Prerequisites
- No prior AWS experience required
- 1–2 hours of study time per day
- Access to an AWS account (Free Tier is sufficient)
Study Schedule
Month 1 (Days 1–30)AWS Fundamentals & Core Services
- Week 1: Cloud computing basics, AWS global infrastructure, IAM fundamentals
- Week 2: EC2 (instance types, pricing, security groups), EBS, AMIs
- Week 3: S3 (storage classes, versioning, encryption, lifecycle)
- Week 4: VPC (subnets, routing, NAT, SGs, NACLs, endpoints)
- End of month: 40-question mixed quiz + hands-on labs
Month 2 (Days 31–60)Advanced Services & Architecture Patterns
- Week 5: RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache
- Week 6: ELB, Auto Scaling, Route 53
- Week 7: Lambda, API Gateway, SQS, SNS, EventBridge
- Week 8: CloudFront, CloudFormation, Elastic Beanstalk, ECS
- End of month: Domain 1 & 2 practice exams + review weak areas
Month 3 (Days 61–90)Exam Preparation & Practice
- Week 9: Security deep dive (KMS, WAF, Shield, GuardDuty, Config)
- Week 10: Cost optimization, Organizations, Trusted Advisor
- Week 11: Full practice exam #1 + detailed review
- Week 12: Full practice exam #2 + flashcards + cheat sheets review
- Final days: Review all incorrect answers, rest before exam
Study Tips
Consistency beats intensity — study every day even if only for 30 minutes.
Use the Smash The Exam flashcards for daily spaced repetition review.
Build at least 3 mini-projects in AWS to solidify your understanding.
Take notes on every practice question you get wrong and review weekly.
Schedule your exam at least 2 weeks in advance to create accountability.
Ready to Practice?
Put your study plan into action with SAA-C03 practice questions.