AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
SAP-C03
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional (SAP-C03) validates advanced architecture design across complex, large-scale cloud environments. SAP-C03 replaces SAP-C02 from 17 November 2026 and restructures the exam into five domains, adding generative AI and AI agent architectures, multi-tenant isolation, post-quantum cryptography, IPv6 adoption and lakehouse design, while removing IoT, end user computing and media services from scope.
75
180 min
720/ 1000
397+
Target Audience
Solutions architects with two or more years of hands-on experience designing and deploying cloud architectures on AWS, who work across multiple accounts and Regions and are accountable for trade-offs between cost, resilience, security and operational overhead.
Prerequisites
No required certification. AWS recommends two or more years of hands-on experience designing cloud architectures on AWS, plus familiarity with hybrid connectivity, multi-account governance, migration strategies and CI/CD.
Question Types
Language & Recognition
Official Exam Languages
PasslyExam Languages
Recognition Scope
Recognized worldwide. The exam is delivered in English, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese and Spanish (Latin America).
Exam Domains
Architecture Design and Implementation Built for the Cloud
Security, Compliance, and Governance
Cost-Optimized Architecture Design
Resilience, Migration, and Business Continuity
Operational Excellence and Automation
Recommended Study Plan
- Week 1: Learn the new five-domain structure. The four C02 domains are gone; weights are now 25/25/15/15/20 across architecture design, security governance, cost, resilience and operational automation.
- Week 2: Close the new material: generative AI and agent architectures (Bedrock, AgentCore, Knowledge Bases, RAG), multi-tenant isolation, post-quantum cryptography (ML-KEM for key establishment, ML-DSA for signatures), IPv6 adoption and lakehouse design.
- Week 3: Learn what left the scope. IoT, WorkSpaces, AppStream 2.0, Elastic Transcoder and Kinesis Video Streams were removed, and the task-specific AI services (Comprehend, Kendra, Lex, Rekognition, Textract) were replaced by Bedrock and SageMaker AI.
- Final 7 days: Run timed mocks to build speed at resolving conflicting constraints. The passing standard is 720 on a 100–1,000 scale with compensatory scoring, so there is no per-domain cut score.
Question Validation Process
Try the practice set directly and judge real-exam similarity yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How is SAP-C03 different from SAP-C02?
A. The exam was restructured from four domains to five and every domain title changed. It adds generative AI and agent architectures, multi-tenant isolation, post-quantum cryptography, IPv6 adoption and lakehouse design. IoT, end user computing (WorkSpaces, AppStream 2.0) and media services left the scope, and the task-specific AI services were replaced by Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker AI. The passing score moved from 750 to 720.
Q. Is my C02 study wasted?
A. No. Multi-account governance, hybrid networking, DR strategy, migration and cost optimization remain central. What changes is the domain split — so existing material is mis-filed rather than wrong — and the new AI, cryptography and multi-tenant areas are absent from C02 material entirely.
Q. What is the key to passing?
A. Eliminating options that optimize a single axis. Stems give two or more constraints (cost, RTO/RPO, data residency, operational overhead) and the correct answer satisfies all of them with the least operational overhead. Several options working is normal; name the constraint each one violates.
Q. What score is considered stable?
A. A practical benchmark is 75–80%+ across your latest 3 mocks with fewer repeated high-complexity misses. The standard is 720 on a 100–1,000 scale with compensatory scoring, so there is no per-domain cut score.
Q. How do practice questions and the timed mock exam differ?
A. Practice questions are solved by topic with answer explanations to shore up weak areas; the timed mock exam is taken like the real thing. Both use original questions with AI tutor explanations.
Q. Is this similar to exam dumps?
A. PasslyExam does not provide leaked dumps. Our content is built from official guides and public exam objectives, then tuned to reflect realistic question patterns and difficulty distribution. The focus is practical readiness with explanation-based learning, not memorization of leaked items.