AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – AssociateStudy guide

Understand monitoring ops: CloudWatch metrics, alarm states (OK/ALARM/INSUFFICIENT_DATA) and thresholds, actions (SNS notify, Auto Scaling, EC2 action), and in-guest metrics via the CloudWatch agent. The starting point for "Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation" in SOA-C02.

Understand aggregating app/OS logs with CloudWatch Logs and Logs Insights, auditing API activity (who did what) with CloudTrail, and when to use each.

Understand event routing with EventBridge, automated remediation with Systems Manager Automation (runbooks), and Systems Manager ops features (patch management, Run Command, Parameter Store).

A roundup of in-scope SOA-C03 services for monitoring, logging, analytics, and observability.

Understand HA operations: load balancers and Auto Scaling groups (spread across AZs, self-healing via health checks, min/desired/max), and scaling policies.

Understand RDS Multi-AZ (HA via automatic failover) vs. read replicas (read scaling) and when to use each.

Understand EBS/RDS snapshots, centralized management with AWS Backup (schedules, cross-region/account copy), and choosing a DR strategy via RPO/RTO.

A roundup of in-scope SOA-C03 services for reliability and business continuity—databases, storage, and disaster recovery.

Understand IaC operations: CloudFormation templates and stacks, previewing with change sets, rolling out across accounts/regions with StackSets, and drift detection.

Understand large-scale operations automation with Systems Manager: Run Command (commands at scale), Patch Manager (patching), Parameter Store (config/secrets), and maintenance windows.

Understand consistent, fast provisioning: golden AMIs (prebaked), launch templates (AMI + type + user data), and bootstrap via user data.

Learn container operations, which carry more weight in SOA-C03: choosing among Amazon ECS, EKS, and Fargate; image management and vulnerability scanning with Amazon ECR; deployment strategies (rolling / blue-green); service auto scaling; monitoring and logging via Container Insights (awslogs / FireLens); and least privilege with task roles—from an operations perspective.

A roundup of in-scope SOA-C03 services for deployment and automation—IaC, operational automation, and multi-account governance.

Understand IAM identity-based/resource-based policies, evaluation logic (explicit deny wins, default deny), roles and temporary credentials, and least-privilege operations. The starting point for "Security and Compliance" in SOA-C02.

Understand encryption at rest (KMS for S3/EBS/RDS), encryption in transit (TLS with ACM certificates), and secrets management operations.

Understand governance operations: AWS Config for configuration recording, rule evaluation, and auto-remediation; GuardDuty for threat detection; and Trusted Advisor best-practice checks.

A roundup of in-scope SOA-C03 services for security and compliance—protection, detection, identity, and network boundaries.

Understand operating a VPC: public/private subnets, IGW and NAT gateway, security groups vs. NACLs, VPC endpoints, and troubleshooting with VPC flow logs. The starting point for "Networking and Content Delivery" in SOA-C02.

Understand Route 53 hosted zones and records, health checks, and choosing routing policies (failover/latency/geolocation/weighted/simple).

Understand CloudFront edge caching (TTL, invalidation), ELB types (ALB/NLB) and health checks, and choosing between them in operations.

A roundup of in-scope SOA-C03 services for networking and content delivery—VPC, connectivity, DNS, and delivery.

Understand cost management ops: visualization/analysis with Cost Explorer, budget alerts with Budgets, cost allocation tags and the Cost and Usage Report (CUR), and consolidated billing in Organizations. The starting point for "Cost and Performance Optimization" in SOA-C02.

Understand right-sizing with Compute Optimizer, pricing models (Savings Plans / Reserved / Spot), and optimizing performance/cost with caching and storage tiers.

A roundup of in-scope SOA-C03 services for cost/performance optimization and integration—cost management, right-sizing, and messaging.