Free AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 Exam Questions and Answers
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) is the exam AWS sets for people who design systems on its cloud. It runs 130 minutes, asks 65 multiple-choice and multiple-response questions, and is scored from 100 to 1000 with 720 to pass — compensatory scoring, so a weak domain can be carried by a strong one. Four domains are weighted: secure architectures 30%, resilient architectures 26%, high-performing architectures 24%, cost-optimised architectures 20%. There is no formal prerequisite, though AWS recommends about a year of hands-on design work. Security carries the most marks and repays the most study. The bank also holds questions from the earlier SAA-C01 and SAA-C02 versions of this exam.
Candidates comparing SAA-C03 exam dumps, ExamTopics and other SAA-C03 practice tests use this page for the answers and explanations behind each question. Download the free SAA-C03 PDF, then sit the timed SAA-C03 exam simulation before booking with Amazon.
Last updated: October 3, 2026
- Exam code
- SAA-C03
- Provider
- Amazon
- Questions in our bank
- 1000+
- Free to read
- First 10, with answers
- Official page
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- Our test mode duration & pass mark
- 130 mins · 70%
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Question #1
A company hosts a containerized web application on a fleet of on-premises servers that process incoming requests. The number of requests is growing quickly. The on-premises servers cannot handle the increased number of requests. The company wants to move the application to AWS with minimum code changes and minimum development effort. Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
Correct answer: A
Explanation
AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine that lets users run containers without having to manage servers or clusters of Amazon EC2 instances1. Users can use AWS Fargate on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) to run the containerized web application with Service Auto Scaling. Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service that supports both Docker and Kubernetes2. Service Auto Scaling is a feature that allows users to adjust the desired number of tasks in an ECS service based on CloudWatch metrics, such as CPU utilization or request count3. Users can use AWS Fargate on Amazon ECS to migrate the application to AWS with minimum code changes and minimum development effort, as they only need to package their application in containers and specify the CPU and memory requirements. Users can also use an Application Load Balancer to distribute the incoming requests. An Application Load Balancer is a load balancer that operates at the application layer and routes traffic to targets based on the content of the request. Users can register their ECS tasks as targets for an Application Load Balancer and configure listener rules to route requests to different target groups based on path or host headers. Users can use an Application Load Balancer to improve the availability and performance of their web application.
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Question #2
A company performs monthly maintenance on its AWS infrastructure. During these maintenance activities, the company needs to rotate the credentials tor its Amazon ROS tor MySQL databases across multiple AWS Regions Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
Correct answer: B
Explanation
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-replicate-secrets-aws-secrets-manager- multiple-regions/
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Question #3
A company runs an online marketplace web application on AWS. The application serves hundreds of thousands of users during peak hours. The company needs a scalable, near- real-time solution to share the details of millions of financial transactions with several other internal applications Transactions also need to be processed to remove sensitive data before being stored in a document database for low-latency retrieval. What should a solutions architect recommend to meet these requirements?
Correct answer: C
Explanation
The destination of your Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream. Kinesis Data Firehose can send data records to various destinations, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Redshift, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and any HTTP endpoint that is owned by you or any of your third-party service providers. The following are the supported destinations: * Amazon OpenSearch Service * Amazon S3 * Datadog * Dynatrace * Honeycomb * HTTP Endpoint * Logic Monitor * MongoDB Cloud * New Relic * Splunk * Sumo Logic https://docs.aws.amazon.com/firehose/latest/dev/create-name.html https://aws.amazon.com/kinesis/data-streams/ Amazon Kinesis Data Streams (KDS) is a massively scalable and durable real-time data streaming service. KDS can continuously capture gigabytes of data per second from hundreds of thousands of sources such as website clickstreams, database event streams, financial transactions, social media feeds, IT logs, and location-tracking events.
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Question #4
A company's application integrates with multiple software-as-a-service (SaaS) sources for data collection. The company runs Amazon EC2 instances to receive the data and to upload the data to an Amazon S3 bucket for analysis. The same EC2 instance that receives and uploads the data also sends a notification to the user when an upload is complete. The company has noticed slow application performance and wants to improve the performance as much as possible. Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
Correct answer: B
Explanation
Amazon AppFlow is a fully managed integration service that enables you to securely transfer data between Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications like Salesforce, SAP, Zendesk, Slack, and ServiceNow, and AWS services like Amazon S3 and Amazon Redshift, in just a few clicks. https://aws.amazon.com/appflow/
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Question #5
A company has an application that generates a large number of files, each approximately 5 MB in size. The files are stored in Amazon S3. Company policy requires the files to be stored for 4 years before they can be deleted Immediate accessibility is always required as the files contain critical business data that is not easy to reproduce. The files are frequently accessed in the first 30 days of the object creation but are rarely accessed after the first 30 days Which storage solution is MOST cost-effective?
Correct answer: C
Explanation
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage- classes/?trk=66264cd8-3b73-416c-9693-ea7cf4fe846a&sc_channel=ps&s_kwcid=AL!4422!3!536452716950!p!!g!!aws%20s3%20pri cing&ef_id=Cj0KCQjwnbmaBhD- ARIsAGTPcfVHUZN5_BMrzl5zBcaC8KnqpnNZvjbZzqPkH6k7q4JcYO5KFLx0YYgaAm6nE ALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!4422!3!536452716950!p!!g!!aws%20s3%20pricing
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Question #6
A company has an application that ingests incoming messages. These messages are then quickly consumed by dozens of other applications and microservices. The number of messages varies drastically and sometimes spikes as high as 100,000 each second. The company wants to decouple the solution and increase scalability. Which solution meets these requirements?
Correct answer: D
Explanation
https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/features/ By routing incoming requests to Amazon SQS, the company can decouple the job requests from the processing instances. This allows them to scale the number of instances based on the size of the queue, providing more resources when needed. Additionally, using an Auto Scaling group based on the queue size will automatically scale the number of instances up or down depending on the workload. Updating the software to read from the queue will allow it to process the job requests in a more efficient manner, improving the performance of the system.
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Question #7
A company hosts more than 300 global websites and applications. The company requires a platform to analyze more than 30 TB of clickstream data each day. What should a solutions architect do to transmit and process the clickstream data?
Correct answer: E
Explanation
https://aws.amazon.com/es/blogs/big-data/real-time-analytics-with-amazon-redshift-streaming-ingestion/
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Question #8
A company has an on-premises application that generates a large amount of time-sensitive data that is backed up to Amazon S3. The application has grown and there are user complaints about internet bandwidth limitations. A solutions architect needs to design a long-term solution that allows for both timely backups to Amazon S3 and with minimal impact on internet connectivity for internal users. Which solution meets these requirements?
Correct answer: B
Explanation
To address the issue of bandwidth limitations on the company's on-premises application, and to minimize the impact on internal user connectivity, a new AWS Direct Connect connection should be established to direct backup traffic through this new connection. This solution will offer a secure, high-speed connection between the company's data center and AWS, which will allow the company to transfer data quickly without consuming internet bandwidth. Reference: AWS Direct Connect documentation: https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/
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Question #9
A development team runs monthly resource-intensive tests on its general purpose Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance with Performance Insights enabled. The testing lasts for 48 hours once a month and is the only process that uses the database. The team wants to reduce the cost of running the tests without reducing the compute and memory attributes of the DB instance. Which solution meets these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
Correct answer: A
Explanation
To reduce the cost of running the tests without reducing the compute and memory attributes of the Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance, the development team can stop the instance when tests are completed and restart it when required. Stopping the DB instance when not in use can help save costs because customers are only charged for storage while the DB instance is stopped. During this time, automated backups and automated DB instance maintenance are suspended. When the instance is restarted, it retains the same configurations, security groups, and DB parameter groups as when it was stopped. Reference: Amazon RDS Documentation: Stopping and Starting a DB instance (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_StopInstance.html)
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Question #10
A company is migrating a distributed application to AWS The application serves variable workloads The legacy platform consists of a primary server trial coordinates jobs across multiple compute nodes The company wants to modernize the application with a solution that maximizes resiliency and scalability. How should a solutions architect design the architecture to meet these requirements?
Correct answer: B
Explanation
To maximize resiliency and scalability, the best solution is to use an Amazon SQS queue as a destination for the jobs. This decouples the primary server from the compute nodes, allowing them to scale independently. This also helps to prevent job loss in the event of a failure. Using an Auto Scaling group of Amazon EC2 instances for the compute nodes allows for automatic scaling based on the workload. In this case, it's recommended to configure the Auto Scaling group based on the size of the Amazon SQS queue, which is a better indicator of the actual workload than the load on the primary server or compute nodes. This approach ensures that the application can handle variable workloads, while also minimizing costs by automatically scaling up or down the compute nodes as needed.
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Discussion
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FAQ
Learn More: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/
- Q1: How much does the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam cost?
- A: The exam costs 150 USD as of October 2026, and you pay the full fee for every attempt. If you already hold an AWS certification you receive a 50% discount voucher in your AWS Certification Account that can be applied to the exam.
- Q2: How many questions are on the SAA-C03 exam and how long is it?
- A: The real exam has 65 questions and you get 130 minutes. Only 50 questions count towards your score; the other 15 are unscored items AWS is trialling, and they are not identified on the exam.
- Q3: Is the SAA-C03 exam hard to pass?
- A: AWS does not publish a pass rate, but you need a scaled score of at least 720 on a 100 to 1,000 scale, and scoring is compensatory, so you only need to pass the exam overall rather than each domain. Questions are multiple choice (one correct answer out of four) or multiple response (two or more correct answers out of five or more), unanswered questions count as wrong and there is no penalty for guessing. AWS recommends at least one year of hands-on experience designing cloud solutions on AWS, but there are no formal prerequisites.
- Q4: What are the SAA-C03 exam domains and weightings?
- A: The exam guide weights the scored content as Design Secure Architectures 30%, Design Resilient Architectures 26%, Design High-Performing Architectures 24% and Design Cost-Optimized Architectures 20%.
- Q5: How long is the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification valid?
- A: The certification is valid for 3 years. To keep it you either pass the latest version of the Solutions Architect Associate exam before it expires or earn the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification, which renews the Associate at the same time.
- Q6: Can I take the SAA-C03 exam online, and in which languages?
- A: You can take the exam at a Pearson VUE test centre or as an online proctored exam. It is offered in English, French (France), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, although AWS has said the Italian version will be retired after December 31, 2026.
- Q7: What is the retake policy if I fail the SAA-C03 exam?
- A: If you fail you must wait 14 calendar days before you can retake the exam, and you pay the full registration fee each time. AWS sets no limit on the number of attempts, but once you pass you cannot retake the same exam version for two years.
- Q8: Is there a new version of the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam coming?
- A: As of October 2026 AWS has not announced a successor to SAA-C03 or a retirement date for it. AWS's September 2026 certification updates cover the Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C03), Developer Associate (DVA-C03) and Machine Learning Engineer Associate (MLA-C02) exams, but not the Solutions Architect Associate.
- Q9: What is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 exam?
- A: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 is a Amazon certification exam. Judging by the questions in our bank, it concentrates on amazon, architect, lambda, overhead and instances.
- Q10: What topics does the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 exam cover?
- A: Questions in our AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 bank cluster around amazon, architect, lambda, overhead, instances, bucket, operational and documents. Working through the full set is the quickest way to find which of these you are weakest on.
- Q11: How should I prepare for AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03?
- A: Work through the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 practice questions here, checking your answer on each one, then sit the practice test to rehearse the exam under timed conditions before the real thing.
- Q12: Are these real AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 exam questions?
- A: They are drawn from officially released past questions and from community members who have sat AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03. Answers are verified and updated weekly.
- Q13: Where do I register for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 exam?
- A: Register through Amazon directly at https://aws.amazon.com/certification/. Exampractice is not affiliated with Amazon and does not administer the exam.
- Q14: Is there a free AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 sample?
- A: Yes. Every AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 page shows a free sample of real questions. Upgrading opens the full bank and the practice test.
- Q15: What are Amazon Certification Exams?
- A: Amazon Certification Exams validate your expertise in Amazon Web Services (AWS), covering a range of cloud computing skills, including architecture, development, operations, and data analytics. These certifications demonstrate your proficiency in designing, deploying, and managing applications on the AWS platform.
- Q16: Why should I pursue Amazon Certification?
- A: Amazon Certification enhances your professional credibility, showcasing your skills and knowledge in AWS services. This can lead to better job opportunities, higher salaries, and career advancement in the cloud computing and IT industry.
- Q17: What are the benefits of Amazon Certification?
- A: Benefits include recognition as a certified cloud professional, improved job performance, access to exclusive resources, continuing education opportunities, and staying current with the latest AWS technologies and best practices.
- Q18: Who should take Amazon Certification Exams?
- A: IT professionals, cloud architects, developers, system administrators, data analysts, and anyone involved in designing, implementing, and managing cloud solutions on AWS should consider these certifications to validate their expertise and advance their careers.
- Q19: What types of Amazon Certification Exams are available?
- A: Amazon offers various certification paths, including Foundational Level (AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner), Associate Level (AWS Certified Solutions Architect, AWS Certified Developer, AWS Certified SysOps Administrator), Professional Level (AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional), and Specialty Certifications (Security, Big Data, Advanced Networking, and more).
- Q20: How do I prepare for Amazon Certification Exams?
- A: Preparation can include official AWS training courses, study guides, practice exams, online tutorials, and hands-on experience with AWS services and solutions.
- Q21: Where can I take Amazon Certification Exams?
- A: Amazon Certification Exams can be taken online or at authorized testing centers worldwide, providing flexibility to fit your schedule and location.
- Q22: How do Amazon Certifications impact my career?
- A: Amazon Certifications significantly boost your career by demonstrating your expertise to employers, making you a more competitive candidate for advanced roles and promotions in the cloud computing and IT industry.
- Q23: Are there any prerequisites for Amazon Certification Exams?
- A: Some exams may have prerequisites, such as foundational knowledge or prior certifications. Check the specific requirements for each certification path on the AWS Certification website.
- Q24: How often do I need to recertify for Amazon Certifications?
- A: AWS Certifications typically require recertification every three years to ensure that certified professionals stay updated with the latest AWS technologies and industry practices.