AWS Solutions Architect Interview Questions India 2026: SAA-C03 Exam and Cloud Architecture

AWS Solutions Architect salary India (2024-25):

Cloud architect with AWS SA Associate (0-3 years): 10-25 LPA. AWS Solutions Architect Professional (3-6 years): 22-50 LPA. Senior cloud architect (6-10 years): 40-90 LPA. Cloud architect/CTO level: 80-150 LPA.

AWS SA certification premium: candidates with AWS SA Associate certification command 15-25% higher salaries than non-certified cloud engineers at the same experience level.

Companies with high demand for AWS architects in India:

• IT services companies building cloud practices (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini all have massive AWS consulting practices)
• Indian product companies migrating to AWS (Razorpay, Swiggy, Flipkart, CRED)
• Global MNC India delivery centers (Amazon itself, Capital One India, Citibank technology)

AWS interview questions on core services:

1. EC2 vs Lambda vs ECS/EKS: EC2: virtual machines; you manage the OS, patching, and scaling; most control but most management overhead. Use when you need full control, long-running processes, or specific OS configurations. Lambda: serverless functions; no server management; event-driven; automatically scales to zero; billed per invocation. Use for short-running tasks (API handlers, S3 event processing, cron jobs; maximum 15 minutes per invocation). ECS (Elastic Container Service): AWS-native container orchestration (Docker containers); Fargate mode removes server management. EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service): managed Kubernetes; use when your team has Kubernetes expertise and needs Kubernetes-native tooling.

2. S3 vs EBS vs EFS: S3: object storage for unstructured data (images, videos, backups, static files, data lake); highly durable (11 nines); access via HTTP; no direct block access. Best for large-scale data storage with infrequent random access. EBS (Elastic Block Store): block storage attached to a single EC2 instance; like a hard drive; use for databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL on EC2) and OS disks. EFS (Elastic File System): shared file system that multiple EC2 instances can access simultaneously; use for shared data between instances (CMS content, shared application data).

3. RDS vs Aurora vs DynamoDB: RDS: managed relational database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server); handles backups, patching, multi-AZ. Aurora: AWS's proprietary MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible database; 5x faster than MySQL; auto-scaling storage; serverless option. DynamoDB: fully managed NoSQL (key-value and document); millisecond latency at any scale; use for gaming leaderboards, session stores, and any use case needing predictable low-latency at scale.

AWS networking questions:

1. What is a VPC? A VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is a logically isolated network within AWS. Every AWS account gets a default VPC in each region.

Key VPC components:

• Subnets: public (internet-facing, with a route to the internet gateway) or private (internal only, no direct internet access). Place databases and internal services in private subnets.
• Route tables: control where traffic is directed. Public subnet route table has a route to the internet gateway (0.0.0.0/0 -> igw-...).
• Internet gateway: enables internet access for resources in public subnets.
• NAT gateway: allows resources in private subnets to initiate outbound internet connections (for downloading software updates) without being directly reachable from the internet.
• Security groups: stateful firewall rules at the instance/resource level. Define which ports and protocols are allowed in and out.
• NACLs (Network ACLs): stateless firewall at the subnet level. Processed in order; both inbound and outbound rules needed.

2. Security groups vs NACLs: Security groups: stateful (if you allow inbound traffic, the return traffic is automatically allowed); applied to instances; only allow rules (no explicit deny). NACLs: stateless (must define both inbound and outbound rules); applied to subnets; support both allow and deny rules; processed in order.

3. IAM roles, policies, and least privilege: IAM (Identity and Access Management): controls who (authentication) can do what (authorization) in AWS. IAM roles: used by AWS services (EC2, Lambda) to access other AWS resources without embedding credentials. IAM policies: JSON documents that define permissions. Least privilege: grant only the permissions needed for a specific task.

Architecture design questions for AWS SA interviews:

1. High availability architecture: Multi-AZ deployments: deploy resources across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) so that if one data centre fails, another takes over. RDS Multi-AZ creates a synchronous standby in a different AZ. Load balancing: Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributes HTTP/HTTPS traffic across multiple EC2 instances or containers. Network Load Balancer (NLB) handles TCP traffic at ultra-high performance. Auto Scaling Groups: automatically add or remove EC2 instances based on load. Define minimum, maximum, and desired capacity.

2. Disaster recovery strategies (in order of recovery time and cost): Backup and restore: slowest (hours), cheapest. Automated backups to S3; restore from backup when disaster strikes. Pilot light: a minimal version of the environment always running (database replicating from production); scale up quickly when needed. Warm standby: a scaled-down but fully functional version always running; scale to production size when needed. Multi-site active-active: full production in two regions simultaneously; fastest (minutes), most expensive.

3. CloudFront (CDN): CloudFront is AWS's Content Delivery Network. It caches content at edge locations globally, reducing latency for end users. Use with S3 (to serve static assets) or ALB (to cache dynamic content). Also provides DDoS protection via AWS Shield integration.

4. SAA-C03 exam key topics for Indian candidates: The AWS SA Associate exam (SAA-C03) is the most popular AWS certification in India. Key domains: design secure architectures, design resilient architectures, design high-performing architectures, design cost-optimised architectures. Study resources: AWS official exam guide, Adrian Cantrill's course (considered the best), AWS whitepapers (Well-Architected Framework, Disaster Recovery whitepaper), and practice exams from Tutorials Dojo.