AWS Cloud Essentials Quiz

AWS Global Infrastructure

• AWS infrastructure is designed for high-quality global network performance, reliability, scalability, and security.
• An AWS Region is a geographical area.
• Data replication between regions is managed by the user.
• Communication between regions uses AWS backbone network infrastructure.
• Each region offers complete redundancy and connectivity with high-speed private networking.
• A Region typically includes two or more Availability Zones.
• When selecting a region consider factors like data governance laws, customer proximity for reduced latency, availability of specific services, and cost.
• Each Availability Zone is a completely separate AWS infrastructure partition.
• There are currently 69 Availability Zones globally.
• Availability Zones consist of distinct data centers.
• Data centers are interconnected by high-speed private networking, ensuring fault isolation.
• Data centers have redundant power, networking, and connectivity, housed in separate facilities.
• Data centers hold data and process data, typically containing 50,000-80,000 physical servers.
• AWS has a global network of 187 Points of Presence (PoPs).
• 176 edge locations enable end-user access to AWS services.
• 11 regional edge caches store frequent content close to users, utilizing Amazon CloudFront (CDN).
• CloudFront securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs with fast speed and low latency using a developer-friendly environment.

AWS Infrastructure Features

• Elasticity and scalability: Adapts to capacity and growth needs.
• Fault-tolerance: Continues operation during component failure due to built-in redundancy.
• High availability: Maintains high operational performance with minimal downtime, requiring no human intervention.

AWS Services and Service Category Overview

• AWS has 23 different product or service categories.
• The provided text focuses on common/foundation services.

AWS Storage Services

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3): Object storage service known for scalability, availability, security, and performance.
• Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS): High-performance block storage suitable for use with Amazon EC2, optimized for throughput and transaction-intensive workloads at any scale.
• Amazon Elastic File System (EFS): Scalable NFS file system for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.
• Amazon Simple Storage Service Glacier: Secure, durable, and cost-effective cloud storage for data archiving and long-term backups.

AWS Compute Services

• Amazon EC2: Secure, scalable compute capacity in the cloud.
• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling: Ensures application availability; automatically adjusts EC2 instances based on defined conditions.
• Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Fully managed container orchestration service.
• Amazon EC2 Container Registry (ECR): Fully managed Docker container registry for storing, managing, and deploying container images.
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Easy to use service for deploying/scaling web applications written in various languages (Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, Docker) on various servers (Apache, Nginx, Passenger, IIS).
• AWS Lambda: Runs code without server management.
• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS): Fully managed Kubernetes service.
• AWS Fargate: Serverless compute engine for containers, compatible with ECS and EKS.

AWS Database Services

• Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS): Easy setup, operation, and scaling of relational databases in the cloud.
• Amazon Aurora: MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible database built for the cloud, combining the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity of open-source databases.
• Amazon Redshift: Fully managed petabyte-scale data warehouse.
• Amazon DynamoDB: Key-value and document database with single-digit millisecond performance at scale.

Networking and Content Delivery Services

• Amazon VPC: Logically isolated section of the AWS cloud for launching AWS resources within a custom virtual network.
• Elastic Load Balancing: Distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets.
• Amazon CloudFront: Fast CDN for secure delivery of data, videos, applications, and APIs globally with low latency and high speeds (developer-friendly).
• AWS Transit Gateway: Connects Amazon VPCs and on-premises networks to a single gateway.
• Amazon Route 53: Highly available, scalable DNS web service.
• AWS Direct Connect: Establishes dedicated network connection from premises to AWS.
• AWS VPN: Creates a secure, encrypted tunnel between your network/device and the AWS global network.

Security, Identity, and Compliance Services

• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): Securely manages access to AWS services and resources by creating and managing users, groups, and permissions. (Free feature).
• AWS Organizations: Centralized governance for growing workloads on AWS.
• Amazon Cognito: Adds user sign-up, sign-in, and access control features to web/mobile apps.
• AWS Artifact: Central compliance information resource.
• AWS Key Management Service (KMS): Creates and manages cryptographic keys, controlling their use across various AWS services.
• AWS Shield: Managed DDoS protection service for applications.

Cost Management Services

• AWS Cost and Usage Report: Comprehensive cost and usage data, including metadata about AWS services, pricing, and reservations.
• AWS Budgets: Custom budgets that alert when costs/usage exceed the budgeted amount.
• AWS Cost Explorer: Visualizes, understands, and manages AWS costs/usage over time.

AWS Management and Governance Services

• AWS Management Console: Secure, web-based access portal for AWS.
• AWS Config: Enables assessing, auditing, and evaluating AWS resource configurations.
• Amazon CloudWatch: Monitoring and observability service for applications, system-wide performance, resource utilization, and operational health, enabling automated actions, and alert settings.
• AWS Auto Scaling: Automatically adjusts capacity to maintain consistent application performance at lowest cost.
• AWS Command Line Interface (CLI): Unified tool to manage various AWS services through scripts.
• AWS Trusted Advisor: Online tool providing real-time guidance on AWS best practices.
• AWS Well-Architected Tool: Reviews workloads against AWS architectural best practices.
• AWS CloudTrail: Enables governance, compliance, operational, and risk auditing of your AWS account.