The CEA-C01 passing score is 70 out of 100 points. The Alibaba Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer exam has 50 questions worth 2 points each, so you need 35 questions' worth of points in 90 minutes, and the exam costs USD 200.
That one number shapes the whole plan. This entry breaks the 70 points down by question type and by topic, shows where most of them sit, and turns that into a four-week study plan, a worked security group scenario and a list of the mistakes that cost points. Every figure below was read on Alibaba Cloud's own pages on 31 October 2026.
What is the CEA-C01 passing score?
You pass the CEA-C01 exam with 70 points or more out of 100. Alibaba Cloud states this on the Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate: Cloud Engineer certification page as "70 (out of 100 points)", and the official exam syllabus repeats it: candidates must score at least 70 points.
Here are the exam details from that page, as they stood on the day this was written:
- Exam code: CEA-C01.
- Certification: Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate: Cloud Engineer.
- Questions: 50.
- Time: 90 minutes.
- Passing score: 70 out of 100 points.
- Price: USD 200.00.
- Language: English.
- Test type: you choose an offline or an online test on the exam platform.
- Status: live. It replaces the older ACA Cloud Computing certification.
Unlike exams that report a scaled score, this one uses plain points. That makes the target easy to work out in advance.
How are the 50 CEA-C01 questions scored?
Every question is worth the same: 2 points. The syllabus lists three question types:
- Single response: 25 questions, 2 points each, 50 points in total.
- Multiple response: 18 questions, 2 points each, 36 points in total.
- True/false: 7 questions, 2 points each, 14 points in total.
So 50 questions times 2 points gives the full 100. To reach 70 you need 35 questions' worth of points, which means you can lose up to 15 questions' worth and still pass.
The syllabus does not say whether a multiple-response question earns part of its points when you pick some but not all of the right options. The safe plan is to treat those 18 questions as all-or-nothing. They are more than a third of the paper, and they are where a half-known topic hurts most.
Which CEA-C01 topics carry the most points?
The official CEA-C01 exam syllabus (version 2026/01/08) splits the exam into three topics. The syllabus gives percentages, not question counts, so the counts below are simple arithmetic on 50 questions and only a rough guide.
- Basics of Alibaba Cloud: 12%, about 6 questions.
- Cloud Service Fundamentals: 76%, about 38 questions.
- Resource Management: 12%, about 6 questions.
The picture is clear. Cloud Service Fundamentals alone is worth more than the 70 points you need. If you know the core services well and nothing else, you are close. If you skip them, no amount of strength elsewhere can carry you, since the other two topics together hold only 24 points.
What does Cloud Service Fundamentals actually cover?
The syllabus lists five key skills. Read together with the topic weights, they tell you what the 38 or so service questions are about.
- Core services and their use cases. The syllabus names ECS, VPC, OSS, RDS, ACK and CDN as examples. For each one, know what problem it solves and when you would pick it over another service.
- Resource provisioning. Deploying and managing resources through the Alibaba Cloud console. This is "how do I actually create it" knowledge.
- Basic tools. Auto Scaling, DTS and DMS are named. Know what each one is for and the plain-language difference between them.
- Basic networking. Configuring VPCs, security groups and SLBs (load balancers).
- Basic security and monitoring. Securing the account with RAM, and basic use of CloudMonitor.
The syllabus calls the exam closed-book. You can't look anything up, so the service names and what they do need to be in your head, not in a bookmark.
How many questions can you miss and still pass CEA-C01?
On paper, 15 questions' worth of points. In practice, plan for fewer.
A useful way to think about it is a budget. You have 30 points to lose. Spend them on purpose, not by accident:
- True/false (14 points): these should be your cheapest points. Read every word, because one qualifier ("always", "only", "by default") decides the answer.
- Single response (50 points): aim to lose very little here. Most of these are "which service fits" questions in disguise.
- Multiple response (36 points): budget most of your losses here, and still aim to get at least two in three right.
Time matters too. 90 minutes for 50 questions is 1.8 minutes per question. That is generous for true/false items, so bank the spare time for the multiple-response questions, where you need to judge every option on its own.
Who is the CEA-C01 exam for?
Alibaba Cloud recommends the certification for junior solution architects. The syllabus describes the cloud engineer role as someone who understands Alibaba Cloud services well enough to create, configure and manage cloud resources, and calls it a foundation for moving into more specialised roles.
In plain terms, it suits you if:
- you work, or want to work, with Alibaba Cloud in a support, operations or junior architect role;
- you already know another public cloud and need to map that knowledge onto Alibaba Cloud's service names;
- you held, or were planning, the older ACA Cloud Computing certification, which CEA-C01 replaces.
If your day job is private cloud rather than public cloud, the 20-item checklist for the VMware 2V0-13.25 exam on this blog covers the VMware Cloud Foundation side of the same skill set.
What does a four-week CEA-C01 study plan look like?
This plan assumes about an hour a day on weekdays and a longer session at the weekend. It follows the points: most of the time goes where most of the points are.
- Week 1: Basics and the account. Learn the Alibaba Cloud vocabulary: regions, zones, the console, billing basics. Create a trial account and set up RAM users instead of working as the main account. This covers the "Basics" topic and the RAM part of security early, so every later lab is done the right way.
- Week 2: Compute and networking. Build a VPC with two vSwitches, launch ECS instances into it, and put an SLB in front of them. Change security group rules and watch what stops working. Networking is where the console clicks and the concepts meet, so do it by hand.
- Week 3: Storage, databases and delivery. Create an OSS bucket and set its access, launch a small RDS instance, and read how ACK and CDN fit into an application. Then look at DTS and DMS and write one sentence each on what they do. Finish the week with Auto Scaling on the ECS group from week 2.
- Week 4: Monitoring, management and review. Set a CloudMonitor alarm on your instances. Review the "Resource Management" topic. Then go back over the 18-question danger zone: for each core service, list the two or three facts that tell it apart from its neighbours.
Alibaba Cloud also sells the Cloud Engineer (Associate) Exam Preparation Course, a 9-chapter English e-learning course listed at USD 199.00. It is optional. The syllabus lists classroom training, self-paced e-learning and hands-on labs as ways to prepare.
A worked scenario: why can't two ECS instances talk to each other?
This scenario was written for this entry to show the kind of reasoning the networking skills call for. It is not taken from the exam.
You launch two ECS instances in the same VPC and put both in the same security group. A colleague says that is enough for them to reach each other over the private network. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. Why?
The answer depends on the type of security group. The ECS security group documentation explains the difference:
- In a basic security group, instances in the same group can talk to each other by default. Your colleague is right, unless someone has set the group's internal policy to isolation.
- In an advanced security group, there is no implicit connection inside the group. Traffic between the two instances is blocked until you add rules, and those rules must use IP addresses or CIDR blocks rather than another group's ID.
Two more details from the same page are worth knowing. Every ECS instance must belong to at least one security group. And the security groups attached to one network interface must all be the same type, so you can't mix a basic and an advanced group on one interface.
The lesson for the exam is to read scenario wording carefully. "Same security group" is not the whole story; the type of group and its internal policy decide the result.
What mistakes cost points on the CEA-C01 exam?
These are the patterns that most often turn a pass into a near miss on a points-based exam like this one:
- Studying the topics evenly. Basics and Resource Management are 12% each. Giving them the same time as Cloud Service Fundamentals wastes most of your study hours.
- Knowing service names but not use cases. The skill the syllabus names is understanding the services "and their use cases". Be able to say when you would use OSS instead of a disk on ECS, or RDS instead of a database on your own instance.
- Skipping the console. Resource provisioning through the console is a listed skill. Reading about a VPC is not the same as building one.
- Rushing multiple-response questions. Judge each option as true or false on its own before you look at the set as a whole.
- Ignoring the small rules. Default behaviours, such as what a security group allows inside itself, make good exam questions because they are easy to assume.
- Booking too late or too early. The exam is non-refundable, and Alibaba Cloud requires 14 days between any two of its professional exams. Pick a date you can keep.
How do you book the CEA-C01 exam?
The certification page lists four steps: select the exam, buy it, receive a test code, then log in to the exam platform. The exam platform is where you choose an offline test centre or an online test, and the certification page points to Pearson VUE for that step.
You can see the delivery options on the Alibaba Cloud page at Pearson VUE before you buy. Two rules from the certification page matter before you pay the USD 200: the exam is non-refundable, and 14 days must pass between the taking of any two professional exams.
A simple rule of thumb: book the date once you can explain every core service on the syllabus list in one sentence, without notes. Then use the last week for review, not for new topics.
For a wider view of the exam, including the syllabus topics and sample question formats, see the CEA-C01 Associate Cloud Engineer exam overview on VMExam.
Is there a video walkthrough of the CEA-C01 exam?
Yes. This VMExam video goes through how to approach the Alibaba Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer exam:
Frequently asked questions
1. What is the passing score for CEA-C01?
The passing score is 70 out of 100 points. Each of the 50 questions is worth 2 points, so 70 points equals 35 questions' worth of points.
2. How many questions are on the CEA-C01 exam?
The CEA-C01 exam has 50 questions: 25 single response, 18 multiple response and 7 true/false. You have 90 minutes to answer them.
3. How much does the CEA-C01 exam cost?
The exam costs USD 200.00 on Alibaba Cloud's certification page, checked on 31 October 2026. It is non-refundable.
4. Which CEA-C01 topic has the most weight?
Cloud Service Fundamentals, at 76% of the exam. Basics of Alibaba Cloud and Resource Management are 12% each.
5. Can I take the CEA-C01 exam online?
Yes. Alibaba Cloud says you choose either an offline or an online test on the exam platform. The exam is in English.