AWS Integrated Services Flashcards

1
Q

Application Load Balancer

A

A type of load balancer that registers targets instead of instances

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2
Q

Application Load Balancer features:

A
  • Additional supported request protocols
  • Enhanced metrics and access logs
  • More target health checks
  • Ability to enable additional routing mechanisms for requests using path-based or host-based routing; as well as AWS web application firewall integration
  • Allows you to route different requests to the same instance, but differ the path based on the port
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3
Q

Path-based routing

A

A type of routing that allows to create rules that forward requests to different target groups

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4
Q

Application Load Balancer key terms:

A
  • Listener
  • Target
  • Target groups
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5
Q

Listener

A
  • A process within the Application Load Balancer that checks for connection requests
  • The rules you define determine how the load balancer routes requests to the targets in one or more target groups
  • When configuring these, you create rules to direct how the requests received by the load balancer will be routed to backend targets
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6
Q

Target

A

Within the Application Load Balancer, it’s a destination for traffic based on the established listener rules

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7
Q

Target groups

A
  • Within the Application Load Balancer, it’s a group that routes requests to one or more registered targets
  • A target can be registered with multiple groups while health checks can be configured on a per group basis
  • You create these groups to register targets to the load balancer and configure health checks that the load balancer will use for targets
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8
Q

Host-based routing

A

A type of routing that provides the ability to have multiple domains supported by the same load balancer and route requests to target groups based on the requested domain

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9
Q

Application Load Balancer enhanced features:

A
  • Supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, etc.)
  • CloudWatch metrics (additional load balance metrics)
  • Access logs (Ability to see connection details)
  • Health checks (Insight into target and application health)
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10
Q

Application Load Balancer added features:

A
  • Path and host-based routing
  • Deletion protection & request tracing – used to track HTTP requests from client to target
  • Dynamic ports
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11
Q

Auto Scaling

A
  • Helps ensure you have the correct number of Amazon EC2 instances available to handle the load of your application
  • It’s critical to monitor the performance of your workload using Amazon CloudWatch – even though by itself, EC2 instances will not be added or removed
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12
Q

Auto Scaling helps to answer which two critical questions?

A
  • Scalability

- Automation

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13
Q

Scalabilty

A

How to ensure you workload has enough EC2 resources to meet fluctuating performance requirements

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14
Q

Automation

A

How to automate EC2 resource provisioning to occur on-demand

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15
Q

“Scaling Out”

A

When you add more instances

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16
Q

“Scaling In”

A

When you terminate instances

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17
Q

Three components for Auto Scaling:

A
  • Launch Configuration
  • Auto Scaling Group
  • Auto Scaling Policy
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18
Q

Launch Configuration

A
  • Within auto scaling, it’s defining what will be launched

- Examples — AMI, Instance type, security groups, roles, etc.

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19
Q

Auto Scaling Group

A
  • Defining where the deployment takes place and boundaries for the deployment
  • Examples — defining which VPC deploys instances, which load balancer to interact with, specifying boundaries for a group, etc.
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20
Q

Auto Scaling Policy

A
  • Defining when to launch or terminate EC2 instances
  • Best practice is to create at least one policy for scaling out and another for scaling in
  • Common configuration — creating CloudWatch alarms based on performance information from EC2 instances or a load balancer
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21
Q

CloudWatch alarm for Auto Scaling

A
  • 1st part of alarm is a condition (CPU utilization) with a specific threshold (% of usage)
  • 2nd part of alarm is the action to perform after the alarm has been triggered – action could be adding/removing instances
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22
Q

Amazon Route 53

A
  • It’s a Domain Name System (DNS) designed to provide businesses and developers with a reliable and highly scalable way to route end-users to internet applications — think of this system as an “address book”
  • Translates website names like www.example.com into numeric IP addresses that computers use to connect with one another
  • To provide DNS translation for your domain name, you can either manage your own DNS or employ a managed DNS, like this service
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23
Q

How does Amazon Route 53 work?

A
  • First, a user opens a web browser and enters the domain name for a website (www.example.com)
  • Then, that query is typically routed to an internet service provider’s DNS resolver

If that website’s DNS is handled by this service, the internet service provider’s DNS resolver forwards the request to the DNS hosted and managed by this service

  • Then, this service’s server gathers the value associated with www.example.com - say 192.0.2.44 - and returns that IP address to the internet service provider’s DNS resolver, which gives the user the specified content
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24
Q

Domain Name System (DNS) resolutions:

A
  • Simple routing
  • Geo-location
  • Failover
  • Weighted routing
  • Latency-based
  • Multi-value answer routing
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25
Q

Geo-location

A
  • It’s a DNS resolution that bases routing on where the user’s DNS request came from
  • Allows you to serve traffic from resources designed for that location
  • You could have multiple copies of your website deployed to different regions in different languages, making sure your users are routed to the appropriate copy of your website based on their location
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26
Q

Failover

A

It’s a DNS resolution that routes traffic towards healthy resources and away from unhealthy resources

27
Q

Weighted routing

A

It’s a DNS resolution that let’s you associate multiple resources with a single domain name (example.com) or subdomain name (www.example.com) and choose what percentage of your traffic goes to each resource

28
Q

Latency-based

A

It’s a DNS resolution for if your application is hosted in multiple EC2 regions, you can improve performance for users by serving their requests from the EC2 region that provides the lowest latency

29
Q

Multi-value answer routing

A
  • It’s a DNS resolution that allows you to configure Route 53 to multiple values; such as IP addresses for your web servers, in response to DNS queries
  • Let’s you check the health of each resource
  • It’s NOT a substitute for a load balancer, but the ability to return multiple health-checkable IP addresses is a way to use DNS to improve availability and load balancing
30
Q

Amazon Relational Database services (Amazon RDS)

A
  • Managed service that sets up and operates a relational database in the cloud
  • Your main focus becomes your data and optimizing your application; while this service manages the administrative tasks (challenges)
  • Basic functionality is the same whether or not it’s running in an Amazon VPC
  • Ability to configure your database instance for high availability with a multi-agency deployment
  • Does not have any licensing constraints
31
Q

Amazon RDS challenges include:

A
  • Server maintenance and energy footprint
  • Software and OS install and patches
  • Database backups and high availability
  • Limits on scalability
  • Data security
32
Q

Amazon RDS database instance

A
  • An isolated database environment that can contain multiple user-created databases and can be accessed using the same tools and applications that you use with a standalone database instance
  • Resources found in a database instance are determined by its instance class
  • Instances and storage differ in performance characteristics and price
  • The database instance is usually isolated in a private subnet and is only made directly accessible to indicated application instances
33
Q

What are the six databases that Amazon RDS supports?

A
  • MySQL
  • Amazon Aurora
  • Microsoft Sequel Server
  • PostgreSQL
  • MariaDB
  • Oracle
34
Q

Amazon RDS subnet

A

It’s associated with a single Availability Zone and selecting this chooses an Availability Zone or physical location for your database instance

35
Q

Amazon RDS multi-agency deployment

A
  • When a database instance is configured, Amazon RDS automatically generates a standby copy of the database instance in another Availability Zone within the same VPC
  • Transactions are synchronously replicated to the standby copy — which allows for enhanced availability during maintenance and failures/disruptions
  • If the master database instance fails, then the standby database instance gets brought online and becomes the master database instance
36
Q

Amazon RDS read replicas

A
  • Allow for you to scale out beyond the capacity constraints of a single database instance for read-heavy database workloads
  • Can be promoted to master database instances, but requires manual action due to its asynchronous replication
  • Ability to create them in different regions than the master database which can help with disaster recovery requirements or cutting down on latency
37
Q

Amazon RDS use cases:

A
  • Web & mobile applications — high throughput, massive storage scalability, high availability
  • E-commerce applications — low-cost database, data security, fully managed solution
  • Mobile & online games — rapidly growing capacity, automatic scaling, database monitoring
38
Q

Amazon RDS benefits:

A
  • Supports the most demanding database applications
  • Ability to scale your databases compute and storage resources with no downtime
  • Runs on the same highly reliable infrastructure used by other Amazon web services
39
Q

AWS Lambda

A
  • Compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing services
  • Executes code only when needed and scales automatically to thousands of requests per second
  • How does it work? — No servers to manage, continuous scaling, and sub-second metering
  • Runs code on a highly available compute infrastructure, which provides all administration including — server & OS maintenance, capacity provisioning, Auto Scaling, code monitoring, and logging
  • Can be used for event-driven computing
40
Q

AWS Lambda benefits:

A
  • Only pay for the compute you use — it’s ideal for variable and intermittent workloads
  • Ability to run code for any application or backend service with zero administration
41
Q

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

A
  • Helps with quickly getting applications into the cloud along with having the whole environments ready so people can begin developing systems
  • Provides you with all application services, HTTP services, OS, language interpreter, and host
  • Only thing needed is to create your code, deploy it, prepare it to the needs of your service, and then use the application as needed
42
Q

AWS Elastic Beanstalk benefits:

A
  • It’s a Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) — having the ability to put your code over the system since the whole infrastructure and platform are already created
  • Allows for quick deployment of applications
  • Reduces management complexity
  • Keeps control in your hands — ability to choose instance types, databases, Auto Scaling adjustments, etc.
  • Supports a large range of platforms (Packer Builder, Single Container, Multi-container, etc.)
43
Q

Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)

A
  • Helps with microservices being able to talk with one another and needing to be decoupled
  • Helps with sending emails to administrators about events occurring within your architecture
  • Allows for pub/sub messaging for systems like AWS Lambda, HTTP/S and Amazon SQS
44
Q

Amazon SNS characteristics:

A
  • Flexible, fully managed, pub/sub messaging, and mobile communications service
  • Coordinates delivery of messages to subscribing endpoints and clients
  • Easy to setup, operate, and send reliable communications
  • Ability to scale and decouple microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications
45
Q

Amazon CloudWatch

A

A monitoring service that allows you to monitor your AWS resources and the applications you run on them in real-time

46
Q

Amazon CloudWatch features:

A
  • Collecting and tracking metrics like CPU utilization, data transfer, disk input/output, etc.
  • Monitor services for cloud resources and applications
  • Ability to set alarms on any of your metrics so you’ll send notifications or take other automated actions — one of the core features is the ability to automatically react to changes
47
Q

Amazon CloudWatch architecture includes:

A
  • Metrics — CPU utilization and status checks
  • Alarms — Can send out an email or SMS notification; also has the ability to trigger Auto Scaling events
  • Available statistics
48
Q

Amazon CloudWatch use cases:

A
  • Respond to your state changes in your AWS resources
  • Automatically invoke an AWS Lambda function to update DNS entries when an event notifies that an Amazon EC2 instance enters the running state
  • Direct specific API records from CloudTrail to a Kinesis stream for detailed analysis of potential security or availability risks
  • Take a snapshot of an Amazon EBS volume on a schedule
  • Log S3 object level operations using CloudWatch events
49
Q

Amazon CloudWatch components:

A
  • Metrics
  • Alarms
  • Events
  • Logs
  • Dashboards
50
Q

Amazon CloudWatch metrics

A
  • A component of AWS CloudWatch that encompasses the data about the performance of your system
  • Represents a time ordered set of data points that are going to be published by CloudWatch
  • Can publish your own data for an additional fee
  • By default, several services provide free metrics for resources such as EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and RDS DB instances
51
Q

Amazon CloudWatch alarms

A
  • A component of Amazon CloudWatch that watches a single metric
  • Can perform one of more actions based on the value of the metric
  • Actions include EC2 action (start, stop, reboot, etc.) and Auto Scaling action (adding more instances, notification sent via SMS, etc.)
  • Invokes actions for sustained state change only
52
Q

Amazon CloudWatch events

A
  • A component of Amazon CloudWatch that is a near real-time stream of system events that describe changes within your AWS resources
  • Uses simple rules to match events and route them to one or more target functions or streams
  • Aware of operational changes as they occur and responds to such changes while taking corrective action as necessary
  • Ability to schedule automated actions that self-trigger at certain times using Cron or rate expressions
53
Q

Amazon CloudWatch logs

A
  • A component of Amazon CloudWatch that monitors and troubleshoots systems and applications using existing log files
  • Features include the ability to monitor logs from EC2 instances and CloudTrail events in real time
  • Includes an installable agent for Ubuntu, Amazon Linux and Windows at no additional charge
  • Ability to do data processing
54
Q

Amazon CloudWatch dashboards

A
  • A component of Amazon CloudWatch that allows you to create customizable home pages in the console to monitor your resources in a single-pane of glass
  • Ability to create customized views of the metrics and alarms for your AWS resources
  • Can create these by either using the console, the AWS CLI, or by using the API
55
Q

Amazon CloudFront

A
  • A fast content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency, high transfer speeds; while all within a developer-friendly environment
  • Uses a global network of 80+ locations and more than 10+ regional edge caches for content delivery
  • Ability to leverage multiple locations around the world to deliver your content with lower latency
56
Q

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A
  • A network that allows you to save money due to its lower rates on data transfer
  • Integrated in all AWS services such as Web Application Firewall, Certificate Manager, S3, etc.
57
Q

How to create a CDN:

A
  • First, click ‘Create Distribution’ on the AWS Management Console
  • Second, choose what type of delivery network you’d like to create (RTMP or Web) — RTMP is for video streaming while Web is for other usual content delivery
  • Third, you must specify at least one origin and one behavior
58
Q

CDN uses cases:

A
  • Static Asset Caching
  • Live and On-Demand Video Streaming
  • Security and DDoS Protection
  • API Acceleration
  • Software Distribution
59
Q

Amazon CloudFormation

A
  • A service that simplifies the task of repeatedly and predictably creating groups of related resources that power your applications
  • All about automatic resource provisioning
  • It calls upon API’s to tell the service what to do
  • Fully managed service — so there’s no infrastructure to support
  • It can create, update, and delete resources and sets known as ‘stacks’
  • Organizations rely on this service to build out template libraries
60
Q

Big picture process of Amazon CloudFormation

A

This service reads your template file, constructs the resources listed there, and the output of this process is your environment (or stack)

61
Q

Amazon CloudFormation stacks

A
  • Resources generated by a template and also a unit of deployment
  • When you delete one of these, all the resources in this environment are deleted
  • Most organizations modularize these by creating separate templates for networking, security, and applications
62
Q

Amazon CloudFormation templates

A
  • Instructions on resources to provision
  • These can create a single resource stack or a stack with hundreds of resources
  • They’re text files written in either JSON or YAML format
  • An example of infrastructure as a code — meaning you control your infrastructure through software code
  • Added benefit is if you provision your environment using these, they become a form of documentation for your environment
63
Q

Amazon CloudFormation template files

A
  • Same information you would specify if you built stacks manually through the console
  • Uses specific formatting constructs, but resource and property information stays the same
  • Added benefit is you don’t have to list resources in the exact order of creation — the DependsOn attribute controls the order CloudFormation creates resources so you can build a sequence of events
  • Ability to add parameters and conditions to use these repeatedly to create different but similar stacks
64
Q

Two critical requirements for running Amazon CloudFormation:

A
  • Templates — if these have an error, CloudFormation stops processing and rolls back any objects already created from the template
  • Permissions — Whoever is having the template processed must have permissions to the services referenced in the template