AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Study Guide: Associate (SOA-C01) Exam

Bought to impress coworkers. Did not disappoint

There was nothing to dislike if you study the information

I felt the content helped better prepare me for my course. It also didn't drag on unnecessarily and I appreciated that the book was able to stay on track. Additional resources were provided at the end of the chapter to supplement any knowledge gaps. Exam Essentials tied together all of the chapter content and emphasized some of the more important areas to focus on.One thing that I think could improve content delivery is to define terms succinctly, especially as you introduce them, so that it's immediately clear what the definition is. Sometimes a term would be introduced but I'd have to sift through the sentences to really "define" it myself. Rather than "x is y", the definition would be buried in one or more sentences, leaving you to define it yourself.Unfortunately, I think that the review questions at the end of each chapter need a lot of improvement (and I'm including the Appendix in this assessment). I would say approximate that 40-60% of the review questions or their corresponding answers in the appendix have typos, misprints, or are factually incorrect.For example, in Chapter 13, question #1, the descriptive answer to the question is right underneath the fourth option so you don't need to go to the appendix for the answer. In other chapter review questions, there were typos or missing words, not a deal breaker. What was, however, a pretty big blunder was the mismatching of answers to questions. The appendix would provide an answer that did not match the description.For example, if CloudWatch was the correct answer and you chose C for CloudWatch, you would be wrong.A) CloudTrailB) AWS ConfigC) CloudWatchWhy? The appendix would say the answer was A and then proceed to tell you about CloudWatch, indicating the answer was C, instead. This gave me a lot of mixed messages at first, but I was able to work around it later. Someone should probably go back through all of those questions and proof them for the next version.I still think it's a solid entry. Had the book been fully proofed, I would've given it five stars, hands down.

Note: This review was written March 1, 2021 and covers the 2nd edition of the Study Guide and Practice Tests two book bundle.For context: I have passed this exam, renewed by passing the Architect Professional, renewed again by passing the SysOps exam again, and I am studying for a seventh AWS certification.The Sybex AWS study guides are well-written, well-edited, and extremely helpful for test preparation. At 992 pages, the Developer study guide was too long to digest for exam preparation, but has proven to be an excellent reference. The SysOps study guide is the right length, has a great mapping of content to test subjects, and the material is presented at the right depth to prepare for the Associate exam. This bundle is a great outline to focus study but, of course, no single book is enough. I would definitely recommend supplementing with labs and hands-on experience.In some cases, the practice test book goes pretty far in depth and asks questions not explained in the study guide. But, it is extremely helpful to have over 1,000 practice questions to push the limits of your knowledge! In particular, some of the questions in the Security and Networking chapters of the practice tests book were much deeper than I would expect to find on the SysOps Associate exam. I still want to know all of this, and these chapters would be useful for the Specialty and Professional exams (e.g. maximum size of an S3 bucket policy = 20KB). In general, the practice test questions are on target for topics and depth of knowledge which can be expected on the SysOps Associate exam.When reading technical manuals or study guides, I tend to read intensely enough to mark typos and sections where I think the book is incorrect. As of March 1, 2021, Wiley has not published errata for the 2nd edition. Please take this with a grain of salt and do your own research – I may be wrong, I may have missed some errors – but, in case it might be useful for other students, this was my list of suspected errata:Study Guide:(page xxxiv, xlii, #11 Config rules limit per account is 150)(page 424, #2, key should show “A” as the correct answer)(page 160 #14, “B” is also a valid answer; “launch configuration cannot be used to launch both Spot and On-Demand instances” (requires a launch template))(page 260 replace “CloudFront” with “CloudFormation”)(page 130, last paragraph, replace “considers the primary instance.” with “considers the primary instance to be unhealthy or unavailable.”)(page 132 first paragraph, replace “regions than” with “regions other than”)(page 169, bullet one: “You can’t reference an SG which is available in a peered VPC”. It actually is possible for a SG to reference another SG in a peered VPC, but only within the same region. Reference the article called “Updating your security groups to reference peer VPC groups”)(page 183, #2, A, replace “private VPC” with “private subnet” (there is no such thing as a private VPC; a VPC may include private and/or public subnets))(page 185, #14, “A” replace “private VPC with “private subnet”)(page 343, replace Kinesis Data “FireHouse” with “FireHose”)(page 427, chapter 3, question 2, instead of “B,C”, the correct answer is “C,D”, the explanation is correct)(page 424, #2, key should show “B” = CloudTrail as the correct answer)Practice Tests Book:(page 4, #12 in the question: replace “CloudFront” with “CloudWatch”)(page 125, #110 typo: replace “get the error that is required” with… what the error is)(page 195, #41, question should specify “choose two”)(page 218, #171 replace “State Manage” with “State Manager”)(page 215, #141replace “VC” with “VPC)(page 253, #31 key is wrong, answer should be “D” instead of “C)(page 270, answer should be “D” instead of “A”, assuming explanation is correct)(page 285, #16 “A” is also a valid answer = launch template can be versioned)(page 279, #36 valid answers include C in addition to B and D; RU allows strongly consistent read of 4KB)(page 287, #54 “B” is also a valid answer; versioning is a prerequisite to enable MFA delete for S3)

I'm only at Chapter 3 and have noticed that the answers do not match, or, the explanation in the appendix is correct but the answer letter is incorrect. It's difficult to trust the book in this sense and I'm starting to regret my purchase. I may skip the review questions as a result of this finding and continue to use external testing material to supplement.

This book's "dive" into AWS is so shallow it likely couldn't even get someone past the Practitioner Exam, much less an Associate level exam. What's more, the online resources that are intended to supplement this sub-par material are so buggy that they do more to frustrate than educate.I won't even be looking at this publisher for future resources, much less these authors. Invest your money elsewhere.

Livro muito bem detalhado para aquele que quer tirar a certificação

Un livre essentiel pour la réussisse de l’examen

Overall I have found this guide useful. A lot of the content is good and it's easy to read and follow. The Wiley Efficient Learning online stuff is very useful as well and a good bonus.Two things let this book down though: Missed topics, and review questions.The exam practice questions cover topics that are simply not discussed in the book's content. Having already booked my exam, this means I'm now panicking to discover what else isn't included so I can read about it before the exam!And the review questions... boy oh boy did anyone bother proof-reading these at all? There are errors, very misleading questions, repeated answers, typos, reversed answers, you name it. I've lost count of the number of errors I've reported to them, and I've yet to have any response suggesting they're reviewing the complaints.

Yeah, the book is a joke.Unfortunately, I'm in the habit of marking the most important passages with a pen when I read it. When I realized how little the book is worth, it was too late to send it back. It was already written with my pen.This is some kind of review of services at AWS, not an exam preparation guide. I recommend you look around for another book.

ottimo