DEV Community: Marián

DVA-C03 Exam Guide Is Out: New Domains, Weights and What to Study Now

Marián — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 13:22:50 +0000

AWS has published the full DVA-C03 exam guide for AWS Certified Developer - Associate. In September we only had domain names, weights and a list of themes. Now there are real task statements, a skill-by-skill comparison with DVA-C02, and updated in-scope and out-of-scope service lists.

DVA-C03 domains and official weights

Domain	DVA-C02	DVA-C03
1. Development with AWS Services	32%	30%
2. Security	26%	26%
3. Testing and Deployment (C02: Deployment)	24%	22%
4. Troubleshooting and Optimization	18%	22%

The weights match what AWS shared in September. Development drops two points, Deployment becomes Testing and Deployment and also drops two, and Troubleshooting and Optimization gains four. Security stays at 26% but gets a whole new task.

What is new in the guide

Task 2.3, security of AI services. Requesting and managing access to AI services, sending data with privacy controls (VPC endpoints, keeping inputs and outputs out of model training), filtering model inputs and outputs (content filters, PII and PHI redaction, denied topics, prompt injection protection), securing AI agent interactions (tool-use authorization, session isolation, human-in-the-loop approval), and keeping sensitive content out of monitoring logs.
AI-assisted development across the domains. Generating, reviewing and optimizing code and integrating managed AWS AI services (Task 1.1), generating tests and automating regression testing (Task 3.2), supporting CI/CD workflows (Task 3.3), analyzing errors (Task 4.1) and finding optimization opportunities (Task 4.3).
Containers. Building and managing images with Amazon ECR (Dockerfiles, tagging, lifecycle policies) in Task 3.1, and deploying with ECS task definitions, EKS manifests, AWS Fargate and rolling updates in Task 3.3.
Presigned URLs. Time-limited access with Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront is now spelled out in Task 2.1.

New in-scope names include Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Amazon Quick, Kiro, Amazon Data Firehose and AWS PrivateLink. Amazon SageMaker AI and Strands Agents are out of scope.

What moved or got merged

Unit testing with AWS SAM moved from Task 1.1 to Task 3.2.
Lambda performance tuning moved from Task 1.2 to Task 4.3.
Serializing and deserializing data moved from Task 1.3 to Task 1.1.
API Gateway stages and custom domains moved from Task 3.4 to Task 3.1.

AWS also merged many small skills. The four DynamoDB skills are now one, encryption and sensitive data went from 13 skills over two tasks to 7 in one task, and testing went from 11 skills to 5. AWS says this does not reduce emphasis.

Exam format

65 questions (50 scored, 15 unscored), 130 minutes, a scaled score of 100 to 1,000 with 720 to pass, and compensatory scoring. Question types are multiple choice and multiple response, delivered through Pearson VUE at a test center or online.

The target candidate has one or more years of hands-on experience building and maintaining applications on AWS. You are not expected to design architectures, design CI/CD pipelines, administer IAM users and groups, select foundation models, write prompts, design RAG architectures or design AI guardrails and governance.

Key dates

27 Oct 2026: DVA-C03 registration opened and the updated guide was released
30 Nov 2026: last day to take DVA-C02
1 Dec 2026: DVA-C03 delivery begins

If you are ready, take DVA-C02 by 30 November; your certification stays active until its normal expiry date. If you are early in your prep, or already use AI coding tools and Bedrock at work, C03 is the better fit. Book early either way.

How to study from here

Read the official guide, task statements first, then the comparison page and the in-scope service list.
Keep the classics. Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, API Gateway, IAM roles, KMS and CodeDeploy still make up most of the task statements.
Give Troubleshooting and Optimization more time. Practice CloudWatch logs and metrics, X-Ray traces, and Lambda concurrency and memory issues.
Build one small app that touches the new tasks, for example a Lambda function that calls Bedrock through a VPC endpoint, applies a content filter, keeps prompts out of the logs, ships as a container image in ECR and deploys to ECS on Fargate with a rolling update.
Skip what is out of scope: no prompt engineering, long RAG design courses or SageMaker AI notebooks.

Want to check where you stand? Try the free sample exam quiz - 5 questions, no signup.

Originally published on testimea

SAP-C03 Exam Guide Is Out: New Domains, Weights and What to Study Now

Marián — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 13:26:47 +0000

AWS has published the full SAP-C03 exam guide for Solutions Architect - Professional. Until 27 October we only had the high-level September announcement. Now the five domains have real weights, task statements and a clear "out of scope" list. If you were waiting for that before picking C02 vs C03, or before rewriting a study plan, this is the update.

SAP-C03 domains and official weights

Domain	Weight
Architecture Design and Implementation Built for the Cloud	25%
Security, Compliance, and Governance	25%
Cost-Optimized Architecture Design	15%
Resilience, Migration, and Business Continuity	15%
Operational Excellence and Automation	20%

Architecture Built for the Cloud and Security share the lead at 25% each. Operational Excellence sits at 20%. Cost and Resilience are 15% apiece. That is a different shape from SAP-C02's four-domain layout.

Exam format

The guide matches the September blog on the basics:

75 questions (65 scored + 10 unscored), 180 minutes
Scaled score 100-1000, pass mark 720
Compensatory scoring: you pass the exam overall, not each domain
Multiple choice and multiple response
Delivered via Pearson VUE (test center or online proctoring)

Target candidate: two or more years designing and implementing on AWS, including cloud-native, serverless and AI-integrated work in multi-account setups.

Explicitly out of scope: deep OS internals, ML training, fine-tuning and data-science workflows, security forensics, and application code debugging. You design and choose controls; you are not expected to train models or dig through incident artifacts.

What the September announcement already flagged

The AWS September 2026 certification update called out the new skill clusters that land inside those five domains:

GenAI and agentic patterns (Bedrock, AgentCore, RAG, Guardrails)
Resilience tooling (Fault Injection Service, Resilience Hub, Application Recovery Controller)
Cloud-native pieces (Step Functions durable workflows, VPC Lattice / ECS Service Connect, lakehouse with Lake Formation and Iceberg)
DevSecOps and observability
Post-quantum crypto on KMS (ML-DSA / ML-KEM)

The guide is where those ideas get pinned to weighted domains.

Key dates

27 Oct 2026: SAP-C03 registration opened (all languages), full exam guide released
16 Nov 2026: last day to sit SAP-C02
17 Nov 2026: SAP-C03 GA delivery begins

If you are already deep into C02 materials and need the credential soon, finishing C02 by 16 November still works, and the badge stays valid through its normal cycle. If you want the cert to reflect cloud-native and GenAI architecture work, wait for C03.

How I would study from here

Read the official guide end to end. Task statements first, then the in-scope and out-of-scope service lists. That document is the syllabus; blogs are commentary.
Weight study time to the 25% / 25% / 20% domains. Multi-account landing zones, identity and governance, AI integration patterns and automation/ops get more exam minutes than pure cost or migration drill-downs.
Build one cross-domain scenario. For example, a multi-account GenAI app with Bedrock Guardrails, cost controls, a Resilience Hub assessment, and a pipeline that scans images before deploy. C03 likes designs that touch several domains at once.
Skip the out-of-scope rabbit holes. No model fine-tuning notebooks, no forensics labs, no deep OS tuning. That time is better spent on Well-Architected trade-offs.

Recheck the official AWS pages before you book.

Want to see where you stand? Try the sample exam quiz on testimea.

Originally published on testimea

Security+ Practice Exam Updated for SY0-801 (V8)

Marián — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 13:32:31 +0000

I just finished rebuilding our CompTIA Security+ practice bank for SY0-801 (Security+ V8). CompTIA's English V8 exam launches on or around 17 November 2026, and I didn't want people still drilling SY0-701 objectives if their voucher says 801.

What CompTIA actually published

Straight from the Security+ V8 page and Exam Objectives Document Version 2.0:

Max 90 questions (multiple-choice + performance-based)
90 minutes
Pass 750 on a 100-900 scale
English at launch

SY0-701 English stays open until 11 June 2027, so there's an overlap. Other languages retire later. Either pass still gets you Security+ - the cert doesn't vanish when an exam code retires.

V8 domain weights

Domain	Weight
General Security Concepts	16%
Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Attacks	24%
Security Architecture	19%
Security Operations	27%
Security Program Management and Oversight	14%

Operations is still the biggest slice. Versus V7, General Concepts went up, Program Oversight went down, and Threats now explicitly covers AI-related risks - models, prompts, privacy, data exposure.

I wrote a longer side-by-side here: Security+ SY0-801 vs SY0-701.

How I'd study it

If your date is after mid-November 2026, or you're starting fresh, use the V8 objectives PDF and drill Operations + Threats first. If you're already deep into SY0-701 and can sit before June 2027, finishing V7 is fine. Don't bounce between both PDFs every week - pick one code.

I score practice by domain, not one overall percentage. If Operations or Threats lag, I go back to those objectives before another timed run.

Originally published on testimea. Want a quick feel for the style? Try the sample exam quiz.

AWS SAP-C02 to SAP-C03: What's Changing and Which Exam to Take

Marián — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 12:20:22 +0000

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional is getting a new version. SAP-C02 is on its way out and SAP-C03 replaces it. AWS announced this in its September 2026 Training and Certification update, and the certification page now says the same thing.

If you're halfway through studying for C02, the short version is this: you have until November 16 to sit the current exam. After that, it's C03 only.

The dates

What	Date
SAP-C03 registration opens	October 27, 2026
Last day to take SAP-C02	November 16, 2026
SAP-C03 delivery begins	November 17, 2026
Beta	None announced

AWS says the full C03 exam guide, with the detailed task statements, comes out when registration opens on October 27. Until then we only have domain names and skill themes.

Format: mostly the same

For C03, AWS lists 180 minutes, 75 questions and a $300 USD fee, delivered through Pearson VUE at a test center or online. All currently supported languages are available at launch.

That matches the current exam. One thing I'd watch: the C02 guide says 65 scored plus 10 unscored questions and a passing score of 750 out of 1,000. AWS hasn't published a passing score for C03 yet, so don't assume 750 carries over until the new guide says so.

Domains: four become five

SAP-C02 has four domains with published weights:

SAP-C02 domain	Weight
Design for New Solutions	29%
Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity	26%
Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions	25%
Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization	20%

SAP-C03 moves to five domains. AWS named them, but there are no percentages yet:

Cloud-native architecture design and implementation
Security, compliance, and governance
Cost-optimized architecture design
Resilience, migration, and business continuity
Operational excellence and automation

You'll probably see "C03 weights" floating around on forums before October 27. They aren't official. I'd ignore them.

What's actually new

AWS grouped the additions into themes. The biggest one by far is AI:

GenAI and agentic AI (11 new skills). Bedrock integrations, AgentCore, RAG architectures, Guardrails and human-oversight workflows.
Resilience engineering. Fault Injection Service, Resilience Hub, Application Recovery Controller and Systems Manager automation.
Cloud-native patterns (7 new skills). Serverless data pipelines, Step Functions durable workflows, VPC Lattice and ECS Service Connect, container image security, multi-tenant and real-time data designs.
DevSecOps and observability (6 new skills). Pipeline scanning, multi-account deployments, monitoring for containers and AI/ML workloads, synthetic and real-user monitoring.
Data and analytics (3 new skills). Lakehouse with Lake Formation and Apache Iceberg, analytics pipelines, Clean Rooms for cross-account sharing.
Post-quantum cryptography. AWS KMS with ML-DSA and ML-KEM.

Well-Architected trade-offs are still the core of the exam. The new stuff sits on top of that, it doesn't replace it.

C02 now or wait for C03?

AWS's advice is simple. If you're ready, take C02 by November 16. Your certification stays valid until its normal expiry date, so there's no penalty for picking the old version.

Here's how I'd decide. If your practice scores on C02 material are already solid and you can get a slot before mid-November, finish C02. Slots near a retirement date tend to fill up, so book soon. If you're still early in your prep, or you work with Bedrock and agents anyway, switch to C03 and wait for the guide.

Studying during the switch

Pick one version and use only its guide. Mixing the two is how people waste weeks.
On the C02 path, spend most of your time on Design for New Solutions (29%) and Organizational Complexity (26%).
On the C03 path, start hands-on labs now: Bedrock, the resilience services, multi-account pipelines, a small lakehouse. You don't need the percentages for that.
Do at least a couple of full timed runs. 180 minutes and 75 long scenario questions is tiring, and stamina matters on this exam.

Dates and details come from the AWS September 2026 update and the official certification page. Check both again before you book.

💡 Want to check if you're ready? Try the sample exam quiz on testimea.

Originally published on testimea.

AZ-400 Is Retiring: What the New AZ-401 Agentic DevOps Engineer Expert Means for You

Marián — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 12:59:13 +0000

Microsoft has announced a new certification, the Agentic DevOps Engineer Expert, and the new AZ-401 exam, which is now in beta. General availability is expected in December 2026. The current AZ-400 exam and the DevOps Engineer Expert certification retire on February 1, 2027. This date comes from Microsoft's official announcement. The AZ-400 exam page does not show a retirement date yet.

To earn the new expert title, you must pass AZ-401 and either GH-300 (GitHub Copilot) or AZ-104 (Azure Administrator).

What is the AZ-401 exam?

The full name is Designing and Implementing Microsoft Agentic DevOps Solutions. It tests AI-assisted DevOps across Azure DevOps and GitHub, with GitHub Copilot at the center. For now, the exam is available in English only, and you need a score of 700 to pass. Beta exams are not scored right away, so you get your result only after the exam goes live.

Microsoft expects practical skills in YAML, KQL and Bicep. You should also have experience with Azure DevOps and GitHub solutions that use Microsoft and GitHub AI tools.

Skills measured and weights

Domain	Weight
Design and implement processes and communications	15-20%
Design and implement a source control strategy	10-15%
Design and implement build and release pipelines	35-40%
Design and implement a security and compliance plan	15-20%
Implement an instrumentation strategy	15-20%

Pipelines carry the most weight by far, so plan most of your study time there.

What is new compared with AZ-400?

The five domain names are the same as in AZ-400. The big change is AI. The study guide adds MCP servers for Azure DevOps and GitHub, GitHub Agentic Workflows, and quality gates built with GitHub Copilot. It also covers Azure SRE Agent and Azure Copilot Observability Agent for monitoring. If you still want AZ-400, you must take it before February 1, 2027.

How to prepare today

Start with the official AZ-401 study guide. It lists every skill the exam may test. Microsoft also suggests the Learn plan Optimize DevOps with AI agents on Azure.

However, AZ-401 learning paths, courses and the official practice assessment are not available yet. Microsoft says practice assessments usually come within 8 weeks after an exam leaves beta. Beta topics can still change before the exam goes live.

Start with the second exam now

You don't have to wait for AZ-401 to make progress. The second exam, GH-300 or AZ-104, is already live and counts toward the new expert title. If you pick GH-300, note that its skills outline changed in 2026, so study from the current Microsoft Learn study guide.

Facts come from Microsoft's announcement and the Microsoft Learn AZ-401 exam page and study guide. Always check Microsoft Learn before you book.

💡 Want to check if you're ready? Try the sample exam quiz on testimea.

Originally published on testimea.

Pearson VUE Free Retake 2026: Which IT Certification Exams Qualify

Marián — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 12:23:58 +0000

The Pearson VUE free retake offer gives you one free second attempt if you fail an eligible exam. You must opt in, use the promo code from the email, and pay for and take your first exam between September 29 and November 17, 2026. The retake must happen between January 4 and April 7, 2027. Microsoft and most AWS exams qualify. CompTIA, ISC2, HashiCorp and GitHub do not take part.

Key dates and rules

First attempt: scheduled, paid for and taken September 29 - November 17, 2026.
Free retake: January 4 - April 7, 2027. No retakes between November 18, 2026 and January 3, 2027.
One free retake per participating exam program.
You must be 18 or older. Normal retake policies of each program still apply.
It covers only exams you took and failed. Terminated or revoked sessions do not count.

Does your certification qualify?

Certification	Free retake?
AWS Solutions Architect Associate, Cloud Practitioner, AI Practitioner, CloudOps, Data Engineer, DevOps Pro, Security Specialty	Yes
AWS Solutions Architect Professional (SAP), Developer (DVA), Advanced Networking (ANS), ML Engineer (MLA), any beta exam	No
Azure Administrator (AZ-104), AZ-305, Windows Server Hybrid	Yes (ESI excluded)
Cisco CCNA, CCNP Enterprise, Security, Data Center	No - only CCST exams
CompTIA, ISC2, HashiCorp, GitHub, CNCF exams	No - not participating

The AWS fine print

AWS adds its own terms. The offer cannot be combined with other offers or vouchers. The terms also say, word for word: "Participating AWS exams will receive 50% off their first scheduled exam". Pearson VUE does not explain this sentence further, so check it with Pearson VUE before you book.

How to claim the free retake

Open the official Pearson VUE offer page and find your program.
Read its terms and opt in.
Wait for the email with the promo code.
Book and pay with the code. Take the exam by November 17, 2026.
Check that the code shows on your order confirmation email.
If you fail, book the same exam between January 4 and April 7, 2027.

Already booked for October or November? Opt in anyway. The confirmation email may ask you to cancel and rebook.

💡 Want to check if you're ready? Try the sample exam quiz on testimea.

Originally published on testimea.

AWS ANS-C01 Retirement: Last Exam Day Is December 31, 2026

Marián — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 06:50:46 +0000

AWS will retire the Advanced Networking – Specialty (ANS-C01) exam. The last day to take it is December 31, 2026. After that, AWS will not issue new ANS certifications.

Key facts


Last exam day	December 31, 2026
Successor exam	None announced
AWS recommendation	Digital networking training on AWS Skill Builder
Existing certifications	Stay active for the standard three years
Recertification	Not possible once the exam is retired

What happens to your certification

If you pass before the deadline, your certification stays active for three years. For example, a pass on December 30, 2026 keeps you certified until late 2029.

Normally, AWS lets you recertify by passing the latest version of the exam. Once ANS-C01 is retired, there is no version left to pass. So your ANS certification will simply expire at the end of its three-year term.

The exam itself has not changed

65 multiple choice or multiple response questions
170 minutes
Delivered at Pearson VUE test centers or online
Available in English, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese
If you already hold an active AWS certification, you get 50% off your next exam

What to do now

Decide whether you want the credential. It still proves deep AWS networking skills for three years.
If yes, book your exam well before December 31, 2026.
Start practising with realistic questions now, because time is short.

Source: the official AWS certification page for Advanced Networking – Specialty.

💡 Want to check if you're ready for ANS-C01? Try the sample exam quiz on testimea.

Originally published on testimea.