AWS Certified Solutions Architect Study Guide with 900 Practice Test Questions: Associate (SAA-C03) Exam (Sybex Study Guide)

If you're like me, you can't stand online trainings. I don't need to see powerpoints, videos, or hear someone narrate or provide a lecture. This book lets you read at your own pace and has everything you need including an online question bank with 900+ questions and practice exams. I used this book and passed on my first try. Years ago I used the first version to pass the original SAA-C01 exam as well. It worked then, and the updated version works now.

I haven't taken the exam yet, so I can't say how complete this is for that. However, I learned a lot from this and am using it as my starting point for more. Great work!

The book is good but is missing some information, most likely Amazon updating their services. I know that happens often. Just as an example off the top of my head. Lambda@Edge is not mentioned and Elasticache sharding is not mentioned either. There are a few more that I cannot think of off the top of my head. Bottom line, if you use this book, use it with the AWS Documentation page.https://docs.aws.amazon.com/

This is a well written study guide which puts the most emphasis on common questions on the exam.Personally, I don't think you can just read this book and pass the exam with no other AWS knowledge. But combine this book with sample questions form many sources and some hands on experience with AWS and you should be fine.

I like the layout of the book better than C02. I like that the answers to the chapter questions are within the chapter vs. at the end of my digital book. Also, the labs are now in the second part of the book versus having to stop at each chapter to do the labs. Those two things made it worth the purchase for me.

This book is terrible. Most of these very extensive exams are written the same way. You need to read the entire book front to back and be able to remember intentionally overlapping terminology just to prove you drink their koolaid.My biggest issue with this book in particular is that there are several questions in the respective Chapter Reviews that have blatantly wrong answers with mismatching explanations in the answers section. Example: Chapter 5 Database ServicesQ 9: Which database instance class provides dedicated bandwidth for storage volumes?A. StandardB. Memory OptimizedC. Storage OptimizedD. Burstable PerformanceA: B. Memory-optimized instances are EBS optimized, providing dedicated bandwidth for EBS Storage.Direct Quote on Page 150:"Database instances use EBS storage. Both the standard and memory-optimized instance class types are EBS optimized, meaning they provide dedicated bandwidth for transfers to and from EBS storage"--The answers section and chapter statements are completely contradicting.There's nothing more frustrating than spending hours upon hours trying to prep for an exam only to realize everything you're reading is pointing in opposite directions. The book is fine to hit the broad strokes of material, but don't advertise this as a study guide if you have mismatching questions and answers and just contradict yourself at every turn.

This was suggested by someone who studies it and took and passed the exam. Good book.

I used this book as part of my preparation for the exam and happy to say I passed on first try. As another reviewer has stated, the review questions at then end of the chapters are not representative of actual exam questions. This is especially the case in Part 1. The review questions at the end of the chapters in Part 2 are more representative.The info is very good though to form the base knowledge necessary for the exam, and the information is presented in a well structured and concise manner.I would highly recommend combining this with other learning, training and prep materials, particularly the very good set of sample tests from Jon Bonso, as well as the official practice exam offered by AWS.Also, as another reviewer noted there are some glaring errors in the book, that resulted in some incorrect responses on the practice exam (and maybe the real exam.... who knows). An example... the book states maximum retention for Kinesis Data Stream messages is 7 days... according to AWS documentation it's 365 days.Summary, good book to read cover-to-cover as recommended by the authors, but combine this with other materials to learn and prepare for the exam.