The AWS Certified Developer - Associate (DVA-C02) exam validates your ability to develop, deploy, and maintain applications on Amazon Web Services. This certification is designed for developers with hands-on experience building cloud applications and is a key credential within the Amazon Associate pathway. This page provides a structured overview of the exam syllabus, question formats, and practical preparation strategies to help you pass with confidence. Whether you're advancing your career or deepening your AWS expertise, understanding the exam's scope and testing approach is essential to focused study.
Use this topic map to guide your study for Amazon DVA-C02 (AWS Certified Developer - Associate) within the Amazon Associate, AWS Certified Developer Associate path.
The DVA-C02 exam uses multiple-choice and scenario-based questions to assess both theoretical knowledge and practical decision-making skills. Questions progress in difficulty and emphasize real-world application of AWS services in development workflows.
Questions build in complexity to reflect the depth of decision-making required in production AWS environments.
Effective preparation maps the four core domains to a structured weekly study plan, combining concept review with hands-on practice. Allocate more time to areas where you have less real-world experience, and use practice questions to identify gaps early.
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Development with AWS Services and Deployment typically account for the largest share of questions, reflecting the exam's focus on hands-on coding and release management. However, Security and Troubleshooting and Optimization are equally important for passing, as they appear throughout scenario-based questions and directly impact real-world application success.
In practice, these domains overlap continuously. For example, you write code (Development) with encryption and IAM roles (Security), deploy it through a CI/CD pipeline (Deployment), and monitor its performance with CloudWatch (Troubleshooting). Understanding these connections helps you answer scenario questions that test cross-domain reasoning rather than isolated facts.
AWS recommends at least one year of development experience with AWS services. Ideally, you should have built and deployed at least one application using Lambda, API Gateway, and a database service. If you lack this experience, prioritize hands-on labs in Development with AWS Services and Deployment before attempting the exam.
Candidates often confuse similar services (e.g., SQS vs. SNS, CodeDeploy vs. CodePipeline) or overlook security implications in scenario questions. Another frequent error is misunderstanding how IAM policies restrict service access. Practice scenario questions and review explanations carefully to avoid these pitfalls.
In the final week, focus on timed practice tests and review weak areas rather than learning new material. Take a full-length mock exam mid-week to identify gaps, then spend the remaining days drilling those specific topics. On the day before your exam, do a light review of key terms and service names, then rest well to arrive focused and alert.
A developer has an application that makes batch requests directly to Amazon DynamoDB by using the BatchGetItem low-level API operation. The responses frequently return values in the UnprocessedKeys element.
Which actions should the developer take to increase the resiliency of the application when the batch response includes values in UnprocessedKeys? (Choose two.)
The UnprocessedKeys element indicates that the BatchGetItem operation did not process all of the requested items in the current response. This can happen if the response size limit is exceeded or if the table's provisioned throughput is exceeded. To handle this situation, the developer should retry the batch operation with exponential backoff and randomized delay to avoid throttling errors and reduce the load on the table. The developer should also use an AWS SDK to make the requests, as the SDKs automatically retry requests that return UnprocessedKeys.
[BatchGetItem - Amazon DynamoDB]
[Working with Queries and Scans - Amazon DynamoDB]
[Best Practices for Handling DynamoDB Throttling Errors]
A company is using an Amazon API Gateway REST API endpoint as a webhook to publish events from an on-premises source control management (SCM) system to Amazon EventBridge. The company has configured an EventBridge rule to listen for the events and to control application deployment in a central AWS account. The company needs to receive the same events across multiple receiver AWS accounts.
How can a developer meet these requirements without changing the configuration of the SCM system?
A developer is building a three-tier web application that should be able to handle a minimum of 5000 requests per minute. Requirements state that the web tier should be completely stateless while the application maintains session state for the users.
How can session data be externalized, keeping latency at the LOWEST possible value?
Why Option C is Correct:
Amazon ElastiCache (Memcached) provides low-latency, in-memory caching suitable for session storage. It ensures stateless web tier operations and supports the high throughput of 5000 requests per minute.
Why Other Options are Incorrect:
Option A: RDS has higher latency compared to in-memory caching solutions like ElastiCache.
Option B: Shared file systems introduce additional complexity and are not ideal for low-latency session data storage.
Option D: DynamoDB has low latency but is less performant than ElastiCache for in-memory session management.
AWS Documentation Reference:
Amazon ElastiCache for Session State Management
A developer is using AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy an application. The application must be able to access API keys from a third-party service. Currently, the company stores the credentials to access the third-party service in the code bundle. The company must redeploy the code bundle when the credentials rotate. The developer wants to improve security and avoid redeployments. Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
The standard best practice for Elastic Beanstalk is to externalize configuration using Environment Variables. By storing sensitive API keys in SSM Parameter Store as a SecureString, you gain encryption and rotation capabilities. You then reference the parameter in the Elastic Beanstalk environment. The application can retrieve the value at runtime, and if the key is updated in Parameter Store, the application can pick up the change without needing a full code redeployment.
A developer is writing an application that will process data delivered into an Amazon S3 bucket. The data is delivered approximately 10 times a day, and the developer expects the data will be processed in less than 1 minute, on average. How can the developer deploy and invoke the application with the lowest cost and lowest latency?
S3 Event Notifications provide the lowest latency because the Lambda function is triggered immediately upon the object's creation. Because the application runs only 10 times a day for about 1 minute per run, AWS Lambda is significantly cheaper than an EC2 instance, which would incur costs even when idle. Scheduled events (Option C) would introduce latency because the function might not run immediately when data arrives.
