AWS Core Services Flashcards

1
Q

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

A
  • A web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud
  • Designed to make cloud computing easier for developers as it provides complete control of your computing resources
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2
Q

What does ‘elastic’ refer to within EC2?

A

The fact that if your servers (EC2 instances) are configured properly, you can increase or decrease the amount of servers required by an application automatically

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3
Q

What does ‘compute’ refer to within EC2?

A

The server (EC2 instances) that resources are being presented from

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4
Q

What does ‘cloud’ refer to within EC2?

A

The fact that the resources are cloud-hosted compute resources

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5
Q

Benefits of EC2 instances

A
  • Pay as you go — you only pay for running instances

- Broad selection of hardware/software and selection of where to host your instances

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6
Q

Steps to build and configure an EC2 instance

A
  • Choose the region where the instance will be hosted
  • Launch the EC2 wizard
  • Select the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) — which provides a software platform for the instance
  • Select the instance type — which refers to the hardware capabilities
  • Configure the network, storage, and key pairs
  • Launch & connect
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7
Q

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)

A

An easy to use, high performance block storage service designed for use with Amazon EC2 for both throughput and transaction intensive workloads at any scale

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8
Q

Benefits of Amazon EBS volumes

A
  • Can be used as a storage device for Amazon EC2 instances
  • Gives you the ability to create point-in-time snapshots of your volumes and recreate a new volume from a snapshot at any time in order to provide an even higher level of data durability
  • Have the ability to increase capacity and change to different types — such as a hard disk to an SSD disk (and vice versa)
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9
Q

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)

A
  • A fully managed storage service that provides a simple API for storing and retrieving data
  • Ability to place unlimited objects in the service as it holds trillions of objects and regularly peaks at millions of requests per second
  • Provides low-latency access to data over the internet by HTTP or HTTPS — that way you can retrieve data anytime and from anywhere
  • Ability to create buckets to store data
  • Can access this service via the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, AWS SDK, or in your bucket directly via the rest endpoints
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10
Q

What is a “key”?

A
  • A string that can be used to retrieve the object later (Example– media.welcome.mp4)
  • Common practice is to set these strings in a way that resembles a file path
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11
Q

Amazon S3 common use cases:

A
  • Storing application assets
  • Static Web Hosting
  • Backup & disaster recovery
  • Staging area for Big Data
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12
Q

AWS Global Infrastructure includes:

A
  • AWS Regions
  • Availability Zones
  • Edge locations
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13
Q

AWS Regions

A

Geographic areas that host two or more Availability Zones and are the organizing level for AWS services

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14
Q

Details about AWS Regions:

A
  • Picking the right region is important to optimize latency while minimizing costs and adhering to regulatory requirements
  • Ability to deploy resources in multiple regions
  • Regions are separate from one another — resources and services are not automatically replicated in other regions
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15
Q

Availability Zones

A

Collection of data centers within a specific region

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16
Q

Details about Availability Zones:

A
  • Each zone is physically isolated from other data centers, but connected by a fast, low-latency network
  • They are physically distinct, independent infrastructures
  • Have their own discrete, uninterruptable power supply; onsite backup generators; cooling equipment; and networking and connectivity
  • Supplied by different grids; from independent utility companies for power
  • Isolating the zones means they are protected from failures in other zones — which ensures high availability
  • AWS recommends provisioning your data across multiple zones as a best practice
17
Q

Data redundancy

A

If one Availability Zone goes down, the other zones can still handle requests

18
Q

Edge locations

A

They host a cloud delivery network (CDN) called Amazon CloudFront — which delivers content to your customers

19
Q

Details about edge locations:

A
  • Requests for content are automatically routed to the nearest edge location so that content is delivered faster to end users
  • Edge locations are typically located in highly populated areas
20
Q

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

A

The networking AWS service that meets your networking requirements

21
Q

Details about Amazon VPC:

A
  • Allows you to create a private, virtual network in the AWS cloud
  • Allows complete control of network configuration
  • Ability to control what you expose to the Internet and what you isolate within the VPC in a way to layer security controls within the network
22
Q

Features of Amazon VPC:

A
  • Builds upon the high availability of AWS Regions and Availability Zones since these live within regions and can span across multiple zones
  • Subnets
  • Route tables
  • Internet Gateway (IGW)
  • Network Address Translation (NAT) Gateway
  • Network Access Control List (NACL)
23
Q

Subnets

A

Used to divide VPC’s and allow VPC’s to span across multiple availability zones

24
Q

Details about subnets:

A
  • Ability to create multiple subnets — but the fewer created, the better as it creates complexity of the network topology if more subnets are created
  • Subnets are classified as either public or private
25
Q

Public subnet

A

A subnet that has direct access to the Internet

26
Q

Private subnet

A

A subnet that does not have direct access to the Internet

27
Q

Route tables

A

Contains sets of rules (called routes) that are used to determine where network traffic from your subnet or gateway is directed

28
Q

Internet Gateway (IGW)

A

Allows access to the Internet from Amazon VPC

29
Q

Network Address Translation (NAT) Gateway

A

Allows private subnet resources to access the Internet and other AWS services, but prevent the internet from initiating a connection with those resources

30
Q

Network Access Control Lists (NACL)

A

An optional layer of security for your VPC that acts as a firewall for controlling traffic in and out of your subnets

31
Q

AWS Security Groups

A
  • Act like a built-in firewall for your virtual servers
  • Have full control of accessibility of your instances
  • Web Tier only accepts traffic from the Internet, the Application Tier only accepts traffic from the Web Tier, and the Database Tier only accepts traffic from the Application Tier (Internet —> Web —> Application —> Database)
  • By default, all inbound traffic is DENIED and all outbound traffic is ALLOWED; but you can edit this
  • 0.0.0.0/0 is the source that allows for all web traffic