This exam was retired by the vendor on September 29, 2025.
SOA-C02 can no longer be scheduled. The practice material below remains available for reference and for learners studying the underlying skills. See AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (SOA-C03), the exam's new name
Amazon Web Services certification practice
Practise AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 across all 6 official exam domains — Networking and Content Delivery, Cost and Performance Optimization, Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation, Reliability and Business Continuity, and more — with original exam-style questions, full explanations, and wrong-answer analysis. AWS certification exams usually test architecture trade-offs: service selection, resilience, cost, security, networking and operations. Courseiva helps you practise those decisions through original scenario-based questions.
Ways to study SOA-C02
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
New here? Start with this
Start with a 25-question practice test
Covers all 6 domains · takes ~5 min · no account needed · shows your weak areas immediately
Historical facts for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 exam, which the vendor has retired.
Exam cost (historical)
$150 USD / ~£125
Duration (historical)
180 minutes
Question count
65 questions
Passing score
720 / 1000
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) validates skills in deploying, managing, and operating AWS workloads. Unlike SAA-C03 (design) or DVA-C02 (development), SOA-C02 focuses on the operational side: monitoring, scaling, cost management, networking, and incident response.
Official prerequisite
None
Recommended experience
1 year of AWS sysadmin / operations experience
1 year in an operational AWS role — managing EC2, auto-scaling, CloudWatch, IAM, and networking.
Should you skip this exam?
If you are building applications rather than operating infrastructure, DVA-C02 is a better fit. Developers should consider SAA-C03 before SOA-C02.
Courseiva study tip
SOA-C02 is the most underrated AWS Associate. Focus on CloudWatch, Systems Manager, AWS Config, and cost optimisation — these are over-represented on the exam relative to study materials.
UK salary range
£50,000–£80,000
US salary range
$85,000–$125,000
Job roles that cite SOA-C02
What certification to take next
SOA-C02 was retired by the vendor and can no longer be scheduled or booked. See AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (SOA-C03), the exam's new name for the current path.
$150 USD.
720 out of 1000.
Many candidates rate SOA-C02 as the most demanding of the three AWS Associate exams because operational scenarios require deep knowledge of multiple overlapping services. Allow 100–180 hours of study.
Yes — 3 years.
SAA-C03 tests architectural design skills; SOA-C02 tests operational management skills. If you design AWS environments, take SAA-C03. If you manage and maintain them day-to-day, SOA-C02 is more relevant.
See how SOA-C02 stacks up against related certifications.
100% free — no account required
Everything on Courseiva for SOA-C02 is free — no subscription, no trial, no email wall. Pick a mode that matches your study phase: practice questions early on, mock exams closer to your exam date.
Practice Test
Start a 20-question session with a full explanation after each answer.
Mock Exam
Simulate the real exam with a timed, full-length question set.
Quick 25
25 questions, built for a quick daily study session.
Domain Practice
Practise domain by domain to find and fix weak spots.
50-Question Set
Mid-length practice set covering all domains.
Cheat sheet
A fast-reference page for commands and key figures.
Acronyms
Every acronym on the exam blueprint, defined plainly.
Official objectives
The full exam blueprint mapped to practice resources.
Exam glossary
Every key term on the SOA-C02 exam defined.
Practice by topic
Topic-by-topic practice pages covering the full exam.
Courseiva Exam Intelligence
Data confidence: BuildingDerived from Courseiva's continuously updated practice dataset: 1,169 exam-style questions. Updated 2 July 2026.
Question difficulty mix
Average time per question: 87s
6
Exam domains
official blueprint domains covered by the bank
1,169
Questions
exam-style questions in the SOA-C02 bank
Exam guide
Start with a short practice session, review each missed answer, then return to the topics that caused mistakes.
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 spans 6 official exam domains (Networking and Content Delivery, Cost and Performance Optimization, Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation, and more). Questions test whether you can apply each objective in a realistic scenario, not just recall a definition.
Related practice questions
Use these internal links to move from the exam guide into focused topic practice pages.
Targeted SOA-C02 practice covering Networking and Content Delivery.
Practise SOA-C02 questions linked to Cost and Performance Optimization.
Sharpen your SOA-C02 knowledge of Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation.
Work through SOA-C02 questions on Reliability and Business Continuity.
Practise SOA-C02 questions linked to Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation.
Practise SOA-C02 questions linked to Security and Compliance.
Work through SOA-C02 questions on SOA-C02 fundamentals.
Sharpen your SOA-C02 knowledge of SOA-C02 scenario.
Sharpen your SOA-C02 knowledge of SOA-C02 troubleshooting.
Practice directory
Every practice set is a unique selection of questions — numbered tests, domain-focused sessions, and topic-specific quizzes.
Showing 8 of 72 tests. See all 72 SOA-C02 practice tests →
Official blueprint
Target weak areas by practising questions from a single domain. Each domain page shows all questions, difficulty breakdown, and a focused practice session.
18% of SOA-C02 questions come from this domain →
12% of SOA-C02 questions come from this domain →
20% of SOA-C02 questions come from this domain →
Weighted 16% on the official SOA-C02 blueprint →
Weighted 18% on the official SOA-C02 blueprint →
Covers 16% of the SOA-C02 exam →
Deep-dive questions
The most-searched SOA-C02 questions — each with a detailed explanation, worked example, and full answer breakdown.
Learn the concepts
104 book-style chapters cover every SOA-C02 objective in plain English. Read the theory here, then test it with practice questions.
Chapter 1
CloudWatch Metrics and Alarms
25 min read
Chapter 2
CloudTrail and AWS Config
25 min read
Chapter 3
Auto Healing and Auto Scaling
25 min read
Chapter 4
AWS Backup
25 min read
Chapter 5
CloudFormation for SysOps
25 min read
Chapter 6
AWS Systems Manager
25 min read
Chapter 7
AMI Management and Lifecycle
25 min read
Chapter 8
IAM for SysOps
25 min read
Free study guide
The Courseiva SOA-C02 study guide covers exam format, the official domain blueprint with weights, a structured study plan, and domain-specific tips for each section. Use it alongside practice questions to build both conceptual depth and exam confidence.
Sample questions
Original exam-style questions — not copied from any exam or dump site. Open a question for the full answer breakdown.
A SysOps administrator is setting up a backup plan for an RDS MySQL database. The database is 500 GB in size and is used for a critical application. The company requires a Recovery…
A company needs to retain API call logs for 7 years for compliance. Which AWS service should be used to store these logs?
A SysOps administrator needs to send a notification when an EC2 instance's CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create the ala…
A SysOps administrator notices that an EC2 instance's status check fails intermittently. The instance is part of an Auto Scaling group. What is the most efficient way to automatica…
A SysOps administrator is managing a fleet of EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The instances are behind an Application Load Balancer. The administrator notices that the 'Sur…
Which THREE measures help protect an S3 bucket from accidental data loss? (Choose 3)
Related certifications
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Courseiva provides free AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 (SOA-C02) practice questions with original exam-style questions, detailed explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics. Courseiva is an independent platform and is not affiliated with Amazon Web Services.