AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (CSOA) Exam Experience & Tips

The information bellow covers my experience for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (CSOA) exam from Amazon. Following this I will post a list of my study materials, so keep checking back for updates or check out my Index of AWS Posts.

Before you continue reading, I would first note that this is my third AWS exam, having completed the AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate and AWS Certified Developer Associate exam earlier this year. The associate trifecta! As such the materials I used to study towards the exam are more sparse, due to the level of knowledge I already have.

For a really full picture of all of the materials I’ve used over the last 12 months, I highly recommend you check out the following guides:

Along with a number of tips, tricks and gotchas I have posted over the past few months. I also did a podcast recently with Scott Lowe on the subject of learning AWS. If you are new to AWS, I highly recommend you check it out!

AWS Certified SysOps Associate (CSOA)

AWS Certified SysOps Associate (CSOA) Exam Experience

Almost everything I read in the run up to taking the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator, suggested that it was going to be really hard and a step up from the Solution Architect exam. My personal experience when I took it in December 2016 was that it was really on a par with the SA exam, and the reputation was perhaps a tad overblown.

This could be for one of several reasons; I’ve been doing AWS designs for several months now at work; this is the third AWS exam I’ve taken; or the exam has become marginally easier now that they seem to have removed some of the older EC2 Classic questions ad brought it a little more up to date. I suspect the latter is the most likely reason, but with some benefit from the former!

Based on my experience of the exams so far, I think I would definitely recommend the order people approach these as Solution Architect first to give you a thorough grounding in all of the products, then the Developer as it was fairly easy and just broadened your knowledge, finally followed by SysOps.

As I have previously mentioned, AWS seem to structure their exams with some general questions across their portfolio, then specific technologies taking precedence in each. The SysOps seemed to me to be about two-thirds of the Solution Architect exam again, with the last third having more of a focus on CloudWatch and CloudFormation. If you have already passed the SA exam, you should have no issues with this content, though the remaining questions I had were a touch trickier, as they were fairly in depth / specific.cloudformation

The exam itself is the same length as the other associate ones, at 80 minutes and 55 questions. Again AWS (as is their way) do some odd things like not giving you a passing grade requirement, but it’s generally safe to assume that if you get 70% or more, in the Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam then you will pass. The Kryterion exam environment is frankly pretty dated, but I already wrote about that in the CSA guide here, so I won’t repeat myself again! Suffice to say, read the other article for a detailed overview.

Best of luck, and if you found this article useful, please leave a comment below! 🙂

Want to Learn More?

Part 2 of this article, the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam study guide and materials can be found here:

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate (CSOA) Exam Study Guide and Materials

AWS, Certification, Cloud , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,