AWS Solutions Architect Professional Course
A structured AWS Solutions Architect Professional course covering organizational design, security, cost control, migration, reliability, and scalability, with linked practice questions.
Original practice content: these questions are independently written practice items. They are not official or real exam questions, and QuestionBank is not affiliated with or endorsed by any exam organization or test administrator.
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What you will learn
- Describe organizational design.
- Explain security and compliance.
- Describe cost control and optimization.
- Explain migration and data transfer.
- Describe reliability, scalability and performance.
Before you start
- Practical AWS architecture experience is recommended.
- Familiarity with multi-account design and migration is helpful.
- Associate-level AWS certification or equivalent experience is beneficial.
Lesson 1 Design for Organizational Complexity
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam validates designing complex solutions across accounts, environments, and business requirements. AWS Organizations provides central governance with consolidated billing and account management. Service control policies set permission guardrails, and AWS Control Tower automates a governed landing zone with an account factory. AWS Resource Access Manager shares resources such as subnets, AWS Config aggregators consolidate compliance views, and resource groups organize resources by tags. AWS Service Catalog publishes approved services, cross-account IAM roles enable controlled access, and CloudFormation StackSets deploy templates across accounts and Regions. Architects design for scale, separation of duties, auditability, and operational ownership.
Example
Example: A company uses Control Tower for its landing zone, SCPs for guardrails, RAM to share subnets, and StackSets to deploy workloads consistently.Lesson 2 Security and Compliance
Security and compliance must be built into architecture. AWS KMS manages encryption keys, and AWS Secrets Manager stores and rotates secrets. IAM roles provide temporary credentials, and the principle of least privilege limits access. Amazon GuardDuty detects threats, Amazon Inspector assesses workload vulnerabilities, and AWS Security Hub aggregates findings. AWS WAF protects web applications, and AWS Shield Advanced defends against DDoS attacks. AWS Artifact provides compliance reports and agreements, while AWS Config evaluates resource configuration against rules. Architects design layered defense, encryption at rest and in transit, centralized audit trails, and automated response so security scales with the organization.
Example
Example: An application encrypts data with KMS, stores database passwords in Secrets Manager, and sends GuardDuty findings to Security Hub for review.Lesson 3 Cost Control and Optimization
Cost control and optimization balance performance with spending. AWS Cost Explorer visualizes usage and costs, AWS Budgets alerts on thresholds, and consolidated billing aggregates usage for volume discounts. Savings Plans and Reserved Instances reduce compute costs for predictable workloads, while Spot Instances serve interruptible workloads at lower prices. S3 lifecycle policies transition or expire objects, and AWS Compute Optimizer recommends right-sized resources. The AWS Pricing Calculator estimates costs before launch. Architects define tagging strategies, use cost allocation reports, review underutilized resources, and align pricing models with workload patterns to keep spending predictable.
Example
Example: A team uses Savings Plans for baseline compute, Spot for batch jobs, lifecycle policies for S3 data, and Budgets to alert on unexpected spend.Lesson 4 Migration and Data Transfer
Migration and data transfer move workloads and data to AWS with minimal risk. AWS Application Migration Service automates lift-and-shift server migrations, and AWS Database Migration Service moves databases with minimal downtime. The AWS Schema Conversion Tool converts schemas between engines, AWS DataSync transfers data between storage systems, and AWS Transfer Family provides managed SFTP, FTPS, and FTP. For very large data sets, AWS Snowball devices transfer data physically. AWS Migration Hub tracks migration progress across tools. Architects plan discovery, assess dependencies, choose the right transfer method, test cutover, and roll back if needed.
Example
Example: A team discovers servers, migrates databases with DMS, converts schemas with SCT, and tests cutover in a maintenance window.Lesson 5 Reliability, Scalability, and Performance
Reliability, scalability, and performance keep systems available under changing demand. Auto Scaling groups adjust instance capacity, Application Load Balancers route HTTP at layer 7, and Network Load Balancers handle TCP and UDP. Amazon CloudFront caches content at the edge, Amazon ElastiCache speeds reads, and DynamoDB Accelerator accelerates DynamoDB. DynamoDB on-demand capacity scales automatically, Amazon SQS decouples components, and AWS Lambda scales serverless code. RDS Multi-AZ provides database failover, Route 53 failover routing shifts DNS traffic, AWS Backup centralizes backups, and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery enables fast recovery. RTO and RPO define recovery targets. Architects combine load balancing, caching, scaling, and failover.