Solutions Architect
Connect security, availability, performance and cost decisions into architectures that solve a real workload problem.
Who this path is for
Know basic AWS services and networking. Use the CloudAdhar SAA-C03 collection alongside these study milestones.
Study each topic, complete the applied exercise, and keep evidence of what you learned. These are original study milestones, not a claim to reproduce the full exam blueprint. Use the linked AWS exam guide to check all in-scope domains before booking.
Your learning roadmap
01Identity and secure access
3 focus areas · applied exercise
Identity and secure access
3 focus areas · applied exercise- IAM and STS
- Organizations and SCPs
- KMS and private access
Draw account and trust boundaries for a production and development environment.
Explain the difference between a role permission and an organization guardrail.
02Network and compute
3 focus areas · applied exercise
Network and compute
3 focus areas · applied exercise- Subnets and route tables
- Load balancing and scaling
- EC2 versus Lambda
Design a public application entry point with private application resources.
Trace inbound and outbound traffic and identify failure boundaries.
03Storage and databases
3 focus areas · applied exercise
Storage and databases
3 focus areas · applied exercise- S3 recovery
- RDS and Aurora
- DynamoDB access patterns
Complete the S3 recovery lab and compare relational and key-value storage for orders.
Justify recovery, access-pattern and consistency decisions.
04Decoupled applications
3 focus areas · applied exercise
Decoupled applications
3 focus areas · applied exercise- SQS and dead-letter queues
- Lambda retries
- Event-driven design
Complete the order-worker lab and inject a failure.
Show success evidence and the poison message in the DLQ.
05Analytics, cost and architecture review
3 focus areas · applied exercise
Analytics, cost and architecture review
3 focus areas · applied exercise- Athena and Glue
- Recovery objectives
- Well-Architected tradeoffs
Build the Athena lab, then review a small application against the six pillars.
Record query results, cost drivers and three design improvements.
Put the learning into practice
30 min · Beginner · guided lab
45 min · Intermediate · guided lab
60 min · Intermediate · guided lab
Related labs cover selected skills. Completing them does not establish exam readiness.