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AWS DVA-C03 Study Guide

AWS Certified Developer Associate DVA-C03

The AWS Certified Developer Associate (DVA-C03) is an associate-level exam on developing, testing, deploying and debugging applications on AWS, including AI-assisted development tools. It covers development with AWS services, security, testing and deployment, and troubleshooting and optimization. It suits developers who build and maintain applications on AWS.

  • Exam code DVA-C03
  • Associate level
  • 4 exam domains

This guide is free, with no sign-up. It explains every AWS DVA-C03 exam topic in plain English, one chapter at a time. Read them in order or jump straight to the topic you need.

  • 4chapters
  • 24topics
  • 4diagrams and exhibits
  • 1 h 58 minfast track
Start with Development with AWS Services
  • Every topic follows the same simple pattern: what it is, how it works, common mistakes
  • Diagrams and real command output where a picture explains it best
  • Exam tips and worked subnetting and IPv6 practice, with answers

How the exam is weighted

Each domain is worth this share of the exam, so spend your study time in proportion. Select a domain to open its chapter.

Chapters

Open a chapter to see its topics and how long each takes.

1Development with AWS Services7 topics · 35 min fast trackDecoupling, SDKs, events and streams, Lambda, data stores, DynamoDB and AI services.
  1. 1Decoupling, Sync or Async, and API Gateway5 min
  2. 2SDK Calls, Serialization, and Resilience5 min
  3. 3Event Driven Patterns, Streaming, and Lambda Triggers5 min
  4. 4Lambda Configuration, VPC Access, and Error Handling5 min
  5. 5Choosing Data Stores and Caching5 min
  6. 6DynamoDB Design and Data Lifecycles5 min
  7. 7AI-Assisted Development and Managed AI Services5 min
Read the chapter overview →
2Security6 topics · 29 min fast trackFederation and roles, permissions and presigned URLs, encryption, secrets, and securing AI services and agents.
  1. 1Federation, Assumed Roles and Programmatic Access5 min
  2. 2Permissions, Access Control and Presigned URLs5 min
  3. 3Encryption, KMS Keys and Certificates5 min
  4. 4Secrets and Sensitive Data4 min
  5. 5Securing Access, Privacy and Logs for AI Services5 min
  6. 6Guardrails and AI Agent Security5 min
Read the chapter overview →
3Testing and Deployment6 topics · 29 min fast trackPackaging, configuration, testing, containers, IaC, CI/CD pipelines, CodeDeploy and rollback.
  1. 1Packaging Code and Container Images5 min
  2. 2Environment Configuration and API Stages5 min
  3. 3Testing Lambda and API Code5 min
  4. 4Containers and Infrastructure as Code5 min
  5. 5Source Control and CI/CD Pipelines4 min
  6. 6Deployment Strategies and Rollback5 min
Read the chapter overview →
4Troubleshooting and Optimization5 topics · 25 min fast trackLogs, metrics, tracing, alarms, debugging, concurrency, messaging and caching.
  1. 1Logs, Metrics and Traces5 min
  2. 2Custom Metrics, Alerts, Tracing and Health Checks5 min
  3. 3Debugging Code, Integrations and Deployment Failures5 min
  4. 4Concurrency, Memory and Messaging Optimization5 min
  5. 5Caching and Performance Bottleneck Detection5 min
Read the chapter overview →

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The full AWS DVA-C03 question bank has 850 questions, with timed practice exams and an explanation for every answer.

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