Core AWS Services to Focus On for the SAA-C03 Exam
1. EC2 - As the most fundamental compute service offered by AWS, you should know about EC2 inside
out.
2. Lambda - Lambda is the common service used for serverless applications. Study how it is integrated
with other AWS services to build a full stack serverless app.
3. Elastic Load Balancer - Load balancing is very important for a highly available system. Study about the
different types of ELBs, and the features each of them supports.
4. Auto Scaling - Study what services in AWS can be auto scaled, what triggers scaling, and how auto
scaling increases/decreases the number of instances.
5. Elastic Block Store - As the primary storage solution of EC2, study on the types of EBS volumes
available. Also study how to secure, backup and restore EBS volumes.
6. S3 / Glacier - AWS offers many types of S3 storage depending on your needs. Study what these types
are and what differs between them. Also review on the capabilities of S3 such as hosting a static
website, securing access to objects using policies, lifecycle policies, etc. Learn as much about S3 as
you can.
7. Storage Gateway - There are occasional questions about Storage Gateway in the exam. You should
understand when and which type of Storage Gateway should be used compared to using services like
S3 or EBS. You should also know the use cases and differences between DataSync and Storage
Gateway.
8. EFS - EFS is a service highly associated with EC2, much like EBS. Understand when to use EFS,
compared to using S3, EBS or instance store. Exam questions involving EFS usually ask the trade off
between cost and efficiency of the service compared to other storage services.
9. RDS / Aurora - Know how each RDS database differs from one another, and how they are different from
Aurora. Determine what makes Aurora unique, and when it should be preferred from other databases (in
terms of function, speed, cost, etc). Learn about parameter groups, option groups, and subnet groups.
10. DynamoDB - The exam includes lots of DynamoDB questions, so read as much about this service as
you can. Consider how DynamoDB compares to RDS, Elasticache and Redshift. This service is also
commonly used for serverless applications along with Lambda.
11. Elasticache - Familiarize yourself with Elasticache redis and its functions. Determine the areas/services
where you can place a caching mechanism to improve data throughput, such as managing session
state of an ELB, optimizing RDS instances, etc.
12. VPC/NACL/Security Groups - Study every service that is used to create a VPC (subnets, route tables,
internet gateways, nat gateways, VPN gateways, etc). Also, review on the differences of network access
control lists and security groups, and during which situations they are applied.
13. Route 53 - Study the different types of records in Route 53. Study also the different routing policies.
Know what hosted zones and domains are.
14. IAM - Services such as IAM Users, Groups, Policies and Roles are the most important to learn. Study
how IAM integrates with other services and how it secures your application through different policies.
Also read on the best practices when using IAM.