EC2 Flashcards
1
Q
What is EC2?
A
A Linux-based/Windows-based/Mac-based virtual server that you can provision
2
Q
What purchasing limits exist for EC2?
A
You are limited to running On-Demand Instances per your vCPU-based On-Demand Instance limit, purchasing 20 Reserved Instances, and requesting Spot Instances per your dynamic Spot limit per region.
3
Q
What is AWS Nitro System?
A
AWS Nitro System is the underlying platform of the next generation of EC2 instances. Traditionally, hypervisors protect the physical hardware and bios, virtualize the CPU, storage, networking, and provide a rich set of management capabilities. With the Nitro System, these functions are offloaded to dedicated hardware and software, thereby reducing the costs of your instances in the process. Hence, the Nitro Hypervisor delivers performance that is indistinguishable from bare metal and performs better than its predecessor: the Xen Hypervisor.
4
Q
What are EC2 servers called?
A
Server environments are called instances.
5
Q
Amazon Machine Image
A
Package OS and additional installations in a reusable template called Amazon Machine Images.
6
Q
What are Instance Types?
A
Various configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity for your instances, known as instance types.
7
Q
What instance type is used for general purpose?
A
t-type and m-type for general purpose.
8
Q
What instance type is used for compute optimized?
A
c-type for compute optimized
9
Q
What instance type is used for memory-optimized?
A
r-type, x-type, z-type for memory-optimized
10
Q
What instance type is used for storage optimized?
A
d-type, h-type, i-type for storage optimized
11
Q
What instance type is used for accelerated computing?
A
f-type, g-type, and p-type for accelerated computing
12
Q
Key Pairs.
A
Secure login information for your instances using key.
13
Q
Instance Store Volumes
A
Storage volumes for temporary data that are deleted when you STOP or TERMINATE your instance.
14
Q
What storage volumes are used for persistent storage?
A
Persistent storage volumes for your data using Elastic Block Store volumes (see AWS storage services).
15
Q
Security Groups
A
A firewall that enables you to specify the protocols, ports, and source IP ranges that can reach your instances.
16
Q
Tags
A
Metadata, known as tags, that you can create and assign to your EC2 resources
17
Q
User-Data
A
A script that will be run on instance boot called user-data.
18
Q
Host Recovery for Amazon EC2
A
Automatically restarts your instances on a new host in the event of an unexpected hardware failure on a Dedicated Host.
19
Q
EC2 Hibernation?
A
EC2 Hibernation is available for On-Demand and Reserved Instances running on freshly launched M3, M4, M5, C3, C4, C5, R3, R4, and R5 instances running Amazon Linux and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. You can enable hibernation for your EBS-backed instances at launch. You can then hibernate and resume your instances through the AWS Management Console, or through the AWS SDK and CLI using the existing stop-instances and start-instances commands. Hibernation requires an EC2 instance to be an encrypted EBS-backed instance.
20
Q
True/False. You can allow automatic connection of one or more EC2 instances to an RDS database.
A
True.
21
Q
What are the instance states?
A
Start, Stop, Hibernate, Terminate
22
Q
How do you prevent accidental termination?
A
Enable Termination Protection.
23
Q
How do you prevent an instance from being accidentally stopped?
A
By enabling instance stop protection, you can prevent an instance from being accidentally stopped.
24
Q
What does the root device volume contain?
A
The root device volume contains the image used to boot the instance.
25
How can you replace the volume of a running EC2 instance?
-Initial launch state
-Snapshot
-AMI
26
True/False. Any data on the instance store volumes are retained when the instance is terminated (stoped of failed).
False. You should also back up critical data from your instance store volumes to persistent storage on a regular basis.
27
True/False. An Amazon EBS-backed instance can be stopped and later restarted without affecting data stored in the attached volumes.
True.
28
What can be modified on a stopped EC2 instance with EBS storage?
When in a stopped state, you can modify the properties of the instance, change its size, or update the kernel it is using, or you can attach your root volume to a different running instance for debugging or any other purpose.
29
What happens to an EBS volume when the EC2 instance it is attached to is deleted?
By default, the root device volume for an AMI backed by Amazon EBS is deleted when the instance terminates.
30
True/False. You cannot launch encrypted EBS-backed EC2 instances from unencrypted AMIs directly.
False. You CAN launch encrypted EBS-backed EC2 instances from unencrypted AMIs directly.
31
What makes up an AMI?
-A template for the root volume for the instance (OS, application server, and applications)
-Launch permissions that control which AWS accounts can use the AMI to launch instances
-A block device mapping that specifies the volumes to attach to the instance when it’s launched
32
What does Backed by Amazon EBS mean?
Root device for an instance launched from the AMI is an Amazon EBS volume. AMIs backed by Amazon EBS snapshots can use EBS encryption.
33
Can AMIs backed by Amazon EBS snapshots use EBS encryption?
Yes.
34
What does Backed by Instance Store mean?
Root device for an instance launched from the AMI is an instance store volume created from a template stored in S3.
35
What is the boot time for an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - usually less than 1 minute
Instance store -usually less than 5 minutes
36
What is the size limit for a root device for an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - 64TB
Instance Store - 10GB
37
What is data persistence for an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - By default, the root volume is deleted when the instance terminates. Data on any other EBS volume persists after instance termination by default.
Instance Store - Data on any instance store volume persists during the life of the instance.
38
What modifications can you make to an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - instance type, kernel, RAM, disk, user data can be changed while the instance is stopped.
Instance Store - Instance attributes are fixed for the life of an instance.
39
What are charges for an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - You're charged for instance usage, EBS volume usage, and storing your AMI as an EBS snapshot.
Instance Store - You're charged for instance usage and storing. your AMI in Amazon S3.
40
What is required for AMI creation/building for an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - Uses a single command/call
Instance Store - Requires installation and use of AMI tools.
41
What is the stopped state for an EBS-backed AMI and Instance Store-backed AMI?
EBS - Can be in a stopped state. Even when the instance is stopped and not running, the root volume is persisted in Amazon EBS
Instance Store - Cannot be in stopped state, instances are either running or terminated.
42
True/False. You can copy AMIs to different regions.
True.
43
What is the Recycle Bin used for?
Restoring deleted AMIs.
44
True/False. You cannot set lock retention rules to protect against modifications and deletions.
False. You CAN set lock retention rules to protect against modifications and deletions.
45
By default, how many years from the creation date of a public AMI is it considered deprecated?
After 2-years from the creation date.
46
True/False. When an AMI changes state, an event is automatically generated, and you can use Amazon EventBridge to detect and respond to these events.
True.
47
True/False. With UEFI Secure Boot, you can ensure that an instance only boots software signed with cryptographic keys.
True.
48
True/False. You cannot configure an AMI to use Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) when requesting instance metadata.
False. You CAN configure an AMI to use Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) when requesting instance metadata.
49
What is elastic compute cloud pricing for On-Demand?
Pay for the instances that you use by the second, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments.
50
What is elastic compute cloud pricing for Reserved?
Make a low, one-time, up-front payment for an instance, reserve it for one or three year terms, and pay a significantly lower hourly rate for these instances. It has two offerings, Standard and Convertible.
51
What is the standard reserved class?
Provides the most significant discount but you can only modify some of its attributes during the term. It can also be sold in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.
52
What is the convertible reserved class?
Provides a lower discount than Standard Reserved Instances, but can be exchanged for another Convertible Reserved Instance with difference instance attributes. However, it cannot be sold in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.
53
What is the average discount of Standard RI and Convertible RI?
Standard RI - 1 year (40%), 3 years (60%)
Convertible RI - 1 year (31%), 3 years (54%)
54
Which RI can Change Availability Zone, Instance size (for Linux OS), Networking type?
Both Standard and Convertible.
55
Which RI can change instance families, operating system, tenancy, and payment option
Convertible.
56
Which RI can benefit from price reductions?
Convertible.
57
True/False. When purchasing a Reserved Instance, you’ll need to determine its scope.
True. The scope is regional or zonal.
58
True/False. Regional RI and Zonal RI both have the ability to reserve capacity.
False. Only a Zonal RI can reserve capacity.
59
What is the availability zone flexibility of Regional RI and Zonal RI?
Regional - The discount is valid for instance usage in any Availability Zone within the specified Region.
Zonal - The discount only applies to instance usage in the specified Availability Zone.
60
What is the instance size flexibility of Regional RI and Zonal RI?
Regional - The discount applies to instance usage within the instance family.
Zonal - The discount only applies to instance usage for the specified instance type and size.
61
True/False. Only a Regional RI can queue a purchase.
True.
62
What is a spot instance?
Request unused EC2 instances, which can lower your costs significantly. Spot Instances are available at up to a 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices.
63
What is a spot Fleet?
A Spot Fleet is a collection of Spot Instances and optionally On-Demand Instances. The service attempts to launch the number of Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances to meet your specified target capacity. The request for Spot Instances is fulfilled if there is available capacity and the maximum price you specified in the request exceeds the current Spot price. The Spot Fleet also attempts to maintain its target capacity fleet if your Spot Instances are interrupted.
64
What is a Spot Capacity Pool?
A Spot Capacity pool is a set of unused EC2 instances with the same instance type, operating system, Availability Zone, and network platform.
65
True/False. You can start and stop your Spot Instances backed by Amazon EBS at will.
True.
66
True/False. You cannot modify instance types and weights for a running EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet without having to recreate it.
False. You CAN modify instance types and weights for a running EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet without having to recreate it.
67
What are the allocation strategies for Spot Instances?
-LowestPrice – The Spot Instances come from the pool with the lowest price. This is the default strategy.
-Diversified – The Spot Instances are distributed across all pools.
-CapacityOptimized – The Spot Instances come from the pool with optimal capacity for the number of instances that are launching.
-InstancePoolsToUseCount – The Spot Instances are distributed across the number of Spot pools that you specify. This parameter is valid only when used in combination with the lowest Price.
68
What are Spot Blocks?
Spot Instances with a defined duration (also known as Spot blocks) are designed not to be interrupted and will run continuously for the duration you select. This makes them ideal for jobs that take a finite time to complete, such as batch processing, encoding and rendering, modeling and analysis, and continuous integration.
69
Dedicated Hosts
Dedicated Hosts – pay for a physical host that is fully dedicated to running your instances, and bring your existing per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licenses to reduce costs.
70
Dedicated Instances
Dedicated Instances – pay, by the hour, for instances that run on single-tenant hardware.
71
On-Demand Capacity Reservations
On-Demand Capacity Reservations – reserve capacity for your Amazon EC2 instances in a specific Availability Zone for any duration. Unlike Reserved instances, you don’t need to have a one-year or three-year term commitment.
72
What do you specify when creating a Capacity Reservation?
-The Availability Zone in which to reserve the capacity
-The number of instances for which to reserve capacity
-The instance attributes, including the instance type, tenancy, and platform/OS
73
True/False. Your Savings Plans and regional Reserved Instances can be applied with your capacity reservations to receive discounts. Without these, your capacity reservations do not have billing discounts.
True.
74
True/False. Capacity Reservations can be created in placement groups and can be used with Dedicated Hosts
False. Capacity Reservations can be created in placement groups. Capacity Reservations CAN'T’ be used with Dedicated Hosts
75
How do you monitor capacity reservation usage?
Amazon Cloudwatch.
76
Is there a data transfer charge when copying AMI from one region to another?
Yes.
77
Is EBS pricing different from Instance pricing?
Yes.
78
True/False. AWS imposes a small hourly charge if an Elastic IP address is not associated with a running instance, or if it is associated with a stopped instance or an unattached network interface.
True.
79
True/False. You are not charged for any additional Elastic IP addresses associated with an instance.
False. You ARE charged for any additional Elastic IP addresses associated with an instance.
80
How is data charged between two instances in different AWS regions?
If data is transferred between these two instances, it is charged at “Data Transfer Out from EC2 to Another AWS Region” for the first instance and at “Data Transfer In from Another AWS Region” for the second instance.
81
How do you control access to your instances?
Use IAM to control access to your instances (see AWS Security and Identity Service).
-IAM policies
-IAM roles
82
What are security groups?
A security group acts as a virtual firewall that controls the traffic for one or more instances.
-Create different security groups to deal with instances that have different security requirements.
-You can add rules to each security group that allows traffic to or from its associated instances.
-You can modify the rules for a security group at any time.
-New rules are automatically applied to all instances that are associated with the security group.
-Evaluates all the rules from all the security groups that are associated with an instance to decide whether to allow traffic or not.
-By default, security groups allow all outbound traffic.
-Security group rules are always permissive; you can’t create rules that deny access.
-Security groups are stateful
83
Are security groups stateful or stateless?
Security groups are stateful
84
How do you create rules that deny access with security groups?
Security group rules are always permissive; you can’t create rules that deny access.
85
What happens if you do not specify a security group for your EC2 instance?
If you don’t specify a security group when you launch an instance, the instance is automatically associated with the default security group for the VPC,
86
What are the rules of a default security group?
-Allows all inbound traffic from other instances associated with the default security group
-Allows all outbound traffic from the instance.
87
True/False. You can replicate the network traffic from an EC2 instance within your Amazon VPC and forward that traffic to security and monitoring appliances for content inspection, threat monitoring, and troubleshooting.
True.
88
What key formats can you pick when creating a new key pair?
.pem and .ppk
89
True/False. Querying of the public key and creation date of an EC2 key pair is not supported.
False. Querying of the public key and creation date of an EC2 key pair IS supported.
90
True/False. For EC2 Instance Connect and EC2 Serial Console, ED25519 keys are now supported.
True.
91
What is an Elastic IP address?
An Elastic IP address is a static IPv4 address designed for dynamic cloud computing. With it, you can mask the failure of an instance or software by rapidly remapping the address to another instance in your account.
92
True/False. If you have not enabled auto-assign public IP address for your instance, you need to associate an Elastic IP address with your instance to enable communication with the internet.
True.
93
Are Elasltic IP addresses locked to region or availability zones?
Region.
94
By default, how many Elastic IP addresses is an AWS account limited to?
5 per region
95
True/False. You cannot transfer Elastic IP addresses from one AWS account to another.
False. You CAN transfer Elastic IP addresses from one AWS account to another.
96
True/False. By default EC2 instances come only with a private IP when created in a private subnet, and public and private IP when created in a public subnet.
True.
97
What is an elastic network interface?
An elastic network interface is a logical networking component in a VPC that represents a virtual network card, which directs traffic to your instance
98
What is the default network interface called on the primary network interface?
Every instance in a VPC has a default network interface, called the primary network interface (eth0). You cannot detach a primary network interface from an instance.
99
True/False. You can create and attach additional network interfaces. The maximum number of network interfaces that you can use varies by instance type.
True.
100
True/False. You can attach a network interface to an instance in a different subnet as long as its within the same AZ
True.
101
How are default interfaces terminated?
Default interfaces are terminated with instance termination.
102
How do you scale and distribute traffic amount EC2 instances?
Scale with EC2 Scaling Groups and distribute traffic among instances using Elastic Load Balancer.
103
How can you access your VPC instances for management using SSH or RDP protocols?
You can configure EC2 instances as bastion hosts (aka jump boxes) in order to access your VPC instances for management, using SSH or RDP protocols
104
What is Enhanced Networking?
Enhanced Networking – It provides higher bandwidth, higher packet per second (PPS) performance, and consistent lower inter-instance latencies, which are being used in Placement Groups. It uses single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) to provide high-performance networking capabilities. SR-IOV is a method of device virtualization that provides higher I/O performance and lower CPU utilization when compared to traditional virtualized network interfaces.
105
What is Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA)?
Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) – This is a network device that you can attach to your EC2 instance to significantly accelerate machine learning applications and High Performance Computing (HPC). It empowers your computing resources to achieve the application performance of an on-premises HPC cluster, with the elasticity and scalability provided by AWS. Compared with a TCP transport that is traditionally used in cloud-based HPC systems, EFA provides lower and more consistent latency and higher throughput as it enhances the performance of inter-instance communication.
106
What items should you monitor on an EC2 instance?
-CPU utilization, Network utilization, Disk performance, Disk Reads/Writes using EC2 metrics
-Memory utilization, disk swap utilization, disk space utilization, page file utilization, log collection using a monitoring agent/CloudWatch Logs
107
What automated monitoring tools are included with EC2?
-System Status Checks – monitor the AWS systems required to use your instance to ensure they are working properly. These checks detect problems with your instance that require AWS involvement to repair.
-Instance Status Checks – monitor the software and network configuration of your individual instance. These checks detect problems that require your involvement to repair.
-Amazon CloudWatch Alarms – watch a single metric over a time period you specify, and perform one or more actions based on the value of the metric relative to a given threshold over a number of time periods.
-Amazon CloudWatch Events – automate your AWS services and respond automatically to system events.
-Amazon CloudWatch Logs – monitor, store, and access your log files from Amazon EC2 instances, AWS CloudTrail, or other sources.
108
What frequency does EC2 send metric data to CloudWatch by default?
By default, EC2 sends metric data to CloudWatch in 5-minute periods.
109
True/False. You can also enable detailed monitoring to collect data in 1-minute periods.
True.
110
What is instance metadata?
Instance metadata is data about your instance that you can use to configure or manage the running instance.
111
True/False. Instance metadata and user data are protected by cryptographic methods.
False. Instance metadata and user data are NOT protected by cryptographic methods.
112
How do you access instance metadata from within a running instance?
View all categories of instance metadata from within a running instance at http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/
113
What two types of user data can be sent to EC2?
You can pass two types of user data to EC2: shell scripts and cloud-init directives.
114
What is the size limit on user data?
User data is limited to 16 KB.
115
True/False. If you stop an instance, modify its user data, and start the instance, the updated user data is not executed when you start the instance.
True.
116
How can you retrieve user data from within a running instance?
Retrieve user data from within a running instance at http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data
117
True/False. An instance tag can be accessed from the instance metadata.
True.
118
True/False. When using Auto Scaling groups, the instance metadata does not contain information about an instance’s target lifecycle state.
False. When using Auto Scaling groups, the instance metadata contains information about an instance’s target lifecycle state.
119
What are placement groups?
Determines how instances are placed on underlying hardware.
120
What is a cluster placement group?
clusters instances into a low-latency group in a single Availability Zone. Recommended for applications that benefit from low network latency, high network throughput, or both, and if the majority of the network traffic is between the instances in the group.
121
What is a spread placement group?
spreads instances across underlying hardware. Recommended for applications that have a small number of critical instances that should be kept separate from each other. Note: A spread placement group can span multiple Availability Zones, and you can have a maximum of seven running instances per Availability Zone per group.
122
What is a partition placement group?
Partition placement groups is an Amazon EC2 placement strategy that helps reduce the likelihood of correlated failures for large distributed and replicated workloads such as HDFS, HBase, and Cassandra running on EC2. Spreads EC2 instances across logical partitions and ensure that instances in different partitions do not share the same underlying hardware. In addition, partition placement groups offer visibility into the partitions and allow topology aware applications to use this information to make intelligent data replication decisions, increasing data availability and durability.
123
True/False. The name you specify for a placement group must be unique within your AWS account for the region.
True.
124
True/False. You can merge placement groups.
False. You CAN'T merge placement groups.
125
True/False. An instance can be launched in one placement group at a time; it cannot span multiple placement groups.
True.
126
True/False. Instances with a tenancy of host can be launched in placement groups.
False. Instances with a tenancy of host CANNOT be launched in placement groups.
127
EBS Overview.
-Provides durable, block-level storage volumes that you can attach to a running instance.
-Use as a primary storage device for data that requires frequent and granular updates.
-To keep a backup copy of your data, create a snapshot of an EBS volume, which is stored in S3. You can create an EBS volume from a snapshot, and attach it to another instance.
128
Instance Store Overview
-Provides temporary block-level storage for instances.
-The data on an instance store volume persists only during the life of the associated instance; if you stop or terminate an instance, any data on instance store volumes is lost.
129
EFS Overview
-Provides scalable file storage for use with Amazon EC2. You can create an EFS file system and configure your instances to mount the file system.
-You can use an EFS file system as a common data source for workloads and applications running on multiple instances.
130
FSx Overview.
-Amazon FSx for Windows File Server is a fully-managed file storage built on Windows Server.
-Amazon FSx for Lustre is a fully-managed file storage built on the world’s most popular high-performance file system, Lustre.
-Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed shared storage solution based on NetApp’s ONTAP file system.
-Amazon FSx for OpenZFS is a fully managed shared storage solution that is based on the OpenZFS file system.
131
S3 Overview
-Provides access to reliable and inexpensive data storage infrastructure.
-Storage for EBS snapshots and instance store-backed AMIs.
132
True/False. With torn write prevention (block storage feature), you can improve the performance of your I/O-intensive relational database workloads and reduce latency without compromising data resiliency.
True.
133
What is included with EC2 resources?
EC2 resources include images, instances, volumes, and snapshots. When you create a resource, AWS assigns the resource a unique resource ID.
