How many questions are on the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam?

The AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam has 65 questions, and the vendor's published description is: 65 questions (50 scored + 15 unscored), 130 minutes.

How long do you have to complete the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam?

You get 130 minutes, which is about 120 seconds per question. The published format is: 65 questions (50 scored + 15 unscored), 130 minutes.

What score do you need to pass the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam?

The passing score is 72% (720/1,000 scaled score).

How should I use the domain weights when revising?

Weight by percentage, not by domain. 16% is the one where lost points cost you the most, and Certilum scores you per domain so you can see exactly where that is.

Does Certilum have practice questions for the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam?

Yes: 65 questions in our bank for this certification, each tagged to the exam domain it belongs to, with the official domain weights applied.

Exam format

AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate Exam Format

SOA-C03

Everything the official exam blueprint specifies: question count, time limit, scoring and the weight each domain carries. The AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam validates the ability to operate, manage, and automate AWS workloads. This certification focuses on implementing monitoring and logging strategies, ensuring reliability and business continuity, automating deployment and provisioning processes, securing infrastructure, managing networking components, and optimizing costs and performance. Candidates should have at least one year of practical experience as a SysOps administrator or cloud operations engineer, including hands-on exposure to AWS services like CloudWatch, CloudFormation, IAM, EC2, and VPC. The exam emphasizes operational excellence, security best practices, and automation using AWS-native tools and services. Passing this certification demonstrates a deep understanding of the AWS Well-Architected Framework's Operational Excellence and Reliability pillars, equipping professionals to effectively manage production environments at scale.

65 questions

130 min

72% to pass

6 domains

certilum

Exam facts at a glance

The published specifications for this certification.

Specification	Value
Questions	65
Time limit	130 minutes (120s per question)
Passing score	72% — 720/1,000 scaled score
Domains	6
Level	Associate
Question bank here	65 questions
Published format	65 questions (50 scored + 15 unscored), 130 minutes
Source	Official exam specification, published by the vendor

Official domain weights

The percentage of the exam each domain carries. Weight your revision by these numbers, not by what you find hardest.

Domain	Weight	Topics	Practice Qs
Security and Compliance	16%	Manage IAM users, groups, roles, and policies following least privilege principles Implement encryption at rest and in transit using AWS KMS, ACM, and S3 encryption features Monitor and respond to security events using AWS Security Hub, GuardDuty, and AWS Config +2 more	10
Networking and Content Delivery	18%	Configure and manage Amazon VPC, subnets, route tables, and network ACLs Implement hybrid networking solutions including AWS Direct Connect and VPN Optimize content delivery with Amazon CloudFront and AWS WAF +2 more	12
Cost and Performance Optimization	12%	Analyze cost allocation and usage patterns using AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets Implement cost optimization strategies such as Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, and Spot Instances Right-size resources using AWS Compute Optimizer and Trusted Advisor recommendations +2 more	8
Reliability and Business Continuity	16%	Design and implement highly available and fault-tolerant architectures using Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, and Multi-AZ deployments Configure backup and disaster recovery strategies with AWS Backup, Amazon RDS snapshots, and S3 Cross-Region Replication Implement health checks and automatic failover using Route 53 and AWS Global Accelerator +2 more	10
Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation	20%	Implement metrics, alarms, and filters for monitoring and logging using Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail Configure automated remediation actions based on CloudWatch alarms and AWS Config rules Analyze logs and metrics to identify performance bottlenecks and operational issues +2 more	13
Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation	18%	Automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration using AWS CloudFormation and AWS Elastic Beanstalk Implement CI/CD pipelines with AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy Manage configuration drift and compliance using AWS Config and Systems Manager State Manager +2 more	12

The heaviest domain is Security and Compliance at 16%, and that is where lost points cost you the most. Certilum scores you per domain so you can see the difference between a knowledge gap and a formatting problem.

Note from the vendor record: Renamed from AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate; the official exam guide lives under the sysops-administrator-associate-03 docs path. Official exam page

More about the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam

Explore the rest of this page series: format, cost, difficulty, requirements and how to prepare.

Exam costPrice, retakes and total budget Pass rateThe score you need Who can take itRequirements and prerequisites Study planHow to prepare, by domain

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Guides and articles

More context about this certification, straight from our blog.

AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate (SOA-C03): Complete Exam GuideSix domains, 65 questions in 130 minutes, a 720/1,000 scaled score and a USD 150 exam. Here is the full SOA-C03 blueprint, what each domain really asks, and how to study it.5 min read

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate exam.

There are 6 domains: Security and Compliance, Networking and Content Delivery, Cost and Performance Optimization, Reliability and Business Continuity, Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation, Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation. The official weights are Security and Compliance 16%, Networking and Content Delivery 18%, Cost and Performance Optimization 12%, Reliability and Business Continuity 16%, Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation 20%, Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation 18%.