60 questions / 10 random questions
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Which describes the pay-as-you-go model of cloud computing?
Answer: You pay only for what you use and avoid large upfront investment
Cloud uses pay-as-you-go billing, charging only for usage and shifting capital expense to operating expense.
Which cloud characteristic automatically adjusts resources to match demand?
Answer: Elasticity
Elasticity automatically scales resources up and down with demand, optimizing cost and performance.
Which is the geographically independent unit that groups multiple Availability Zones?
Answer: A Region
A Region is a geographically separate area composed of multiple AZs; an AZ is one or more isolated data centers.
To improve availability, which deployment is recommended for production systems?
Answer: Distribute across multiple Availability Zones
Spreading across multiple AZs keeps the system running if one AZ fails, improving availability.
In the AWS shared responsibility model, which falls under AWS's responsibility (security 'of' the cloud)?
Answer: Physical data center security and hardware
AWS is responsible for security 'of' the cloud (physical infrastructure, hardware, facilities); customers handle security 'in' the cloud.
Which is the recommended practice for the AWS account root user?
Answer: Enable MFA and use IAM users for daily work instead
Because the root user is powerful, enable MFA and use least-privilege IAM users for daily work.
Which AWS service creates and manages encryption keys and integrates with many services?
Answer: AWS KMS
KMS creates, manages, and rotates encryption keys and integrates with services like S3 and EBS.
Which AWS service provides on-demand access to compliance reports (audit artifacts)?
Answer: AWS Artifact
AWS Artifact provides on-demand access to third-party audit reports and compliance documents.
Which AWS compute service provides virtual servers (instances)?
Answer: Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2 provides virtual servers; S3 is storage, RDS is a database, and VPC is networking.
Which highly durable object storage service offers virtually unlimited capacity?
Answer: Amazon S3
Amazon S3 is durable, scalable object storage widely used for static files and backups.
Which AWS serverless compute service runs code without managing servers?
Answer: AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda runs code without managing servers, event-driven and pay-per-use.
Which AWS service provides managed relational databases?
Answer: Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS is a managed relational database that automates patching and backups; DynamoDB is NoSQL.
Which service builds a logically isolated virtual network in AWS?
Answer: Amazon VPC
Amazon VPC is a logically isolated virtual network where you configure subnets, routing, and security.
Which AWS CDN delivers content from edge locations worldwide with low latency?
Answer: Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront caches and delivers content from edge locations for low latency.
Which service manages users, groups, and permissions to control access to AWS resources?
Answer: AWS IAM
AWS IAM controls access via users, groups, roles, and policies, and is available at no additional charge.
Which AWS service monitors resource metrics and lets you set alarms?
Answer: Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch monitors metrics and logs with alarms; CloudTrail records API activity.
Which AWS service records who made which API calls and when, for auditing and investigation?
Answer: AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail records API activity in the account, aiding auditing and security investigation.
Which service automatically checks best practices for cost, performance, security, and fault tolerance?
Answer: AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS Trusted Advisor analyzes your account and advises on cost, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits.
Which AWS guidance compiles design principles for reliability, security, cost optimization, and more?
Answer: The AWS Well-Architected Framework
The Well-Architected Framework evaluates designs across pillars such as operations, security, reliability, performance, cost, and sustainability.
Which purchase option discounts EC2 significantly in exchange for a 1- or 3-year usage commitment?
Answer: Reserved Instances / Savings Plans
Reserved Instances and Savings Plans give large discounts for a 1- or 3-year commitment; Spot suits interruptible workloads.
Which offering lets new users try AWS for free within certain limits?
Answer: The AWS Free Tier
The Free Tier offers free usage up to limits, in types such as 12-month free, always free, and trials.
Which tool lets you estimate expected AWS costs in advance?
Answer: AWS Pricing Calculator
AWS Pricing Calculator estimates costs in advance from a configuration; Cost Explorer analyzes actual spend.
Which AWS service visualizes and analyzes actual cost and usage trends?
Answer: AWS Cost Explorer
AWS Cost Explorer analyzes actual cost and usage with charts; AWS Budgets alerts on budget thresholds.
Which AWS service can alert you when spending is about to exceed a set budget?
Answer: AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets lets you set budgets and notifies you (e.g., by email) when thresholds are projected to be exceeded.
Which top AWS Support plan includes 24/7 phone/chat support and a dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM)?
Answer: Enterprise Support
Enterprise Support is the top tier with a dedicated TAM and fast response; Basic is free with limited scope.
Which managed AWS service protects applications from DDoS attacks?
Answer: AWS Shield
AWS Shield protects against DDoS attacks; AWS WAF detects and blocks web-application-layer attacks.
Compared with buying and maintaining your own servers, what benefit can cloud migration offer?
Answer: Lower upfront cost and faster provisioning of resources as needed
Cloud lowers upfront cost and provisions resources in minutes, improving agility and cost efficiency.
In the AWS global infrastructure, which sites near users cache content for services like CloudFront?
Answer: Edge locations
Edge locations cache content near users to enable low-latency delivery via services like CloudFront.
Which AWS service provides a fully managed NoSQL database?
Answer: Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database offering high scalability and low latency without server management.
Which AWS service helps centrally manage multiple AWS accounts and apply policies at the organizational level?
Answer: AWS Organizations
AWS Organizations centrally manages multiple accounts, organizational units, service control policies, and consolidated billing.
Which service provides single sign-on access for workforce users to AWS accounts and applications?
Answer: AWS IAM Identity Center
AWS IAM Identity Center provides centralized sign-in and permission assignment for workforce access to AWS accounts and cloud applications.
Which service records AWS resource configuration changes and evaluates compliance against rules?
Answer: AWS Config
AWS Config records resource configuration history and evaluates compliance with Config rules. CloudTrail records API activity.
Which service detects suspicious activity in AWS accounts and workloads using sources such as threat intelligence?
Answer: Amazon GuardDuty
Amazon GuardDuty is a managed threat detection service that analyzes sources such as CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs.
Which service provides access to AWS compliance reports and agreement-related documents?
Answer: AWS Artifact
AWS Artifact provides access to audit reports, compliance documents, and agreement-related documents.
Which service distributes traffic across multiple EC2 instances and avoids sending traffic to unhealthy targets?
Answer: Elastic Load Balancing
Elastic Load Balancing distributes traffic across targets and uses health checks to avoid routing to unhealthy targets.
Which feature adjusts the number of EC2 instances as demand rises or falls to balance availability and cost?
Answer: Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling adjusts EC2 capacity based on demand or metrics, improving availability and cost efficiency.
Which service uses templates to create and update AWS resources together, enabling infrastructure as code?
Answer: AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation manages AWS resources as stacks from templates, enabling infrastructure configuration as code.
You want to classify AWS costs by project or department. What can be attached to resources and used for cost allocation?
Answer: Cost allocation tags
When activated, cost allocation tags help analyze costs by dimensions such as project or department in Cost Explorer and billing reports.
You want to combine billing from multiple AWS accounts under one paying account. Which feature is used?
Answer: Consolidated billing in AWS Organizations
Consolidated billing in AWS Organizations combines charges from multiple accounts under the management account for payment.
In the AWS Well-Architected Framework, which pillar covers a system's ability to recover from failures and continue functioning as demand changes?
Answer: Reliability
The Reliability pillar focuses on recovering from failures, adapting to demand changes, and designing fault-tolerant distributed systems.
Which AWS framework helps organize organizational transformation for cloud adoption across people, process, technology, and business perspectives?
Answer: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
AWS CAF organizes cloud adoption from an organizational perspective, including business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations perspectives.
Which service provides best-practice recommendations for AWS cost, service limits, security, fault tolerance, and performance?
Answer: AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS Trusted Advisor checks an AWS environment and provides recommendations across cost optimization, security, fault tolerance, performance, and service limits.
Which service is most appropriate when you want to receive alerts before monthly costs exceed a configured amount?
Answer: AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets lets you set thresholds for cost, usage, and RI or Savings Plans utilization and receive alerts based on actual or forecasted values.
Which AWS Support plan is most appropriate for 24/7 technical support for production systems with short response times for business-critical issues?
Answer: Business Support
Business Support provides 24/7 technical support for production workloads and has shorter response targets for business-critical issues.
Which feature automatically moves S3 objects to lower-cost storage classes after a configured period as access becomes less frequent?
Answer: S3 Lifecycle
S3 Lifecycle rules can transition objects to classes such as Standard-IA or Glacier storage after a set number of days, or expire them later.
An application on EC2 needs S3 access without storing long-term access keys on the instance. What is the recommended approach?
Answer: Attach an IAM role with least-privilege permissions to the EC2 instance
An IAM role attached to EC2 supplies temporary credentials. This avoids distributing long-term keys and supports least-privilege permissions.
Which service filters malicious HTTP requests such as SQL injection in front of CloudFront or an Application Load Balancer?
Answer: AWS WAF
AWS WAF inspects and allows or blocks HTTP(S) requests using web ACL rules. Shield primarily provides DDoS protection and serves a different purpose.
Which service continually scans EC2 instances and container images for known software vulnerabilities?
Answer: Amazon Inspector
Amazon Inspector continually assesses supported EC2 workloads and container images and reports known vulnerabilities with risk context.
Which service helps automatically discover sensitive data such as personal information in S3 buckets?
Answer: Amazon Macie
Amazon Macie uses machine learning and pattern matching to help discover sensitive data and assess data-security posture in S3.
Which service securely stores a database password and can automate rotation for supported integrations?
Answer: AWS Secrets Manager
AWS Secrets Manager supports encrypted secret storage, access control, retrieval auditing, and rotation in supported configurations.
Which service decouples order intake from downstream processing and retains messages while consumers are temporarily unavailable?
Answer: Amazon SQS
Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queue that decouples producers from consumers and retains messages until consumers can process them.
Which service fans one message out to multiple subscribers such as email, SQS, and Lambda?
Answer: Amazon SNS
Amazon SNS is a pub/sub messaging service that can fan messages published to a topic out to multiple subscribers.
Which service routes events from AWS services, SaaS sources, and custom applications to targets using rules?
Answer: Amazon EventBridge
Amazon EventBridge uses event buses and rules to filter events and route them to AWS service or application targets.
Which service manages DNS records for a domain and supports health-check-based routing?
Answer: Amazon Route 53
Amazon Route 53 is a scalable DNS service offering domain registration, DNS records, health checks, and multiple routing policies.
Which service provides a dedicated private connection from an on-premises site to AWS rather than an internet VPN?
Answer: AWS Direct Connect
AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated network connection from a site or data center to AWS, improving bandwidth and path predictability.
Which service family uses physical devices to transfer large data sets from a bandwidth-constrained site to AWS?
Answer: AWS Snow Family
AWS Snow Family provides physical-device data transfer and edge capabilities for migrations where online transfer would take too long.
Which service centrally manages backup policies across multiple AWS services and accounts?
Answer: AWS Backup
AWS Backup centralizes backup plans, retention, and monitoring for supported services and can apply policies across accounts with Organizations.
Which EC2 purchase option can greatly reduce cost for batch jobs that tolerate interruption and restart?
Answer: Spot Instances
Spot Instances use spare EC2 capacity at a discount but may be interrupted, making them suitable for checkpointed or retryable workloads.
Which feature uses machine learning to detect unusual AWS spending increases and notify stakeholders?
Answer: AWS Cost Anomaly Detection
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection monitors spending patterns for anomalies and sends notifications to configured subscribers. AWS Budgets focuses on configured thresholds.
Even when using Amazon RDS, which responsibility remains with the customer under the shared responsibility model?
Answer: Configure database user permissions, data classification, and network exposure appropriately
With RDS, AWS operates the underlying managed service, while the customer remains responsible for data, identities, permissions, encryption choices, and secure network configuration.