The AWS Training and Certification team recently announced a change in one of its popular Associate-level AWS certification exams. Effective September 2025, the “AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate” will be called the “AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate”  to reflect evolving industry terms and the broader scope of modern cloud operations.

What’s New with the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate Exam?

The decision to rename the existing AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exam to “AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate” is made to further enhance the relevance and credibility of the certification. This better highlights the skills certified professionals have in deploying, operating, and maintaining AWS workloads in various organizations.

Below are the key changes:

• Containers are now in scope(e.g. Kubernetes, Docker)

• More modern AWS services and features, such as AI-powered AWS offerings.

• Greater focus on multi-account and multi-Region architectures.



• Increased emphasis on automation and infrastructure as code (IaC) through CloudFormation and other tools

The exam code has also changed for the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate (formerly AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate) from SOA-C02 to SOA-C03 

Exam Prep Materials for the new AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate SOA-C03 version?

Our current line-up of exam prep materials for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate are still relevant to the upcoming AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate exam.

Again, the content change is mostly on the name to “CloudOps Engineer” as AWS aims to enhance the relevance and credibility of the certification, better highlighting the skills certified professionals have in deploying, operating, and maintaining AWS workloads. No changes as well on the exam domains.

In the coming weeks ahead, we will continually add more relevant lessons for our practice exams, video courses and eBook to reflect the new SOA-C03 topics. You can visit this complete exam guide for SOA-C03 for the newly added topics and services.

When will the new AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate SOA-C03 comes out?

• Registration for the new CloudOps Engineer (SOA-C03) exam opens September 9, 2025 (new exam guide available then).
• The old SysOps Administrator (SOA-C02) exam will retire on September 29, 2025 (last day to take it).
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