Certificação SysOps Administrator da AWS passa a se chamar CloudOps Engineer (SOA-C03)

Desde setembro de 2025, quem presta o exame de operações da AWS sai com o selo CloudOps Engineer em vez de SysOps Administrator. O código mudou de SOA-C02 para SOA-C03, e o conteúdo também.

A AWS Certified SysOps Administrator — Associate não existe mais com esse nome. Desde 30 de setembro de 2025 ela se chama AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer — Associate, e o código do exame mudou de SOA-C02 para SOA-C03. A informação está nas páginas oficiais de certificação da AWS e no guia de exame, reunida num post do Medium publicado em 5 de novembro de 2026 por Sajeev PS, que mantém o site de simulados ExamCrest.

O que mudou

O registro para SOA-C03 abriu em 9 de setembro de 2025. O último dia para fazer SOA-C02 foi 29 de setembro de 2025, e SOA-C03 passou a valer no dia seguinte. A AWS diz que o novo nome reflete a evolução da operação em nuvem e uma mudança na terminologia do mercado, não uma reformulação total do exame.

Nenhuma tarefa foi removida, mas o conteúdo foi reorganizado e ganhou peso diferente:

Três mudanças de conteúdo aparecem na página de comparação oficial: containers entraram no escopo (agente do CloudWatch para instâncias EC2, clusters do Amazon ECS e do Amazon EKS), ganhou peso automação com CloudFormation e AWS CDK, e saiu a configuração de hospedagem de site estático no S3. Em 1º de junho de 2026 a AWS publicou a versão 1.1 do guia, acrescentando cinco serviços ao escopo: Amazon Bedrock, AWS DevOps Agent, AWS Health Dashboard, Kiro e AWS Security Agent, sem mexer nos pesos dos domínios. Uma versão 1.2 saiu em 29 de outubro de 2026, então vale conferir a página de revisões antes de estudar por material antigo.

Onde está disponível

A fonte não trata de região de infraestrutura, porque certificação não é um serviço implantado em sa-east-1: é um exame aplicado em centro Pearson VUE ou por proctoring online. O exame é oferecido em inglês, japonês, coreano e chinês simplificado, mas a AWS vai retirar as versões em coreano e chinês simplificado depois de 19 de novembro de 2026; inglês e japonês continuam.

Quanto custa

O exame custa 150 dólares. A fonte não traz cotação em reais nem data de conversão, então não dá para converter com segurança agora. Quem passa em qualquer certificação AWS ganha um voucher de 50% de desconto para o próximo exame, o que pesa no planejamento de orçamento de treinamento de um time inteiro.

Como começar

Para quem vai prestar SOA-C03 do zero, ou vem de SOA-C02 e precisa atualizar o material de estudo, o roteiro descrito na fonte é:

1. Ler a página de comparação entre SOA-C02 e SOA-C03 no guia de exame oficial, porque ela lista item por item o que foi movido, adicionado e removido.
2. Priorizar os três domínios de 22% cada (Monitoring/Remediation, Reliability e Deployment/Automation), que somam 66% da prova.
3. Reforçar containers (agente do CloudWatch em ECS e EKS), AWS CDK, ferramentas multiconta como AWS RAM e StackSets, e monitoramento de rede no CloudWatch.
4. Ignorar hospedagem estática no S3, que saiu do escopo.
5. Testar o nível de preparo em simulados gratuitos, como os que o próprio autor do post mantém no ExamCrest.

O exame tem 65 perguntas (50 valendo nota, 15 não pontuadas), 130 minutos, nota de corte 720 em escala de 100 a 1.000, e usa apenas múltipla escolha e múltipla resposta: os antigos labs práticos no console ou na AWS CLI, retirados de SOA-C02 em 28 de março de 2023, não voltaram no guia de SOA-C03.

O que muda para quem já usa

Para quem já é SysOps Administrator — Associate, nada muda na prática imediata: o selo continua válido por 3 anos a partir da data em que foi obtido, sem necessidade de refazer o exame. Quem passar em SOA-C03 depois ganha um selo separado de CloudOps Engineer, os dois convivem.

Isso importa para quem monta ou atualiza plano de carreira de time de SysOps e DevOps este trimestre: a AWS Certified DevOps Engineer — Professional (DOP-C02) recertifica automaticamente tanto quem tem CloudOps Engineer quanto quem ainda tem o SysOps Administrator antigo. DOP-C02 custa 300 dólares, tem 75 perguntas em 180 minutos, nota de corte 750, e pede dois anos ou mais de experiência em AWS, contra um ano exigido em SOA-C03.

A maior lacuna entre os dois é CI/CD: a fonte diz que projetar pipelines de CI/CD está fora do escopo de SOA-C03, mas é o maior domínio de DOP-C02 (SDLC Automation, 22%). Para quem decide orçamento de certificação da equipe, a conta prática é: deixar quem já tem SysOps Administrator vencer naturalmente, ou investir logo em DOP-C02 para recertificar e já avançar o nível da equipe de uma vez.

Fonte 1: Medium — tag aws (https://medium.com/@sajeevsebastian/aws-sysops-is-now-cloudops-engineer-soa-c03-explained-b0f48127a9ac?source=rss------aws-5)

Title: AWS SysOps Is Now CloudOps Engineer: SOA-C03 Explained

URL Source: https://medium.com/@sajeevsebastian/aws-sysops-is-now-cloudops-engineer-soa-c03-explained-b0f48127a9ac?source=rss------aws-5

Final URL: https://medium.com/@sajeevsebastian/aws-sysops-is-now-cloudops-engineer-soa-c03-explained-b0f48127a9ac

Published Time: 2026-11-05T04:53:53Z

Markdown Content: [](https://medium.com/@sajeevsebastian?source=post_page---byline--b0f48127a9ac-----------------------------------------)

5 min read

4 hours ago

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator — Associate now has a new name: AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer — Associate. The exam code moved from SOA-C02 to SOA-C03. Here is what changed, what stayed the same, how the exam works today and how it leads on to DevOps Engineer — Professional, all taken from AWS's official pages and exam guides.

What happened to SysOps Administrator

AWS renamed the certification as part of the SOA-C03 exam update. AWS says the new name reflects the evolving nature of cloud operations and a shift in industry terminology. The key dates were:

• 9 September 2025: registration for SOA-C03 opened, along with the new exam guide.
• 29 September 2025: the last day to take SOA-C02.
• 30 September 2025: the first day to take SOA-C03.

The new name only applies to people who pass SOA-C03. It is not changed retroactively. If you already hold SysOps Administrator — Associate, you do not need to take the new exam. Your certification stays valid for 3 years from the date you earned it, and you can keep showing its badge until it expires. If you later pass SOA-C03 as well, you get a separate CloudOps Engineer badge.

What changed in the content

AWS's announcement names three main shifts. Containers are now in scope. There is more emphasis on multi-account and multi-Region architectures. And there is more on automation and infrastructure as code. AWS also says no task statements were removed, but the outline is more detailed and some tasks were reorganised.

The exam guide's comparison page shows how the domains moved:

• Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation (now Monitoring, Logging, Analysis, Remediation, and Performance Optimization): 20% in SOA-C02, 22% in SOA-C03
• Reliability and Business Continuity: 16% in SOA-C02, 22% in SOA-C03
• Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation: 18% in SOA-C02, 22% in SOA-C03
• Security and Compliance: 16% in SOA-C02, 16% in SOA-C03
• Networking and Content Delivery: 18% in SOA-C02, 18% in SOA-C03
• Cost and Performance Optimization: 12% in SOA-C02, merged into Domain 1 in SOA-C03

The comparison page also lists the specific changes:

• Moved: SOA-C02 Tasks 6.1 and 6.2 (cost and performance) now sit in Task 1.3. VPNs moved from Task 4.2 to Task 5.1.
• Added: the CloudWatch agent for EC2 instances, Amazon ECS clusters and Amazon EKS clusters; stacks with CloudFormation and the AWS CDK; enforcing compliance requirements such as Region and service selection; and CloudWatch network monitoring services.
• Removed: configuring S3 static website hosting.

The June 2026 exam guide update

AWS published version 1.1 of the SOA-C03 exam guide on 1 June 2026. It changed the wording or examples of ten skills. It also added five services to the in-scope list: Amazon Bedrock, AWS DevOps Agent, AWS Health Dashboard, Kiro and AWS Security Agent. The revision history lists no change to the domains or their weights. If your study notes date from before June 2026, check the in-scope services list again. The revision history now also lists a version 1.2, published on 29 October 2026, so check the revisions page for any later changes.

Exam labs

The SOA-C02 exam guide originally included exam labs: tasks performed in the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI. AWS removed them from 28 March 2023 "until further notice". After that, SOA-C02 was 50 scored and 15 unscored multiple-choice and multiple-response questions in 130 minutes.

The SOA-C03 exam guide lists only two question types, multiple choice and multiple response. It does not list exam labs. So if you remember SysOps as the exam with labs, that no longer matches the current guide.

SOA-C03 at a glance

• Level: Associate
• Questions: 65: 50 scored and 15 unscored
• Time: 130 minutes
• Question types: Multiple choice and multiple response
• Passing score: 720 on a scaled score of 100–1,000
• Cost: 150 USD
• Delivery: Pearson VUE test centre or online proctored
• Languages: English, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese
• Valid for: 3 years

_AWS will retire the Korean and Simplified Chinese versions of SOA-C03 after 19 November 2026. English and Japanese continue._

Unscored questions are not identified on the exam. Unanswered questions are marked wrong and there is no penalty for guessing. The exam uses a compensatory scoring model, so you need to pass the exam as a whole, not each section.

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The exam guide describes a target candidate with 1 year of experience with deployment, management, troubleshooting, networking and security on AWS. It also asks for at least 1 year in a related operations role, such as system administrator. If you have no IT work experience, AWS suggests earning Cloud Practitioner first.

The five domains

• Monitoring, Logging, Analysis, Remediation, and Performance Optimization: 22%
• Reliability and Business Continuity: 22%
• Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation: 22%
• Security and Compliance: 16%
• Networking and Content Delivery: 18%

In short: CloudWatch, CloudTrail, EventBridge and Systems Manager for monitoring and remediation; scaling, health checks, Multi-AZ, AWS Backup and disaster recovery for reliability; CloudFormation, the AWS CDK, StackSets and event-driven automation for deployment; IAM, Organizations, AWS Config, KMS and GuardDuty for security; and VPCs, Route 53, CloudFront and flow logs for networking.

The path to DevOps Engineer — Professional

AWS's exam page names DevOps Engineer — Professional (DOP-C02) and Security — Specialty as certifications that people go on to earn after CloudOps Engineer. DOP-C02 is a bigger exam:

• Level: SOA-C03 Associate; DOP-C02 Professional
• Questions: SOA-C03 65 (50 scored); DOP-C02 75 (65 scored)
• Time: SOA-C03 130 minutes; DOP-C02 180 minutes
• Passing score: SOA-C03 720; DOP-C02 750
• Cost: SOA-C03 150 USD; DOP-C02 300 USD
• Target experience: SOA-C03 1 year on AWS; DOP-C02 2 or more years on AWS

DOP-C02 has six domains: SDLC Automation (22%), Configuration Management and IaC (17%), Resilient Cloud Solutions (15%), Monitoring and Logging (15%), Incident and Event Response (14%), and Security and Compliance (17%). Its target candidate also needs experience with the software development lifecycle and with programming or scripting.

The link between the two matters for recertification. Earning DOP-C02 automatically recertifies CloudOps Engineer — Associate. It also works for older SysOps Administrator — Associate holders, who can recertify by upgrading to DevOps Engineer — Professional. People who hold both DevOps Engineer — Professional and SysOps Administrator — Associate can keep both current by passing the latest DOP-C02 exam. AWS also gives you a 50% discount voucher for your next exam once you earn a certification.

Our suggestions

This is our advice, not AWS's. It is based on the official content above.

• Studying from SOA-C02 material: start with the comparison page. Put extra time into containers with the CloudWatch agent, the AWS CDK, multi-account tools such as StackSets and AWS RAM, and CloudWatch network monitoring. Skip S3 static website hosting.
• Planning your time: three domains carry 22% each, so 66% of the exam is monitoring, reliability and deployment. Give them most of your study hours.
• Thinking about DOP-C02 next: the overlap is strongest in monitoring, IaC, resilience and security. The biggest new area is CI/CD. SOA-C03 lists designing CI/CD pipelines as out of scope, while SDLC Automation is the largest DOP-C02 domain.
• Holding SysOps Administrator already: you do not have to sit SOA-C03. If DevOps Engineer — Professional is your goal anyway, passing it before your SysOps certification expires also recertifies it.

To check your readiness, ExamCrest has free SOA-C03 practice questions you can try first.

Confirm the latest details on AWS's CloudOps Engineer — Associate page, the DevOps Engineer — Professional page and the recertification page before you book.

_I run ExamCrest, where this post first appeared. Try free SOA-C03 practice questions:__https://examcrest.com/exam/aws-soa-c03/free-questions_

Fonte: Medium — tag aws