AWS Fundamentals I

Question 1

What is AWS?

Answer 1

Amazon Web services is a Cloud provider for servers and services that one can use on demand and scale easily.
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AWS is like a giant toy store in the sky where you can borrow lots of cool toys to play with on your computer. It has all sorts of games, tools, and even a magic wand to help you build amazing things without needing to keep all the toys at your home.

Question 2

What are the components of AWS global architecture?

Explain the key components that contribute to the global nature of AWS infrastructure.

How AWS global architecture structured to ensure worldwide availability?

Summarize the significance of these components in AWS global architecture.

Answer 2

Components of AWS Global Architecture include:

Regions: AWS is divided into geographic regions worldwide, each comprising multiple Availability Zones.

Availability Zones (AZs): These are data centers within a region, isolated from each other to provide fault tolerance and stability.

Edge Locations: These are locations worldwide where content is cached for low-latency access through AWS CloudFront.

Content Delivery Network (CDN): AWS CloudFront, part of AWS’s CDN, enhances content delivery by distributing it globally.

Amazon Route 53: A scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS) web service for routing end-user requests to globally distributed resources.

Real world Use-Case: Consider a global application where users from different continents access the same service. AWS’s global architecture ensures low-latency and high availability by utilizing regions, AZs, and edge locations.

Clarifier: AWS’s global architecture is designed to provide redundancy, low-latency access, and high availability for services and applications deployed on the AWS cloud.

The components of AWS global architecture collectively create a robust and scalable infrastructure, allowing businesses to deploy and operate applications with global reach, reliability, and performance.

Question 3

How do you choose an AWS Region?

What factors should be considered when selecting the AWS Region for deploying resources?How do you choose an AWS Region?
Based on what aspects

Explain the key considerations in choosing an AWS Region.

Summarize the significance of thoughtful region selection in AWS.

Answer 3

Answer: Choosing an AWS Region involves considering the following factors:

• Proximity to Users: Select a region that is geographically close to your end-users to minimize latency and improve performance.
• Compliance and Data Residency: Ensure the chosen region complies with regulatory requirements and data residency restrictions relevant to your business.
• Service Availability: Not all AWS services are available in every region. Choose a region that supports the specific AWS services required for your application.
• Cost: Pricing may vary across regions. Evaluate the cost implications, including data transfer costs, in the chosen region.
• High Availability: Utilize multiple Availability Zones within a region for fault tolerance and high availability.

Real world Use-Case: If you have a global user base, you might choose a region that is strategically located to provide optimal performance for users in different parts of the world.

Thoughtful region selection is crucial for optimizing performance, ensuring compliance, and managing costs effectively in AWS.

Choosing the right AWS Region is a strategic decision that impacts the performance, cost, and compliance of your applications. It requires careful consideration of factors to align with your specific business requirements and user needs.

Question 4

How many available zones does each region have ?

Answer 4

Min: 3; Max; 6
Commonly 3

Question 5

What is an Availability Zone?

How is an Availability Zone defined in the context of AWS infrastructure?

Explain the purpose and characteristics of AWS Availability Zones.

Summarize the significance of Availability Zones in ensuring high availability.

Answer 5

Answer: An Availability Zone (AZ) in AWS is a physically separate and isolated data center within a region. It is designed to be independent of other Availability Zones, with its own power, cooling, and networking infrastructure.
Real world Use-Case: Consider an e-commerce application hosted on AWS. By distributing resources across multiple Availability Zones, the application remains available and resilient even if one zone experiences issues or failures.
Clarifier: AWS customers can deploy applications and services across multiple Availability Zones to achieve fault tolerance and high availability. Each Availability Zone is connected to the others through low-latency links but operates independently.They are one or more discrete data centers with redundant power networking and connectivity.
They are connected with high bandwidth for ultra-low latency networking
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Imagine you have a big playground divided into different sections, and each section has its own special toys and games. Now, think of each section as an “availability zone.”

Availability Zones play a critical role in ensuring the resilience and availability of applications and services hosted on AWS. They are a fundamental building block for creating fault-tolerant architectures and minimizing the impact of failures on the overall system.

Question 6

What are Edge Locations in the AWS network?

How are Edge Locations defined within the AWS infrastructure?

Explain the role and characteristics of AWS Edge Locations.

Summarize the importance of Edge Locations in the AWS global network.

Answer 6

Answer: Edge Locations in the AWS network are endpoints for AWS content delivery services, such as Amazon CloudFront. They are strategically located around the world to provide low-latency access to cached content for end-users.
Real world Use-Case: When a user in a specific region requests content, AWS routes that request to the nearest Edge Location, reducing latency by delivering content from a location closer to the end-user.
Clarifier: Edge Locations act as caching endpoints for content delivery services, enhancing the performance and scalability of applications by reducing the distance between users and the stored content.These are points of presence to ensure content is delivered to the end user with the lowest latency.

AWS, edge locations help get stuff to people faster, like videos or games, by being closer to where they are!

• AWS has 400+ PointsOfPresence

Question 7

Is IAM a global AWS service or Region Scoped

Answer 7

Global

Question 8

Is Route 53 a global AWS service or Region Scoped

Answer 8

Global

Question 9

Is CloudFront a global AWS service or Region Scoped

Answer 9

Global

Question 10

Is WAF a global AWS service or Region Scoped

web application firewall that helps protect web applications from attacks by allowing you to configure rules that allow, block, or monitor (count) web requests based on conditions that you define.

Answer 10

Global

Question 11

Is EC2 a global AWS service or Region Scoped

Answer 11

Region

Question 12

Is Elastic Beanstalk a global AWS service or Region Scoped?

Answer 12

Region

Question 13

Is Lambda a global AWS service or Region Scoped

Answer 13

Region

Question 14

Is Rekognition a global AWS service or Region Scoped

Answer 14

Region

Question 15

What is API Gateway?

How is API Gateway defined in the context of AWS?

Explain the purpose and characteristics of API Gateway.

Summarize the significance of using API Gateway in AWS.

Answer 15

Answer: API Gateway is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services that allows developers to create, publish, and manage APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) at scale.
It acts as a front door for applications to access data, services, or functionalities, providing features such as authentication, authorization, and traffic management.

Real world Use-Case: Consider a scenario where a company wants to expose its backend services securely to external developers. API Gateway can be used to create and manage APIs, ensuring proper authentication and authorization while handling the traffic efficiently.

API Gateway simplifies the process of creating and managing APIs, offering a unified entry point for applications to access backend services. It includes features for securing APIs, controlling access, and optimizing performance.

The use of API Gateway is significant for building scalable and secure APIs in the AWS cloud. By leveraging API Gateway, developers can streamline the process of API development, management, and maintenance, enhancing the overall accessibility and security of their applications.

Question 16

What is Microservices Architecture?

How is Microservices Architecture defined in the context of software development?

Explain the purpose and characteristics of Microservices Architecture.

Summarize the significance of using Microservices Architecture in software design.

Answer 16

Answer: Microservices Architecture is an approach to software development where a complex application is decomposed into smaller, independent, and loosely coupled services. Each service, known as a microservice, is designed to perform a specific business function and communicates with other microservices through well-defined APIs. This architecture promotes modularity, scalability, and flexibility in building and maintaining large-scale applications.

Real world Use-Case: Consider a scenario where an e-commerce platform is built using Microservices Architecture. Each microservice can handle specific functionalities like user authentication, inventory management, and order processing, allowing for independent development, deployment, and scaling.

Microservices Architecture is characterized by the decomposition of a monolithic application into smaller, independently deployable services. Each microservice is responsible for a specific business capability, promoting agility and ease of development.

The use of Microservices Architecture is significant for designing applications that can scale, evolve, and be maintained more effectively. By adopting this architectural style, developers can build modular, resilient, and responsive systems that align with the dynamic requirements of modern software development.

Question 17

What are Step Functions?

How are Step Functions defined in the context of AWS?

Explain the purpose and characteristics of Step Functions.

Summarize the significance of using Step Functions in AWS.

Answer 17

Answer: Step Functions is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services that enables the creation and execution of serverless workflows. It allows developers to coordinate and orchestrate multiple AWS services, including AWS Lambda functions, in a visual and declarative manner. Step Functions provide a reliable way to build and execute workflows with built-in error handling, state management, and easy integration with other AWS services.

Real world Use-Case: Consider a scenario where a data processing pipeline involves multiple steps like data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL). Step Functions can be used to create a visual workflow that orchestrates these steps, ensuring a reliable and scalable data processing pipeline.

Step Functions simplify the process of orchestrating workflows by providing a visual representation of the workflow steps. It allows developers to focus on defining the workflow logic without managing the underlying infrastructure.

The use of Step Functions is significant for building scalable and reliable serverless workflows. By leveraging Step Functions, developers can create complex workflows with ease, improving the coordination and orchestration of various tasks within applications on the AWS cloud.

Question 18

What are AWS Lambda Limits?

How are AWS Lambda Limits defined in the context of serverless computing?

Explain the key limitations and constraints associated with AWS Lambda.

Summarize the significance of understanding Lambda limits in AWS.

Answer 18

Answer: AWS Lambda Limits refer to the constraints and limitations imposed on the usage of AWS Lambda, which is a serverless computing service. These limits encompass factors such as:
1. Execution time; automatically terminated if it runs for more than 15 minutes.
2. Memory allocation; 128 MB to 3,008 MB (or 3 GB).
3. concurrent executions
4. Deployment package size: (compressed, zip or jar format).
- AWS Management Console; the maximum size is 3 MB.
- AWS CloudFormation; the maximum size 50 MB

It is crucial for developers to be aware of these limits to ensure optimal and efficient use of Lambda functions within their applications.

The significance of understanding AWS Lambda Limits lies in ensuring that serverless applications are designed within the specified constraints. Adhering to these limits helps optimize
- performance,
- avoid potential issues,
- ensure efficient use of AWS Lambda in the cloud environment.

Question 19

VPC

How many VPCs can account be associated with?
Are VPCs always private and isolated ?
What are the types of VPCs?

Answer 19

1. VPC is virutal private network in AWS.
2. A VPC is with 1 ACCOUNT and 1 REGION
3. Yes, by default. But, unless configured otherwise they are always PRIVATE and ISOLATED.
4. DEFAULT and CUSTOM VPC are the 2 types of VPCs.

Question 20

CloudTrail vs. CloudWatch

• CloudTrail focuses on auditing and recording AWS API activity and account-level events, while CloudWatch focuses on monitoring the performance and health of AWS resources and applications.
• CloudTrail captures API calls and related events, whereas CloudWatch collects and monitors metrics and logs.
• CloudTrail is primarily used for governance, compliance, and auditing purposes, while CloudWatch is used for operational monitoring, troubleshooting, and performance optimization.

Answer 20

CloudTrail:

• Definition: AWS CloudTrail is a service that provides governance, compliance, and operational auditing of AWS account activity.
• It records API calls and related events made within AWS accounts and delivers log files to an Amazon S3 bucket.
• Purpose: CloudTrail helps track changes made to resources, diagnose operational issues, and simplify compliance auditing.
• It provides visibility into user activity, resource changes, and API usage across AWS services.
• Key Features: Captures API calls, including who made the call, the source IP address, and the actions performed.
• Enables real-time monitoring and analysis of AWS account activity.
• Supports integration with third-party monitoring and analysis tools for advanced insights.

CloudWatch:
* Definition: Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service that provides visibility into AWS resources and applications.
* It collects and tracks metrics, monitors logs, and generates alarms based on predefined thresholds.
* Purpose: CloudWatch helps monitor the performance, health, and availability of AWS resources and applications in real-time.
* It enables proactive monitoring, troubleshooting, and automatic scaling of AWS resources based on demand.
* Key Features: Collects and stores metrics for AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, S3 buckets, and RDS databases.
* Monitors logs generated by AWS services and applications, allowing for analysis and troubleshooting.
* Supports customizable dashboards, alarms, and notifications to alert users about performance or availability issues.

CloudTrail can be different types - Management Event (DEFAULT), Data Events (Need t be enabled for tracking), Insight events

Question 21

CloudTrail Global Service Events

Facts

Answer 21

• AWS CloudTrail is a service that provides governance, compliance, and operational auditing of AWS account activity.
• Most AWS services log data in the same region where the service is located.
• However, certain AWS services such as IAM (Identity and Access Management), STS (Security Token Service), and CloudFront are classified as true global services.
• These global services log their data as global service events, regardless of the AWS region.