What is EC2?

EC2, a Virtual Machine in the cloud on which you have OS-level
control. You can run this cloud server whenever you want and can be used
when you need to deploy your own servers in the cloud, similar to your
on-premises servers, and when you want to have full control over the
choice of hardware and the updates on the machine.

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What is SnowBall?

SnowBall is a small application that enables you to transfer
terabytes of data inside and outside of the AWS environment.

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What is CloudWatch?

CloudWatch helps you to monitor AWS environments like EC2, RDS
Instances, and CPU utilization. It also triggers alarms depending on
various metrics.

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What is Elastic Transcoder?

Elastic Transcoder is an AWS Service Tool that helps you in changing
a video’s format and resolution to support various devices like tablets,
smartphones, and laptops of different resolutions.

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What do you understand by VPC?

VPC stands for Virtual Private Cloud. It allows you to customize your
networking configuration. VPC is a network that is logically isolated
from other networks in the cloud. It allows you to have your private IP
Address range, internet gateways, subnets, and security groups.

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DNS and Load Balancer Services come under which type of Cloud Service?

DNS and Load Balancer are a part of IaaS-Storage Cloud Service.

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What are the Storage Classes available in Amazon S3?

Storage Classes available with Amazon S3 are: + Amazon S3 Standard + Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access + Amazon S3 Reduced Redundancy Storage + Amazon Glacier

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Explain what T2 instances are?

T2 Instances are designed to provide moderate baseline performance and the capability to burst to higher performance as required by the workload.

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What are Key-Pairs in AWS?

Key-Pairs are secure login information for your Virtual Machines. To connect to the instances, you can use Key-Pairs which contain a Public Key and a Private Key.

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How many Subnets can you have per VPC?

You can have 200 Subnets per VPC.

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List different types of Cloud Services.

Different types of Cloud Services are: + Software as a Service (SaaS) + Data as a Service (DaaS) + Platform as a Service (PaaS) + Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Explain what S3 is?

S3 stands for Simple Storage Service. You can use the S3 interface to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time and from anywhere on the web. For S3, the payment model is “pay as you go”.

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How does Amazon Route 53 provide high availability and low latency?

Amazon Route 53 uses the following to provide high availability and low latency: + Globally Distributed Servers – Amazon is a global service and consequently has DNS Servers globally. Any customer creating a query from any part of the world gets to reach a DNS Server local to them that provides low latency. + Dependency – Route 53 provides a high level of dependability required by critical applications. + Optimal Locations – Route 53 serves the requests from the nearest data center to the client sending the request. AWS has data-centers across the world. The data can

traverse over private network connections instead of using the public internet. + Health checks – Amazon Route 53 checks the health of the resources. It reroutes end-users to alternative resources when the infrastructure they are on becomes unavailable or performs poorly. + Load Balancing – Route 53 load balancing improves the application’s fault tolerance by distributing incoming traffic to several resources.

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How can you send a request to Amazon S3?

You can send a request to Amazon S3 using the REST API or the AWS SDKs (Software Development Kits) that wrap the REST API. AWS SDKs are available for various programming languages such as Java, .NET, Python, etc. This allows you to interact with S3 programmatically and perform various operations like creating buckets, uploading objects, setting permissions, etc.

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What does AMI include?

AMI (Amazon Machine Image) includes the following components: + A template for the root volume for the instance + Launch permissions to determine 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 is launched

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What are the different types of Instances?

There are several types of instances available in AWS, each designed to cater to specific use cases:

• General Purpose Instances: These provide a balance of compute, memory, and networking resources and are suitable for a wide range of applications.
• Compute Optimized Instances: These are designed for CPU-intensive applications that require high-performance processors.
• Memory Optimized Instances: These instances are ideal for memory-intensive applications that require a large amount of RAM.
• Storage Optimized Instances: They are designed for applications that require high, sequential read and write access to large datasets on local storage.
• GPU Instances: These instances come with powerful GPUs and are suitable for graphics-intensive applications and parallel processing tasks.
• FPGA Instances: These instances include field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which can be customized to accelerate specific workloads.

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What is the relation between the Availability Zone and Region?

An AWS Region is a geographic location where AWS has multiple data centers. Each Region is entirely independent and isolated from the others, ensuring fault tolerance. An Availability Zone (AZ) is a distinct location within a Region that is engineered to be isolated from failures in other Availability Zones and to provide low-latency network connectivity to other zones in the same region. A Region can have multiple Availability Zones, typically three or more. The idea behind having multiple Availability Zones within a Region is to provide redundant infrastructure, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance for applications and services hosted in the cloud.

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How do you monitor Amazon VPC?

You can monitor Amazon VPC using the following AWS services:

• Amazon CloudWatch: CloudWatch provides monitoring for AWS resources and the applications you run on AWS. It can monitor VPC flow logs and other metrics associated with VPC components.
• VPC Flow Logs: VPC Flow Logs capture information about the IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in your VPC.
• Amazon VPC Traffic Mirroring: This feature allows you to copy network traffic from an Elastic Network Interface (ENI) of an EC2 instance and send it to a monitoring appliance for analysis.

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What are the different types of EC2 instances based on their costs?

EC2 instances are categorized into the following pricing models:

• On-Demand Instances: These instances allow you to pay for compute capacity by the hour or the second with no long-term commitments.
• Reserved Instances: These instances offer significant discounts in exchange for committing to a one- or three-year term.
• Spot Instances: These instances allow you to bid for spare Amazon EC2 computing capacity and can provide significant cost savings compared to On-Demand instances.
• Dedicated Hosts: These instances provide physical servers dedicated to your use. They can help you reduce costs by allowing you to use your existing server-bound software licenses.
• Dedicated Instances: These instances are similar to Dedicated Hosts but provide isolation at the instance level instead of the host level.

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What do you understand by stopping and terminating an EC2 Instance?

Stopping an EC2 Instance means that the instance is hibernated, and the data on the instance’s Ephemeral Storage is preserved. When the instance is started again, it continues to run from where it left off. On the other hand, terminating an EC2 Instance means that the instance is permanently shut down, and all data on its Ephemeral Storage is lost. A new instance launched from the same AMI will not have any data from the terminated instance.

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What are the consistency models for modern DBs offered by AWS?

Modern databases offered by AWS generally follow the following consistency models:

• Strong Consistency: This model ensures that all reads return the mostrecent write.
• Eventual Consistency: This model ensures that reads may not immediately reflect the results of a recent write but will eventually converge to a consistent state.
• Read Your Writes Consistency: This model ensures that a read operation following a write operation will return the data you have written.

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What is Geo-Targeting in CloudFront?

Geo-Targeting in CloudFront allows you to deliver different content to users based on their geographic location. You can use this feature to customize content, such as language, pricing, or promotions, for users from different regions. Geo-Targeting is based on the geographical location of the viewer, which is determined using their IP address. It helps to improve the user experience by delivering localized content to specific audiences.

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What are the advantages of AWS IAM?

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) offers several advantages:

• Granular Access Control: IAM enables you to control access to AWS resources at a fine-grained level, allowing you to grant or deny permissions to specific actions and resources.
• Security: IAM helps you improve the security of your AWS resources by allowing you to manage user access and permissions effectively.
• Identity Federation: IAM supports identity federation, enabling you to use your existing identities from supported external identity providers to grant access to AWS resources.
• Multifactor Authentication (MFA): IAM supports MFA, adding an extra layer of security to user sign-ins and sensitive operations.
• Audit and Compliance: IAM provides logs that can be used for audit and compliance purposes, allowing you to track user activity and changes to IAM policies.

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What do you understand by a Security Group?

A Security Group acts as a virtual firewall for your Amazon EC2 instances to control inbound and outbound traffic. It acts as a set of firewall rules that determine what traffic is allowed to reach your instances. Each instance can be associated with one or more security groups, and these groups control the traffic allowed to reach the instance. Security groups are stateful, which means if you allow inbound traffic from a specific IP address, the return traffic is automatically allowed, regardless of the outbound rules.

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What are Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances?

Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances are different pricing models for EC2 instances:

• Spot Instances: Spot Instances allow you to bid for unused EC2 instances, and you pay the current Spot price. If the Spot price goes above your bid, the instance is terminated automatically. Spot Instances are suitable for applications with flexible start and end times, such as data analysis, batch processing, and testing.
• On-Demand Instances: On-Demand Instances are the default pricing model, and you pay for compute capacity by the hour or second, with no upfront commitment. On-Demand Instances are suitable for applications with unpredictable workloads or short-term requirements.

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Explain Connection Draining.

Connection Draining is a feature provided by Elastic Load Balancers (ELB) that allows in-flight requests to complete even after an instance has been taken out of service or has failed a health check. This ensures that no requests are lost while the instance is being deregistered or replaced. Connection Draining is especially useful when you need to perform updates or maintenance on instances behind the ELB without disrupting user experience. Once the in-flight requests are completed, the instance is taken out of service, and new connections are routed to healthy instances.

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What is a Stateful and a Stateless Firewall?

Stateful and Stateless Firewalls are two types of firewalls that operate differently:

• Stateful Firewall: A stateful firewall monitors the state of active connections and tracks the status of network connections. It maintains a record of established connections, making decisions on allowing or denying traffic based on the connection state. This type of firewall is aware of the context of each packet, which allows it to make more informed decisions.
• Stateless Firewall: A stateless firewall examines each packet individually and does not maintain any information about past connections. It makes decisions based on rules specified in the firewall configuration, without considering the context of previous packets. Stateless firewalls are generally less resource-intensive but may not provide the same level of security as stateful firewalls.

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What is a Power User Access in AWS?

In AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), a Power User Access policy grants users full access to AWS services and resources within their own account. However, it does not provide permissions to manage other IAM users and groups or access to sensitive account management features like billing information and access to the root account. Power User Access is suitable for users who need extensive access to AWS resources for their own work but should not have control over account-level settings or other users’ access.

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What is an Instance Store Volume and an EBS Volume?

Instance Store Volume and EBS (Elastic Block Store) Volume are two types of storage options for Amazon EC2 instances:

• Instance Store Volume: An Instance Store Volume is temporary storage that is physically attached to the host machine where the EC2 instance is running. It provides high I/O performance but does not persist data if the instance is stopped or terminated. Instance Store Volumes are ideal for temporary data, cache, and scratch space that can be easily regenerated if lost.
• EBS Volume: An EBS Volume is a network-attached block storage that persists data even after the EC2 instance is stopped or terminated. EBS Volumes can be detached from one EC2 instance and attached to another, making them suitable for critical data and applications that require data durability.

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What are Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective in AWS?

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) are two important parameters in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning:

• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): RTO defines the maximum acceptable downtime for an application or service after a disaster or disruptive event. It represents the time it takes to recover the system and make it operational again. A shorter RTO indicates a faster recovery time, which is crucial for critical applications.
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): RPO defines the maximum amount of data loss that is acceptable after a disaster or disruptive event. It represents the point in time to which data must be recovered to resume operations. A shorter RPO means minimal data loss, as data is regularly backed up and replicated to a secondary location.

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Is there a way to upload a file that is greater than 100 Megabytes in Amazon S3?

Yes, you can upload large files to Amazon S3 using the Multipart Upload feature. Multipart Upload allows you to break the large file into smaller parts (called parts) and upload them individually. Each part can be uploaded in parallel, making the upload process faster and more reliable. Once all parts are uploaded, S3 combines them to create the final object. Multipart Upload is recommended for files larger than 100 MB, and it can handle files up to 5 TB in size.

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Can you change the Private IP Address of an EC2 instance while it is running or in a stopped state?

No, you cannot change the Private IP address of an EC2 instance while it is running or in a stopped state. The Private IP address is assigned to an instance when it is launched and remains the same throughout its lifecycle. If you need to change the Private IP address, you will need to terminate the instance and launch a new one with the desired Private IP address. However, you can associate an Elastic IP address with the instance, which is a static, public IPv4 address that remains associated with the instance even if it is stopped or terminated.

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What is the use of lifecycle hooks in Autoscaling?

Lifecycle hooks in Auto Scaling allow you to perform custom actions when instances launch or terminate as part of the Auto Scaling process. You can use lifecycle hooks to pause the scaling process temporarily and wait for approval or perform additional validation before an instance enters service or is terminated. For example, you can use lifecycle hooks to configure instances before they are put into service, such as installing software or updating configurations. Lifecycle hooks are commonly used to ensure that instances are fully ready and validated before they start receiving traffic, reducing the likelihood of any issues during the scaling process.

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What are the policies that you can set for your user’s passwords?

In AWS IAM, you can set various password policies to enforce strong security measures for user passwords. Some of the common password policies include:

• Password Length: You can set a minimum and maximum password length to ensure that passwords meet a specific length requirement.
• Require Numbers and Symbols: You can enforce the use of numbers and symbols in passwords to increase complexity.
• Password Expiration: You can set a password expiration period, forcing users to change their passwords after a certain time interval.
• Password Reuse Prevention: You can prevent users from reusing their previous passwords to ensure better security.
• Password Complexity: You can enforce a certain level of complexity, such as a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

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What do you know about the Amazon Database?

The Amazon Database refers to Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service), and Amazon Redshift. These services provide scalable and fully managed database solutions for various data storage and processing needs.

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Explain Amazon Relational Database?

Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) is a fully managed service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It supports multiple popular database engines, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and MariaDB. Amazon RDS handles routine database tasks like provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, and scaling, allowing developers to focus on their applications.

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What are the Features of Amazon Database?

The features of Amazon Database services vary depending on the specific service:

• Amazon Aurora: Provides high performance, scalability, and durability. It is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL.
• Amazon RDS: Offers automatic backups, automated failover, read replicas, and Multi-AZ deployments for high availability.
• Amazon Redshift: Enables data warehousing and business intelligence with fast query performance and petabyte-scale data storage.

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Which of the AWS DB Service is a NoSQL Database and Serverless and Delivers Consistent Single-digit Millisecond Latency at any scale?

Amazon DynamoDB is the AWS DB service that fits this description. It is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides seamless scalability and single-digit millisecond latency, making it ideal for applications that require high performance and real-time responsiveness. Additionally, DynamoDB can be used in a serverless architecture with AWS Lambda, enabling developers to build highly scalable and cost-effective applications without managing the underlying infrastructure.

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What is Key Value Store?

A Key-Value Store is a type of NoSQL database that stores data as a collection of key-value pairs. Each data item is uniquely identified by a key, and the value can be any type of data, such as a string, number, or JSON object. Key-Value Stores offer fast and efficient data access, making them suitable for use cases that require high-performance read and write operations.

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What is DynamoDB?

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service provided by AWS. It is designed for high-performance applications that require seamless scalability and low-latency data access. DynamoDB offers automatic sharding and replication, which allows it to deliver consistent and fast single-digit millisecond response times, even at a massive scale. It is a serverless service, meaning developers don’t need to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure.

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List of the benefits of using Amazon DynamoDB?

• Scalability: DynamoDB can handle any amount of traffic and data, automatically scaling up or down based on demand.
• High Performance: It delivers single-digit millisecond response times, ensuring low-latency data access.
• Managed Service: AWS handles all administrative tasks, such as hardware provisioning, configuration, and backups.
• Flexible Data Model: DynamoDB supports both document and key-value data models, offering flexibility for various use cases.
• Serverless: Developers can focus on building applications without managing servers or infrastructure.
• Global Replication: It provides multi-region data replication for high availability and disaster recovery.
• Pay-Per-Usage: Users pay only for the throughput and storage they consume, making it cost-effective.

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What is a DynamoDBMapper Class?

The DynamoDBMapper Class is a high-level abstraction library provided by AWS SDK for Java to interact with Amazon DynamoDB. It simplifies the process of working with DynamoDB by allowing developers to map Java objects directly to items in a DynamoDB table and vice versa.

With DynamoDBMapper, you can perform CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) on DynamoDB tables using Java objects, making it easier to work with complex data structures and reducing the amount of boilerplate code required for interacting with the database.

The DynamoDBMapper class handles the mapping of Java objects to JSON representation for DynamoDB storage and converts the JSON representation back to Java objects when retrieving data from the table. It also manages the underlying low-level interactions with DynamoDB, such as batching and paginating results.

Using the DynamoDBMapper class can significantly speed up the development process and improve the readability of code when building applications that require interactions with DynamoDB.

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What are the Data Types supported by DynamoDB?

DynamoDB supports various data types to store different types of information. The data types supported by DynamoDB are:

• Scalar Types: These are single-value data types, including:
  • String: A sequence of Unicode characters.
  • Number: A numeric value, either integer or floating-point.
  • Binary: A sequence of binary bytes.
  • Boolean: A Boolean value, either true or false.
  • Null: A null value, representing the absence of a value.
• Document Types: These are complex data types that can contain nested attributes. DynamoDB supports two document types:
  • List: An ordered collection of elements.
  • Map: An unordered set of name-value pairs.
• Set Types: These are collections of unique elements. DynamoDB supports three set types:
  • String Set: A set of strings.
  • Number Set: A set of numbers.
  • Binary Set: A set of binary values.

When defining a table in DynamoDB, you must specify the data type for each attribute. Understanding these data types is essential for designing efficient and well-structured DynamoDB tables to meet your application’s requirements.

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What do you understand by DynamoDB Auto Scaling?

DynamoDB Auto Scaling is a feature provided by AWS that automatically adjusts the read and write capacity of a DynamoDB table in response to changes in application traffic. It helps to ensure that applications can smoothly handle varying workloads and maintain consistent performance even during peak usage periods.

With DynamoDB Auto Scaling, you define the minimum and maximum read and write capacity units for your table, and the service automatically adjusts the provisioned capacity based on the actual traffic. When the workload increases, the table’s capacity is automatically scaled up to meet the demand, and when the workload decreases, the capacity is automatically scaled down to save costs.

The Auto Scaling process is triggered by CloudWatch metrics, such as consumed read and write capacity, and is controlled by predefined scaling policies. These policies specify how and when to scale the table’s capacity up or down.

Using DynamoDB Auto Scaling eliminates the need for manual capacity management, making it easier and more cost-effective to handle dynamic workloads without compromising performance.

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