AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02): Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions

Course Description

This course focuses on improving and optimizing existing AWS solutions using the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Learners will explore strategies to enhance operational excellence, including monitoring, logging, automation, and deployment improvements using services like AWS X-Ray, CloudWatch, and CI/CD tools.

The course also covers security enhancements such as managing sensitive data, auditing IAM policies, implementing patch management, and automating remediation. Learners will gain insights into performance optimization by identifying bottlenecks, leveraging global services, and right-sizing resources.

Additionally, the course emphasizes reliability improvements through high availability design, disaster recovery strategies, and eliminating single points of failure. Cost optimization strategies are also explored, including resource rightsizing, cost allocation, and usage monitoring.

Through hands-on labs and real-world scenarios, learners will develop the expertise needed to continuously improve AWS environments and prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02) exam.

Who is this course for

• Experienced AWS Solutions Architects

• DevOps and Site Reliability Engineers (SREs)

• Cloud engineers optimizing production systems

• Professionals preparing for SAP-C02 certification

• Engineers responsible for maintaining and improving cloud architectures

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, learners will be able to:

• Improve operational excellence through monitoring, automation, and CI/CD pipelines

• Enhance security by auditing access, managing secrets, and automating remediation

• Optimize performance by identifying bottlenecks and right-sizing resources

• Improve system reliability through high availability and disaster recovery strategies

• Eliminate single points of failure in architectures

• Apply cost optimization techniques and manage cloud spending effectively

• Use AWS Well-Architected Framework to evaluate and improve systems

• Continuously enhance cloud architectures based on business requirements

• Prepare effectively for the SAP-C02 certification exam

Prerequisites

• Strong understanding of AWS core services and architecture

• Experience managing or designing AWS workloads

• Recommended: AWS Solutions Architect – Associate certification

• Knowledge of DevOps, monitoring, and security best practices

• Hands-on experience with AWS environments

Course outline

Section 1: Improving Operational Excellence

• Introduction to Operational Excellence in AWS

• Implementing Monitoring and Logging Strategies with AWS X-Ray

• Designing Effective Alerting and Automated Remediation

• Validating Recovery – Test Plans and Simulations

• Improving Deployment with CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, and CodePipeline

• Improving Deployment with CloudFormation and AWS CDK

• Lab: Enforcing EC2 Configuration with Systems Manager State Manager

• Identifying and Prioritizing Automation Opportunities

• Lab: Automating EC2 Instance Recovery with Lambda and EventBridge

• Engineering Failure Scenarios for Resiliency Testing

Section 2: Improving Security

• Multi-layered Security in AWS

• Managing Data Sensitivity, Retention, and Regulatory Compliance

• Securing Access to Secrets and Configuration Data

• Auditing IAM Policies for over-permissiveness

• Security Monitoring and Automated Remediation

• Patch Management for Secure Infrastructure

• Backup Strategies and Secure Recovery

• Security, Auditing, and Traceability

• Lab: Trace Configuration Changes with AWS Config Timelines

Section 3: Improving Performance

• Performance Optimization in AWS

• Leveraging Global Services for Latency Reduction

• Performance Monitoring Using AWS Tools

• Defining SLAs and Translating Business Requirements to KPIs

• Identifying and Resolving Performance Bottlenecks

• Rightsizing Resources Based on Performance Requirements

• Testing and Adopting Emerging AWS Services for Performance Gains

Section 4: Improving Reliability

• Understanding Reliability in the AWS Cloud

• AWS Global Infrastructure and Its Role in Reliability

• Data Replication Strategies for Resilience

• Scaling and Load Balancing for Reliability

• Designing for High Availability and Resiliency

• Lab: Implementing Retry Logic

• Disaster Recovery Patterns and Tools

• Service Quotas and Scaling Limits

• Lab: Service Quotas CLI

• Identifying and Eliminating Single Points of Failure

• Lab: Audit and Eliminate SPOFs with the AWS Well-Architected Tool

Section 5: Cost Optimization Strategies

• AWS Cost Optimization Overview

• Choosing Cost-conscious Architecture Components

• Managing Compute Costs with Spot Instances, Reserved Instances, and Savings Plans

• Controlling Networking and Data Transfer Costs

• Identifying Unused and Underutilized Resources

• Lab: Detect and Remove Underutilized AWS Resources

• Cost Allocation and Tagging Strategies

• Billing and Usage Monitoring with AWS Tools

• AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR)

Section 6: SAP-C02 - Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Exam Tips

• Operational Excellence

• Improving Performance, Improving Reliability, and Cost Optimization Strategies

• SAP-C02 Scenario Study: Part 1

• SAP-C02 Scenario Study: Part 2