibility: AWS secures the cloud; the customer secures what they put in the cloud.
  • AWS Partner Network, AWS Marketplace, and support plans.
  • AWS Artifact for compliance reports and agreements.

AWS Well-Architected Framework

Six pillars:

  1. Operational excellence
  2. Security
  3. Reliability
  4. Performance efficiency
  5. Cost optimization
  6. Sustainability

Official whitepaper: AWS Well-Architected Framework

Characteristics and advantages of cloud compute

  • Elasticity and scalability (vertical and horizontal).
  • High availability and fault tolerance across AZs and Regions.
  • Decoupled, loosely coupled architectures and serverless options.
  • Managed services that reduce operational burden.

AWS pricing models

  • On-Demand: pay per use, no commitment.
  • Savings Plans and Reserved Instances: commit for a discount.
  • Spot Instances: spare capacity at lower cost for interruptible workloads.
  • Dedicated Hosts/Instances: physical isolation needs.
  • Free Tier, consolidated billing, and Cost Explorer for tracking.

Study plan

  1. Read the official SAA-C03 exam guide and note the task statements.
  2. Review the Well-Architected Framework whitepaper.
  3. Work through the runbooks in this knowledge base, hands-on in your own account.
  4. Take official practice questions on AWS Skill Builder and review weak domains.
  5. Recheck the exam guide before booking; AWS updates exam scope over time.

Practice resources

Official practice questions and courses are available on AWS Skill Builder. Question-bank content is intentionally not published here.