Study guides for every AWS certification

The starting point: you explain what the AWS Cloud is, how it is secured and priced, and which core service fits a need. No hands-on experience is required.

A foundational exam: you explain AI, machine learning and generative AI concepts and choose the right AWS service. You do not build or tune models.

An associate exam built on scenarios: you pick the architecture that best meets security, resilience, performance and cost requirements.

For developers who build on AWS: you write code that uses AWS services, secure it, deploy it through CI/CD, and fix it when it misbehaves. AWS is moving to DVA-C03; the last day for DVA-C02 is November 30, 2026.

For data engineers: you build pipelines that ingest, transform and store data on AWS, keep them running, and keep the data secure and governed.

For ML engineers: you prepare data, build or customize models (including foundation models), deploy them, and keep them monitored, efficient and secure. MLA-C02 is in beta in English.

For people who run workloads on AWS: you monitor, automate, secure and troubleshoot systems in production. It replaced the SysOps Administrator certification.

Advanced architecture across many accounts and teams: long scenarios where several answers work and you pick the best. AWS is moving to SAP-C03; the last day for SAP-C02 is November 16, 2026.

Automation at scale: CI/CD, infrastructure as code, monitoring and automated responses across many accounts and Regions.

For developers who ship generative AI to production: choosing and integrating foundation models, retrieval, agents, safety controls, cost and evaluation.

Deep security on AWS: detection, incident response, network and compute protection, identity, data protection and governance across an organization.

Complex networking on AWS: hybrid connectivity, multi-account and multi-Region routing, DNS and network security. AWS retires this exam after December 31, 2026.

For business leaders: you explain AI in plain terms, build an AI strategy that creates value, govern it responsibly, and lead the change. It does not test AWS service details.