How I Passed the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer (SOA-CO3) Exam — My Honest Preparation Journey

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A few weeks ago, I finally cleared the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – SOA-CO3 exam 🎉.
If you’re planning to take it, trust me — this exam goes beyond memorizing AWS services. It’s all about how well you can think like a CloudOps Engineer who can automate, monitor, and troubleshoot production systems.

Here’s exactly how I prepared, what resources I used, and a few tips that made all the difference.

🚀 Step 1: Understanding What AWS Expects

Before I even started studying, I went through the AWS official exam guide. It gives you the exam domains and weightage:

Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation

Reliability and Business Continuity

Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation

Security and Compliance

Cost and Performance Optimization

👉 AWS SOA-CO3 Exam Guide

This helped me focus my time strategically. For example, “Monitoring and Remediation” has a big chunk of questions — so I doubled down on CloudWatch, Systems Manager, and CloudTrail.

⚙️ Step 2: Get Hands-On — AWS Isn’t Theory

If you try to pass this exam by reading alone, you’ll struggle.
What helped me most was actually building things:

Set up Auto Scaling Groups with CloudWatch alarms

Deployed and rolled back changes using CodeDeploy

Created a CloudFormation stack to automate provisioning

Configured AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager

Monitored applications with CloudWatch Logs and metrics

Each hands-on activity built my confidence — and many questions in the exam were almost identical to what I had practiced.

📚 Step 3: Official AWS Resources Are Gold

I made full use of free AWS resources, especially:

AWS Skill Builder – great for structured modules

AWS Documentation – for deeper technical clarity

Well-Architected Framework (Ops Pillar) – crucial for understanding reliability and automation best practices

Don’t underestimate AWS docs — some of the trickiest questions came directly from real-world scenarios that are explained in the documentation.

🧠 Step 4: Practice Tests — The Game Changer

I took multiple practice tests before the real exam, and this made a massive difference.
One that really helped me simulate the actual exam environment was this 👇

🎯 Udemy Course: AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – SOA-CO3 Practice Test

It includes scenario-based questions, detailed explanations, and real-world use cases that closely mirror the AWS exam format.
Each test helped me discover weak areas — and the explanations made sure I learned from every mistake.

🧭 Step 5: Revision Before the Exam

Here’s what my final 7-day revision looked like:
✅ Reviewed CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and IAM deeply
✅ Revisited all practice test mistakes
✅ Read key AWS whitepapers (especially Reliability and Security)
✅ Created small CloudFormation templates from scratch
✅ Focused on key services like SSM, ECS, and RDS

This last week was all about reinforcing muscle memory for AWS services and syntax.

🎓 Final Thoughts

The AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer (SOA-CO3) exam was challenging but incredibly rewarding.
It taught me to think in terms of automation, observability, and cost efficiency — the pillars of modern CloudOps.

If you’re preparing, my advice is simple:

Go hands-on

Study from official AWS resources

Practice until you’re confident

And when you’re ready, test your knowledge with a solid mock exam before the real one.

👉 AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – SOA-CO3 Practice Test on Udemy

Best of luck to everyone preparing — you’ve got this! 💪☁️