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AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

4.4(245) on Pluralsight
Intermediate 8.4 hours English
SkillsAWSSolutions ArchitectVPCEC2Load balancingAuto scaling

Is this course right for you?

Our take
Solid, structured preparation for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam — best if you already have some AWS behind you.

Good for: Structured preparation for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam.

Skip if: You are new to AWS or want hands-on-only labs.

Elias Khnaser walks through the infrastructure the exam leans on, from networking and compute to storage, databases and DNS, and frames each around the design choices the scenario questions reward rather than trivia. Access needs a Pluralsight subscription (about $29 a month, with a 10-day trial), and the exam itself is booked separately with AWS at roughly $150.

Its one real weakness is age: the recordings date from around 2018, so the fundamentals hold but the current SAA-C03 exam has added services since. Lean on it for the concepts, sit a few recent practice exams before you book, and since nothing here is hands-on, keep a free-tier AWS account open and build as you watch (as of 2026).

Comparison · LBS

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About this course

This course walks through the core AWS infrastructure building blocks tested on the Solutions Architect Associate exam: VPC configuration, NAT gateways and VPC peering, EC2, load balancing and auto scaling, EBS/EFS storage, S3 and CloudFront, RDS, DynamoDB and Redshift, AWS security fundamentals, and Route 53, structured around real design tradeoffs (networking, storage, DNS, DBaaS, monitoring) rather than just exam trivia.

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Instructor

EK
Elias Khnaser
Pluralsight instructor

Elias Khnaser is a cloud architecture instructor focused on AWS design principles, networking, and infrastructure-as-a-service patterns.

Frequently asked questions

Partly, and it's the main caveat: the core recordings date back to around 2018, so the fundamentals (VPC, EC2, S3, IAM, load balancing) still hold, but the current SAA-C03 exam covers services and nuances added since. Use it to build the mental model, then top up with recent SAA-C03 material before you sit the exam.

No — the exam is separate. AWS charges $150 USD to sit the Solutions Architect Associate exam, on top of the Pluralsight subscription for the course. AWS sometimes emails discount vouchers after you pass an earlier exam.

No, it isn't a prerequisite. If you're completely new to AWS, Cloud Practitioner is a gentler on-ramp, but plenty of people go straight to Solutions Architect Associate. Skipping it is fine if you already grasp core cloud concepts.

Most people who pass comfortably add two things a video course can't give: hands-on time in a real AWS account (the free tier is enough to practise), and a set of SAA-C03 practice exams to get used to the scenario-based questions. Treat the course as the knowledge base, not the whole plan.

It's one of the more respected associate-level cloud certifications and does get noticed by recruiters, but on its own it rarely lands a role — it works best paired with hands-on projects you can talk through in an interview.
Paid
Pluralsight subscription
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