That was a tough but fair exam. 77 Questions in 170 minutes, I finished with about 35 minutes to go. There is a LOT of reading involved and it definitely requires that you've actually set up the services in the console and understand how they function. That's 4/5, now I get to decide how badly I want that DevOps Pro cert... (probably not that bad
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Studying: I've been working with AWS since 2012, it's been my primary focus since 2014. I've worked with most of the services in the scope of this exam, but I still went back and re-read the AWS documentation on them prior to the test. You won't pass this exam without having worked with the core services in the AWS console and understanding them well. Use the free tier if you have to, walk through service deployment and configurations. Understand sizing (throughput, IOPS, EBS performance) and pricing also, aka which services cost more or less than others, some questions will present several technically correct options and ask you which is the most cost effective. Understand IAM and authentication very well. I used CloudAcademy and watched all of the architecture-focused re:Invent youtube videos I could find. Here are some whitepapers (must read), articles and sites I found useful:
AWS Well Architected FrameworkAWS Security Best PracticesAWS VPC for on-premise Network Engineers (great explanation of how VPC networking functions)
AWS Cert **** Sheet <--Great for a quick refresh
I also took the Architecting on AWS and Advanced Architecting on AWS courses from Amazon, those are helpful but will not prepare you to take the certification exams.
