Amazon Web Services CLF-C02 AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Practice Test

The correct answers are D and E because AWS offers high availability and AWS provides economies of scale are benefits that a company receives when it moves an on-premises production workload to AWS. High availability means that AWS has a global infrastructure that allows customers to deploy their applications and data across multiple regions and availability zones. This increases the fault tolerance and resilience of their applications and reduces the impact of failures. Economies of scale means that AWS can achieve lower variable costs than customers can get on their own. This allows customers to pay only for the resources they use and scale up or down as needed. The other options are incorrect because they are not benefits that a company receives when it moves an on-premises production workload to AWS. AWS trains the company’s staff on the use of all the AWS services is not a benefit that a company receives when it moves an on-premises production workload to AWS. AWS does provide various learning resources and training courses for customers, but it does nottrain the company’s staff on the use of all the AWS services. AWS manages all security in the cloud is not a benefit that a company receives when it moves an on-premises production workload to AWS. AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, but the customer is responsible for the security in the cloud. AWS offers free support from technical account managers (TAMs) is not a benefit that a company receives when it moves an on-premises production workload to AWS. AWS does offer support from TAMs, but only for customers who have the AWS Enterprise Support plan, which is not free. Reference: What is Cloud Computing?, [AWS Shared Responsibility Model], [AWS Support Plans]

AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations. With AWS Config, you can review changes in configurations and relationships between AWS resources, dive into detailed resource configuration histories, and determine your overall compliance against the configurations specified in your internal guidelines3.

 AWS Regions are geographic areas around the world where AWS has clusters of data centers. Each AWS Region consists of multiple, isolated, and physically separate AZ’s within a geographic area. By hosting the customer’s data in a specific AWS Region, the company can meet the requirement of hosting the data in the customer’s country. AWS Shield is a service that provides always-on detection and automatic inline mitigations that minimize application downtime and latency, so there is no need to engage AWS Support to benefit from DDoS protection. Amazon S3 Object Lock is afeature that allows you to store objects using a write-once-read-many (WORM) model. You can use it to prevent an object from being deleted or overwritten for a fixed amount of time or indefinitely. Placement groups are logical grouping of instances within a single Availability Zone. Placement groups enable applications to participate in a low-latency, 10 Gbps network. None of these services or infrastructure components can help the company host the customer’s data in a different country.

 EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA) is the storage class that meets the requirements of storing data across multiple Availability Zones in an AWS Region, that will not be accessed regularly but must be immediately retrievable, most cost-effectively. EFS Standard-IA is designed for files that are accessed less frequently, but still require the same high performance, low latency, and high availability as EFS Standard. EFS Standard-IA has a lower storage cost than EFS Standard, but charges a small additional fee for each access. EFS One Zone and EFS One Zone-IA store data in a single Availability Zone, which reduces the availability and durability compared to EFS Standard and EFS Standard-IA.

 The correct answers are B and E because AWS Online Tech Talks and AWS Classroom Training are options that AWS makes available for customers who want to learn about security in the cloud in an instructor-led setting. AWS Online Tech Talks are live, online presentations that cover a broad range of topics at varying technical levels. AWS Online Tech Talks are delivered by AWS experts and feature live Q&A sessions with the audience. AWS Classroom Training are in-person or virtual courses that are led by accredited AWS instructors. AWS Classroom Training offer hands-on labs, exercises, and best practices to help customers gain confidence and skills on AWS. The other options are incorrect because they are not options that AWS makes available for customers who want to learn about security in the cloud in an instructor-led setting. AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service that provides real-time guidance to help customers follow AWS best practices for security, performance, cost optimization, and fault tolerance. AWS Blog is an AWS resource that provides news, announcements, and insights from AWS experts and customers. AWS Forums are AWS resources that enable customers to interact with other AWS users and get feedback and support. Reference: AWS Online Tech Talks, AWS Classroom Training

Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is the option that the company can use during the launch process to configure the root volume of the EC2 instance. An AMI is a template that contains the software configuration, such as the operating system, applications, and settings, required to launch an EC2 instance. An AMI also specifies the volume size and type of the root device for the instance. Thecompany can choose an AMI provided by AWS, the AWS Marketplace, or the AWS community, or create a custom AMI. For more information, see [Amazon Machine Images (AMI)] and [Launching an Instance Using the Launch Instance Wizard].

The correct answer is A because Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value database that provides sub-millisecond latency on a large scale. Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed, serverless, and scalable NoSQL database service that supports both key-value and document data models. The other options are incorrect because they are not key-value databases. Amazon Aurora is a relational database that is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) is a document database that is compatible with MongoDB. Amazon Neptune is a graph database that supports property graph and RDF models. Reference: Amazon DynamoDB FAQs

AWS Systems Manager is a service that enables users to centralize and automate the management of their AWS resources. It provides a unified user interface to view operational data, such as inventory, patch compliance, and performance metrics. It also allows users to automate common and repetitive tasks, such as patching, backup, and configuration management, across all of their Amazon EC2 instances1. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides best practices and recommendations to optimize the performance, security, and cost of AWS resources2. AWS CodeDeploy is a service that automates the deployment of code and applications to Amazon EC2 instances or other compute services3. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a service that simplifies the deployment andmanagement of web applications using popular platforms, such as Java, PHP, and Node.js4.

 Cost Explorer is an AWS service or tool that can be used to forecast AWS spending. It allows users to analyze their AWS costs and usage using interactive graphs and tables. It also provides features such as filtering, grouping, and forecasting to help users plan their future spending. Amazon DevPay is an AWS service that allows developers to sell applications that are built on AWS services. It handles the billing and metering for the customers of the applications and collects payments from them. It is not a tool for forecasting AWS spending. AWS Organizations is an AWS service that allows users to centrally manage and govern their AWS accounts. It provides features such as creating groups of accounts, applying policies, and automating account creation. It is not a tool for forecasting AWS spending. AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service that provides best practices and recommendations to optimize the performance, security, and cost of AWS resources. It can helpusers identify opportunities to reduce their AWS costs, but it is not a tool for forecasting AWS spending

 AWS Organizations is a service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. With AWS Organizations, you can apply service control policies (SCPs) across multiple AWS accounts to restrict what services and actions users and roles can access. You can also use AWS Organizations to enable features such as consolidated billing, AWS Config rules and conformance packs, and AWS CloudFormation StackSets across multiple accounts3. One of the benefits of using AWS Organizations is that you can share your Reserved Instances (RIs) with all of the accounts in your organization. This enables you to take advantage of the billing benefits of RIs without having to specify which account will use them4. AWS Systems Manager is a service that gives you visibility and control of your infrastructure on AWS. Cost Explorer is a tool that enables you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. None of these services or tools can help you manage the AWS accounts for all the departments so that the departments can share the Reserved Instances.

 Amazon CloudFront is the AWS service that offers a global content delivery network (CDN) that helps companies securely deliver websites, videos, applications, and APIs at high speeds with low latency. Amazon CloudFront is a web service that speeds up distribution of static and dynamic web content, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and image files, to users. Amazon CloudFront uses a global network of edge locations, located near users’ geographic locations, to cache and serve content with high availability and performance. Amazon CloudFront also provides features such as AWS Shield for DDoS protection, AWS Certificate Manager for SSL/TLS encryption, AWS WAF for web application firewall, and AWS Lambda@Edge for customizing content delivery with serverless code. Amazon EC2, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS CloudFormation are not services that offer a global CDN. Amazon EC2 is a service that provides scalable compute capacity in the cloud. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that provides monitoring and observability for AWS resources andapplications. AWS CloudFormation is a service that provides a common language to model and provision AWS resources and their dependencies.

The correct answer is C because Spot Instances are the pricing model that enables the company to run its existing custom, nonproduction workloads in the AWS Cloud quickly and cost-effectively. Spot Instances are spare Amazon EC2 instances that are available at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. Spot Instances are suitable for stateless, fault-tolerant, and flexible workloads that can recover from interruptions easily. The other options are incorrect because they are not the pricing model that enables the company to run its existing custom, nonproduction workloads in the AWS Cloud quickly and cost-effectively. Reserved Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that are reserved for a specific period of time (one or three years) in exchange for a lower hourly rate. Reserved Instances are suitable for steady-state or predictable workloads that run for a long duration. On-Demand Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that are launched and billed at a fixed hourly rate. On-Demand Instances are suitable for short-term, irregular, or unpredictable workloads that cannot be interrupted. Dedicated Hosts are physical servers that are dedicated to a single customer. Dedicated Hosts are suitable for workloads that require regulatory compliance or data isolation. Reference: Amazon EC2 Instance Purchasing Options

The correct answers are B and D because a virtual private gateway and a customer gateway are components of an AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection. A virtual private gateway is the AWS side of the VPN connection that attaches to the customer’s VPC. A customer gateway is the customer side of the VPN connection that resides in the customer’s network. The other options are incorrect because they are not components of an AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection. AWS Storage Gateway is a service that connects on-premises software applications with cloud-based storage. NAT gateway is a service that enables instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, but prevents the internet from initiating a connection with those instances. Internet gateway is a service that enables communication between instances in a VPC and the internet. Reference: [What is AWS Site-to-Site VPN?]

ACLs are an AWS service or feature that the developer can use to restrict read and write access to the S3 bucket. ACLs are access control lists that grant basic permissions to other AWS accounts or predefined groups. They can be used to grant read or write access to an S3 bucket or an object3. Security groups are virtual firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic for Amazon EC2 instances. They are not a service or feature that can be used to restrict access to an S3 bucket. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that provides monitoring and observability for AWS resources and applications. It can be used to collect and analyze metrics, logs, events, and alarms. It is not a service or feature that can be used to restrict access to an S3 bucket. AWS CloudTrail is a service that provides governance, compliance, and audit for AWS accounts and resources. It can be used to track and record the API calls and user activity in AWS. It is not a service or feature that can be used to restrict access to an S3 bucket.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a service that allows users to manage access to AWS resources and services. It enables users to create and manage users, groups, roles, and policies that control who can do what in AWS. IAM is always free of charge for users, as there is no additional cost for using IAM with any AWS service1. Amazon S3 is a storage service that provides scalable, durable, and secure object storage. Amazon S3 has a free tier that offers 5 GB of storage, 20,000 GET requests, and 2,000 PUT requests per month for one year. However, users are charged for any additional usage beyond the free tier limits2. Amazon Aurora is a relational database service that is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. Amazon Aurora has a free tier that offers 750 hours of Aurora Single-AZ db.t2.small database usage and 20 GB of storage per month for one year. However, users are charged for any additional usage beyond the free tier limits3. Amazon EC2 is a compute service that provides resizable virtual servers. Amazon EC2 has a free tier that offers 750 hours of Linux and Windows t2.micro instances per month for one year. However, users are charged for any additional usage beyond the free tier limits4.

 Amazon Personalize is a fully managed machine learning service that customers can use to generate personalized recommendations for their users. It can also generate user segments based on the users’ affinity for certain items or item metadata. Amazon Personalize uses the customers’ data to train and deploy custom recommendation models that can be integrated into their applications. Therefore, the correct answer is B. You can learn more about Amazon Personalize and its use case.

 Consolidated billing is an AWS feature that allows users to combine the usage and costs of multiple AWS accounts into a single bill. This enables users to obtain billing discounts that are based on the company’s use of AWS services, such as volume pricing tiers, Reserved Instance discounts, andSavings Plans discounts5. Resource tagging is an AWS feature that allows users to assign metadata to AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, S3 buckets, and Lambda functions. This enables users to organize, track, and manage their AWS resources, such as filtering, grouping, and reporting. Pay-as-you-go pricing is an AWS pricing model that allows users to pay only for the resources and services they use, without any upfront or long-term commitments. This enables users to lower their costs by scaling up or down as needed, and avoiding over-provisioning or under-utilization. Spot Instances are spare EC2 instances that are available at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. They are suitable for workloads that can tolerate interruptions, such as batch processing, data analysis, and testing. Spot Instances are allocated based on the current supply and demand, and can be reclaimed by AWS with a two-minute notice when the demand exceeds the supply.

The AWS best practice for using the AWS account root user credentials is to use them only when they alone must be used to perform a required function. The AWS account root user credentials have full access to all the resources in the account, and therefore pose a security risk if compromised or misused. You should create individual IAM users with the minimum necessary permissions for everyday tasks, and use AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. You should also enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) and rotate the password for the root user regularly. Some of the functions that require the root user credentials are changing the account name, closing the account, changing the support plan, and restoring an IAM user’s access.

 The correct answer is B because AWS Cloud9 is an AWS service that enables users to run their existing custom, nonproduction workloads in the AWS Cloud quickly and cost-effectively. AWS Cloud9 is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that allows users to write, run, and debug code from a web browser. AWS Cloud9 supports multiple programming languages, such as Python, Java, Node.js, and more. AWS Cloud9 also provides users with a terminal that can access AWS services and resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, AWS Lambda functions, and AWS CloudFormation stacks. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services that enable users to run their existing custom, nonproduction workloads in the AWS Cloud quickly and cost-effectively. AWS CodeBuild is an AWS service that enables users to compile, test, and package their code for deployment. AWS OpsWorks is an AWS service that enables users to configure and manage their applications using Chef or Puppet. AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an AWS service that enables users to define and provision their cloud infrastructure using familiar programming languages, such as TypeScript, Python, Java, and C#. Reference: AWS Cloud9 FAQs

 Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a service that provides fully managed relational database engines. Amazon RDS supports several database engines, including Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, and Amazon Aurora. Amazon RDS can be used to migrate an application that includes an Oracle database to AWS without rewriting the application, as long as the application is compatible with the Oracle version and edition supported by Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS can also provide benefits such as high availability, scalability, security, backup and restore, and performance optimization. [Amazon RDS Overview] AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

The correct answer to the question is B because providing user access with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a customer responsibility according to the AWS shared responsibilitymodel. The AWS shared responsibility model is a framework that defines the division of responsibilities between AWS and the customer for security and compliance. AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, which includes the global infrastructure, such as the regions, availability zones, and edge locations; the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run the AWS services; and the virtualization layer that separates the customer instances and storage. The customer is responsible for the security in the cloud, which includes the customer data, the guest operating systems, the applications, the identity and access management, the firewall configuration, and the encryption. IAM is an AWS service that enables customers to manage access and permissions to AWS resources and services. Customers are responsible for creating and managing IAM users, groups, roles, and policies, and ensuring that they follow the principle of least privilege. Reference: AWS Shared Responsibility Model

AWS is responsible for maintaining the physical and environmental controls of the AWS Cloud, such as power, cooling, fire suppression, and physical security1. The customer is responsible for managing the IAM user permissions, creating security group rules for outbound access, applying Amazon EC2 operating system patches, and other aspects of security in the cloud1.

AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory is the AWS service that provides a managed Microsoft Active Directory in the AWS Cloud. It enables the user to use their existing Active Directory users, groups, and policies to access AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon S3 buckets, and AWS Single Sign-On. It also integrates with other Microsoft applications and services, such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft SharePoint

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. It supports both key-value and document data models, and allows you to create tables that can store and retrieve any amount of data, and serve any level of request traffic. You can also use DynamoDB Streams to capture data modification events in DynamoDB tables.

AWS Artifact is the service that will provide the information about whether a specific AWS service is compliant with specific compliance frameworks. AWS Artifact is a self-service portal that allows you to access, review, and download AWS security and compliance reports and agreements. You canuse AWS Artifact to verify the compliance status of AWS services across various regions and compliance programs, such as ISO, PCI, SOC, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and more12

Reliability is the cloud concept that this architecture represents. Reliability is the ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or service disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand, and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or transient network issues. Deploying an application to multiple AWS Regions and configuring automatic failoverbetween those Regions enhances the reliability of the application by reducing the impact of regional failures and increasing the availability of the application4

Rightsizing all the EC2 instances that are used in the deployment is the best way to run the workload in the most cost-effective way. Rightsizing means choosing the optimal instance type and size for the workload based on the performance and capacity requirements. Rightsizing helps to avoid over-provisioning or under-provisioning of the EC2 instances, which can result in wasted resources or poor performance. Rightsizing also helps to take advantage of the different pricing models and features that AWS offers, such as On-Demand, Reserved, and Spot Instances, and Auto Scaling. For more information, see Rightsizing Your Instances and [Cost Optimization with AWS].

The company follows the AWS Cloud design principle of ensuring traceability by using AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail is a service that records the API calls and events made by or on behalf of the AWS account. The company can use AWS CloudTrail to monitor, audit, and analyze the activity and changes in their AWS resources and applications. AWS CloudTrail helps the company to achieve compliance, security, governance, and operational efficiency. Recovering automatically, performing operations as code, and measuring efficiency are other AWS Cloud design principles, but they are not directly related to using AWS CloudTrail. Recovering automatically means that the company can design their cloud workloads to handle failures gracefully and resume normal operations without manual intervention. Performing operations as code means that the company can automate the creation, configuration, and management of their cloud resources using scripts or templates. Measuring efficiency means that the company can monitor and optimize the performance and utilization of their cloud resources and applications34

 AWS Organizations is a service that helps you centrally manage and govern your environment as you grow and scale your AWS resources. You can use AWS Organizations to create groups of accounts and apply policies to them. You can also use AWS Organizations to consolidate billing for multiple accounts. Therefore, the correct answer is B. You can learn more about AWS Organizations and its features .

 The operational excellence pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework includes a design principle about measuring the overall efficiency of workloads in terms of business value. This principle states that you should monitor and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) and set targets and thresholds that align with your business goals. You should also use feedback loops to continuously improve your processes and procedures1.

The architecture concept of the AWS Cloud that meets the requirements of the company that wants to migrate to the AWS Cloud and needs the ability to acquire and release resources as needed is elasticity. Elasticity means that AWS customers can quickly and easily provision and scale up or down AWS resources as their demand changes, without any upfront costs or long-term commitments. AWS provides various tools and services that enable customers to achieve elasticity, such as Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS CloudFormation. Elasticity helps customers optimize their performance, availability, and cost efficiency. Availability, reliability, and durability are other architecture concepts of the AWS Cloud, but they are not directly related to the ability to acquire and release resources as needed. Availability means that AWS customers can access their AWS resources and applications whenever and wherever they need them. Reliability means that AWS customers can depend on their AWS resources and applications to functioncorrectly and consistently. Durability means that AWS customers can preserve their data and objects for long periods of time without loss or corruption12

Provisioning additional EC2 instances in other Availability Zones is a way to make the application highly available, as it reduces the impact of failures and increases fault tolerance. Configuring an Application Load Balancer and assigning the EC2 instance as the ALB’s target is a way to distribute traffic among multiple instances, but it does not make the application highly available if there is only one instance. Using an Amazon Machine Image to create the EC2 instance is a way to launch a virtual server with a preconfigured operating system and software, but it does not make the application highly available by itself. Provisioning the application by using an EC2 Spot Instance is a way to use spare EC2 capacity at up to 90% off the On-Demand price, but it does not make the application highly available, as Spot Instances can be interrupted by EC2 with a two-minute notification.

The AWS shared responsibility model describes how AWS and the customer share responsibility for security and compliance of the AWS environment. AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, which includes the physical security of AWS facilities, the infrastructure, hardware, software, and networking that run AWS services. The customer is responsible for security in the cloud, which includes the configuration of security groups, the encryption of customer data on AWS, the management of AWS Lambda infrastructure, and the management of network throughput of each AWS Region.

The correct answers are A and B because Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS are AWS services that the company could use for the relational databases. Amazon Aurora is a relational database that is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. Amazon Aurora is a fully managed, scalable, and high-performance service that offers up to five times the throughput of standard MySQL and up to three times the throughput of standard PostgreSQL. Amazon RDS is a service that enables users to set up, operate, and scale relational databases in the cloud. Amazon RDS supports six popular database engines: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MariaDB, and Amazon Aurora. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services that the company could use for the relational databases. Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) is a document database that is compatible with MongoDB. Amazon Neptune is a graph database that supports property graph and RDF models. Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document database. Reference: Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS

 Pay-as-you-go pricing is an AWS benefit that demonstrates the ability of users to replace upfront fixed expenses with variable expenses. With pay-as-you-go pricing, users only pay for the resources they consume, without any long-term contracts or commitments. This can lower the total cost of ownership and increase the return on investment. Pay-as-you-go pricing also provides flexibility and scalability, as users can adjust their resource usage according to their changing needs and demands. AWS Cloud Value FrameworkAWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

The correct answer is C because Amazon QuickSight is an AWS service that will provide the dashboards and charts for the insights from business data. Amazon QuickSight is a fully managed, scalable, and serverless business intelligence service that enables users to create and share interactive dashboards and charts. Amazon QuickSight can connect to various data sources, such as Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, and more. Amazon QuickSight also provides users with machine learning insights, such as anomaly detection, forecasting, and natural languagenarratives. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services that will provide the dashboards and charts for the insights from business data. Amazon Macie is an AWS service that helps users discover, classify, and protect sensitive data stored in Amazon S3. Amazon Aurora is an AWS service that provides a relational database that is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service that enables users to track user activity and API usage across their AWS account. Reference: Amazon QuickSight FAQs

Managing service control policies (SCPs) is an activity that companies can complete by using AWS Organizations. AWS Organizations is a service that enables the user to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that can be managed as a single unit. AWS Organizations allows the user to create groups of accounts and apply policies to them, such as service control policies (SCPs) that specify the services and actions that users and roles can access in the accounts. AWS Organizations also enables the user to use consolidated billing, which combines the usage and charges from all the accounts in the organization into a single bill3.

The correct answer is A because Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a service that will help the company deploy the application without investing in backend infrastructure or high end client hardware. Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed, secure application streaming service that allows customers to stream desktop applications from AWS to any device running a web browser. Amazon AppStream 2.0 handles the provisioning, scaling, patching, and maintenance of the backend infrastructure, and delivers high performance and responsive user experience. The other options are incorrect because they are not services that will help the company deploy the application without investing in backend infrastructure or high end client hardware. AWS AppSync is a service that enables customers to create flexible APIs for synchronizing data across multiple data sources. Amazon WorkLink is a service that enables customers to provide secure, one-click access to internalwebsites and web apps from mobile devices. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a service that enables customers to deploy and manage web applications using popular platforms such as Java, .NET, PHP, and Node.js. Reference: [Amazon AppStream 2.0 FAQs]

The company should use AWS WAF to safeguard the website from SQL injection or cross-site scripting. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect web applications from common web exploits that could affect availability, compromise security, or consume excessive resources. The company can use AWS WAF to create custom rules that block malicious requests that match certain patterns, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting. AWS WAF can be applied to web applications that are behind an Application Load Balancer, Amazon CloudFront, or Amazon API Gateway. Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Trusted Advisor, and Amazon Inspector are not the best services to use for this purpose. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior across the AWS accounts and resources. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides best practice recommendations for cost optimization, performance, security, and fault tolerance. Amazon Inspector is a service that assesses the security and compliance of applications running on Amazon EC2 instances12

 The correct answers are B and D because making data-driven decisions to determine cloud architectural design and testing systems at production scale are AWS Cloud design principles. Making data-driven decisions to determine cloud architectural design means that users should collect and analyze data from their AWS resources and applications to optimize their performance, availability, security, and cost. Testing systems at production scale means that users should simulate real-world scenarios and load conditions to validate the functionality, reliability, and scalability of their systems. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS Cloud design principles. Paying for compute resources in advance means that users have to invest heavily in data centers and servers before they know how they will use them. This is not a cloud design principle, but rather a traditional IT model. Emphasizing manual processes to allow for changes means that users have to rely on human intervention and coordination to perform operational tasks and updates. This is not a cloud design principle, but rather a source of inefficiency and error. Refining operational procedures infrequently means that users have to stick to the same methods andpractices without adapting to the changing needs and feedback. This is not a cloud design principle, but rather a hindrance to innovation and improvement. Reference: AWS Well-Architected Framework

 The correct answer is D because cost allocation tags are a way to track the infrastructure costs for each of the projects separately. Cost allocation tags are key-value pairs that can be attached to AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, and used to categorize and group them for billing purposes. The other options are incorrect because they do not meet the requirements of the question. Use a different EC2 instance type for each project does not help to track the costs for each project, and may impact the performance and compatibility of the applications. Publish project-specific custom Amazon CloudWatch metrics for each application does not help to track the costs for each project, and may incur additional charges for using CloudWatch. Deploy EC2 instances for each project in a separate AWS account does help to track the costs for each project, but it impacts the existing infrastructure and incurs additional charges for using multiple accounts. Reference: Using Cost Allocation Tags

 Server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed encryption keys (SSE-S3) and server-side encryption with AWS KMS managed keys (SSE-KMS) are the encryption types that can be used to protect objects at rest in Amazon S3. Server-side encryption means that Amazon S3 encrypts the objects before saving them on disks and decrypts them when they are downloaded. SSE-S3 uses one master key per bucket that is managed by Amazon S3. SSE-KMS uses a customer master key (CMK) that is stored in AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) and provides additional benefits, such as audit trails and key rotation. For more information, see Protecting Data Using Server-Side Encryption and Protecting Data Using Encryption.

 One of the cost efficiency principles related to the AWS Cloud is to right-size services based on capacity requirements. This means choosing the most appropriate type and size of AWS resources to meet the performance and scalability needs of the applications, while avoiding over-provisioning or under-provisioning. By right-sizing services, users can optimize the costs and benefits of using the AWS Cloud1

The advantages of moving to the AWS Cloud are the ability to use the pay-as-you-go model and no longer having to guess what capacity will be required. The pay-as-you-go model allows the user to pay only for the resources they use, without any upfront or long-term commitments. This reduces the cost and risk of over-provisioning or under-provisioning resources. No longer having to guess what capacity will be required means that the user can scale their resources up or down according to the demand, without wasting money on idle resources or losing customers due to insufficient capacity4.

 Security groups are the service or feature that meets the requirement of establishing a security layer in a VPC that will act as a firewall to control subnet traffic. Security groups are stateful firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level. You can assign one or more security groups to each instance in a VPC, and specify the rules that allow or deny traffic based on the protocol, port, and source or destination. Security groups are associated with network interfaces, and therefore apply to all the instances in the subnets that use those network interfaces. Routing tables are used to direct traffic between subnets and gateways, not to filter traffic. Network ACLs are stateless firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level, but they are less granular and more cumbersome to manage than security groups. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that monitors your AWS account and workloads for malicious or unauthorized activity, not a firewall service.

The correct answer is B because AWS Artifact is a service that provides access to AWS compliance documentation, such as audit reports, security certifications, and agreements. AWS Artifact allows customers to download, review, and accept the documents that are relevant to their use of AWS services. The other options are incorrect because they are not services that provide access to AWS compliance documentation. Amazon Cloud Directory is a service that enables customers to create flexible cloud-native directories for organizing hierarchies of data. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides real-time guidance to help customers follow AWS best practices for security, performance, cost optimization, and fault tolerance. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps customers find security vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices in their Amazon EC2 instances. Reference: [AWS Artifact FAQs]

 Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is the AWS storage service that should be used for an application that runs on multiple Amazon EC2 instances that access a shared file system simultaneously. Amazon EFS is a fully managed service that provides a scalable, elastic, and highly available file system for Linux-based workloads. Amazon EFS supports the Network File System version 4 (NFSv4) protocol and allows multiple EC2 instances to read and write data to the same file system concurrently. Amazon EFS also integrates with other AWS services, such as AWS Backup, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS CloudTrail. For more information, see What is Amazon Elastic File System? and [Amazon EFS Use Cases].

Outbound data transfers without acceleration and compute resources that are currently in use are the factors that affect costs in the AWS Cloud. Outbound data transfers without acceleration refer to the amount of data that is transferred from AWS to the internet, without using any service that can optimize the speed and cost of the data transfer, such as AWS Global Accelerator or Amazon CloudFront. Outbound data transfers are charged at different rates depending on the source and destination AWS Regions, and the volume of data transferred. Compute resources that are currently in use refer to the AWS services and resources that provide computing capacity, such as Amazon EC2 instances, AWS Lambda functions, or Amazon ECS tasks. Compute resources are charged based on the type, size, and configuration of the resources, and the duration and frequency of their usage.

 The correct answer is A because an Availability Zone consists of one or more data centers in a single location. An Availability Zone is an isolated location within an AWS Region that has independent power, cooling, and networking. Each Availability Zone has one or more data centers that host the physical servers and storage devices that run the AWS services. The other options are incorrect because they are not accurate descriptions of an Availability Zone. Two or more data centers in multiple locations are not an Availability Zone, but rather multiple Availability Zones within an AWS Region. One or more physical hosts in a single data center are not an Availability Zone, butrather the components of a data center within an Availability Zone. Two or more physical hosts in multiple data centers are not an Availability Zone, but rather the components of multiple data centers within one or more Availability Zones. Reference: [Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones]

The correct answer is B because Spot Instances enable the company to optimize costs and meet the requirements. Spot Instances are spare EC2 instances that are available at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. Spot Instances are suitable for stateless, fault-tolerant, and flexible applications that can run for any duration. The other options are incorrect because they do not enable the company to optimize costs and meet the requirements. Reserved Instances are EC2 instances that are reserved for a specific period of time (one or three years) in exchange for a lower hourly rate. Reserved Instances are suitable for steady-state or predictable workloads that run for a long duration. On-Demand Instances are EC2 instances that are launched and billed at a fixed hourly rate. On-Demand Instances are suitable for short-term, irregular, or unpredictable workloads that cannot be interrupted. Dedicated Instances are EC2 instances that run on hardware that is dedicated to a single customer. Dedicated Instances are suitable for workloads that require regulatory compliance or data isolation. Reference: [Amazon EC2 Instance Purchasing Options]

 Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) and Amazon FSx offer file storage. File storage is a type of storage that organizes data into files and folders, and allows multiple users or applications to access and share the same files over a network. Amazon EFS is a fully managed, scalable, and elastic file system that supports the Network File System (NFS) protocol and can be used with Amazon EC2 instances and AWS Lambda functions. Amazon FSx is a fully managed service that provides two file system options: Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, which supports the Server Message Block(SMB) protocol and is compatible with Microsoft Windows applications; and Amazon FSx for Lustre, which is a high-performance file system that is optimized for compute-intensive workloads

The company should use Amazon RDS with a MySQL database to meet the requirements of moving its workload to AWS so that the tasks of patching the database and taking backup snapshots of the data in the clusters will be completed automatically. Amazon RDS is a managed service that simplifies the setup, operation, and scaling of relational databases in the AWS Cloud. Amazon RDS automates common database administration tasks such as patching, backup, and recovery. Amazon RDS also supports MySQL and other popular database engines5

AWS Trusted Advisor is the AWS service that provides real-time guidance for provisioning resources, based on AWS best practices related to security, cost optimization, and service limits. AWS Trusted Advisor inspects the user’s AWS environment and provides recommendations for improving performance, security, and reliability, reducing costs, and following best practices. AWS TrustedAdvisor also alerts the user when they are approaching or exceeding their service limits, and helps them request limit increases3.

Amazon CloudFront with Amazon S3 is a solution that allows you to provide static files securely to users from around the world. Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency, high transfer speeds, all within a developer-friendly environment. Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. You can use Amazon S3 to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere. You can also configure Amazon S3 to work with Amazon CloudFront to distribute your content to edge locations near your users for faster delivery and lower latency. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a service that enables you to build custom applications that process or analyze streaming data for specialized needs. This option is not relevant for providing static files securely. Amazon EC2 instances with an Application Load Balancer is a solution that allows you to distribute incoming traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances, in multiple Availability Zones. This option is suitable for dynamic web applications, but not necessary for static files. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a service that provides a simple, scalable, fully managed elastic NFS file system for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. This option is not relevant for providing static files securely.

Amazon RDS supports six database engines: Amazon Aurora, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server. Apache Cassandra, MongoDB, and Neo4j are not compatible with Amazon RDS. Therefore, the correct answer is D. You can learn more about Amazon RDS and its supported database engines

The design principles for reliability in the AWS Cloud are:

Test recovery procedures. The best way to ensure that systems can recover from failures is to regularly test them using simulated scenarios. This can help identify gaps and improve the recovery process.

Automatically recover from failure. By using automation, systems can detect and correct failures without human intervention. This can reduce the impact and duration of failures and improve the availability of the system.

Scale horizontally to increase aggregate system availability. By adding more redundant resources to the system, the impact of individual resource failures can be reduced. This can also improve the performance and scalability of the system.

Stop guessing capacity. By using monitoring and automation, systems can adjust the capacity based on the demand and performance metrics. This can prevent failures due to insufficient or excessive capacity and optimize the cost and efficiency of the system.

Manage change in automation. By using automation, changes to the system can be applied in a consistent and controlled manner. This can reduce the risk of human errors and configuration drifts that can cause failures. AWS Well-Architected Framework

 The duties that are the responsibility of a company that is using AWS Lambda are security inside of code and writing and updating of code. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that allows you to run code without provisioning or managing servers, scaling, or patching. AWS Lambda takes care of the security of the underlying infrastructure, such as the operating system, the network, and the firewall. However, the company is still responsible for the security of the code itself, such as encrypting sensitive data, validating input, and handling errors. The company is also responsible for writing and updating the code that defines the Lambda function, and choosing the runtime environment, such as Node.js, Python, or Java. AWS Lambda does not require the selection of CPU resources, as it automatically allocates them based on the memory configuration34

Deploying the application by using multiple Availability Zones is the best way to increase resilience for the application. According to the Amazon RDS User Guide, "Amazon RDS provides high availability and failover support for DB instances using Multi-AZ deployments. In a Multi-AZ deployment, Amazon RDS automatically provisions and maintains a synchronous standby replica in a different Availability Zone. The primary DB instance is synchronously replicated across Availability Zones to a standby replica to provide data redundancy, eliminate I/O freezes, and minimize latency spikes during system backups."4 Deploying a copy of the application in another AWS account, using multiple VPCs, or using multiple subnets do not provide the same level of resilience as using multiple Availability Zones.

The correct answers are A and B because Service Quotas console and AWS Trusted Advisor are AWS services or tools that can report on the quotas so that the company can improve the reliability of the application. Service Quotas console is an AWS tool that enables users to view and manage their quotas for AWS services from a central location. Users can use Service Quotas console to request quota increases, track quota usage, and set up alarms for approaching quota limits. AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service that provides real-time guidance to help users follow AWS best practices for security, performance, cost optimization, and fault tolerance. One of the categories of checks that AWS Trusted Advisor performs is service limits, which monitors the usage of each AWS service and alerts users when they are close to reaching the default limit. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services or tools that can report on the quotas so that the company can improve the reliability of the application. AWS Systems Manager is an AWS service that enables users to automate operational tasks, manage configuration and compliance, and monitor system health and performance. AWS Shield is an AWS service that protects users from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. AWS Cost Explorer is an AWS tool that enables users to visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage. Reference: Service Quotas, AWS Trusted Advisor FAQs

 Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a solution that meets the requirements of deploying and managing a Docker-based application on AWS with the least amount of operational overhead. Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service that makes it easy to run, scale, and secure Docker container applications on AWS. Amazon ECS eliminates the need for you to install, operate, and scale your own cluster management infrastructure. With simple API calls, you can launch and stop container-enabled applications, query the complete state of your cluster, and access many familiar features likesecurity groups, Elastic Load Balancing, EBS volumes, and IAM roles3.

AWS WAF is the AWS service that the company should use to configure rules to identify threats and protect applications from malicious network access. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps to filter, monitor, and block malicious web requests based on customizable rules. AWS WAF can be integrated with other AWS services, such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon API Gateway, and Application Load Balancer. For more information, see What is AWS WAF? and How AWS WAF Works.

 The correct answer is C because VPC Flow Logs is an AWS service or feature that captures information about the network traffic to and from an Amazon EC2 instance. VPC Flow Logs is a feature that enables customers to capture information about the IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in their VPC. VPC Flow Logs can help customers to monitor and troubleshoot connectivity issues, such as traffic not reaching an instance or traffic being rejected by a security group. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services or features that capture information about the network traffic to and from an Amazon EC2 instance. VPC Reachability Analyzer is an AWS service or feature that enables customers to perform connectivity testing between resources in their VPC and identify configuration issues that prevent connectivity. Amazon Athena is an AWS service that enables customers to query data stored in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. AWS X-Ray is an AWS service that enables customers to analyze and debug distributed applications, such as those built using a microservices architecture. Reference: VPC Flow Logs

Amazon RDS provides a managed database service that supports MariaDB with minimal operational overhead. It handles routine database tasks such as backups, patching, and scaling, reducing the burden on users. Amazon Neptune and DynamoDB are not compatible with MariaDB, and Amazon S3 is not a relational database service.

AWS Secrets Manager is a service designed to securely store and manage access to sensitive information such as API keys, passwords, and database credentials. It allows automatic rotation, secure storage, and fine-grained access control for these credentials, ensuring they are securely managed. The other options do not provide encrypted storage for credentials specifically.

AWS Application Discovery Service helps companies gather information about on-premises data centers to support migration planning. It collects data on system configuration, resource utilization, and network dependencies, providing essential insights for migration. AWS DataSync and Storage Gateway are used for data transfer, while AWS DMS is for database migration specifically.

Rightsizing involves adjusting instance types based on actual utilization to optimize costs and performance. Changing the size and type of EC2 instances according to utilization data achieves this with minimal operational overhead. Adding instances or changing payment methods does not directly address instance resizing, and reprovisioning with larger instances may not be optimal based on actual usage.

Amazon Rekognition provides machine learning capabilities to analyze images and videos, enabling the detection of objects, people, text, and scenes. It is designed specifically for image and video analysis, making it suitable for various use cases like facial recognition and content moderation. Other services like Amazon Connect, Lightsail, and Personalize do not offer image or video analysis capabilities.

AWS Enterprise Support provides strategic planning assistance, infrastructure event management, and real-time support, which are necessary for business-critical applications. Trusted Advisor and APN do not offer direct strategic support, and while AWS Professional Services can assist with complex solutions, Enterprise Support specifically includes ongoing operational support and event management.

AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog that offers third-party software, including security solutions like intrusion detection systems, which can be deployed directly within an AWS environment. By using AWS Marketplace, companies can find, purchase, and deploy ISP intrusion detection systems or other security tools that meet their specific requirements. Other services, such as AWS Security Hub and Quick Starts, do not directly provide third-party application deployment.

AWS Shield is a managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that safeguards AWS applications against network and transport layer attacks. AWS Shield Standard is automatically included with all AWS services and offers protection against common DDoS attacks. For more advanced protection, AWS Shield Advanced provides additional DDoS mitigation measures. Although AWS WAF, Firewall Manager, and GuardDuty contribute to security, they do not specialize in DDoS mitigation at the network layer like AWS Shield does.

Scaling horizontally, or adding more instances of resources rather than increasing the size of a single instance, is a core principle of the Performance Efficiency pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. It enables applications to handle increasing loads by distributing traffic across multiple resources. Other options, such as serverless architectures, managed services, and cost measurement, align with other pillars of the framework.

The AWS Cloud is cost-effective for dynamic workloads because of its elasticity, allowing resources to scale up or down based on demand, and its pay-as-you-go pricing, which enables companies to pay only for what they use. Reliability, security, and high availability are also benefits of AWS, but they do not specifically relate to cost-effectiveness in the context of dynamic workloads.

For a reporting application that runs only periodically, On-Demand Instances are the most cost-effective choice because they allow the company to pay only for the compute capacity used, without long-term commitments. Reserved Instances are less flexible due to the need for upfront payment or long-term contracts, which would not be cost-effective given the application’s intermittent usage. On-Demand Capacity Reservations would also be more costly, as they hold capacity regardless of usage.

To follow the principle of least privilege, the company should create an IAM user with only programmatic access since the access is limited to AWS CLI and SDKs, not the Management Console. Additionally, a custom IAM policy granting specific Amazon RDS permissions should be created and attached to this user to restrict access solely to necessary actions. Providing programmatic access only ensures adherence to security best practices by limiting access to the required interfaces.

AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated, low-latency, and consistent network connection between on-premises data centers and AWS. This private connection minimizes latency and improves network stability compared to a public internet connection or VPN. AWS Direct Connect is ideal for applications requiring real-time data transfer with minimal latency.

Amazon S3 offers virtually unlimited storage, allowing customers to store and retrieve any amount of data. There are no practical limits to the total volume of data that can be stored in S3, making it suitable for applications that require vast amounts of storage. The options of 10 PB, 50 PB, and 100 PB are incorrect as they do not reflect the actual scale of S3.

Amazon Athena Overview:

Amazon Athena is a serverless query service that allows users to analyze data in S3 using standard SQL.

It is commonly used to query AWS Cost and Usage Reports stored in S3.

How It Works for Cost Reports:

Cost and Usage Reports are delivered in a structured format to an S3 bucket.

Athena can query these reports without requiring additional ETL processes.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. Amazon OpenSearch Service:Designed for search and log analytics, not querying structured data.

C. Amazon Aurora:A relational database service, unsuitable for querying S3 data directly.

D. AWS Glue:Used for ETL tasks but not directly for querying.

One of the main advantages of cloud computing is the ability to trade fixed capital expenditures for variable operating expenses. By moving to the AWS Cloud, the company pays only for the resources it uses on a per-usage basis, reducing the need for large upfront investments in data center infrastructure. This benefit allows for more flexible and cost-effective spending based on actual usage. Other options, such as increased speed and agility or global reach, are also cloud benefits but do not specifically address the shift from fixed to variable expenses.

AWS SDKs Overview:

AWS Software Development Kits (SDKs) provide libraries and tools for developers to interact with AWS services programmatically.

SDKs are available for multiple programming languages, including Python, Java, JavaScript, and .NET.

How AWS SDKs Meet the Requirement:

Enable developers to integrate AWS services into their applications easily.

Include API clients, authentication helpers, and other utilities specific to AWS services.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. AWS CodePipeline:Automates CI/CD pipelines but does not provide libraries for development.

C. Amazon CloudWatch:Focuses on monitoring and logging; not a development toolset.

D. AWS CodeDeploy:Automates application deployment but does not include development libraries.

The AWS Management Console provides a web-based graphical user interface (GUI) that allows users to manage AWS services. It is user-friendly and accessible, enabling users to control and configure resources without needing to interact with AWS through code or command-line interfaces. AWS CLI and SDKs are command-line and programming tools, respectively, and do not offer a graphical interface.

AWS CloudFormation allows users to define and deploy infrastructure as code, creating highly repeatable and consistent configurations across environments. It uses templates to automate the provisioning and management of resources. CodeDeploy focuses on application deployment, and Systems Manager offers operational management, but neither provides templated infrastructure deployment at the same level as CloudFormation.

Under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, AWS manages the securityofthe cloud, while customers manage securityinthe cloud. For EC2 instances, it is the customer’s responsibility to manage the guestoperating system, including patching and encrypting data stored on attached storage volumes. AWS is responsible for the underlying infrastructure, including physical security and hypervisor maintenance.

AWS CloudHSM provides hardware-based key management to manage and protect encryption keys in the AWS Cloud. It allows customers to generate and use their own encryption keys while complying withrigorous security requirements. WhileAWS Certificate Manager (ACM)manages SSL/TLS certificates, it does not handle encryption keys independently, andAWS License ManagerandAWS Directory Serviceare not designed for managing encryption keys. AWS KMS is also relevant for key management but wasn't listed as an option in this question.

Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) supports SQL Server and other relational databases while handling administrative tasks such as backups, patching, monitoring, and scaling. This allows the company to migrate its SQL Server database without managing the infrastructure manually. Amazon EC2for SQL Server would require more administrative overhead, as the company would be responsible for the maintenance. Amazon DynamoDB and Aurora do not support SQL Server directly.

On-Demand Instances are most cost-effective for short-term, steady, and unpredictable workloads. Using them for a one-month testing period allows flexibility without a long-term commitment. For long-term workloads (like a year or more), Reserved Instances or Savings Plans would be more cost-effective. Spot Instances are better for interruptible, flexible workloads.

AWS Shared Responsibility Model Overview:

AWS manages securityofthe cloud, including physical infrastructure and foundational services.

Customers are responsible for securityinthe cloud, which includes operating system configuration, data encryption, and application patch management.

Why Patch Management Is Shared:

AWS is responsible for patching the underlying infrastructure.

Customers are responsible for patching the operating system and applications they install on their resources (e.g., EC2 instances).

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. Configuration of Amazon EC2 instance operating systems:Fully the customer’s responsibility.

B. Application file system server-side encryption:Customers configure and manage encryption.

D. Security of the physical infrastructure:Fully AWS’s responsibility.

Amazon Rekognition is a machine learning service that can analyze and recognize objects, people, text, scenes, and activities in images and videos. It is specifically designed for organizing, categorizing, and searching large volumes of images based on various attributes. Amazon Transcribe is for speech-to-text, Amazon Aurora is a relational database service, and Amazon QuickSight is a business intelligence tool for data visualization.

Application Load Balancer (ALB) integrates with AWS WAF to deploy and manage WAF rules for incoming traffic. ALB can route HTTP and HTTPS traffic and apply WAF rules to protect applications from common web exploits. Network Load Balancer does not support AWS WAF, and Trusted Advisor does not deploy WAF rules.

Savings Plans offer cost savings for predictable, steady workloads over a one or three-year term, with flexibility in instance family and size, making them suitable for critical workloads on EC2 instances that will run for a long term like three years. Spot Instances are more cost-effective but not suitable forcritical, predictable workloads due to potential interruptions. Dedicated Hosts and On-Demand Instances would be more costly.

AWS WAF Overview:

AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) allows users to create rules to block or allow traffic based on IP addresses, request patterns, and other conditions.

It is ideal for blocking traffic from a specific IP address.

Why AWS WAF Meets the Requirement:

The company can create a WAF rule to block traffic from the malicious IP address.

WAF integrates with services like Amazon CloudFront, Application Load Balancer, and API Gateway.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. AWS Shield:Protects against DDoS attacks but does not allow custom IP blocking.

B. AWS Config:Monitors resource configurations but does not block IPs.

C. Amazon GuardDuty:Detects threats but does not block traffic directly.

Refactoring involves re-architecting and modifying an application to take advantage of cloud-native features. In this case, the company wants to modernize a monolithic application by breaking it into microservices. This process aligns with the Refactor strategy, which is aimed at modernizing and re-architecting applications. Rehost, Repurchase, and Replatform do not involve the level of re-architecting needed to move from a monolithic to a microservices architecture.

AWS recommends using tags to organize resources effectively and to activate cost allocation tags to enable detailed tracking of costs by categories such as department, environment, and application. This approach provides the granularity needed for tracking and managing AWS costs accurately. AWS Cost Management and Billing tools provide insights but do not inherently categorize costs without tags.

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that is ideal for applications with short-running processes and low-frequency invocation, as it only charges for the compute time consumed. Since the application is invoked only a few times a day and runs for less than 5 minutes, Lambda is the most cost-effective option. ECS, EKS, and EC2 are better suited for more persistent workloads and would be more costly in this use case.

Amazon Route 53 is a scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service that routes end-user requests to infrastructure running in AWS. It is specifically designed to host domain names and manage DNS records, making it the ideal service for hosting the domain name of a public website. AWS Lambda, CloudFront, and Direct Connect serve different functions and are not DNS hosting services.

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) Overview:

ACM simplifies the process of provisioning, managing, and deploying SSL/TLS certificates.

These certificates are used to secure HTTPS connections, ensuring encrypted communication between clients and servers.

How ACM Meets the Goal:

Provides free public SSL/TLS certificates.

Automates certificate renewals and deployment with services like Elastic Load Balancing and Amazon CloudFront.

Reduces the operational overhead of managing SSL/TLS certificates.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. AWS WAF:Focuses on application-layer protection (e.g., SQL injection, cross-site scripting) but does not handle SSL/TLS encryption.

B. AWS Shield:Provides protection against DDoS attacks, not encryption.

C. Amazon VPC:Used for networking and security at the infrastructure level but does not manage SSL/TLS certificates.

Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses, ensuring better application availability and fault tolerance. While ELB scales to meet traffic demands, it does not inherently scale compute resources themselves, span multiple regions, or balance traffic between internet gateways.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a managed service that facilitates the deployment and management of applications in the AWS Cloud. It supports multiple programming languages and frameworks, allowing users to deploy web applications without managing the underlying infrastructure. Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles deployment, capacity provisioning, load balancing, and auto-scaling. The other services listed, like CodeGuru, Fargate, and CodeCommit, do not provide full application deployment and management capabilities.

AWS Transit Gateway acts as a cloud router for connecting multiple VPCs and on-premises networks, simplifying network management by creating a hub-and-spoke model for routing traffic. Direct Connect provides a private connection to AWS but does not function as a central router. Amazon Connect is unrelated, and Route 53 is for DNS services, not VPC connectivity.

AWS CloudFormation allows developers to create, manage, and deploy AWS resources using templates, ensuring a standardized and repeatable infrastructure setup. It’s ideal for setting up development, test, and production environments consistently. AWS Cloud Map, CloudFront, and CloudTrail do not provide templated infrastructure management capabilities.

AWS Snowball Edge offers configurations that are either storage-optimized or compute-optimized, providing flexibility for different data migration and processing needs. It supports local processing and data transfer to AWS, catering to scenarios that require heavy storage or compute resources. AWS Snowcone and DataSync do not offer these optimizations, and Storage Gateway focuses on hybrid cloud storage.

AWS provides the flexibility to scale resources up or down on demand, enabling companies to test new applications without making long-term commitments. This principle allows for cost efficiency and agility during testing and development. The other options do not specifically highlight the benefits of flexible, on-demand resource scaling.

AWS IAM Identity Center (formerly AWS Single Sign-On) provides centralized management of user access to multiple AWS accounts within an organization in AWS Organizations. It allows users to log in once and gain access to all assigned accounts without managing separate logins for each account. Amazon Cognito is generally used for application-level user management and authentication, not for managing access across AWS accounts.

Amazon EventBridge Overview:

EventBridge is a serverless event bus that enables applications to react to changes in AWS resources.

It supports routing events such as EC2 state changes to various targets, including AWS Step Functions.

How EventBridge Meets the Requirement:

EventBridge can capture the EC2 instance state change event and trigger the execution of a Step Functions workflow.

The integration is seamless and supports workflows triggered by multiple event sources.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. Amazon SageMaker:Used for building, training, and deploying machine learning models; not related to event triggers.

B. Amazon Connect:A cloud-based contact center service; unrelated to event triggers.

D. AWS Fargate:A compute engine for containers; does not manage events or invoke workflows.

 This is a design principle of the operational excellence pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Performing operations as code means using scripts, templates, or automation tools to perform routine tasks, such as provisioning, configuration, deployment, and monitoring. This reduces human error, increases consistency, and enables faster recovery from failures. You can learn more about the operational excellence pillar from this whitepaper or this digital course.

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior to protect your AWS accounts, workloads, and data stored in Amazon S3. With the cloud, the collection and aggregation of account and network activities is simplified, but it can be time consuming for security teams to continuously analyze event log data for potential threats. With GuardDuty, you can automate anomaly detection and get actionable findings to help you protect your AWS resources4.

Reserved Instances are a pricing model that offers significant discounts on Amazon EC2 usage compared to On-Demand Instances. Reserved Instances are suitable for stateful workloads that have predictable and consistent usage patterns for a long-term period. By committing to a one-year or three-year term, customers can reduce their total cost of ownership and optimize their cloud spend. Reserved Instances also provide capacity reservation, ensuring that customers have access to the EC2 instances they need when they need them. References: AWS Pricing Calculator, Amazon EC2 Pricing, [AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials: Module 3 - Compute in the Cloud]

 AWS Shield is an AWS service that provides protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks for applications that run in the AWS Cloud. DDoS attacks are attempts to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. AWS Shield provides two tiers of protection: AWS Shield Standard and AWS Shield Advanced. AWS Shield Standard is automatically enabled for all AWS customers at no additional charge. It provides protection against common and frequently occurring network and transport layer DDoS attacks. AWS Shield Advanced is an optional paid service that provides additional protection against larger and more sophisticated DDoS attacks. AWS Shield Advanced also provides access to 24/7 DDoS response team, cost protection, and enhanced detection and mitigation capabilities

The architecture deployment model that the company should use to meet this requirement is A. Multi-Region.

A multi-region deployment model is a cloud computing architecture that distributes an application and its data across multiple geographic regions. A multi-region deployment model enables a company to achieve global reach, high availability, disaster recovery, and performance optimization.By deploying an application inmultiple regions, a company can serve customers from the nearest region, reduce latency, increase redundancy, and comply with data sovereignty regulations12.

A single-region deployment model is a cloud computing architecture that runs an application and its data within a single geographic region. A single-region deployment model is simpler and cheaper than a multi-region deployment model, but it has limited scalability, availability, and performance.A single-region deployment model may notbe suitable for a company that wants to deploy an application globally, as it may face challenges such as network latency, regional outages, or regulatory compliance12.

A multi-AZ (Availability Zone) deployment model is a cloud computing architecture that distributes an application and its data across multiple isolated locations within a single region. An Availability Zone is a physically separate location within an AWS Region that has independent power, cooling, and networking.A multi-AZ deployment model enhances the availability and durability of an application by providing redundancy and fault tolerance within a region34.

A single-AZ deployment model is a cloud computing architecture that runs an application and its data within a single Availability Zone. A single-AZ deployment model is the simplest and most cost-effective option, but it has no redundancy or fault tolerance.A single-AZ deployment model may not be suitable for a company that wants to deploy an application globally, as it may face challenges such as network latency, regional outages, or regulatory compliance34.

Using EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones is an AWS infrastructure solution that meets the requirements of migrating a high performance computing (HPC) application to AWS with fault tolerance and failover capabilities, and with the least latency between components. An Availability Zone is a physically isolated location within an AWS Region that has its own power, cooling, and network connectivity. EC2 instances within the same Region can communicate with each other using low-latency private IP addresses. By using EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones, the company can achieve fault tolerance and failover for their HPC application, because they can distribute the workload and data across different locations that are independent of each other. If one Availability Zone becomes unavailable or impaired, the company can redirect the traffic and data to another Availability Zone without affecting the performance and availability of the application5

AWS Artifact is your go-to, central resource for compliance-related information that matters to you. It provides on-demand access to AWS’ security and compliance reports and select online agreements. Reports available in AWS Artifact include our Service Organization Control (SOC) reports, Payment Card Industry (PCI) reports, and certifications from accreditation bodies across geographies and compliance verticals that validate the implementation and operating effectiveness of AWS security controls. Agreements available in AWS Artifact include the Business Associate Addendum (BAA) and the Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA). You can use AWS Artifact to download the applicable report for AWS security controls and provide it to the auditor.

Amazon Kendra is a highly accurate and easy to use intelligent search service powered by machine learning. It enables users to easily find the content they are looking for, even when it is scattered across multiple locations and content repositories within their organization. Amazon Kendra supports natural language queries, and can search fortext in documents stored in Amazon S3, as well as other sources such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and more1.

Amazon Rekognition is a computer vision service that makes it easy to add image and video analysis to applications. It can detect objects, faces, text, scenes, activities, and emotions in images and videos. However, it is not designed for searching for text in documents stored in Amazon S32.

Amazon Polly is a text-to-speech service that turns text into lifelike speech. It can create audio versions of books, articles, podcasts, and more. However, it is not designed for searching for text in documents stored in Amazon S33.

Amazon Lex is a service for building conversational interfaces using voice and text. It can create chatbots that can interact with users using natural language. However, it is not designed for searching for text in documents stored in Amazon S34.

 The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) helps organizations understand how cloud adoption transforms the way they work, and it provides structure to identify and address gaps in skills and processes. The AWS CAF organizes guidance into six areas of focus, called perspectives. Each perspective reflects a different stakeholder viewpoint with its own distinct responsibilities, skills, and attributes. The Security Perspective helps you structure the selection and implementation of security controls that meet your organization’s needs2.

 Realigning teams to focus on products and value streams, and using agile methods to rapidly iterate and evolve are tasks that the company should perform to meet the requirements of becoming more responsive to customer inquiries and feedback, according to the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF). AWS CAF organizes guidance into six areas of focus, called perspectives: business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. Each perspective is divided into capabilities, which describe the skills and processes to execute the transition effectively. The people perspective helps you prepare your organization for cloud adoption, and includes capabilities such as organizational change management, staff skills and readiness, and organizational alignment. The business perspective helps you align IT strategy with business strategy, and includes capabilities such as business case development, value proposition, and product ownership. Creating new value propositions with new products and services is a task that belongs to the business perspective, but it is not directly related to the requirement of becoming more responsive to customer inquiries and feedback. Using a new data and analytics platform to create actionable insights is a task that belongs to the platform perspective, which helps you design, implement, and optimize the architecture of the AWS environment. However, it is also not directly related to the requirement of becoming more responsive to customer inquiries and feedback. Migrating and modernizing legacy infrastructure is a task that belongs to the operations perspective, which helps you enable, run, use, operate, and recover IT workloads to the level agreed upon with your business stakeholders.However, it is also not directly related to the requirement of becoming more responsive to customer inquiries and feedback.

 The AWS service or feature that the company should use to categorize and track AWS usage cost based on business categories is cost allocation tags. Cost allocation tags are key-value pairs that users can attach to AWS resources to organize and track their AWS costs. Users can use cost allocation tags to filter and group their AWS costs by categories such as project, department, environment, or application. Users can also use cost allocation tags to generate detailed billing reports that show the costs associated with each tag3. AWS Organizations, AWS Security Hub, and AWS Cost and Usage Report are other AWS services or features that can help users with different aspects of their AWS usage, such as managing multiple accounts, monitoring security issues, or analyzing billing data, but they do not enable users to categorize and track AWS costs based on business categories.

On-Demand Instances are the default pricing model for Amazon EC2 instances. They allow users to pay for compute capacity by the second, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments. They are suitable for applications with short-term, irregular, or unpredictable workloads that cannot beinterrupted3. Savings Plans are a pricing model that offer significant savings on Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate usage, in exchange for a commitment to a consistent amount of usage (measured in $/hour) for a 1-year or 3-year term. Spot Instances are a pricing model that offer spare Amazon EC2 compute capacity at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices, but they can be interrupted by AWS with a two-minute notice when the demand exceeds the supply. Reserved Instances are a pricing model that offer up to 75% discount compared to On-Demand prices, in exchange for a commitment to use a specific instance type and size in a specific region for a 1-year or 3-year term.

 The AWS service that meets the requirements of providing a graph database service that is scalable and highly available is Amazon Neptune. Amazon Neptune is a fast, reliable, and fully managed graph database service that supports property graph and RDF graph models. Amazon Neptune is designed to store billions of relationships and query the graph with milliseconds latency. Amazon Neptune also offers high availability and durability by replicating six copies of the data across three Availability Zones and continuously backing up the data to Amazon S35. Amazon Aurora, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon DynamoDB are other AWS services that provide relational or non-relational database solutions, but they do not support graph database models.

Rightsizing is the cloud concept that is demonstrated by using AWS Compute Optimizer. Rightsizing is the process of adjusting the type and size of your cloud resources to match the optimal performance and cost for your workloads. AWS Compute Optimizer is a service that analyzes the configuration and utilization metrics of your AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon EBS volumes, AWS Lambda functions, and Amazon ECS services on AWS Fargate. It reports whether your resources are optimal, and generates optimization recommendations to reduce the cost and improve the performance of your workloads. AWS Compute Optimizer uses machine learning to analyze your historical utilization data and compare it with the most cost-effective AWS alternatives. You can use the recommendations toevaluate the trade-offs between cost and performance, and decide when to move or resize your resources to achieve the best results. References: Workload Rightsizing - AWS Compute Optimizer - AWS, What is AWS Compute Optimizer? - AWS Compute Optimizer

AWS Regions are the AWS service or resource that the company should use to select its Amazon RDS deployment area. AWS Regions are separate geographic areas where AWS clusters its data centers. Each AWS Region consists of multiple, isolated, and physically separate Availability Zones within a geographic area. Each AWS Region is designed to be isolated from the other AWS Regions to achieve the highest possible fault tolerance and stability. AWS provides a more extensive global footprint than any other cloud provider, and to support its global footprint and ensure customers are served across the world, AWS opens new Regions rapidly. AWS maintains multiple geographic Regions, including Regions in North America, South America, Europe, China, Asia Pacific, South Africa, and the Middle East. Amazon RDS is available in several AWS Regions worldwide. To create or work with an Amazon RDS DB instance in a specific AWS Region, you must use the corresponding regional service endpoint. You can choose the AWS Region that meets your latency or legal requirements. You can also use multiple AWS Regions to design a disaster recovery solution or to distribute your read workload. References: Global Infrastructure Regions & AZs - aws.amazon.com, Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones - Amazon Relational Database Service

This is a benefit of using an AWS managed service, such as Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, or AWS Lambda. AWS managed services are fully managed by AWS, which means that AWS handles the provisioning, scaling, patching, backup, and recovery of the underlying infrastructure and software. This reduces the operational overhead for the company’s IT staff, who can focus on their core business logic and innovation. You can learn more about the AWS managed services from this webpage or this digital course.

Under the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for ensuring the security of the internal network in the AWS data centers, as well as the physical security of the hardware and facilities that run AWS services. AWS customers are responsible for configuring the security group rules that determine which ports are open on an EC2 Linux instance, patching the guest operating system with the latest security patches on EC2, and turning on server-side encryption for S3 buckets. Source: AWS Shared Responsibility Model

Amazon Aurora is a fully managed MySQL-compatible database that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open-source databases. Amazon Aurora is part of the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) family, which means it inherits the benefits of a fully managed service, such as automated backups, patches, scaling, monitoring, and security. Amazon Aurora also offers up to five times the throughput of standard MySQL, as well as high availability, durability, and fault tolerance with up to 15 read replicas, cross-Region replication, and self-healing storage. Amazon Aurora is compatible with the latest versions of MySQL, as well as PostgreSQL, and supports various features and integrations that enhance its functionality and usability123

 Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, AWS — Amazon Aurora Overview

Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) is a service that provides fully managed message queues for asynchronous communication between microservices. It helps developers use loose coupling and reliable messaging by allowing them to send, store, and receive messages between distributed components without losing them or requiring each component to be always available1.Elastic Load Balancing is a service that distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses. Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) is a service that provides fully managed pub/sub messaging for event-driven and push-based communication between microservices. Amazon CloudFront is a service that provides a fast and secure content delivery network (CDN) for web applications.

The company is following the best practice of implementing loosely coupled dependencies by migrating the application to AWS and dividing the application into microservices. Loosely coupled dependencies are a design principle of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that helps to reduce the interdependencies between components and improve the scalability, reliability, and performance of the system. By breaking down the monolithic application into smaller, independent, and modular services, the company can reduce the complexity and maintenance costs, increase the agility and flexibility, and enable faster and more frequent deployments. AWS CloudFormation is an AWS service that provides the ability to manage infrastructure as code. Infrastructure as code is a process of defining and provisioning AWS resources using code or templates, rather than manual actions or scripts. AWS CloudFormation allows users to create and update stacks of AWS resources based on predefined templates that describe the desired state and configuration of the resources. AWS CloudFormation automates and simplifies the deployment and management of AWS resources, and ensures consistency and repeatability across different environments and regions. AWS CloudFormation also supports rollback, change sets, drift detection, and nested stacks features that help users to monitor andcontrol the changes to their infrastructure. References: Implementing Loosely Coupled Dependencies, What is AWS CloudFormation?

Amazon EC2 usage is calculated by either the hour or the second based on the size of the instance, operating system, and the AWS Region where the instances are launched. Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance, from the time an instance is launched until it’s terminated or stopped. Each partial instance-hour consumed is billed per-second for Linuxinstances and as a full hour for all other instance types1. Therefore, the customer will be billed for 3 hours and 6 minutes for running an On-Demand Amazon Linux EC2 instance for 3 hours, 5 minutes, and 6 seconds. References: Understand Amazon EC2 instance-hours billing

This is the pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that represents the philosophy of testing failure scenarios regularly and validating the understanding of the impact of potential failures. The operational excellence pillar covers the best practices for designing, running, monitoring, and improving systems in the AWS Cloud. Testing failure scenarios is one of the ways to improve the system’s resilience, reliability, and recovery. You can learn more about the operational excellence pillar from this whitepaper or this digital course.

S3 Versioning is a feature that allows you to keep multiple versions of an object in the same bucket. You can use S3 Versioning to protect your data from accidental deletion or overwriting by enabling it on a bucket or a specific object. S3 Versioning also allows you to restore previous versions of an object if needed. S3 Lifecycle rules are used to automate the transition of objects between storage classes or to expire objects after a certain period of time. S3 bucket policies are used to control access to the objects in a bucket. S3 server-side encryption is used toencrypt the data at rest in S3. References: S3 Versioning, S3 Lifecycle rules, S3 bucket policies, S3 server-side encryption

Savings Plans are an AWS pricing model or offering that can meet the requirements of seeking cost savings in exchange for a commitment to use a specific amount of an AWS service or category of AWS services for 1 year or 3 years. Savings Plans are flexible plans that offer significant discounts on AWS compute usage, such as EC2, Lambda, and Fargate. The company can choose from two types of Savings Plans: Compute Savings Plans and EC2 Instance Savings Plans. Compute Savings Plans provide the most flexibility and apply to any eligible compute usage, regardless of instance family, size, region, operating system, or tenancy. EC2 Instance Savings Plans provide more savings and apply to a specific instance family within a region. The company can select the amount of compute usage per hour (e.g., $10/hour) that they want to commit to for the duration of the plan (1 year or 3 years). The company will pay the discounted Savings Plan rate for the amount of usage that matches their commitment, and the regular on-demand rate for any usage beyond that

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a service that allows you to deploy and manage applications on AWS without manually creating and configuring the required resources, such as EC2 instances, load balancers, security groups, databases, and more. AWS Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the provisioning, scaling, load balancing, health monitoring, and updating of your application, while giving you full control over the underlying AWS resources if needed. AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports a variety of platforms and languages, such as Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker. You can use the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, the AWS SDKs, or the AWS Elastic Beanstalk API to create and manage your applications. You can also use AWS CodeStar, AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, and AWS CodePipeline to integrate AWS Elastic Beanstalk with your development and deployment workflows12

 AWS Shield Advanced is a managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS. AWS Shield Advanced provides you with 24x7 access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT) and protection against DDoS attacks of any size or duration. AWS Shield Advanced also provides near real-time visibility into attacks, advanced attack mitigation capabilities, and integration with AWS WAF and AWS Firewall Manager1. AWS Shield is a standard service that provides always-on detection and automatic inline mitigations to minimize application downtime and latency, but it does not offer the same level of features and support as AWS Shield Advanced2. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior, but it does not provide DDoS protection3. Network ACLs are stateless filters that can be associated with a subnet to control the traffic to and from the subnet, but they are not designed to protect against DDoS attacks

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a service that provides a simple, scalable, fully managed elastic NFS file system for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. It is built to scale on demand to petabytes without disrupting applications, growing and shrinking automatically as you add and remove files, eliminating the need to provision and manage capacity to accommodate growth. You can use Amazon EFS to create a shared file system that can be available to both your on-premises data center and your AWS Cloud environment. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is a service that provides persistent block storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud. Each Amazon EBS volume is automatically replicated within its Availability Zone to protect you from component failure, offering high availability and durability. However, Amazon EBS volumes are not shared file systems, and they cannot be available to both your on-premises data center and your AWS Cloud environment. Amazon S3 is a service that provides object storage through a web services interface. You can use Amazon S3 to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use cases, such as data lakes, websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archive, enterprise applications, IoT devices, and big dataanalytics. However, Amazon S3 is not a shared file system, and it cannot be available to both your on-premises data center and your AWS Cloud environment without additional configuration. Amazon ElastiCache is a service that enables you to seamlessly set up, run, and scale popular open-source compatible in-memory data stores in the cloud. You can use Amazon ElastiCache to improve the performance of your applications by allowing you to retrieve information from fast, managed, in-memory data stores, instead of relying entirely on slower disk-based databases. However, Amazon ElastiCache is not a shared file system, and it cannot be available to both your on-premises data center and your AWS Cloud environment.

AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations. With AWS Config, you can review changes in configurations and relationships between AWS resources, dive into detailed resource configuration histories, and determine your overall compliance against the configurations specified in your internal guidelines. This can help you simplify compliance auditing, security analysis, change management, and operational troubleshooting1.

AWS Budgets is a service that enables you to plan your service usage, service costs, and instance reservations. You can use AWS Budgets to create custom budgets that alert you when your costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) your budgeted amount. You can also use AWS Budgets to monitor how close your usage and costs are to meeting your reservation purchases1

The cost of application software licenses is the company’s direct responsibility when it migrates its IT infrastructure from an on-premises data center to the AWS Cloud. Application software licenses are the agreements that grant users the right to use specific software products, such as operating systems, databases, or applications. Depending on the type and terms of the license, users may need to pay a fee to the software vendor or provider to use the software legally and access its features and updates. When users migrate their IT infrastructure to the AWS Cloud, they can choose to buy new licenses from AWS, bring their own licenses (BYOL), or use a combination of both. However, regardless of the option they choose, they are still responsible for complying with the license terms and paying the license fees to the software vendor or provider. AWS does not charge users for the application software licenses they bring or buy, but only for the AWS resources they use to run their applications. Therefore, thecost of application software licenses is the only cost among the options that is the company’s direct responsibility. The other costs are either included in the AWS service fees or covered by AWS.

 AWS License Manager Pricing, Software licensing: The blind spot in public cloud costs, Cost Optimization tips for SQL Server Licenses on AWS, Microsoft Licensing on AWS

AWS Cost Explorer is the AWS service or tool that helps users visualize, understand, and manage spending and usage over time. AWS Cost Explorer is a web-based interface that allows users to access interactive graphs and tables that display their AWS costs and usage data. Users can create custom reports that analyze cost and usage data by various dimensions, such as service, region, account, tag, and more. Users can also view historical data for up to the last 12 months, forecast future costs for up to the next 12 months, and get recommendations for cost optimization. AWS Cost Explorer also provides preconfigured views that show common cost and usage scenarios, such as monthly spend by service, daily spend by linked account, and Reserved Instance utilization. Users can use AWS Cost Explorer to monitor their AWS spending and usage trends, identify cost drivers and anomalies, and optimize their resource allocation and budget planning. References: Cloud Cost Analysis - AWS Cost Explorer - AWS, Analyzing your costs with AWS Cost Explorer

Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency, high transfer speeds, all within a developer-friendly environment. It works seamlessly with services including AWS Shield for DDoS mitigation, Amazon S3, Elastic Load Balancing or Amazon EC2 as origins for your applications, and Lambda@Edge to run custom code closer to customers’ users and to customize the user experience. By using CloudFront, you can cache your content at the edge locations that are closest to your end users, reducing the network latency and improving theperformance of your application. CloudFront also offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, so you only pay for the data transfer and requests that you use.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling helps you ensure that you have the correct number of Amazon EC2 instances available to handle the load for your application. You create collections of EC2 instances, called Auto Scaling groups. You can specify the minimum number of instances in each Auto Scaling group, and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling ensures that your group never goes below this size. You can specify the maximum number of instances in each Auto Scaling group, and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling ensures that your group never goes above this size4. AWS Lambda lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You pay only for the compute time you consume. With Lambda, you can run code for virtually any type of application or backend service - all with zero administration. Just upload your code and Lambda takes care of everything required to run and scale your code with high availability. You can set up your code to automatically trigger from other AWS services or call it directly from any web or mobile app.

AWS Site-to-Site VPN and AWS Direct Connect are AWS services that are connectivity services for a VPC. AWS Site-to-Site VPN is a service that enables you to securely connect your on-premises network or branch office site to your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). You can establish VPN connections over the internet or over AWS Direct Connect1. AWS Direct Connect is a service that lets you establish a dedicated network connection between your network and one of the AWS Direct Connect locations. Using AWS Direct Connect, you can create a private connection between AWS and your datacenter, office, or colocation environment, which can reduce your network costs,increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than internet-based connections2. Amazon Connect is a service that lets you set up and manage a contact center in the cloud, but it does not provide network connectivity between the VPC and your on-premises network. AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) is a service that makes it easy for you to create and manage cryptographic keys and control their use across a wide range of AWS services and inyour applications, but it does not provide network connectivity between the VPC and your on-premises network. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a service that enables you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely, but it does not provide network connectivity between the VPC and your on-premises network.

AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service that allows you to extend your on-premises file storage capabilities to the AWS Cloud. AWS Storage Gateway file gateway enables you to store and access your files in Amazon S3 using industry-standard file protocols such as NFS and SMB. File gateway caches frequently accessed files locally, providing low-latency access to your data. File gateway also optimizes the transfer of data between your on-premises environment and AWS, minimizing the amount of bandwidth consumed. By using file gateway, you can retain the performance benefit of sharing content locally while leveraging the scalability, durability, and cost-effectiveness of Amazon S3. References: AWS Storage Gateway, File Gateway

AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is a software development framework that allows you to define cloud resources as code using familiar programming languages, such as TypeScript, Python, Java, .NET, and Go (in Developer Preview). You can use AWS CDK to model your application resources using high-level constructs that provide sensible defaults and best practices, or use low-level constructs that provide full access to the underlying AWS CloudFormation resources. AWS CDK synthesizes your code into AWS CloudFormation templates that you can deploy using the AWS CDK CLI or the AWS Management Console. AWS CDK also integrates with other AWS services, such as AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodePipeline, AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and more, to help you automate your development and deployment processes. AWS CDK is an open-source framework that you can extend and contribute to. References: Cloud Development Framework - AWS Cloud Development Kit - AWS, AWS Cloud Development Kit Documentation, AWS Cloud Development Kit - Wikipedia, AWS CDK Intro Workshop | AWS CDK Workshop

 The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of best practices and guidelines for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud. The framework consists of five pillars: operational excellence, performance efficiency, reliability, security, and cost optimization. The security pillar covers the AWS shared responsibility model, which defines the security and compliance responsibilities of AWS and the customers. You can learn more about the AWS Well-Architected Framework from [this whitepaper] or [this digital course].

AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) is a service that provides temporary security credentials to users or applications that need to access AWS resources. The temporarycredentials have a limited lifetime and can be configured to last from a few minutes to several hours. The credentials are not stored with the user or application, but are generated dynamically and provided on request. The credentials work almost identically to long-term access key credentials, but have the advantage of not requiring distribution, rotation, or revocation1.

AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) is a service that provides encryption and decryption services for data and keys. It does not provide temporary security credentials2.

AWS CloudHSM is a service that provides hardware security modules (HSMs) for cryptographic operations and key management. It does not provide temporary security credentials3.

Amazon Cognito is a service that provides user authentication and authorization for web and mobile applications. It can also provide temporary security credentials for authenticated users, but not for applications4.

Amazon EC2 is the AWS service that the company should use to meet its requirements of retaining full control of patch management for the guest operating systems that host its applications. Amazon EC2 is a service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch virtual servers, called instances, that run various operating systems, such as Linux, Windows, macOS, and more. Users have full administrative access to their instances and can install and configure any software, including patches and updates, on their instances. Users are responsible for managing the security and maintenance of their instances, including patching the guest operating system and applications. Users can also use AWS Systems Manager to automate and simplify the patching process for their EC2 instances. AWS Systems Manager is a service that helps users manage their AWS and on-premises resources atscale. Users can use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to scan their instances for missing patches, define patch baselines and maintenance windows, and apply patches automatically or manually across their instances. Users can also use AWS Systems Manager to monitor the patch compliance status and patching history of their instances. References: What is Amazon EC2?, AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager

Amazon Textract is a service that automatically extracts text and data from scanned documents. Amazon Textract goes beyond simple optical character recognition (OCR) to also identify thecontents of fields in forms and information stored in tables. Amazon Textract can analyze images of scanned financial invoices and extract the total balance amounts, as well as other relevant information, such as invoice number, date, vendor name, etc5.

AWS Enterprise Support plan is the highest level of support that AWS offers to its customers. One of the exclusive benefits of this plan is the access to a technical account manager (TAM), who is adedicated point of contact for guidance, advocacy, and support2. A technical project manager, a cloud support engineer, and a solutions architect are not exclusive benefits of the AWS Enterprise Support plan, as they are also available to customers with lower-tier support plans or through other AWS services or programs345.

Auto Scaling groups are a feature that allows users to automatically scale the number of Amazon EC2 instances up or down based on demand or a predefined schedule. Auto Scaling groups can helpimprove the performance and availability of applications by adjusting the capacity in response to traffic fluctuations1. AWS Global Accelerator is a service that improves the availability and performance of applications by routing traffic through AWS edge locations2. Amazon Route 53 is a service that provides scalable and reliable domain name system (DNS) service3. An Elastic IP address is a static IPv4 address that can be associated with an Amazon EC2 instance4.

IAM credential report is a feature that allows you to generate and download a report that lists all IAM users in your AWS account and the status of their various credentials, including access keys and MFA devices. You can use this report to audit the security status of your IAM users and ensure that they follow the best practices for using AWS1.

AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) is a service that allows you to create and manage encryption keys to protect your data. It does not provide information about IAM users or their credentials2.

IAM Access Analyzer is a feature that helps you identify the resources in your AWS account, such as S3 buckets or IAM roles, that are shared with an external entity. It does not provide information about IAM users or their credentials3.

Amazon CloudWatch is a service that monitors and collects metrics, logs, and events from your AWS resources and applications. It does not provide information about IAM users or their credentials4.

The AWS Cloud benefit that describes the ability to acquire resources as they are needed and release resources when they are no longer needed is elasticity. Elasticity means that users can quickly add and remove resources to match the demand of their applications, and only pay for what they use. Elasticity enables users to handle unpredictable workloads, reduce costs, and improve performance1. Economies of scale, agility, and security are other benefits of the AWS Cloud, but they do not describe the specific ability of acquiring and releasing resources on demand.

Amazon EC2 is an AWS service that provides scalable, secure, and resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Amazon EC2 allows customers to launch and manage virtual servers, called instances, that run a variety of operating systems and applications. Customers have full control over the configuration and management of their instances, including the guest operating system. Therefore, customers are responsible for updating and patching the guest operating system on their EC2 instances, as well as any other software or utilities installed on the instances. AWS provides tools and services, such as AWS Systems Manager and AWS OpsWorks, to help customers automate and simplify the patching process. References: Shared Responsibility Model, Shared responsibility model, [Amazon EC2]

The correct answer is A. Benefits management.

Benefits management is the AWS CAF governance perspective capability that helps you define and track business outcomes as part of your cloud transformation journey.Benefits management helps you align your cloud initiatives with your business objectives, measure the value and impact of your cloud investments, and communicate the benefits of cloud adoption to your stakeholders12.

Risk management is the AWS CAF governance perspective capability that helps you identify and mitigate the potential risks associated with cloud adoption, such as security, compliance, legal, and operational risks12.

Application portfolio management is the AWS CAF governance perspective capability that helps you assess and optimize your existing application portfolio for cloud migration or modernization.Application portfolio management helps you categorize your applications based on their business value and technical fit, prioritize them for cloud adoption, and select the best migration or modernization strategy for each application12.

Cloud financial management is the AWS CAF governance perspective capability that helps you manage and optimize the costs and value of your cloud resources.Cloud financial management helps you plan and budget for cloud adoption, track and allocate cloud costs, implement cost optimization strategies, and report on cloud financial performance12.

AWS Budgets and Amazon CloudWatch are two AWS services or tools that the company can use to receive a notification when a specific AWS cost threshold is reached. AWS Budgets allows users to set custom budgets to track their costs and usage, and respond quickly to alerts received from email or Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) notifications if they exceed their threshold. Users can create cost budgets with fixed or variable target amounts, and configure their notifications for actual or forecasted spend. Users can also set up custom actions to run automatically or through an approval process when a budget target is exceeded. For example, users could automatically apply a custom IAM policy that denies them the ability to provision additional resources within an account. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that monitors applications, responds to performance changes, optimizes resource use, and provides insights into operational health. Users can use CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, which are variables they can measure for their resources and applications. Users can create alarms that watch metrics and send notifications or automatically make changes to the resources they are monitoring when a threshold is breached. Users can use CloudWatch to monitor their AWS costs and usage by creating billing alarms that send notifications when their estimated charges exceed a specified threshold amount. Userscan also use CloudWatch to monitor their Reserved Instance (RI) or Savings Plans utilization and coverage, and receive notifications when they fall below a certain level.

 Cloud Cost And Usage Budgets - AWS Budgets, What is Amazon CloudWatch?, Creating a billing alarm - Amazon CloudWatch

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) cloud transformation journey is a four-phase process that helps customers plan and execute their cloud migration and digital transformation. The four phases are:

Envision phase: This phase focuses on demonstrating how cloud will help accelerate the business outcomes of the customer. It involves identifying and prioritizing transformation opportunities across four domains: business, people, governance, and platform. It also involves associating the transformation initiatives with key stakeholders and measurable business outcomes1.

Align phase: This phase focuses on identifying capability gaps across six perspectives: business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. It also involves identifying cross-organizational dependencies and surfacing stakeholder concerns and challenges. The goal of this phase is to create strategies for improving the cloud readiness, ensure stakeholder alignment, and facilitate relevant organizational change management activities1.

Launch phase: This phase focuses on delivering pilot initiatives in production and demonstrating incremental business value. Pilots should be highly impactful and influence future direction. The customer should learn from the pilots and adjust their approach before scaling to full production1.

Scale phase: This phase focuses on expanding production pilots and business value to the desired scale and ensuring that the business benefits associated with the cloud investments are realized and sustained1.

 Deploying the application in multiple Availability Zones is the best way to ensure high availability for the application. Availability Zones are isolated locations within an AWS Region that are engineered to be fault-tolerant from failures in other Availability Zones. By deploying the application in multiple Availability Zones, the company can reduce the impact of outages and increase the resilience of the application. Deploying the application in a single Availability Zone, on AWS Direct Connect, or on Reserved Instances does not provide the same level of high availability as deploying the application in multiple Availability Zones. Source: Availability Zones

AWS Auto Scaling is the AWS service that allows users to optimize the number of EC2 instances based on the usage pattern, as it automatically adjusts the capacity to maintain steady and predictable performance at the lowest possible cost. Spot Instances are a way to reduce the cost ofEC2 instances by bidding on unused EC2 capacity, but they are not suitable for applications that require steady and reliable performance. Reserved Instances are a way to reduce the cost of EC2 instances by committing to a certain amount of usage for a period of time, but they are not flexible to adjust to the usage pattern. AWS CloudFormation is a way to automate the creation and management of AWS resources, but it does not optimize the number of EC2 instances based on the usage pattern. These concepts are explained in the AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials course3.

Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. It is a fully managed, serverless database that does not require provisioning, patching, or backup. It offers built-in security, backup and restore, and in-memory caching3. Amazon RDS is a relational database service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups. However, it is not a key-value NoSQL database, and it is not serverless, as it requires you to choose an instance type and size4. Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud, that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. However, it is also not a key-value NoSQL database, and it is not serverless, as it requires you to choose an instance type and size. Amazon MemoryDB for Redis is a Redis-compatible, durable, in-memory database service that delivers ultra-fast performance and multi-AZ reliability for the most demanding applications. However, it is also not a key-value NoSQL database, and it is not serverless, as it requires you to choose a node type and size.

AWS Artifact is a self-service portal that provides on-demand access to AWS security and compliance reports and select online agreements. You can use AWS Artifact to download AWS service audit reports, such as ISO, PCI, and SOC, and to accept and manage agreements with AWS, such as the Business Associate Addendum (BAA).

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) is a managed and automated service that helps you migrate your databases from your on-premises or cloud environment to AWS, either as a one-time migration or as a continuous replication. AWS DMS supports migration between 20-plus database and analytics engines, such as PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon S3. AWS DMS also provides schema conversion and validation tools, as well as monitoring and security features. AWS DMS is a cost-effective and reliable solution for database migration, as you only pay for the compute resources and additional log storage used during the migration process, and you can minimize the downtime and data loss with Multi-AZ and ongoing replication12

To migrate a PostgreSQL database from on-premises to Amazon RDS using AWS DMS, you need to perform the following steps:

Create an AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region as your target Amazon RDS PostgreSQL DB instance. The replication instance is a server that runs the AWS DMS replication software and connects to your source and target endpoints. You can choose the instance type, storage, and network settings based on your migration requirements3

Create a source endpoint that points to your on-premises PostgreSQL database. You need to provide the connection details, such as the server name, port, database name, user name, and password. You also need to specify the engine name as postgres and the SSL mode as required4

Create a target endpoint that points to your Amazon RDS PostgreSQL DB instance. You need to provide the connection details, such as the server name, port, database name, user name, and password. You also need to specify the engine name as postgres and the SSL mode as verify-full.

Create a migration task that defines the migration settings and options, such as the replication instance, the source and target endpoints, the migration type (full load, full load and change data capture, or change data capture only), the table mappings, the task settings, and the task monitoring role. You can also use the AWS Schema Conversion Tool (AWS SCT) to convert your source schema to the target schema and apply it to the target endpoint before or after creating the migration task.

Start the migration task and monitor its progress and status using the AWS DMS console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS DMS API. You can also use AWS CloudFormation to automate the creation and execution of the migration task.

The other options are not suitable for migrating a PostgreSQL database from on-premises to Amazon RDS. Cloud Adoption Readiness Tool is a tool that helps you assess your readiness for cloud adoption based on six dimensions: business, people, process, platform, operations, and security. It does not perform any database migration tasks. AWS Migration Hub is a service that helps you track and manage the progress of your application migrations across multiple AWS and partner services, such as AWS DMS, AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Server Migration Service, and CloudEndure Migration. It does not perform any database migration tasks itself, but rather integrates with other migration services. AWS Application Migration Service is a service that helps you migrate your applications from your on-premises or cloud environment to AWS without making any changes to the applications, their architecture, or the migrated servers. It does not support database migration, but rather replicates your servers as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) and launches them as EC2 instances on AWS.

 AWS Database Migration Service, What is AWS Database Migration Service?, Working with an AWS DMS replication instance, Creating source and target endpoints for PostgreSQL, [Creating a target endpoint for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL], [Creating a migration task for AWS DMS], [AWS Schema Conversion Tool], [Starting a migration task for AWS DMS], [AWS CloudFormation], [Cloud Adoption Readiness Tool], [AWS Migration Hub], [AWS Application Migration Service]

Migration Evaluator is an AWS service that provides a customized assessment of your current on-premises environment and helps you build a data-driven business case for migration to AWS. Migration Evaluator collects and analyzes data from your on-premises servers, such as CPU, memory, disk, network, and utilization metrics, and compares them with the most cost-effective AWS alternatives. Migration Evaluator also helps you understand your existing software licenses and running costs, and provides recommendations for Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and License Included (LI) options in AWS. Migration Evaluator generates a detailed report that shows your projected running costs in the AWS Cloud, along with potential savings and benefits. You can use this report to support your decision-making and planning for cloud migration. References: Cloud Business Case & Migration Plan - Amazon Migration Evaluator - AWS, Getting started with Migration Evaluator

 Basing the selection of Amazon EC2 instance types on past utilization patterns is a way to right size the AWS resources and optimize the performance and cost. Using Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies to move objects that users access infrequently to lower-cost storage tiers is another way to reduce the storage costs and align them with the business value of the data. These two actions are recommended by the AWS Cost Optimization Pillar1. Switching from Amazon RDS to Amazon DynamoDB is not necessarily a cost-saving action, as it depends on the use case and the data model. Using Multi-AZ deployments for Amazon RDS is a way to improve the availability and durability of the database, but it also increases the cost. Replacing existing Amazon EC2 instanceswith AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a way to simplify the deployment and management of the application, but it does not affect the cost of the underlying EC2 instances.

 Amazon Cognito is a service that provides identity management for mobile and web applications, allowing users to sign up, sign in, and access AWS resources with different identity providers. AWS Security Hub is a service that provides a comprehensive view of the security posture of AWS accounts and resources. AWS Shield is a service that provides protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect web applications from common web exploits.

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) people perspective capabilities are the organizational skills and processes that enable effective cloud adoption.According to the AWS CAF people perspective whitepaper1, there are seven capabilities in this perspective, two of which are:

Organizational alignment: This capability helps you align your organizational structure, roles, and responsibilities to support your cloud transformation goals and objectives.It involves assessing your current and desired state ofalignment, identifying gaps and misalignments, and designing and implementing changes to optimize your cloud performance1.

Organization design: This capability helps you design and evolve your organization to enable agility, innovation, and collaboration in the cloud.It involvesdefining your cloud operating model, identifying the skills and competencies needed for cloud roles, and creating career paths and development plans for your cloud workforce1.

The other options are not capabilities in the AWS CAF people perspective.Portfolio management, risk management, and modern application development are capabilities in the AWS CAF business perspective, governance perspective, and platform perspective respectively2.

1: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework: People Perspective - AWS Cloud Adoption Framework: People Perspective

2: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework - AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

The AWS account root user is the identity that has complete access to all AWS services and resources in the account. It is accessed by signing in with the email address and password that were used to create the account1. The root user should be protected and used only for a few account and service management tasks that require it1. Therefore, the following actions are best practices for an AWS account root user:

Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on the root user. MFA is a security feature that requires users to provide two or more pieces of information to authenticate themselves, such as a password and a code from a device. MFA adds an extra layer of protection for the root user credentials, which can access sensitive information and perform critical operations in the account2.

Create an IAM user with administrator privileges for daily administrative tasks, instead of using the root user. IAM is a service that helps customers manage access to AWS resources for users and groups. Customers can create IAM users and assign them permissions to perform specific tasks on specific resources. Customers can also create IAM roles and policies to delegate access to other AWS services or external entities3. By creating an IAM user with administrator privileges, customers can avoid using the root user for everyday tasks and reduce the risk of accidental or malicious changes to the account1.

 These are two scenarios that represent the concept of elasticity on AWS. Elasticity means the ability to adjust the resources and capacity of the system in response to changes in demand or environment. Scaling the number of Amazon EC2 instances based on traffic means using services such as AWS Auto Scaling or Elastic Load Balancing to add or remove instances as the traffic increases or decreases. Resizing Amazon RDS instances as business needs change means using the Amazon RDS console or API to modify the instance type, storage type, or storage size of the database as the workload grows or shrinks. You can learn more about the concept of elasticity on AWS from [this webpage] or [this digital course].

AWS Managed Services is a service that provides operational management for AWS infrastructure and applications. It helps users migrate their workloads to AWS and provides ongoing support, security, compliance, and automation. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides best practices and recommendations for cost optimization, performance, security, and fault tolerance. AWS Consulting Partners are professional services firms that help customers design, architect, build, migrate, and manage their workloads and applications on AWS. AWS Artifacts is a service that provides on-demand access to AWS compliance reports and select online agreements.

AWS Business Support is the minimum recommended tier for users who have production workloads on AWS. AWS Business Support provides 24x7 access to cloud support engineers via phone, chat, or email, as well as a guaranteed response time of less than one hour for urgent issues. AWS Business Support also includes access to AWS Trusted Advisor, a tool that provides real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices4.

AWS customer carbon footprint tool is a tool that helps customers measure and manage their carbon emissions from their AWS usage. It provides data on the carbon intensity, energy consumption, and estimated emissions of AWS services across regions and time periods. It alsoenables customers to review and forecast their emissions, and compare them with industry benchmarks. AWS Health Dashboard is a service that provides personalized information about the health and performance of AWS services and resources. AWS Support Center is a service that provides access to AWS support resources, such as cases, forums, and documentation. Amazon QuickSight is a service that provides business intelligence and analytics for AWS data sources.

Users can change their own IAM user password using:

AWS Management Console: The graphical interface allows users to navigate to the "My Security Credentials" page and change their password.

AWS Command Line Interface (CLI): Users with the appropriate permissions can use theaws iam change-passwordcommand to change their password.

Why other options are not suitable:

B. AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS): Used for creating and managing encryption keys, not for managing user passwords.

D. AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM): Used for resource sharing between accounts, not for password management.

E. AWS Secrets Manager: A service for securely storing and managing secrets, not for changing IAM user passwords.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service that helps you securely control access to AWS resources. You can use IAM to create and manage AWS users and groups, and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources. IAM is always provided at nocharge12. References: 1: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) - Amazon Web Services (AWS), 2: Which aws service is always provided at no charge? - Brainly.in

Amazon AppStream 2.0 and Amazon WorkSpaces are AWS services that can be used to provide managed Windows virtual desktops and applications to remote employees over secure network connections. Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed application streaming service that allows users to access Windows desktop applications from any device, without installing or managing any software. Amazon AppStream 2.0 delivers applications over an encrypted connection and isolates them from the underlying infrastructure, ensuring security and compliance1. Amazon WorkSpaces is a fully managed desktop virtualization service that allows users to access Windows or Linux desktops from any device, with a consistent user experience. Amazon WorkSpaces provides persistent, cloud-based virtual desktops that can be customized and scaled according to the user’s needs. Amazon WorkSpaces also offers encryption, backup, and monitoring features to ensure security and reliability2. References:

Amazon AppStream 2.0

Amazon WorkSpaces

AWS Artifact is a service provided by AWS that offers on-demand access to AWS compliance reports, including the Payment Card Industry (PCI) reports. It is the primary tool for retrieving compliance reports such as Service Organization Control (SOC) reports, ISO certifications, and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) reports.

To obtain these reports:

The company should log into the AWS Management Console and navigate to AWS Artifact.

From there, they can select and download the necessary compliance reports.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Contact AWS Support: AWS Support is not needed to obtain these reports; they are readily available through AWS Artifact.

C. Download reports from AWS Security Hub: AWS Security Hub is a service that provides a comprehensive view of security alerts and compliance status, but it does not host or provide compliance reports like PCI DSS.

D. Contact an AWS technical account manager (TAM): While a TAM may assist in various AWS-related queries, they are not required to obtain PCI reports. AWS Artifact is designed for this purpose.

Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service)is a managed database service that simplifies the setup, operation, and scaling of relational databases in the AWS Cloud. It supports several SQL-based databases, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and MariaDB, while automating common administrative tasks such as backups, patch management, and scaling. This significantly reduces the operational overhead compared to managing databases on Amazon EC2 instances, which would require manual management of the operating system, database software, backups, and maintenance.

A. Amazon EC2 instances: Incorrect, as this would involve more operational overhead, including manual management of the database server.

C. Amazon DynamoDB: Incorrect, as it is a NoSQL database service, not suitable for migrating SQL-based databases.

D. OpenSearch: Incorrect, as it is used for search and analytics workloads, not for hosting SQL-based databases.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon RDS

AWS Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of platform-specific tools for developers that let them integrate AWS service features directly into their applications. AWS SDKs provide libraries, code samples, documentation, and other resources to help developers write code that interacts with AWS APIs. AWS SDKs support various programming languages, such as Java, Python, Ruby, .NET, Node.js, Go, and more. AWS SDKs make it easier for developers to access AWS services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, and more, from their applications. AWS SDKs also handle tasks such as authentication, error handling, retries, and data serialization, so developers can focus on their application logic.

TheAWS Developer Forumsare always free to use, regardless of the user's AWS Support plan. They provide a platform for users to ask questions, share knowledge, and collaborate with the AWS community.

A. AWS Developer Support: Incorrect, as it is a paid support plan option.

C. Programmatic case management: Incorrect, as this feature is available only with certain AWS Support plans (Business and Enterprise).

D. AWS Technical Account Manager (TAM): Incorrect, as a TAM is provided only under the AWS Enterprise Support plan, which is a paid support option.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Support Plans

For high performance computing (HPC) workloads, compute resources play a critical role in delivering the necessary processing power and efficiency. HPC workloads are typically computationally intensive, often requiring a large number of CPU cycles to solve complex problems. These workloads benefit most from instances that provide powerful processors and high clock speeds, which is whyCompute optimized instances (Answer B)are the best choice in this scenario.

Why Compute Optimized Instances (C Instances)?

Designed for Compute-Intensive Tasks: Compute optimized instances in Amazon EC2, such as the C6i or C5 series, are designed to offer high compute performance, low cost, and consistent CPU power. These instances are ideal for workloads like HPC, which require a high level of processing per second.

High Performance CPUs: The compute optimized instance family typically uses the latest-generation processors, such as AWS Graviton2 or Intel Xeon Scalable processors, which provide a higher number of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) and increased clock speeds compared to other instance types. This matches the need for HPC workloads to maximize throughput and minimize compute times.

Use Case Alignment: HPC workloads such as genomic research, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), financial modeling, and 3D rendering require high levels of CPU-bound tasks. Compute optimized instances provide the best CPU-to-memory ratio to handle these efficiently, leading to faster processing times and cost efficiency.

Comparison with Other Instance Types:

A. General Purpose Instances: These are versatile and balanced instances (e.g., T3 or M6i) that are suitable for various workloads but do not provide the specialized compute performance required for HPC. They offer a balanced mix of compute, memory, and networking but are not optimal for HPC workloads where computational power is critical.

C. Memory Optimized Instances: While these instances (e.g., R5, X1) are ideal for memory-intensive workloads such as in-memory databases (e.g., SAP HANA) or real-time data analytics, they do not provide the specialized compute power necessary for HPC tasks that require heavy CPU processing.

D. Storage Optimized Instances: These instances (e.g., I3, D3) are designed for workloads that need high disk throughput, like big data or transactional databases. While these are excellent for storage-heavy applications, they are not optimized for compute-intensive HPC workloads.

Amazon EC2 Compute Optimized Family (C Instances)

C6i Instances: Based on 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, C6i instances offer up to 15% better price/performance compared to previous generation C5 instances. These are ideal for high compute and HPC workloads.

C5 Instances: These are built for compute-intensive workloads like batch processing, distributed analytics, and high-performance web servers. They offer a high level of sustained CPU performance.

AWS Reference Links:

Amazon EC2 Instance Types

Amazon EC2 Compute Optimized Instances

HPC on AWS

In conclusion,Compute optimized instances (B)are the best choice for HPC workloads due to their high compute performance, optimized CPU architecture, and suitability for computationally intensive tasks.

Users receive access to a support concierge at the Enterprise Support level. A support concierge is a team of AWS billing and account experts that specialize in working with enterprise accounts. They can help users with billing and account inquiries, cost optimization, FinOps support, cost analysis, and prioritized answers to billing questions. The support concierge is included as part of the Enterprise Support plan, which also provides access to a Technical Account Manager (TAM), Infrastructure Event Management, AWS Trusted Advisor, and 24/7 technical support. References: AWS Support Plan Comparison, AWS Enterprise Support Plan, AWS Support Concierge

Amazon SageMakeris a fully managed service that provides every developer and data scientist with the ability to build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models quickly. It offers integrated Jupyter notebooks for data exploration, pre-built algorithms, and automatic model tuning to optimize hyperparameters.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon Personalize: A managed machine learning service that provides personalized recommendations, but does not offer the full suite of ML tools for building, training, and deploying models.

B. Amazon Comprehend: A natural language processing (NLP) service, not a general-purpose ML model building and deployment service.

C. Amazon Forecast: A managed service specifically for creating accurate forecasts using machine learning, not for general-purpose ML model development.

Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a highly scalable, fast container management service that allows you to run, stop, and manage Docker containers on a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances or a serverless environment powered by AWS Fargate. It provides secure, reliable, and scalable operations for containers, allowing users to deploy containers in a highly secure and reliable manner. Amazon Aurora is a relational database service, Amazon Athena is an interactive query service, and Amazon Polly is a text-to-speech service. Therefore, the correct answer is Amazon ECS.

Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) is a fully managed message queuing service that lets you send, store, and receive messages between software components at any volume, without losing messages or requiring other services to be available1. Amazon SQS is designed to provide a simpleand reliable way for customers to decouple and connect components (microservices) together using queues2. Queues are an important mechanism for providing fault tolerance and scalability in distributed systems, and help decouple different parts of your application3. The other options are not AWS services that are used specifically for sending messages between applications

AWS Workspaces is a service that provides fully managed, secure, and reliable virtual desktops for your employees. You can access your personal Windows environment on various devices, such as Android, iOS, Fire, Mac, PC, Chromebook, and Linux. You can choose from different bundles of CPU, memory, storage, and software options to suit your needs. You can also integrate AWS Workspaces with your existing Active Directory, VPN, and security policies. AWS Workspaces helps you reduce the cost and complexity of managing your desktop infrastructure, while enhancing the productivity and security of your remote workers456. References: 4: Amazon WorkSpaces Client Download, 5: VDI Desktops - Amazon WorkSpaces Family - AWS, 6: Amazon WorkSpaces

AWS Organizationsis a no-cost service that helps you centrally manage and govern your environment as you grow and scale your AWS resources. With AWS Organizations, you can create new AWS accounts, invite existing accounts to join your organization, and apply policies to groups of accounts for governance. While some features within AWS services incur additional costs, using AWS Organizations itself does not add any direct costs.

A. Amazon SageMaker: Incorrect, as it is a fully managed service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models, and it is not free.

B. AWS Config: Incorrect, as while it offers some free-tier usage, it generally incurs charges for recording and evaluating configuration changes.

D. Amazon CloudWatch: Incorrect, as certain CloudWatch metrics, custom metrics, and alarms have associated costs beyond the free tier.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Organizations

Amazon EC2 is the most suitable AWS service for this workload. Amazon EC2 provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. You can launch virtual servers, called instances, and configure them according to your needs. You can choose from different instance types, sizes, and families, and pay only for the resources you use. Amazon EC2 also offers features such as auto scaling, load balancing, security groups, and placement groups to optimize your performance, availability, and security1. Amazon EC2 is ideal for workloads that require consistent and reliable compute power, such as data processing, web hosting, gaming, and high-performance computing2. The other services are not suitable for this workload. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You pay only for the compute time you consume. Lambda is best for short-lived, stateless, and event-driven workloads that can becompleted in under 15 minutes3. AWS CodeDeploy is a deployment service that automates application deployments to Amazon EC2 instances, on-premises instances, serverless Lambda functions, or Amazon ECS services. CodeDeploy is not a compute service, but a tool to help you update your applications with minimal downtime4. AWS Wavelength is a service that delivers ultra-low latency applications for 5G devices. Wavelength embeds AWS compute and storage services at the edge of telecommunications providers’ 5G networks. Wavelength is designed for mobile edge computing, such as interactive gaming, video streaming, and augmentedreality. References: Amazon EC2, Amazon EC2 Use Cases, AWS Lambda, AWS CodeDeploy, [AWS Wavelength]

Amazon Macie is a data security and privacy service offered by AWS that uses machine learning and pattern matching to discover the sensitive data stored within Amazon S3. You can define your own custom type of sensitive data category that might be unique to your business or use case. Macie also provides you with dashboards and alerts that give you visibility into how your data is being accessed or moved. Macie helps you protect your data by enabling you to apply data protection techniques such as encryption, deletion, access control, and auditing. References: Strengthen the security of sensitive data stored in Amazon S3 by using additional AWS services, Security best practices for Amazon S3, Sensitive Data Protection on AWS, Sensitive Data Protection on Amazon Web Services

AWS CloudShell is the service that provides command line access to AWS tools and resources directly from a web browser. AWS CloudShell is a browser-based shell that makes it easy to securely manage, explore, and interact with your AWS resources. It comes pre-authenticated with your console credentials and common development and administration tools are pre-installed, so no local installation or configuration is required. You can open AWS CloudShell from the AWS Management Console with a single click and start running commands and scripts using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), Git, or SDKs. AWS CloudShell also provides persistent home directories with 1 GB of storage per AWS Region12. The other services do not provide command line access to AWS tools and resources directly from a web browser. AWS CloudHSM is a service that helps you meet corporate, contractual and regulatory compliance requirements for data security by using dedicated Hardware Security Module (HSM) appliances within the AWS Cloud3. Amazon WorkSpaces is aservice that provides a fully managed, secure Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solution that runs on AWS4. AWS Cloud Map is a service that makes it easy for your applications to discover and connect to each other usinglogical names and attributes5. References: AWS CloudShell, AWS CloudShell – Command-Line Access to AWS Resources, AWS CloudHSM, Amazon WorkSpaces, AWS Cloud Map

Amazon Lexis a service for building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text. It provides the tools necessary to create, test, and publish intelligent chatbots that can be integrated with web applications to provide a conversational experience.

A. Amazon Textract: Incorrect, as it is a service for extracting text and data from documents, not for creating chatbots.

C. AWS Glue: Incorrect, as it is a data integration service used for preparing and transforming data.

D. Amazon Rekognition: Incorrect, as it is an image and video analysis service.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon Lex

The People perspective in the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) serves as a bridge between technology and business, accelerating the cloud journey to help organizations more rapidly evolve to a culture of continuous growth, learning, and where change becomes business-as-normal, with focus on culture, organizational structure, leadership, and workforce1. References: People Perspective - AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora are both managed AWS services that support the PostgreSQL database engine. Amazon RDS makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale PostgreSQL deployments on the cloud, while Amazon Aurora is a cloud-native database engine that is compatible with PostgreSQL and offers higher performance and availability. Amazon Athena is a serverless query service that does not support PostgreSQL, but can analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Amazon EC2 is a compute service that allows users to launch virtual machines, but does not provide any database management features. Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service that is not compatible with PostgreSQL, but offers fast and consistent performance at any scale. References: Hosted PostgreSQL - Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL - AWS, Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL - Amazon Relational Database Service, AWS PostgreSQL: Managed or Self-Managed? - NetApp, AWS Announces Amazon Aurora Supports PostgreSQL 12 - InfoQ, Amazon Aurora vs PostgreSQL | What are the differences? - StackShare

AWS Transit Gatewayis a network transit hub that customers can use to connect their Amazon VPCs and on-premises networks to a central hub. This service simplifies network management and reduces operational overhead by enabling a single gateway for managing multiple network connections. It facilitates seamless integration and routing between VPCs and on-premises networks.

A. Virtual private gateway: Incorrect, as it is used to connect a single VPC to an on-premises network through a VPN connection.

C. Internet gateway: Incorrect, as it provides internet access for instances in a VPC but does not connect multiple networks.

D. Customer gateway: Incorrect, as it represents the on-premises device or software application that connects to AWS, but it does not provide a central hub.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Transit Gateway

AWS CloudFormation is a service that allows you to model and provision your AWS resources using templates. You can define your infrastructure as code and automate the creation and update of your resources. AWS CloudFormation also supports nested stacks, change sets, and rollback features to help you manage complex and dynamic environments34. References:

AWS CloudFormation

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Guide

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) and AWS Schema Conversion Tool are the primary services for migrating a commercial relational database to an Amazon-managed open-source database. AWS DMS helps migrate the data, while the AWS Schema Conversion Tool converts the database schema from the source database format to the target format, including SQL code. AWS SDKs are for software development, AWS Systems Manager is for operational management, and Amazon EMR is for big data processing, which are not relevant to this use case.

Understanding S3 Intelligent-Tiering: S3 Intelligent-Tiering is designed to optimize costs by automatically moving data to the most cost-effective access tier based on changing access patterns. It is ideal for data with unknown or unpredictable access patterns.

Why S3 Intelligent-Tiering is Cost-Effective:

Automatic Tiering: Moves data between two access tiers (frequent and infrequent access) based on changing access patterns, optimizing storage costs without performance impact.

No Retrieval Fees: Unlike other storage classes, there are no retrieval fees in Intelligent-Tiering, making it cost-effective for data with unpredictable access patterns.

Monitoring and Automation: Automatically monitors access patterns and transitions data, reducing the need for manual intervention.

When to Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering:

Unpredictable Access Patterns: Ideal for datasets where the access frequency cannot be determined or changes frequently.

Cost Optimization: For organizations looking to minimize storage costs without sacrificing performance or requiring manual intervention to move data between tiers.

Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering

Amazon S3 Storage Classes

AWS Application Composer is a service that allows users to visually design and build serverless applications. Users can drag and drop components, such as AWS Lambda functions, Amazon API Gateway endpoints, Amazon DynamoDB tables, and Amazon S3 buckets, to create aserverless application architecture. Users can also configure the properties, permissions, and dependencies of each component, and deploy the application to their AWS account with a few clicks. AWS Application Composer simplifies the design and configuration of serverless applications, and reduces the need to write code or use AWS CloudFormation templates. References: AWS Application Composer, AWS releases Application Composer to make serverless ‘easier’ but initial scope is limited

AWS Direct Connect is a service that establishes a dedicated network connection between your on-premises network and one or more AWS Regions. AWS Direct Connect can be used to create a private connection between an on-premises workload and an AWS Cloud workload, bypassing the public internet and reducing network costs, latency, and bandwidth issues. AWS Direct Connect can also provide increased security and reliability for your hybrid cloud applications and data transfers. References:

AWS Direct Connect

What is AWS Direct Connect?

AWS Direct Connect User Guide

AWS CodeStar is a service that enables you to quickly develop, build, and deploy applications on AWS. It provides a unified user interface for managing your application lifecycle, including code repositories, build pipelines, deployments, and project dashboards. AWS CodeStar also integrates with other AWS services, such as AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, and AWS CodePipeline, to create a complete CI/CD pipeline for your application12. References:

AWS CodeStar

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Guide

AWS PrivateLink provides private connectivity between VPCs, AWS services, and on-premises applications without exposing traffic to the public internet. It enables private access to AWS services by creating private endpoints within a VPC, which enhances security and simplifies network architecture by keeping all communication on the AWS network. This service is ideal for scenarios where a company wants to connect AWS services and VPCs privately.

AnApplication Load Balancer (ALB)is the best choice for distributing incoming HTTP/HTTPS traffic evenly across multiple Amazon EC2 instances. It operates at theapplication layer (Layer 7 of the OSI model) and is specifically designed to handle HTTP and HTTPS traffic, which is ideal for web applications.

Here is why the ALB is the correct choice:

Layer 7 Load Balancing: The ALB works at the application layer and provides advanced routing capabilities based on content. It can inspect the incoming HTTP requests and make decisions on how to route traffic to various backend targets, which include Amazon EC2 instances, containers, or Lambda functions. This is particularly useful for web applications where you need to make routing decisions based on HTTP headers, paths, or query strings.

HTTP and HTTPS Support: The ALB natively supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols, making it the ideal load balancer for web-based applications. It can efficiently manage and route these types of traffic and handle tasks such as SSL/TLS termination.

Health Checks: The ALB can continuously monitor the health of the registered EC2 instances and only route traffic to healthy instances. This ensures high availability and reliability of the web application.

Path-based and Host-based Routing: The ALB can route traffic based on the URL path or host header. This feature allows the same load balancer to serve multiple applications hosted on different domains or subdomains.

Integration with Auto Scaling: The ALB can integrate seamlessly with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling. As the number of EC2 instances increases or decreases, the ALB automatically includes the new instances in its traffic distribution pool, ensuring even distribution of incoming requests.

WebSocket Support: It also supports WebSocket and HTTP/2 protocols, which are essential for modern web applications that require real-time, bidirectional communication.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling: This service is used to automatically scale the number of EC2 instances up or down based on specified conditions. However, it does not provide load balancing capabilities. It works well with load balancers but does not handle the distribution of incoming traffic by itself.

C. Gateway Load Balancer: This is designed to distribute traffic to virtual appliances like firewalls, IDS/IPS systems, or deep packet inspection systems. It operates at Layer 3 (Network Layer) and is not ideal for distributing HTTP/HTTPS traffic to EC2 instances.

D. Network Load Balancer: This load balancer operates at Layer 4 (Transport Layer) and is designed to handle millions of requests per second while maintaining ultra-low latencies. It is best suited for TCP, UDP, and TLS traffic but does not provide advanced Layer 7 routing features required for HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

VPC Flow Logs is a feature that enables you to capture information about the IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in your VPC. Flow log data can be published to the following locations: Amazon CloudWatch Logs, Amazon S3, or Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose. You can use VPC Flow Logs to monitor network traffic, diagnose security issues, troubleshoot connectivity problems, and perform network forensics1. References:

Logging IP traffic using VPC Flow Logs - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

AWS re:Post is a no-cost platform for AWS users to join community groups, ask questions, find answers, and read community-generated articles about best practices. AWS re:Post is a social media platform that connects AWS users with each other and with AWS experts. Users can create posts, comment on posts, follow topics, and join groups related to AWS services, solutions, and use cases. AWS re:Post also features live event feeds, community stories, and AWS Hero profiles. AWSre:Post is a great way to learn from the AWS community, share your knowledge, and get inspired. References:

AWS re:Post

Join the Conversation

AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework that allows you to model and provision your cloud infrastructure using familiar programming languages such as TypeScript, Python, Java, and .NET. AWS CDK enables you to use the expressive power of your favorite language to define your cloud resources, such as compute, storage, network, and application services. AWS CDK also provides a library of high-level constructs that represent AWS services and best practices. AWS CDK uses AWS CloudFormation in the background to deploy your resources in a safe and repeatable manner12. References:

AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) – TypeScript and Python are Now Generally Available

AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) - Introduction to DevOps on AWS

Amazon Inspector is a service that provides automated security assessment and management for AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon Inspector can scan applications for common vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and remote code execution. Amazon Inspector can also check the configuration of AWS resources against security best practices, such as the CIS Benchmarks and the AWS Security Best Practices. Amazon Inspector can help customers identify and remediate security issues, comply with security standards, and improve the security posture of their AWS environment12. References:

Amazon Inspector

Improved, Automated Vulnerability Management for Cloud Workloads with a New Amazon Inspector | AWS News Blog

Spot Instances are a type of EC2 instance that let you bid on unused compute capacity, which AWS offers at a discount of up to 90% compared to On-Demand prices1. Spot Instances are suitable for fault-tolerant, stateless, or flexible applications that can handle interruptions2. Spot Instances can be interrupted with a two-minute warning when EC2 needs the capacity back3. The other options are not pricing models that will interrupt a running EC2 instance if capacity becomes temporarily unavailable

According to theAWS Shared Responsibility Model, customers are responsible for managing their data, classifying their assets, and using AWS's identity and access management tools to apply the appropriate permissions. Implementingmulti-factor authentication (MFA) for IAM user accountsis a customer responsibility to enhance the security of their accounts and protect against unauthorized access.

A. Apply security patches for Amazon S3 infrastructure devices: Incorrect, as AWS is responsible for managing and patching the underlying infrastructure, including storage devices.

B. Provide physical security for AWS data centers: Incorrect, as AWS is responsible for the physical security of its data centers.

C. Install operating system updates on Lambda@Edge: Incorrect, as AWS manages the underlying infrastructure for Lambda@Edge, including operating system updates.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Shared Responsibility Model

Understanding the Reliability Pillar: The Reliability pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework focuses on the ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or service disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand, and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or transient network issues.

Key Concepts of Reliability:

Foundations: Ensure a solid foundation on which to build, including AWS account management, limits, and networking.

Change Management: Manage changes in automation to ensure systems remain reliable during modifications.

Failure Management: Design systems to detect failures and automatically recover from them.

How to Align with Reliability Pillar:

Implement Multi-AZ Deployments: Deploy applications across multiple Availability Zones to ensure fault tolerance.

Use Auto Scaling: Automatically adjust resources to maintain system performance during demand fluctuations.

Monitor and Respond: Implement monitoring and alerting mechanisms using services like CloudWatch to detect and respond to issues proactively.

AWS Well-Architected Framework: Reliability Pillar

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) is a cloud service that makes it possible to migrate relational databases, data warehouses, NoSQL databases, and other types of data stores. You can use AWS DMS to migrate your data into the AWS Cloud or between combinations of cloud and on-premises setups. With AWS DMS, you can discover your source data stores, convert your source schemas, and migrate your data. AWS DMS supports migration between 20-plus database and analytics engines, such as Oracle to Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition, MySQL to Amazon Relational Database (RDS) for MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition, MongoDB to Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility), Oracle to Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). You can perform one-time migrations or replicate ongoing changes to keep sources and targets in sync. AWS DMS automatically manages the deployment, management, and monitoring of all hardware and software needed for your migration. AWS DMS is a highly resilient, secure cloud service that provides database discovery, schema conversion, data migration, and ongoing replication to and from a wide range of databases and analytics systems12. References:

Database Migration - AWS Database Migration Service - AWS

What is AWS Database Migration Service? - AWS Database Migration Service

AWS Lambdais a serverless compute service that allows users to run code in response to events without provisioning or managing servers. It automatically scales the application by running code only when needed, and users are charged only for the compute time consumed. This service is ideal for applications that require event-driven compute functions.

B. AWS CloudFormation: Incorrect, as it is an infrastructure-as-code service that helps users automate the deployment of AWS resources, not a serverless compute service.

C. AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Incorrect, as it is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that still involves managing servers, even though it abstracts much of the infrastructure management.

D. Elastic Load Balancing: Incorrect, as it is a service for distributing incoming application or network traffic across multiple targets, not a serverless compute service.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Lambda

AWS Fargateis a serverless compute engine for containers that allows users to run containers without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. Fargate eliminates the need for managing servers and reduces operational overhead, providing a fully managed, serverless approach to containerized applications. It helps avoid unplanned administration and operational costs and is ideal for companies migrating from on-premises container infrastructure.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon Connect: A service for cloud-based contact centers, not for container management.

C. Amazon Lightsail: Simplifies virtual private server (VPS) management but is not serverless or specialized for containers.

D. Amazon EC2: Provides virtual servers but requires more manual administration and is not serverless.

Economies of scale are the cost advantages that result from increasing the scale of production or operation. In cloud computing, economies of scale are achieved by pooling resources and sharing them among multiple users, which reduces the unit cost of computing and storage. One of the benefits of economies of scale in cloud computing is increased speed and agility, which means the ability to deploy applications faster and respond to changing business needs more quickly. Cloud computing allows users to access computing resources on demand, without having to invest in expensive infrastructure or wait for lengthy provisioning processes. This enables users to scale up or down as needed, experiment with new ideas, and deliver value to customers faster123. References:

Economics of Cloud Computing - GeeksforGeeks

What is Cloud Economics? | VMware Glossary

ECONOMIES OF SCALE WITH CLOUD COMPUTING & SERVICES PRACTICE - IDC-Online

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is a set of best practices, tools, and guidance that helps organizations get started with cloud technologies. AWS CAF helps organizations identify and prioritize transformation opportunities, evaluate and improve their cloud readiness, and iteratively evolve their transformation roadmap. AWS CAF groups its capabilities in six perspectives: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations. Each perspective comprises a set of capabilities that functionally related stakeholders own or manage in the cloud transformation journey1

AWS Managed Services (AMS) is a service that operates AWS infrastructure on behalf of customers, providing a secure AWS Landing Zone, features that help meet various compliance program requirements, a proven enterprise operating model, on-going cost optimization, and day-to-day infrastructure management. AMS does not help customers identify and prioritize business transformation opportunities or evaluate their cloud readiness2

AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of six pillars and lenses that help cloud architects design and run workloads in the cloud. It provides a consistent approach for customers and AWS Partners to evaluate and implement designs that scale with their needs. AWS Well-Architected Framework helps customers understand the pros and cons of decisions they make while building systems on AWS, but it does not help them identify and prioritize business transformation opportunities3

AWS Migration Hub is a tool that lets customers discover, plan, and track their existing servers and applications for migration to AWS. It offers journey templates, cross-team collaboration, application and server discovery, strategy recommendations, orchestration and simple dashboard. AWS Migration Hub simplifies the migration and modernization process, but it does not help customers identify and prioritize business transformation opportunities or evaluate their cloud readiness4

AWS Secrets Manageris the most secure way to store and manage sensitive information, such as passwords, database credentials, and API keys. Secrets Manager allows you to:

Securely store and rotate secrets.

Automatically manage secret rotation without disrupting applications.

Integrate with AWS services and third-party applications to retrieve secrets securely.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Store passwords in an Amazon S3 bucket: Although S3 is secure, it is not designed for secret management. It lacks built-in secret rotation and fine-grained access control for sensitive data.

B. Store passwords as AWS CloudFormation parameters: CloudFormation is used for managing infrastructure as code, not for securely storing passwords.

C. Store passwords in AWS Storage Gateway: A service for hybrid storage integration, not suitable for storing secrets or passwords.

AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) is the primary service for migrating Amazon EC2 instances and on-premises servers to AWS, and it supports migration from one AWS Region to another. It automates the process of replicating and converting the source servers (including their applications, configurations, and data) to run natively on AWS. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is for migrating databases, AWS DataSync is for data transfer, and AWS Migration Hub provides a single location to track migration tasks across multiple AWS services but does not perform the migration itself.

AWS Budgetsallows users to set custom cost and usage budgets and receive notifications when they exceed their thresholds. It provides detailed reports on cost and usage data for the past and current months, enabling the finance team to track and analyze spending.

AWS Budgets can automatically generate cost and usage reports, which can help the finance team plan ahead for each quarter based on historical data.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon Detective: A security service for analyzing and investigating AWS account activity for security purposes, not cost tracking.

B. AWS Pricing Calculator: A tool to estimate costs based on expected usage, not for tracking actual past usage.

D. AWS Savings Plans: An offering to save costs on AWS usage; it does not provide cost tracking or reporting features.

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)provides scalable computing capacity in the AWS Cloud, allowing customers to run virtual servers (instances) with different configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity. This flexibility is ideal for applications that require specific infrastructure configurations, such as custom marketing and order-processing applications.

A. AWS Lambda: Incorrect, as it is a serverless compute service that automatically manages the computing resources needed to run code but does not offer the flexibility of choosing different instance types.

B. Amazon Cognito: Incorrect, as it is used for user authentication and authorization, not for deploying applications.

C. Amazon Athena: Incorrect, as it is an interactive query service for analyzing data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon EC2

AWS Direct Connectis a cloud service solution that makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS. This requires the use of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and a colocation facility to connect to the Direct Connect location. It provides a private, high-speed, low-latency connection that does not go over the public internet.

A. AWS VPN: Incorrect, as AWS VPN establishes secure connections over the internet and does not necessarily require a colocation facility.

B. Amazon Connect: Incorrect, as it is a cloud-based contact center service.

D. Internet Gateway: Incorrect, as it is a horizontally scaled, redundant, and highly available VPC component that allows communication between instances in your VPC and the internet.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Direct Connect

By implementingAWS CloudTrail, a company is adhering to the AWS Cloud design principle ofactivating traceability. AWS CloudTrail provides detailed logs of all API calls made in an AWS account, which helps monitor, troubleshoot, and detect unusual activity, thereby improving security and compliance. This supports the principle of "activating traceability" by enabling continuous monitoring and auditing of all actions and changes within the AWS environment.

B. Use serverless compute architectures: Incorrect, as this principle encourages the use of managed services that handle infrastructure, such as AWS Lambda, and is not directly related to CloudTrail.

C. Perform operations as code: Incorrect, as this principle emphasizes the use of code and automation for infrastructure management.

D. Go global in minutes: Incorrect, as this principle relates to the global deployment of applications and services.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Well-Architected Framework

AWS CloudTrail

Global reach is a cloud computing advantage that a company can apply when it uses AWS Regions to increase application availability to users in different countries. Global reach refers tothe ability to deploy applications and services in multiple geographic locations around the world, and to serve customers with low latency and high performance. AWS has the largest and most reliable global infrastructure of any cloud provider, with 25 Regions and 81 Availability Zones across the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East123. By using AWS Regions, a company can choose the best location for its application based on customer proximity, compliance requirements, and disaster recovery strategies23. References: 1: AWS Global Infrastructure - Amazon Web Services (AWS), 2: Regions and Availability Zones - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, 3: AWS Infrastructure: Regions and Availability Zones Explained

AWS Organizationsis a service that helps users centrally manage and govern multiple AWS accounts. With AWS Organizations, a company can consolidate billing and receive a single bill for all AWS accounts under an organization, making it easier for the finance team to track costs.

Why other options are not suitable:

B. AWS Trusted Advisor: Provides real-time guidance to help optimize AWS resources, not for consolidated billing.

C. Cost Explorer: A tool for visualizing and managing AWS costs and usage, but it does not consolidate billing.

D. AWS Budgets: Allows setting custom budgets and alerts but does not consolidate billing across accounts.

Rehosting ("lift and shift") is a migration strategy where applications are moved to the cloud with minimal changes, making it the least effort-intensive method for applications incompatible with the cloud. Repurchasing involves moving to a different product, often a SaaS solution, which can also minimize migration effort by avoiding the need for application-level changes. Retiring, replatforming, and refactoring require significant effort either in terms of analyzing and shutting down the application, making changes to the underlying platform, or redesigning the application architecture, respectively.

 Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service on AWS. A graph database is a type of database that stores and queries data as a network of nodes and edges, representing entities and relationships. Graph databases are useful for applications that deal with highly connected data, such as social networks, recommendation engines, fraud detection, and knowledge graphs45. Amazon Neptune is a fast, reliable, and scalable graph database service that supports two popular graph models: property graphs and RDF. Amazon Neptune also supports two open standards for querying graphs: Apache TinkerPop Gremlin and SPARQL. Amazon Neptune handles the heavy lifting of managing the database, such as provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, encryption, and replication456. References: 4: Managed Graph Database - Amazon Neptune - AWS, 5: Amazon Neptune – A Fully Managed Graph Database Service, 6: Working with AWS Neptune. Neptune is a fully-managed graph … - Medium

Amazon RDS for MySQL is a fully managed, open-source cloud database service that allows you to easily operate and scale your relational database of choice, including MySQL. With Amazon RDS for MySQL, you don’t have to worry about the hardware, resiliency, and replication of your database, as Amazon RDS handles these tasks for you. Amazon RDS for MySQL also provides features such as automated backups, multi-AZ deployments, read replicas, encryption, monitoring, and more. Amazon RDS for MySQL is compatible with the MySQL Community Edition versions 5.7 and 8.0, which means that you can use the same code, applications, andtools that you already use with MySQL4567. References: 4: Hosted MySQL - Amazon RDS for MySQL - AWS, 5: Amazon RDS for MySQL - Amazon Relational Database Service, 6: Amazon RDS for MySQL —亚马逊云科技, 7: Managed SQL Database - Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) - AWS

Amazon CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator are two AWS services that make use of global edge locations. Edge locations are AWS sites that are deployed worldwide in major cities and places with a high population. Edge locations are used to cache data and reduce latency for end-user access1.

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency and high transfer speeds. Amazon CloudFront uses a global network of over 200 edge locations and 13 regional edge caches to cache your content closer to your viewers, improving performance and reducing costs23.

AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves the availability and performance of your applications with local or global users. AWS Global Accelerator uses the AWS global network to route user traffic to the optimal endpoint based on health, performance, and policies. AWS Global Accelerator uses over 100 edge locations to bring your application endpoints closer to your users, reducing networkhops and improving user experience45. References: 1: AWS for the Edge - Amazon Web Services (AWS), 2: Content Delivery Network (CDN) - Amazon CloudFront - AWS, 3: Amazon CloudFront Documentation, 4: AWS Global Accelerator - Amazon Web Services, 5: AWS Global Accelerator Documentation

AWS Cost Exploreris a tool that enables you to view and analyze your costs and usage. It provides an easy-to-use interface to visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs and usage over time. Cost Explorer allows the company to monitor ongoing costs, set budget alerts, and analyze cost drivers, which is ideal for keeping the cost of running an ecommerce website within a specific budget.

B. AWS SDKs: Incorrect, as they are software development kits that allow integration with AWS services but do not provide cost monitoring or management capabilities.

C. EC2 Image Builder: Incorrect, as it is a service for automating the creation of virtual machine images, not for monitoring costs.

D. AWS CloudFormation: Incorrect, as it is used for provisioning and managing infrastructure as code, not for cost monitoring.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Cost Explorer

Under theAWS Shared Responsibility Model, AWS manages securityofthe cloud (such as physical infrastructure and virtualization), while customers are responsible for securityinthe cloud. This means that customers are responsible for:

B. Encrypt data and maintain data integrity: Correct, as customers are responsible for securing their data, including encryption and maintaining its integrity.

D. Maintain identity and access management controls: Correct, as customers are responsible for managing access to their AWS resources, including creating and managing IAM users, roles, and permissions.

A. Secure the virtualization layer: Incorrect, as AWS is responsible for securing the underlying virtualization layer.

C. Patch the Amazon RDS operating system: Incorrect, as AWS handles patching and maintenance of the managed service’s underlying infrastructure.

E. Secure Availability Zones: Incorrect, as AWS is responsible for securing the physical infrastructure, including Availability Zones.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Shared Responsibility Model

AWS Storage Gatewayis a hybrid cloud storage service that provides on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage. TheFile Gatewayconfiguration allows for on-premises applications to store data in Amazon S3 using NFS and SMB protocols, while keeping frequently accessed data cached locally. This meets the company's requirement for cloud-based storage that is locally cached.

B. AWS Snowcone: Incorrect, as it is a portable edge computing and storage device, not a storage service that provides local caching for cloud storage.

C. AWS Backup: Incorrect, as it is a centralized backup service to automate data protection across AWS services but does not provide local caching.

D. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS): Incorrect, as it provides scalable file storage for use with Amazon EC2 but does not offer local caching for on-premises storage needs.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Storage Gateway

Under the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for the security "of" the cloud, which includes the physical infrastructure, networking, and hypervisor layer. The customer, however, is responsible for security "in" the cloud, which includes managing the security of their data, patching and maintaining their guest operating system and applications, and managing identity and access. The responsibilities of shredding disk drives, preventing packet capture at the hypervisor level, and physical monitoring are handled by AWS as part of its responsibility for security "of" the cloud.

An IAM credential report is a feature of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) that allows you to view and download a report that lists all IAM users in your account and the status of their various credentials, such as passwords, access keys, and MFA devices. You can use this reportto audit the security status of your IAM users and ensure that they follow the best practices for credential management1. References: 1: AWS Documentation - IAM User Guide - Getting credential reports for your AWS account

AWS IAM Access Analyzer is a service that helps you identify the resources in your organization and accounts, such as Amazon S3 buckets or IAM roles, that are shared with an external entity. This lets you identify unintended access to your resources and data, which is a security risk. IAM Access Analyzer uses logic-based reasoning to analyze the resource-based policies in your AWS environment. For each instance of a resource shared outside of your account, IAM Access Analyzer generates a finding. Findings include information about the access and the external principal granted to it345. References: 3: Using AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer, 4: IAM Access Analyzer - Amazon Web Services (AWS), 5: Welcome - IAM Access Analyzer