SAA-C03 is an architecture exam. It tests whether you can turn constraints into a secure, resilient, high-performing, and cost-aware design. The current scored domains are Security 30%, Resilience 26%, Performance 24%, and Cost 20%.
Read every question in this order
- Workload: request/response, batch, stream, file, relational, key-value, or analytics?
- Hard constraint: RPO/RTO, latency, protocol, compliance, ordering, throughput, or budget?
- Scope: one AZ, multiple AZs, Regions, accounts, or on-premises?
- Operations: must it be managed, serverless, automatically scaled, or minimally changed?
- Failure: which component can fail, and what state must survive?
Only then compare services. A technically possible option is often wrong because it violates one adjective such as least operational overhead, near real time, or preserve message order.
A default elimination hierarchy
- Reject anything that violates an explicit security or durability requirement.
- Prefer managed services when the question asks for low operations.
- Prefer Multi-AZ for availability; use Multi-Region only when the requirement crosses Regions.
- Scale horizontally and keep compute stateless unless state is explicitly required.
- Cache or replicate reads; do not confuse them with failover.
- Match pricing to workload shape: steady, interruptible, spiky, or unknown.
Exam lens: AWS questions usually contain several valid architectures. The answer is the one that satisfies every stated constraint with the fewest unnecessary moving parts.
How to use this series
Read articles 2-9 by architecture layer. Use article 10 for analytics selections and article 11 to rehearse cross-domain trade-offs. After each practice question, record the decisive phrase, the rejected service, and the missing fact—not merely the correct letter.
Review card
- Security has the largest domain weight, but all four domains interact.
- Highlight nouns for workload and adjectives for constraints.
- Separate availability, durability, scalability, and performance.
- Prefer the simplest architecture that meets every requirement.
- Review mistakes by decision rule, not by question wording.
SAA-C03 是架構考試，要你把限制轉成 secure、resilient、high-performing 且 cost-aware 的設計。目前計分比重是 Security 30%、Resilience 26%、Performance 24%、Cost 20%。
每題都用同一順序讀
- Workload： request/response、batch、stream、file、relational、key-value 還是 analytics？
- 硬限制： RPO/RTO、latency、protocol、compliance、ordering、throughput 或 budget？
- 範圍： single AZ、Multi-AZ、Multi-Region、multi-account 還是 on-premises？
- 維運： 是否要 managed、serverless、auto scaling 或 minimal change？
- 故障： 哪個 component 會壞？哪些 state 必須留下？
回答後才比服務。「技術上做得到」不等於正確；選項常因為違反 least operational overhead、near real time 或 preserve message order 這種形容詞而被淘汰。
預設排除順序
- 先刪掉違反 security 或 durability 硬需求的選項。
- 題目要 low operations，優先 managed service。
- Availability 先想 Multi-AZ；需求明確跨 Region 才上 Multi-Region。
- Compute 預設 stateless 與 horizontal scaling。
- Cache、read replica 與 failover 不是同一件事。
- 購買模式要對應 steady、interruptible、spiky 或 unknown workload。
考試視角： 多個選項可能都能運作；正解是同時滿足所有條件，又沒有多餘 moving parts 的那個。
這系列怎麼讀
第 2-9 篇按 architecture layer 建立決策樹；第 10 篇補 analytics；第 11 篇用綜合取捨收尾。每錯一題，記「決定性關鍵詞」、「為什麼排除」、「缺哪個概念」，不要只抄答案。
複習卡
- Security 比重最高，但四領域會互相交叉。
- Noun 找 workload；adjective 找 constraint。
- Availability、durability、scalability、performance 要分開。
- 在滿足所有條件下選最簡單的架構。
- 用 decision rule 複盤，不要背題幹。