I took and successfully cleared the Recertification exam for AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate Level today. I am still regretting not attemting advancing to the professional level; anyway … here is the blog post about the recertification exam. I previously blogged about the Preparing for the AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate level, 2 years ago.

I felt a couple of questions having been repeated from the original Solution Architect exam which I wrote 2 years back; I completely understand and agree the importance & reason why those were repeated again (I abide by the NDA signed hence not disclosing which questions - they are).

• It was a quick 80 mins and 60 questions test
• VPC, IAM, EC2, S3 - the core services are still important and had lot of depth and count
• Following the same Learning Strategy for the original exam would still be relevant
• Amazon did a good job of drawing a line to determine what are the points and factors (costing, sizing, strategy, design, optimal solution) which would affect or effect an Architect
• If you are continuing your day to day AWS operations after you have Cleared your original AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate Level, you be able to win hands down

I highly recommend giving it thought about NOT taking the recertification exam – Associate Level, and consider Professional Level, on clearing; you would be able to renew both the levels for next 2 years. I received a 50% voucher code almost a year back, I am sure you would have received one too for taking Professional Level (50% discount of $300).

PS : You get a new AWS-ASA XXX number instead of the same number renewed for next 2 years. It is good to know that lot of people are taking the certification exam - 2 years ago my certification number was in 2000s and now it is 20,000s; in short it is almost like a brand new exam but a discounted rate of $75 instead of $150.