AWS CloudOps Engineer: operations and recovery

Objectives and progression

Seven lessons, 35 questions, and five original AWS operations cases with an internal 26-decision assessment. SOA-C03 guide revision 1.1 from June 2026. Fictional banking scenarios connect troubleshooting and change control to APS autonomy. Introductory preparation without exhaustive coverage or executable labs. CloudOps succeeded the SysOps exam; earlier credentials were not retroactively renamed. AWS announces retirement of Korean and Simplified Chinese exams after November 19, 2026.

Audience: APS professionals, cloud administrators, and technical managers involved in releases and recovery.

Prerequisites: AWS, Linux, and networking fundamentals and operations experience. This path does not replace practical experience in an authorized environment.

255 estimated study minutes

• Validate metrics and alarms, including missing telemetry.
• Interpret performance limits and recovery objectives.
• Operate stacks, images, and automations with limits and evidence.
• Verify key access, renewal, and remediation.
• Distinguish DNS, network, cache, and application failures.

Modules

1. Signals, alarms, and missing telemetry
2. Performance and operational evidence
3. Reliability, scaling, and demonstrated recovery
4. Stacks, images, and deployments
5. Controlled operational automation
6. Security in operations and recovery
7. Networking, DNS, and content delivery

Continue learning

AWS

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
• AWS Certified Developer Associate
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
• Linux Administration
• Production Support L3

References and version

SOA-C03; exam guide 1.1

• AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 exam guide · 2026-09-29
• AWS exam updates · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C02 and C03 comparison · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 guide revisions · 2026-09-29
• CloudWatch alarms · 2026-09-29
• Alarm missing-data treatment · 2026-09-29
• CloudWatch agent overview · 2026-09-29
• Agent metrics · 2026-09-29
• EBS I/O characteristics · 2026-09-29
• CloudWatch Database Insights · 2026-09-29
• Amazon EFS overview · 2026-09-29
• CloudTrail data events · 2026-09-29
• RDS point-in-time restore · 2026-09-29
• AWS Backup restore testing · 2026-09-29
• RDS Multi-AZ single standby · 2026-09-29
• Auto Scaling health checks · 2026-09-29
• S3 Versioning · 2026-09-29
• Auto Scaling capacity limits · 2026-09-29
• RDS read replicas · 2026-09-29
• CloudFormation drift detection · 2026-09-29
• CloudFormation troubleshooting · 2026-09-29
• ECS deployment circuit breaker · 2026-09-29
• Deregister an AMI · 2026-09-29
• SSM Agent troubleshooting · 2026-09-29
• Automation rate controls · 2026-09-29
• Automation approval step · 2026-09-29
• Service control policies · 2026-09-29
• KMS key policies · 2026-09-29
• ACM managed renewal · 2026-09-29
• AWS Config remediation · 2026-09-29
• Secrets Manager best practices · 2026-09-29
• Security Hub finding workflow · 2026-09-29
• Network ACLs · 2026-09-29
• Resolver outbound forwarding · 2026-09-29
• VPC Flow Logs · 2026-09-29
• Interface endpoint configuration · 2026-09-29
• CloudFront cache policy · 2026-09-29
• Reachability Analyzer · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 domain1 · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 domain2 · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 domain3 · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 domain4 · 2026-09-29
• SOA-C03 domain5 · 2026-09-29