Amazon Web Services CLF-C02 Dumps

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 report to 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

Amazon Neptune is a service that provides a fully managed graph database that supports property graphs and RDF graphs. It can be used to build applications that work with highly connected datasets, such as shopping recommendations, social networks, fraud detection, and knowledge graphs2. Amazon DynamoDB is a service that provides a fully managed NoSQL database that delivers fast and consistent performance at any scale. Amazon Aurora is a service that provides a fully managed relational database that is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) is a service that provides a fully managed document database that is compatible with MongoDB.

 Amazon ElastiCache is a fully managed in-memory data store and cache service that delivers sub-millisecond response times to applications. You can use ElastiCache as a primary data store for your applications, or as a cache to improve the performance of your existing databases. ElastiCache supports two popular open-source in-memory engines: Redis and Memcached5.

 The AWS shared responsibility model describes 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 hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run AWS services. The customer is responsible for security in the cloud, which includes the customer data, applications, operating systems, and network and firewall configurations. Therefore, updating the guest operating system on Amazon EC2 instances is the customer’s responsibility2

AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service that makes it easy to discover, prepare, move, and integrate data from multiple sources for analytics, machine learning, and application development. You can use various data integration engines, such as ETL, ELT, batch, and streaming, and manage your data in a centralized data catalog. AWS Glue is designed specifically for extract, transform, and load (ETL) data, whereas the other options are not.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a service that enables you to quickly deploy and manage applications in the AWS Cloud without worrying about the infrastructure that runs those applications. You simply upload your application, and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and application health monitoring. Elastic Beanstalk supports several platform configurations for Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker web applications that can run on familiar servers such as Apache, Nginx, Passenger, and IIS. You can also use Elastic Beanstalk to launch a virtual machine (VM) and MySQL database on AWS with the least operational effort. Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a fully managed container orchestration service that enables you to easily run, scale, and secure Docker containerized applications on AWS. However, it requires more operational effort than Elastic Beanstalk, as you need to define your application architecture and the specifications of the containers that run it. Amazon Lightsail is an easy-to-use cloud platform that offers everything you need to build an application or website, plus a cost-effective, monthly plan. It is designed for developers who have little or no prior cloud experience and want to launch and manage applications on AWS with minimal complexity. However, it does not support MySQL databases, and it requires more operational effort than Elastic Beanstalk, as you need to configure your VM and database settings. Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It allows you to launch a virtual machine (VM) and MySQL database on AWS, but it requires the most operational effort, as you need to provision, monitor, and manage your EC2 instances and database.

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

References: Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, AWS — Amazon Aurora Overview

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) and Amazon FSx are AWS services that offer file storage. File storage is a type of storage that organizes data into files and folders that can be accessed and shared over a network. File storage is suitable for applications that require shared access to data, such as content management, media processing, and web serving. Amazon EFS provides a simple, scalable, and fully managed elastic file system that can be used with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. Amazon FSx provides fully managed third-party file systems, such as Windows File Server and Lustre, with native compatibility and high performance12

Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service that can route internet traffic to the company’s ecommerce platform1. Route 53 can also register domain names, check the health of resources, and provide global DNS features2. Route 53 can connect users to the platform by translating human-readable names like into the numeric IP addresses that computers use to communicate with each other 2. References: 1: Amazon Route 53 | DNS Service | AWS; 2: What is Amazon Route 53? - Amazon Route 53

AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of your AWS account. With CloudTrail, you can log, continuously monitor, and retain account activity related to actions across your AWS infrastructure. You can use CloudTrail to identify who accessed an AWS service and what action was performed for a given time period. Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Security Hub, and Amazon Inspector are AWS services that provide different types of monitoring and security capabilities.

 S3 Glacier Deep Archive is Amazon S3’s lowest-cost storage class and supports long-term retention and digital preservation for data that may be accessed once or twice in a year. It is designed for customers — particularly those in highly-regulated industries, such as the Financial Services, Healthcare, and Public Sectors — that retain data sets for 7-10 years or longer to meet regulatory compliance requirements. Customers can store large amounts of data at a very low cost, and reliably access it with a wait time of 12 hours3.

The AWS service or resource that will meet the requirement of verifying if multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled for all users within its AWS accounts is IAM credential reports. IAM credential reports are downloadable reports that list all the users in an AWS account and the status of their various credentials, including passwords, access keys, and MFA devices. Users can use IAM credential reports to audit the security status of their AWS accounts and identify any issues or risks4. AWS Cost and Usage Report, AWS Artifact, and Amazon CloudFront reports are other AWS services or resources that provide different types of information, such as billing, compliance, and content delivery, but they do not show the MFA status of the users.

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

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. AWS re:Post is a great way to learn from the AWS community, share your knowledge, and get inspired. References:

• AWS re:Post
• Join the Conversation

Amazon S3 is the AWS service that offers object storage. Object storage is a technology that stores and manages data in an unstructured format called objects. Each object consists of the data, metadata, and a unique identifier. Object storage is ideal for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as photos, videos, email, web pages, sensor data, and audio files1. Amazon S3 provides industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance for object storage2.

Amazon RDS is the AWS service that offers relational database storage. Relational database storage is a technology that stores and manages data in a structured format called tables. Each table consists of rows and columns that define the attributes and values of the data. Relational database storage is ideal for storing structured or semi-structured data, such as customer records, inventory, transactions, and analytics3.

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is the AWS service that offers file storage. File storage is a technology that stores and manages data in a hierarchical format called files and folders. Each file consists of the data and metadata, and each folder consists of files or subfolders. File storage is ideal for storing shared data that can be accessed by multiple users or applications, such as home directories, content repositories, media libraries, and configuration files4.

Amazon DynamoDB is the AWS service that offers NoSQL database storage. NoSQL database storage is a technology that stores and manages data in a flexible format called documents or key-value pairs. Each document or key-value pair consists of the data and metadata, and can have different attributes and values depending on the schema. NoSQL database storage is ideal for storing dynamic or unstructured data that requires high performance, scalability, and availability, such as web applications, social media, gaming, and IoT.

 AWS Direct Connect is a cloud service solution that makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from a customer’s premises to AWS. AWS Direct Connect does not involve the public internet, and therefore can reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than internet-based connections. AWS Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport service that uses secure devices to transfer large amounts of data into and out of the AWS Cloud. AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service that gives customers on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage. A VPN connection enables customers to establish a secure and private connection between their network and AWS.

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.

AWS Artifact is a self-service portal that provides on-demand access to AWS security and compliance reports and select online agreements. Users can download reports such as AWS ISO certifications, PCI reports, SOC reports, and GDPR DPA, and review and accept agreements such as BAA and NDA. AWS Artifact helps users to understand and meet compliance requirements for various standards and regulations that apply to AWS services and infrastructure. AWS Artifact is the best resource for a user to find compliance-related information and reports about AWS, whereas the other options are not

AWS CloudTrail is a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service in your AWS account. CloudTrail captures all API calls for AWS services as events, including calls from the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services. You can use CloudTrail to monitor, audit, and troubleshoot your AWS account activity34. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides best practices recommendations for cost optimization, performance, security, and fault tolerance in your AWS account5. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps you improve the security and compliance of your applications deployed on AWS by automatically assessing them for vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices6. AWS X-Ray is a service that helps you analyze and debug your applications by collecting data about the requests that your application serves, and providing tools to view, filter, and gain insights into that data7. References: Logging AWS Audit Manager API calls with CloudTrail, Logging AWS Account Management API calls using AWS CloudTrail, Review API calls in your AWS account using CloudTrail, Monitor the usage of AWS API calls using Amazon CloudWatch, Which service enables customers to audit API calls in their AWS …

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 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

Amazon Aurora Serverless is an on-demand, auto-scaling configuration for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition. It is a fully managed service that automatically scales up and down based on the application’s actual needs. Amazon Aurora Serverless is suitable for applications that have infrequent, intermittent, or unpredictable database workloads, and that do not require the full power and range of options provided by provisioned Aurora clusters. Amazon Aurora Serverless eliminates the need to provision and manage database instances, and reduces the management overhead associated with database administration tasks such as scaling, patching, backup, and recovery. References: Amazon Aurora Serverless, Choosing between Aurora Serverless and provisioned Aurora DB clusters, [AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials: Module 4 - Databases in the Cloud]

According to security best practices, the best way to give an Amazon EC2 instance access to an Amazon S3 bucket is to have the EC2 instance assume a role to obtain the privileges to upload the file. A role is an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) entity that defines a set of permissions for making AWS service requests. You can use roles to delegate access to users, applications, or services that don’t normally have access to your AWS resources. For example, you can create a role that allows EC2 instances to access S3 buckets, and then attach the role to the EC2 instance. This way, the EC2 instance can assume the role and obtain temporary security credentials to access the S3 bucket. This method is more secure and scalable than storing or hardcoding IAM user credentials on the EC2 instance, as it avoids the risk of exposing or compromising the credentials. It also allows you to manage the permissions centrally and dynamically, and to audit the access using AWS CloudTrail. For more information on how to create and use roles for EC2 instances, see Using an IAM role to grant permissions to applications running on Amazon EC2 instances1

The other options are not recommended for security reasons. Hardcoding or storing IAM user credentials on the EC2 instance is a bad practice, as it exposes the credentials to potential attackers or unauthorized users who can access the instance or the application code. It also makes it difficult to rotate or revoke the credentials, and to track the usage of the credentials. Modifying the S3 bucket policy to allow any service to upload to it at any time is also a bad practice, as it opens the bucket to potential data breaches, data loss, or data corruption. It also violates the principle of least privilege, which states that you should grant only the minimum permissions necessary for a task.

References: Using an IAM role to grant permissions to applications running on Amazon EC2 instances

According to the AWS shared responsibility model, the customer is responsible for security in the cloud, which includes the tasks of configuring the AWS provided security group firewall and classifying company assets in the AWS Cloud. A security group is a virtual firewall that controls the inbound and outbound traffic for one or more EC2 instances. The customer must configure the security group rules to allow or deny traffic based on protocol, port, or source and destination IP address2 Classifying company assets in the AWS Cloud means identifying the types, categories, and sensitivity levels of the data and resources that the customer stores and processes on AWS. The customer must also determine the applicable compliance requirements and regulations that apply to their assets, and implement the appropriate security controls and measures to protect them

 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.

AWS CloudTrail is the service that can be used to meet these requirements. AWS CloudTrail is a service that records AWS API calls for your account and delivers log files to you. The recorded information includes the identity of the API caller, the time of the API call, the source IP address of the API caller, the request parameters, and the response elements returned by the AWS service1. You can use CloudTrail to track the activity in your AWS accounts, such as who made an API call, when it was made, and what resources were affected. You can also use CloudTrail to monitor the compliance, security, and governance of your AWS environment2. The other services are not designed to track the activity and API calls in your AWS accounts. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that monitors and collects metrics, logs, and events from your AWS resources and applications. You can use CloudWatch to set alarms, visualize data, and automate actions based on predefined thresholds or rules3. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps you improve the security and compliance of your applications running on AWS. Inspector automatically assesses applications for exposure, vulnerabilities, and deviations from best practices4. AWS IAM is a service that enables you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. IAM allows you to create and manage AWS users and groups, and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources. References: AWS CloudTrail, AWS CloudTrail – Capture AWS API Activity, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Inspector, [AWS IAM]

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) security perspective helps users achieve the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their data and cloud workloads. It comprises nine capabilities that are grouped into three categories: preventive, detective, and responsive. Incident response and infrastructure protection are two of the capabilities in the responsive and preventive categories, respectively. Incident response helps users prepare for and respond to security incidents in a timely and effective manner, using tools and processes that leverage AWS features and services. Infrastructure protection helps users implement security controls and mechanisms to protect their cloud resources, such as network, compute, storage, and database, from unauthorized access or malicious attacks. References: Security perspective: compliance and assurance, AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

Amazon Cognito is a service that provides user authentication and authorization for web and mobile applications. You can use Amazon Cognito to enable users to sign in directly with a user name and password, or through a third-party provider, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. You can also use Amazon Cognito to manage user profiles, preferences, and security settings3

Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class in the cloud. It is designed for long-term data archiving that is rarely accessed. It offers a retrieval time of 12 hours and a durability of 99.999999999% (11 9’s). It is ideal for data that must be retained for 7 years or longer to meet regulatory compliance requirements.

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. Users can 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.

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

Amazon EC2 is a service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch and manage virtual servers, known as instances, that run on the AWS infrastructure. Users are responsible for maintaining the underlying operating system of the instances, as well as any applications or software that run on them. Amazon DynamoDB is a service that provides a fully managed NoSQL database that delivers fast and consistent performance at any scale. Users do not need to manage the underlying operating system or the database software. Amazon S3 is a service that provides scalable and durable object storage in the cloud. Users do not need to manage the underlying operating system or the storage infrastructure. AWS Lambda is a service that allows users to run code without provisioning or managing servers. Users only need to upload their code and configure the triggers and parameters. AWS Lambda takes care of the underlying operating system and the execution environment.

This is the AWS service or resource that will meet the requirements of distributing traffic between the Amazon EC2 instances that host the website. Application Load Balancer is a type of Elastic Load Balancing that distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses, and Lambda functions. Application Load Balancer operates at the application layer (layer 7) of the OSI model and supports advanced features such as path-based routing, host-based routing, health checks, and SSL termination. You can learn more about Application Load Balancer from [this webpage] or [this digital course].

A network access control list (network ACL) is a feature that acts as a firewall for controlling traffic in and out of one or more subnets in a virtual private cloud (VPC). AWS Security Hub is a service that provides a comprehensive view of the security posture of AWS accounts and resources. Security groups are features that act as firewalls for controlling traffic at the instance level. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect web applications from common web exploits.

AWS Enterprise Support provides customers with a designated technical account manager (TAM) who is a single point of contact for all technical and operational issues. The TAM provides consultative architectural and operational guidance delivered in the context of the customer’s applications and use-cases to help them achieve the greatest value from AWS. The TAM also helps customers with proactive services, such as strategic business reviews, security improvement programs, guided Well-Architected reviews, cost optimization workshops, and more1.

A full set of AWS Trusted Advisor checks is not an additional benefit of AWS Enterprise Support, as it is also included in the AWS Business Support plan2. AWS Trusted Advisor is a tool that provides best practice recommendations for cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits.

Phone, email, and chat access to cloud support engineers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is not an additional benefit of AWS Enterprise Support, as it is also included in the AWS Business Support plan2. Cloud support engineers can help customers with technical issues, such as troubleshooting, configuration, usage, and service features.

A consultative review and architecture guidance for the company’s applications is not an additional benefit of AWS Enterprise Support, as it is also included in the AWS Business Support plan2. Customers can request a consultative review from a solutions architect who will provide best practices and recommendations based on the customer’s use-cases and goals.

Migration Evaluator is a cloud-based service that provides organizations with a comprehensive assessment of their current IT environment and estimates the cost savings and performance improvements that can be achieved by migrating to AWS. Migration Evaluator helps users build a data-driven business case for AWS by discovering over-provisioned on-premises instances, providing recommendations for cost-effective AWS alternatives, and analyzing existing licenses and cost comparisons of Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and License Included (LI) options

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) 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. Amazon EFS offers two storage classes: the Standard storage class, and the Infrequent Access storage class (EFS IA). EFS IA provides price/performance that is cost-optimized for files not accessed every day. Amazon EFS encrypts data at rest and in transit, and supports direct access over the internet4.

Amazon Macie is a fully managed service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to help you detect, classify, and better protect your sensitive data stored in the AWS Cloud1. Macie can automatically discover and scan your Amazon S3 buckets for sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), financial information, healthcare information, intellectual property, and credentials1. Macie also provides you with a dashboard that shows the type, location, and volume of sensitive data in your AWS environment, as well as alerts and findings on potential security issues1.

The other options are not suitable for identifying sensitive data in AWS. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps you find security vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices in your Amazon EC2 instances2. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a service that helps you manage access to your AWS resources by creating users, groups, roles, and policies3. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your AWS resources and applications by collecting metrics, logs, events, and alarms4.

References:

• 1: What Is Amazon Macie? - Amazon Macie
• 2: What Is Amazon Inspector? - Amazon Inspector
• 3: What Is IAM? - AWS Identity and Access Management
• 4: What Is Amazon CloudWatch? - Amazon CloudWatch

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of six pillars and lenses that help cloud architects design and run workloads in the cloud. The six pillars are: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability. Each pillar has a set of design principles and best practices that guide the architectural decisions. High availability is not a separate pillar, but a quality that can be achieved by applying the principles of the reliability pillar. Going global in minutes and continuous development are not pillars of the framework, but possible benefits of using AWS services and following the framework’s recommendations. References: AWS Well-Architected - Build secure, efficient cloud applications, AWS Well-Architected Framework, The 6 Pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework

According to the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud, such as data centers, hardware, software, networking, and facilities1. This includes the configuration of infrastructure devices, such as routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers2. Customers are responsible for managing their data, applications, operating systems, security groups, and other aspects of their AWS environment1. Therefore, options A, B, and D are customer responsibilities, not AWS responsibilities. References: 1: AWS Well-Architected Framework - Elasticity; 2: Reactive Systems on AWS - Elastic

AWS Control Tower is a service that provides an easy way to set up and govern a secure, multi-account AWS environment. It automates the creation of accounts, organizational units, policies, and best practices based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework. AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) is a service that enables users to centrally manage access to multiple AWS accounts and business applications using a single sign-on experience. AWS Systems Manager is a service that provides operational management for AWS resources and applications. AWS Config is a service that enables users to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of AWS resources.

Amazon Athena is a serverless, interactive analytics service that allows users to run SQL queries on data stored in Amazon S3. It is ideal for occasional queries on large datasets, as it does not require any server provisioning, configuration, or management. Users only pay for the queries they run, based on the amount of data scanned. Amazon Athena supports various data formats, such as CSV, JSON, Parquet, ORC, and Avro, and integrates with AWS Glue Data Catalog to create and manage schemas. Amazon Athena also supports querying data from other sources, such as on-premises or other cloud systems, using data connectors1.

Amazon Redshift is a fully managed data warehouse service that allows users to run complex analytical queries on petabyte-scale data. However, it requires users to provision and maintain clusters of nodes, and pay for the storage and compute capacity they use. Amazon Redshift is more suitable for frequent and consistent queries on structured or semi-structured data2.

Amazon Kinesis is a platform for streaming data on AWS, enabling users to collect, process, and analyze real-time data. It is not designed for querying data stored in Amazon S3. Amazon Kinesis consists of four services: Kinesis Data Streams, Kinesis Data Firehose, Kinesis Data Analytics, and Kinesis Video Streams3.

Amazon RDS is a relational database service that provides six database engines: Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and SQL Server. It simplifies database administration tasks such as backup, patching, scaling, and replication. However, it is not optimized for querying data stored in Amazon S3. Amazon RDS is more suitable for transactional workloads that require high performance and availability4.

References:

• Interactive SQL - Serverless Query Service - Amazon Athena - AWS
• [Amazon Redshift – Data Warehouse Solution - AWS]
• [Amazon Kinesis - Streaming Data Platform - AWS]
• [Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) – AWS]

 AWS Personal Health Dashboard and AWS Service Health Dashboard are two AWS services that can help the company to verify that underlying AWS services and general AWS infrastructure are operating normally. AWS Personal Health Dashboard provides a personalized view into the performance and availability of the AWS services you are using, as well as alerts that are automatically triggered by changes in the health of those services. In addition to event-based alerts, Personal Health Dashboard provides proactive notifications of scheduled activities, such as any changes to the infrastructure powering your resources, enabling you to better plan for events that may affect you. These notifications can be delivered to you via email or mobile for quick visibility, and can always be viewed from within the AWS Management Console. When you get an alert, it includes detailed information and guidance, enabling you to take immediate action to address AWS events impacting your resources3. AWS Service Health Dashboard provides a general status of AWS services, and the Service health view displays the current and historical status of all AWS services. This page shows reported service events for services across AWS Regions. You don’t need to sign in or have an AWS account to access the AWS Service Health Dashboard – Service health page. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds for specific services or regions to receive notifications about service events4. References: Getting started with your AWS Health Dashboard – Your account health, Introducing AWS Personal Health Dashboard

Security groups are the AWS service or feature that can be used to apply security rules to specific Amazon EC2 instances. Security groups are virtual firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic for one or more instances. Customers can create security groups and add rules that reflect the role of the instance that is associated with the security group. For example, a web server instance needs security group rules that allow inbound HTTP and HTTPS access, while a database instance needs rules that allow access for the type of database12. Security groups are stateful, meaning that the responses to allowed inbound traffic are also allowed, regardless of the outbound rules1. Customers can assign multiple security groups to an instance, and the rules from each security group are effectively aggregated to create one set of rules1.

Network ACLs are another AWS service or feature that can be used to control the traffic for a subnet. Network ACLs are stateless, meaning that they do not track the traffic that they allow. Therefore, customers must add rules for both inbound and outbound traffic3. Network ACLs are applied at the subnet level, not at the instance level.

AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service that provides best practice recommendations for security, performance, cost optimization, and fault tolerance. AWS Trusted Advisor does not apply security rules to specific Amazon EC2 instances, but it can help customers identify security gaps and improve their security posture4.

AWS WAF is an AWS service that helps protect web applications from common web exploits, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and bot attacks. AWS WAF does not apply security rules to specific Amazon EC2 instances, but it can be integrated with other AWS services, such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon API Gateway, and Application Load Balancer.

Amazon Inspector is the AWS service that can be used to perform vulnerability scans on AWS EC2 instances for software vulnerabilities automatically in a periodic fashion. Amazon Inspector automatically discovers EC2 instances and scans them for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. Amazon Inspector uses AWS Systems Manager (SSM) and the SSM Agent to collect information about the software application inventory of the EC2 instances. This data is then scanned by Amazon Inspector for software vulnerabilities12. Amazon Inspector also integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon EventBridge and AWS Security Hub, to automate discovery, expedite vulnerability routing, and shorten mean time to remediate (MTTR) vulnerabilities2.

AWS Migration Hub is a service that provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations across multiple AWS and partner solutions. It allows you to choose the AWS and partner migration tools that best fit your needs, while providing visibility into the status of migrations across your portfolio of applications1. AWS Migration Hub supports migration status updates from the following tools: AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Database Migration Service, CloudEndure Migration, Server Migration Service, and Migrate for Compute Engine1.

The other options are not correct for the following reasons:

• AWS Application Discovery Service is a service that helps you plan your migration projects by automatically identifying servers, applications, and dependencies in your on-premises data centers2. It does not track the progress of application migrations, but rather provides information to help you plan and scope your migrations.
• AWS Application Migration Service is a service that helps you migrate and modernize applications from any source infrastructure to AWS with minimal downtime and disruption3. It is one of the migration tools that can send status updates to AWS Migration Hub, but it is not the service that provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations.
• AWS Service Catalog is a service that allows you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS4. It does not track the progress of application migrations, but rather helps you manage the provisioning and governance of your IT services.

References:

• 1: What Is AWS Migration Hub? - AWS Migration Hub
• 2: What Is AWS Application Discovery Service? - AWS Application Discovery Service
• 3: App Migration Tool - AWS Application Migration Service - AWS
• 4: What Is AWS Service Catalog? - AWS Service Catalog

 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.

Server-side encryption is an encryption option that Amazon S3 provides to encrypt data at rest in Amazon S3. With server-side encryption, Amazon S3 encrypts an object before saving it to disk in its data centers and decrypts it when you download the objects. You have three server-side encryption options to choose from: SSE-S3, SSE-C, and SSE-KMS. SSE-S3 uses keys that are managed by Amazon S3. SSE-C allows you to manage your own encryption keys. SSE-KMS uses keys that are managed by AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)5.

AWS serverless computing is a way of building and running applications without thinking about servers. AWS manages the infrastructure for you, so you don’t have to provision, scale, patch, or monitor servers. You only pay for the compute time you consume, and you can focus on your application logic instead of managing servers12. References: Serverless Computing – Amazon Web Services, AWS Serverless Computing, Benefits, Architecture and Use-cases - XenonStack

Spot Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that are available at a discounted price compared to On-Demand pricing. Spot Instances use spare EC2 capacity that is not being used by other customers, and the price fluctuates based on supply and demand. Customers can request Spot Instances for their applications and specify the maximum price they are willing to pay per hour. If the Spot price is lower than the customer’s bid, the Spot Instance is launched and the customer pays the current Spot price. However, if the Spot price rises above the customer’s bid, the Spot Instance is terminated by AWS and the customer is charged for the partial hour of usage. Therefore, Spot Instances can provide discounts of up to 90% or more, but they are not suitable for applications that require continuous or predictable availability. Spot Instances are recommended for applications that are flexible, fault-tolerant, or have low priority, such as batch processing, data analysis, or testing and development. 

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 be completed 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 augmented reality. References: Amazon EC2, Amazon EC2 Use Cases, AWS Lambda, AWS CodeDeploy, [AWS Wavelength]

 Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easier 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. Amazon RDS supports six popular database engines: Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and SQL Server. Amazon RDS can support running a copy of a MySQL database in the AWS Cloud, as it offers compatibility, scalability, and availability features.

AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to customer premises. By providing local access to AWS managed infrastructure, AWS Outposts enables customers to build and run applications on premises using the same programming interfaces as in AWS Regions, while using local compute and storage resources for lower latency and local data processing needs. An Outpost is a pool of AWS compute and storage capacity deployed at a customer site. AWS operates, monitors, and manages this capacity as part of an AWS Region. You can create subnets on your Outpost and specify them when you create AWS resources such as EC2 instances, EBS volumes, ECS clusters, and RDS instances. Instances in Outpost subnets communicate with other instances in the AWS Region using private IP addresses, all within the same VPC. Outposts solutions allow you to extend and run native AWS services on premises, and is available in a variety of form factors, from 1U and 2U Outposts servers to 42U Outposts racks, and multiple rack deployments. With AWS Outposts, you can run some AWS services locally and connect to a broad range of services available in the local AWS Region2. AWS Outposts is a hybrid cloud deployment model that uses AWS Outposts as part of the application deployment infrastructure. Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that uses a mix of on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud services with orchestration between the platforms. Hybrid cloud provides businesses with greater flexibility, more deployment options, and optimized costs. By using AWS Outposts, customers can benefit from the fully managed infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools of AWS on premises, while still having access to the full range of AWS services available in the Region for a truly consistent hybrid experience3. References: On-Premises Private Cloud - AWS Outposts Family - AWS, What is AWS Outposts? - AWS Outposts

AWS Systems Manager gives you visibility and control of your infrastructure on AWS. Systems Manager provides a unified user interface so you can view operational data from multiple AWS services and allows you to automate operational tasks across your AWS resources. You can use Systems Manager to apply OS patches, create system images, configure Windows and Linux operating systems, and execute PowerShell commands5. Systems Manager can help you ensure that all of your Amazon EC2 instances have compliant operating system patches by using the Patch Manager feature.

 Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a service that provides a scalable and elastic file system for Linux-based workloads. It can be mounted on multiple Amazon EC2 instances across different Availability Zones within a region, allowing applications to access a common set of files1. AWS Backup is a service that provides a centralized and automated way to back up data across AWS services. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is a service that provides persistent block storage volumes for Amazon EC2 instances. AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized is a device that provides a petabyte-scale data transport and edge computing solution.

AWS Shield Advanced is a service that provides high levels of detection and near-real-time (NRT) mitigation against large and sophisticated distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on applications running on AWS. AWS Shield Advanced also provides you with 24x7 access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT) and protection against DDoS attacks of any size or duration1. Amazon GuardDuty is a service that provides threat detection for your AWS accounts and workloads, but it does not offer DDoS protection3. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps you improve the security and compliance of your applications deployed on AWS by automatically assessing them for vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices. Amazon Macie is a service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to discover and protect your sensitive data in AWS.

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 also enables 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.

AWS Budgets is a service that allows you to set custom budgets for your AWS costs and usage, and receive alerts via email or Amazon SNS notifications if you exceed or are forecasted to exceed your budgeted amount1. You can create budgets based on different dimensions, such as service, linked account, tag, or purchase option, and define various types of alerts, such as actual, forecasted, or RI utilization alerts2. You can also configure custom actions to automatically execute remediation tasks or workflows when a budget threshold is breached3. AWS Budgets is the only service among the options that can send alerts to customers if custom spending thresholds are exceeded. The other options are not AWS services that provide this functionality.

Consolidated billing is a feature of AWS Organizations that enables customers to consolidate billing and payment for multiple AWS accounts. With consolidated billing, customers can group multiple AWS accounts under one payer account, making it easier to manage billing and track costs across multiple accounts. Consolidated billing also offers benefits such as volume discounts, Reserved Instance discounts, and Savings Plans discounts. Consolidated billing is offered at no additional cost.

Multiple AWS accounts is a feature of AWS Organizations that enables customers to create and manage multiple AWS accounts from a central location. With multiple AWS accounts, customers can isolate workloads for different departments, projects, or environments, and apply granular access controls and policies to each account. Multiple AWS accounts also helps customers improve security, compliance, and governance of their AWS resources56. References: 5: Consolidated billing for AWS Organizations - AWS Billing, 6: Understanding Consolidated Bills - AWS Billing, 7: AWS Consolidated Billing: Tutorial & Best Practices, 8: Simplifying Your Bills With Consolidated Billing on AWS - Aimably, 9: AWS Consolidated Billing - W3Schools

 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.

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, and tools 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

 AWS Budgets allows you to set 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 set reservation utilization or coverage targets and receive alerts when your utilization drops below the threshold you define. AWS Budgets provides you with a comprehensive view of your cost and usage, as well as your reservation utilization and coverage1.

 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 create a single payment method for all the AWS accounts in your organization through consolidated billing. Consolidated billing enables you to see a combined view of AWS charges incurred by all accounts in your organization, as well as get a detailed cost report for each individual AWS account associated with your organization. AWS Artifact is a service that provides on-demand access to AWS’ security and compliance reports and select online agreements. AWS Budgets is a service that enables you to plan your service usage, service costs, and instance reservations. 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 offer consolidated billing.

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is a service or tool that helps users migrate their applications to the AWS Cloud. It provides guidance and best practices to identify and prioritize any business transformation opportunities and evaluate their AWS Cloud readiness. It also helps users align their business and technical perspectives, create an actionable roadmap, and measure their progress. AWS Managed Services (AMS) is a service that provides operational services for AWS infrastructure and applications. It helps users reduce their operational overhead and risk, and focus on their core business. It does not help users identify and prioritize any business transformation opportunities and evaluate their AWS Cloud readiness. AWS Well-Architected Framework is a tool that helps users design and implement secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient solutions on AWS. It provides a set of questions and best practices across five pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization. It does not help users identify and prioritize any business transformation opportunities and evaluate their AWS Cloud readiness. AWS Migration Hub is a service that provides a single location to track and manage the migration of applications to AWS. It helps users discover their on-premises servers, group them into applications, and choose the right migration tools. It does not help users identify and prioritize any business transformation opportunities and evaluate their AWS Cloud readiness.

 A is correct because Amazon RDS is the AWS service that provides a managed relational database service that supports various database engines, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server. B is incorrect because Amazon Redshift is the AWS service that provides a managed data warehouse service that is optimized for analytical queries. C is incorrect because Amazon ElastiCache is the AWS service that provides a managed in-memory data store service that supports Redis and Memcached. D is incorrect because Amazon Neptune is the AWS service that provides a managed graph database service that supports property graph and RDF models.

 Using EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones in the same AWS Region is a solution that meets the requirements of sharing the same geographic area but using redundant underlying power sources. Availability Zones are isolated locations within an AWS Region that have independent power, cooling, and physical security. They are connected through low-latency, high-throughput, and highly redundant networking. By launching EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, users can increase the fault tolerance and availability of their applications. Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) service that speeds up the delivery of web content and media to end users by caching it at the edge locations closer to them. It is not a database service and cannot be used to store operational data for EC2 instances. Edge locations are sites that are part of the Amazon CloudFront network and are located in many cities around the world. They are not the same as Availability Zones and do not provide redundancy for EC2 instances. AWS OpsWorks is a configuration management service that allows users to automate the deployment and management of applications using Chef or Puppet. It can be used to create stacks that span multiple AWS Regions, but this would not meet the requirement of sharing the same geographic area.

 Create annotated documentation is the design principle that is included in the operational excellence pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. According to the AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper, creating annotated documentation means "documenting your workload so that the team understands the architecture, how to operate the workload, and how the workload delivers value to customers."3 Anticipate failure, ensure performance efficiency, and optimize costs are design principles that belong to other pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, such as reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization.

 AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs, and tools to virtually any datacenter, co-location space, or on-premises facility for a truly consistent hybrid experience. AWS Outposts enables you to run AWS services in your on-premises data center1.

The options that are perspectives that include foundational capabilities of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) are operations and performance efficiency. The AWS CAF is a guidance that helps organizations design and travel an accelerated path to successful cloud adoption. The AWS CAF organizes the cloud adoption process into six areas of focus, called perspectives, which are business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. Each perspective is divided into capabilities, which are further divided into skills and responsibilities. The operations perspective focuses on the management and monitoring of the cloud resources and applications, as well as the automation and optimization of the operational processes. The operations perspective capabilities are operations support, operations integration, and service management. The performance efficiency perspective focuses on the selection and configuration of the right cloud resources and services to meet the performance requirements of the applications, as well as the continuous improvement and innovation of the cloud solutions. The performance efficiency perspective capabilities are selection, review, and monitoring. Sustainability, security, and reliability are not perspectives of the AWS CAF, but they are aspects of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a guidance that helps users build and operate secure, reliable, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud. The AWS Well-Architected Framework consists of five pillars, which are operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization. Sustainability is a cross-cutting theme that applies to all the pillars, and refers to the environmental and social impact of the cloud solutions.

B and D are correct because AWS availability and security enable customers to improve their SLAs while reducing risk and unplanned downtime1, and AWS reduces IT costs related to infrastructure, allowing customers to reinvest in other areas2. A is incorrect because migrating to the AWS Cloud does not automatically make applications available on mobile devices, as it depends on the application design and compatibility. C is incorrect because companies that migrate to the AWS Cloud still need to plan for high availability and disaster recovery, as AWS is a shared responsibility model3. E is incorrect because migrating to the AWS Cloud does not require companies to rearchitect and rewrite all enterprise applications, as AWS offers different migration strategies depending on the application complexity and business objectives4.

 Access keys are long-term credentials that consist of an access key ID and a secret access key. You use access keys to sign programmatic requests that you make to AWS using the AWS CLI or AWS API1. User name and password are credentials that you use to sign in to the AWS Management Console or the AWS Management Console mobile app2. SSH public keys are credentials that you use to authenticate with EC2 instances that are launched from certain Linux AMIs3. AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) keys are customer master keys (CMKs) that you use to encrypt and decrypt your data and to control access to your data across AWS services and in your applications4.

AWS Pricing Calculator is the AWS service or tool that the company should use to estimate its future AWS service costs before the migration. AWS Pricing Calculator is a web-based tool that allows the company to create cost estimates for various AWS services and scenarios. AWS Pricing Calculator helps the company to compare the costs of running the workload on premises versus on AWS, and to optimize the costs by choosing the best options for the workload. AWS Pricing Calculator also provides a detailed breakdown of the cost components and a downloadable report. For more information, see [AWS Pricing Calculator] and [Getting Started with AWS Pricing Calculator].

Reliability is the benefit of AWS Cloud computing that ensures the workload performs consistently and correctly. According to the AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials course, reliability means "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."1 Elasticity, security, and pay-as-you-go pricing are also benefits of AWS Cloud computing, but they do not directly relate to the goal of consistent and correct performance.

A is correct because Amazon Lex is the AWS service that helps users build conversational interfaces into applications using voice and text. B is incorrect because Amazon Transcribe is the AWS service that helps users convert speech to text. C is incorrect because Amazon Comprehend is the AWS service that helps users analyze text using natural language processing. D is incorrect because Amazon Timestream is the AWS service that helps users collect, store, and process time series data.

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 of EC2 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 EC2 On-Demand Instances are instances that you pay for by the second, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments4. This option is suitable for applications that have unpredictable or intermittent workloads, such as the one described in the question. Amazon EC2 Standard Reserved Instances are instances that you purchase for a one-year or three-year term, and pay a lower hourly rate compared to On-Demand Instances. This option is suitable for applications that have steady state or predictable usage. AWS Wavelength is a service that enables developers to build applications that deliver ultra-low latency to mobile devices and users by deploying AWS compute and storage at the edge of the 5G network. This option is not relevant for the application described in the question. Application Load Balancer is a type of load balancer that operates at the application layer and distributes traffic based on the content of the request. This option is not a service or feature to host the application, but rather to balance the traffic among multiple instances.

 AWS Abuse team is the AWS group or team that the company should notify if it suspects that its AWS resources are being used for illegal activities. AWS Abuse team is a dedicated team that handles reports of abuse, such as spam, phishing, malware, denial-of-service attacks, and unauthorized access, involving AWS resources. The company can contact the AWS Abuse team by filling out the [Report Abuse of AWS Resources form] or sending an email to abuse@amazonaws.com. The company should provide as much information as possible, such as the source and destination IP addresses, timestamps, log files, and screenshots, to help the AWS Abuse team investigate and take appropriate actions. For more information, see [Reporting Abuse] and [AWS Acceptable Use Policy].

 Identity and access management is the customer’s responsibility, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. This means that the customer is responsible for managing user access to the AWS resources, using tools such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS Single Sign-On (SSO), and AWS Organizations. The customer is also responsible for securing their data in transit and at rest, using encryption, key management, and other methods. Hard drive initialization, protection of data center hardware, and security of Availability Zones are AWS’s responsibility, as they are part of the infrastructure, physical security, and network security that AWS provides to the customer12

 The perspective of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) that connects technology and business is governance. The governance perspective focuses on the alignment of the IT strategy and processes with the business strategy and goals, as well as the management of the IT budget, risk, and compliance. The governance perspective capabilities are portfolio management, business performance management, and IT governance. The governance perspective helps organizations ensure that their cloud adoption delivers the expected business value and outcomes, and that their cloud solutions are secure, reliable, and compliant. Operations, people, and security are other perspectives of the AWS CAF, but they do not directly connect technology and business. The operations perspective focuses on the management and monitoring of the cloud resources and applications, as well as the automation and optimization of the operational processes. The people perspective focuses on the development and empowerment of the human resources, as well as the transformation of the organizational culture and structure. The security perspective focuses on the protection of the information assets and systems in the cloud, as well as the implementation of the security policies and controls.

 Global reach is the benefit of AWS Cloud computing that provides lower latency between users and applications. Global reach means that AWS customers can deploy their applications and data in multiple regions around the world, and deliver them to users with high performance and availability. AWS has the largest global infrastructure of any cloud provider, with 25 geographic regions and 81 Availability Zones, as well as 216 Points of Presence in 84 cities across 42 countries. Customers can choose the optimal locations for their applications and data based on their business requirements, such as compliance, data sovereignty, and customer proximity. Agility, economies of scale, and pay-as-you-go pricing are other benefits of AWS Cloud computing, but they do not directly provide lower latency between users and applications. Agility means that AWS customers can quickly and easily provision and scale up or down AWS resources as needed, without upfront costs or long-term commitments. Economies of scale means that AWS customers can benefit from the lower costs and higher efficiency that AWS achieves by operating at a massive scale and passing the savings to the customers. Pay-as-you-go pricing means that AWS customers only pay for the AWS resources they use, without any upfront costs or long-term contracts.

 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].

Pay-as-you-go pricing is one of the main benefits of AWS. With pay-as-you-go pricing, you pay only for what you use, when you use it. There are no long-term contracts, termination fees, or complex licensing. You replace upfront expenses with lower variable costs and pay only for the resources you consume.

 AWS Enterprise Support is the AWS Support plan that includes an AWS concierge whom the company can ask for assistance. According to the AWS Support Plans page, AWS Enterprise Support provides "a dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM) who provides advocacy and guidance to help plan and build solutions using best practices, coordinate access to subject matter experts, and proactively keep your AWS environment operationally healthy."2 AWS Business Support, AWS Developer Support, and AWS Basic Support do not include a TAM or a concierge service.

 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 help users identify opportunities to reduce their AWS costs, but it is not a tool for forecasting AWS spending

The Envision phase of the cloud transformation journey is where the company defines its vision, business drivers, and desired outcomes for the cloud adoption. The company also identifies its capability gaps by using the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) perspectives, which are business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations2.

To maximize sustainability and minimize environmental impact, a company should apply the following design principles to AWS Cloud workloads: maximize utilization of Amazon EC2 instances and reduce the need for users to reinstall applications. Maximizing utilization of Amazon EC2 instances means that the company can optimize the performance and efficiency of their compute resources, and avoid wasting energy and money on idle or underutilized instances. The company can use features such as Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, and AWS Compute Optimizer to automatically adjust the number and type of instances based on demand, cost, and performance. Reducing the need for users to reinstall applications means that the company can minimize the amount of data and bandwidth required to deliver their applications to users, and avoid unnecessary downloads and updates that consume energy and resources. The company can use services such as Amazon CloudFront, AWS AppStream 2.0, and AWS Amplify to deliver their applications faster, more securely, and more efficiently to users across the globe. Minimizing utilization of Amazon EC2 instances, minimizing usage of managed services, and forcing frequent application reinstallations by users are not design principles that would maximize sustainability and minimize environmental impact. Minimizing utilization of Amazon EC2 instances would reduce the performance and efficiency of the compute resources, and potentially increase the costs and complexity of the cloud workloads. Minimizing usage of managed services would increase the operational overhead and responsibility of the company, and potentially expose them to more security and reliability risks. Forcing frequent application reinstallations by users would increase the amount of data and bandwidth required to deliver the applications to users, and potentially degrade the user experience and satisfaction.

 The AWS service that requires the customer to patch the guest operating system is Amazon EC2. Amazon EC2 is a service that provides scalable compute capacity in the cloud, and allows customers to launch and run virtual servers, called instances, with a variety of operating systems, configurations, and specifications. The customer is responsible for patching and updating the guest operating system and any applications that run on the EC2 instances, as part of the security in the cloud. AWS Lambda, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and Amazon ElastiCache are not services that require the customer to patch the guest operating system. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that allows customers to run code without provisioning or managing servers. Amazon OpenSearch Service is a fully managed service that makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale OpenSearch clusters in the AWS Cloud. Amazon ElastiCache is a fully managed service that provides in-memory data store and cache solutions, such as Redis and Memcached. These services are managed by AWS, and AWS is responsible for patching and updating the underlying infrastructure and software.

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances let you take advantage of unused EC2 capacity in the AWS cloud. Spot Instances are available at up to a 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. You can use Spot Instances for various stateless, fault-tolerant, or flexible applications such as big data, containerized workloads, CI/CD, web servers, high-performance computing (HPC), and other test & development workloads. Spot Instances are well-suited for massively parallel computations, as they can provide large amounts of compute capacity at a low cost, and can be interrupted with a two-minute notice3

AWS Secrets Manager is an AWS service that can be used to securely store and encrypt passwords for a database. It allows users to manage secrets, such as database credentials, API keys, and tokens, in a centralized and secure way. It also provides features such as automatic rotation, fine-grained access control, and auditing. AWS Shield is an AWS service that provides protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks for AWS resources and services. It does not store or encrypt passwords for a database. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is an AWS service that allows users to manage access to AWS resources and services. It can be used to create users, groups, roles, and policies that control who can do what in AWS. It does not store or encrypt passwords for a database. Amazon Cognito is an AWS service that provides user identity and data synchronization for web and mobile applications. It can be used to authenticate and authorize users, manage user profiles, and sync user data across devices. It does not store or encrypt passwords for a database.

 According to the AWS shared responsibility model, the customer is responsible for configuring logical access controls for resources, and protecting account credentials. This includes managing IAM user permissions, security group rules, network ACLs, encryption keys, and other aspects of access management1. AWS is responsible for protecting the global infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud, such as the hardware, software, networking, and facilities. AWS is also responsible for configuring the security used by managed services, such as Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Aurora2.

AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommended actions in five categories: cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service quotas. Cost optimization helps you reduce your overall AWS costs by identifying idle and underutilized resources. Service quotas helps you monitor and manage your usage of AWS service quotas and request quota increases. Operating system patches, repetitive tasks, and account activity records are not categories that AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommended actions for. Source: [AWS Trusted Advisor]

Amazon S3 is a service that provides highly durable and cost-effective object storage for a variety of use cases, including backup and archive, big data analytics, disaster recovery, and cloud applications. Amazon S3 offers 99.999999999% (11 9’s) of durability, meaning that data is designed to withstand the loss of two facilities concurrently. Amazon S3 also offers several storage classes with different price and performance characteristics, such as S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive, which are ideal for long-term archival of data that is rarely accessed. AWS Snowball, AWS Storage Gateway, and Amazon Kinesis are not designed to provide the same level of durability and cost-effectiveness as Amazon S3 for storing call recordings for 6 years. Source: Amazon S3

 Performance efficiency is the pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that represents the requirements of designing a solution for the efficient use of compute resources for an enterprise workload and making informed decisions as the technology needs evolve. It focuses on using the right resources and services for the workload, monitoring performance, and continuously improving the efficiency of the solution. Operational excellence is the pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that represents the ability to run and monitor systems to deliver business value and to continually improve supporting processes and procedures. Cost optimization is the pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that represents the ability to run systems to deliver business value at the lowest price point. Reliability is the pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that represents 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.

 Spot Instances are spare Amazon 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 supply5. Convertible Reserved Instances are a type of Reserved Instances that provide a significant discount (up to 54%) compared to On-Demand prices and a capacity reservation for Amazon EC2 instances. They are available in 1-year or 3-year terms and allow users to change the instance family, size, operating system, or tenancy during the term. Standard Reserved Instances are another type of Reserved Instances that provide a larger discount (up to 75%) compared to On-Demand prices and a capacity reservation for Amazon EC2 instances. They are available in 1-year or 3-year terms and do not allow users to change the instance attributes during the term. Dedicated Hosts are physical servers with Amazon EC2 instance capacity fully dedicated to the user’s use. They are suitable for users who have specific server-bound software licenses or compliance requirements.

Decoupling the components of an application means reducing the dependencies and interactions between them, which can improve the application’s reliability, scalability, and performance. Decoupling can be achieved by using services such as Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and AWS Lambda1

 AWS Trusted Advisor is the AWS service or tool that the company should use to identify areas for optimization. According to the AWS Trusted Advisor User Guide, “AWS Trusted Advisor is an online tool that provides you real time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. AWS Trusted Advisor checks help optimize your AWS infrastructure, increase security and performance, reduce your overall costs, and monitor service limits.” Amazon QuickSight, AWS Organizations, and AWS Budgets are not designed to provide optimization recommendations for the current AWS environment.

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) is the AWS service that allows customers to create multiple isolated networks in the same AWS account. A VPC is a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where customers can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that they define. Customers can create multiple VPCs within an AWS account, each with its own IP address range, subnets, route tables, security groups, network access control lists, gateways, and other components. AWS Transit Gateway, Internet gateway, and Amazon EC2 are not services or components that provide the functionality of creating multiple isolated networks in the same AWS account. AWS Transit Gateway is a service that enables customers to connect their Amazon VPCs and their on-premises networks to a single gateway. An Internet gateway is a component that enables communication between instances in a VPC and the Internet. Amazon EC2 is a service that provides scalable compute capacity in the cloud34

 The combination of AWS services that the application can use to migrate to a microservices-based application are Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) and AWS Lambda. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queuing service that enables customers to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. The application can use Amazon SQS to send, store, and receive messages between the microservices, ensuring that each message is processed only once and in the right order. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that allows customers to run code without provisioning or managing servers. The application can use AWS Lambda to create and deploy microservices as functions that are triggered by events, such as messages from Amazon SQS. AWS Migration Hub, AWS AppSync, and AWS Application Migration Service are not the best services to use for migrating to a microservices-based application. AWS Migration Hub is a service that provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations across multiple AWS and partner solutions. AWS AppSync is a service that simplifies the development of GraphQL APIs for real-time and offline data synchronization. AWS Application Migration Service is a service that enables customers to migrate their on-premises applications to AWS without making any changes to the applications, servers, or databases.

 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 and applications. AWS CloudFormation is a service that provides a common language to model and provision AWS resources and their dependencies.

Security of the cloud refers to the security of the cloud infrastructure that runs all the AWS services. This includes the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that AWS operates and manages. AWS is responsible for protecting the security of the cloud as part of the AWS shared responsibility model. Availability of AWS services such as Amazon EC2 refers to the ability of the services to be up and running and to meet the expected performance. Availability is part of the reliability pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework and is a shared responsibility between AWS and the customer . Implementation of password policies for IAM users refers to the security of the customer data and applications in the cloud. This includes the configuration and management of IAM user permissions, encryption keys, security group rules, network ACLs, and other aspects of access management. The customer is responsible for protecting the security in the cloud as part of the AWS shared responsibility model. Security of customer environments by using AWS Network Firewall partners refers to the security of the customer data and applications in the cloud. AWS Network Firewall is a managed service that provides network protection for Amazon VPCs. It allows customers to use AWS Marketplace partners to implement firewall rules and policies. The customer is responsible for protecting the security in the cloud as part of the AWS shared responsibility model .

Scaling horizontally across multiple Availability Zones is a way to adopt a highly available architecture, as it increases the fault tolerance and resilience of the application. Scaling vertically to a larger EC2 instance size is a way to improve the performance of the application, but it does not improve the availability. Purchasing an EC2 Dedicated Instance is a way to isolate the instance from other AWS customers, but it does not improve the availability. Changing the EC2 instance family to a compute optimized instance is a way to optimize the instance type for the workload, but it does not improve the availability. These concepts are explained in the AWS Well-Architected Framework2.

The AWS service that will meet the requirements of the company that wants to create a chatbot and integrate the chatbot with its current web application is Amazon Lex. Amazon Lex is a service that helps customers build conversational interfaces using voice and text. The company can use Amazon Lex to create a chatbot that can understand natural language and respond to user requests, using the same deep learning technologies that power Amazon Alexa. Amazon Lex also provides easy integration with other AWS services, such as Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Polly, and AWS Lambda, as well as popular platforms, such as Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Twilio. Amazon Lex helps customers create engaging and interactive chatbots for their web applications. Amazon Kendra, Amazon Textract, and Amazon Polly are not the best services to use for this purpose. Amazon Kendra is a service that helps customers provide accurate and natural answers to natural language queries using machine learning. Amazon Textract is a service that helps customers extract text and data from scanned documents using optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning. Amazon Polly is a service that helps customers convert text into lifelike speech using deep learning. These services are more useful for different types of natural language processing and generation tasks, rather than creating and integrating chatbots.

Adding a department tag to each resource and configuring cost allocation tags is an action that can help you accomplish the goal of billing each department for its resource usage with the least operational overhead. Tags are simple labels consisting of a key and an optional value that you can assign to AWS resources. You can use tags to organize your resources and track your AWS costs on a detailed level. Cost allocation tags enable you to track your AWS costs on a detailed level. After you activate cost allocation tags, AWS uses the cost allocation tags to organize your resource costs on your cost allocation report, to make it easier for you to categorize and track your AWS costs2. Moving each department resource to its own VPC or its own AWS account is an action that can help you isolate and control the resources for each department, but it would incur more operational overhead than using tags. Using AWS Organizations to get a billing report for each department is an action that can help you consolidate billing and payment across multiple AWS accounts, but it would not help you bill each department for its resource usage within a single VPC.

AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect your web applications or APIs against common web exploits that may affect availability, compromise security, or consume excessive resources. AWS WAF gives you control over how traffic reaches your applications by enabling you to create security rules that block common attack patterns, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting, and rules that filter out specific traffic patterns you define2. You can use AWS WAF to create a custom rule that blocks SQL injection attacks on your website.

 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.

The company should use the AWS Billing console to access a report about the estimated environmental impact of the company’s AWS usage. The AWS Billing console provides customers with various tools and reports to manage and monitor their AWS costs and usage. One of the reports available in the AWS Billing console is the AWS Sustainability Dashboard, which shows the estimated carbon footprint and energy mix of the customer’s AWS usage. The company can use this dashboard to measure and improve the sustainability of their cloud workloads. AWS Organizations, IAM policy, and Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) are not services or features that can provide a report about the estimated environmental impact of the company’s AWS usage. AWS Organizations is a service that enables customers to centrally manage and govern their AWS accounts. IAM policy is a document that defines the permissions for an IAM identity (user, group, or role) or an AWS resource. Amazon SNS is a fully managed pub/sub messaging service that enables customers to send messages to subscribers or other AWS services.

 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 a feature 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.

 The common stakeholders for the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) platform perspective are IT architects and engineers. The AWS CAF is a guidance that helps organizations design and travel an accelerated path to successful cloud adoption. The AWS CAF organizes the cloud adoption process into six areas of focus, called perspectives, which are business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. Each perspective is divided into capabilities, which are further divided into skills and responsibilities. The platform perspective focuses on the provisioning and management of the cloud infrastructure and services that support the business applications. The platform perspective capabilities are design, implementation, and optimization. The stakeholders for the platform perspective are the IT architects and engineers who are responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing the cloud platform. Chief financial officers (CFOs), chief information officers (CIOs), and chief data officers (CDOs) are not the common stakeholders for the AWS CAF platform perspective. CFOs are the common stakeholders for the AWS CAF business perspective, which focuses on the value realization of the cloud adoption. CIOs are the common stakeholders for the AWS CAF governance perspective, which focuses on the alignment of the IT strategy and processes with the business strategy and goals. CDOs are the common stakeholders for the AWS CAF security perspective, which focuses on the protection of the information assets and systems in the cloud.

Amazon ElastiCache is a fully managed in-memory data store service that is compatible with open source engines such as Redis and Memcached1. It provides fast and scalable performance for applications that require high throughput and low latency1. Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides consistent and single-digit millisecond latency at any scale2. Amazon EBS is a block storage service that provides persistent and durable storage volumes for Amazon EC2 instances3. Amazon Redshift is a fully managed data warehouse service that allows users to run complex analytic queries using SQL4.

Amazon Lightsail is an easy-to-use cloud platform that offers you everything needed to build an application or website, plus a cost-effective, monthly plan. Whether you’re new to the cloud or looking to get on the cloud quickly with AWS infrastructure you trust, we’ve got you covered. Lightsail provides the simplest way for the company to establish a website on AWS.

 The most cost-effective EC2 instance purchasing option for the company that needs to host a web server on Amazon EC2 instances for at least 1 year and cannot tolerate interruption is Partial Upfront Reserved Instances. Reserved Instances are a pricing model that offer significant discounts compared to On-Demand Instances in exchange for a commitment to use a specific amount of compute capacity for a fixed period of time (1 or 3 years). Partial Upfront Reserved Instances require customers to pay a portion of the total cost upfront, and the remaining cost in monthly installments over the term. This option offers a lower effective hourly rate than No Upfront Reserved Instances, which require no upfront payment but have higher monthly payments. On-Demand Instances and Spot Instances are not the best options for the company. On-Demand Instances are a pricing model that offer the most flexibility and no long-term commitment, but have the highest hourly rate. Spot Instances are a pricing model that offer the lowest cost, but are subject to interruption based on supply and demand34

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 function correctly and consistently. Durability means that AWS customers can preserve their data and objects for long periods of time without loss or corruption12

 A and B are correct because AWS CodeCommit is the AWS service that provides a fully managed source control service that hosts secure Git-based repositories1, and AWS CodeDeploy is the AWS service that automates code deployments to any instance, including Amazon EC2 instances and servers running on-premises2. These two services can be used together to store source code and update the running software when the code changes. C is incorrect because Amazon DynamoDB is the AWS service that provides a fully managed NoSQL database service that supports key-value and document data models3. It is not related to storing source code or updating software. D is incorrect because Amazon S3 is the AWS service that provides object storage through a web service interface4. It can be used to store source code, but it does not provide source control features or update software. E is incorrect because Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is the AWS service that allows users to run, scale, and secure Docker container applications. It can be used to deploy containerized software, but it does not store source code or update software.

 Spot Instances are instances that use spare EC2 capacity that is available for up to 90% off the On-Demand price. Because Spot Instances can be interrupted by EC2 with two minutes of notification when EC2 needs the capacity back, you can use them for applications that have flexible start and end times, or that can withstand interruptions5. This option is most cost-effective for the use case described in the question. Reserved Instances are instances that you purchase for a one-year or three-year term, and pay a lower hourly rate compared to On-Demand Instances. This option is suitable for applications that have steady state or predictable usage. Dedicated Instances are instances that run on hardware that’s dedicated to a single customer within an Amazon VPC. This option is suitable for applications that have stringent regulatory or compliance requirements. On-Demand Instances are instances that you pay for by the second, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments. This option is suitable for applications that have unpredictable or intermittent workloads.

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.

 The tasks that are the responsibility of AWS according to the AWS shared responsibility model are securing the access of physical AWS facilities and performing infrastructure patching and maintenance. The AWS shared responsibility model 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 physical security of the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run the AWS services. AWS is also responsible for the maintenance and patching of the infrastructure that supports the AWS services. The customer is responsible for the security in the cloud, which includes the configuration and management of the AWS resources and applications that they use. Configuring AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), configuring security groups on Amazon EC2 instances, and patching applications that run on Amazon EC2 instances are tasks that are the responsibility of the customer, not AWS.

 The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps you understand the pros and cons of decisions you make while building systems on AWS. By using the Framework, you will learn architectural best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud. The Framework consists of five pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization2.

 Patch management and configuration management are controls that are the responsibility of both AWS and AWS customers, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. Patch management is the process of applying updates to software and applications to fix vulnerabilities, bugs, or performance issues. Configuration management is the process of defining and maintaining the settings and parameters of systems and applications to ensure their consistency and reliability. AWS is responsible for patching and configuring the software and services that it manages, such as the AWS global infrastructure, the hypervisor, and the AWS managed services. The customer is responsible for patching and configuring the software and services that they manage, such as the guest operating system, the applications, and the AWS customer-managed services. Physical and environmental controls are the responsibility of AWS, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. Physical and environmental controls are the measures that protect the physical security and availability of the AWS global infrastructure, such as power, cooling, fire suppression, and access control. AWS is responsible for maintaining these controls and ensuring the resilience and reliability of the AWS Cloud. Account structures are the responsibility of the customer, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. Account structures are the ways that customers organize and manage their AWS accounts and resources, such as using AWS Organizations, IAM users and roles, resource tagging, and billing preferences. The customer is responsible for creating and configuring these structures and ensuring the security and governance of their AWS environment. Choice of the AWS Region where data is stored is the responsibility of the customer, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. AWS Regions are geographic areas that consist of multiple isolated Availability Zones. Customers can choose which AWS Region to store their data and run their applications, depending on their latency, compliance, and cost requirements. The customer is responsible for selecting the appropriate AWS Region and ensuring the data sovereignty and regulatory compliance of their data.

 Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is the AWS service that the company should use to migrate its Microsoft SQL Server database management system from on premises to the AWS Cloud. Amazon RDS is a fully managed service that provides a scalable, secure, and high-performance relational database platform. Amazon RDS supports several database engines, including Microsoft SQL Server. Amazon RDS reduces the management overhead for the database environment by taking care of tasks such as provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, and monitoring. For more information, see What is Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)? and Amazon RDS for SQL Server.

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 solution that meets the requirement of the company that runs a database on Amazon Aurora in the us-east-1 Region and has a disaster recovery requirement that the database be available in another Region with minimal disruption to the database operations is to deploy Aurora cross-Region read replicas. Aurora cross-Region read replicas are secondary Aurora clusters that are created in a different AWS Region from the primary Aurora cluster, and are kept in sync with the primary cluster using physical replication. The company can use Aurora cross-Region read replicas to improve the availability and durability of the database, as well as to reduce the recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) in case of a regional disaster. Performing an Aurora Multi-AZ deployment, creating Amazon EBS volume snapshots for Aurora and copying them to another Region, and deploying Aurora Replicas are not the best solutions for this requirement. An Aurora Multi-AZ deployment is a configuration that creates one or more Aurora Replicas within the same AWS Region as the primary Aurora cluster, and provides automatic failover in case of an Availability Zone outage. However, this does not provide cross-Region disaster recovery. Creating Amazon EBS volume snapshots for Aurora and copying them to another Region is a manual process that requires stopping the database, creating the snapshots, copying them to the target Region, and restoring them to a new Aurora cluster. This process can cause significant downtime and data loss. Deploying Aurora Replicas is a configuration that creates one or more secondary Aurora clusters within the same AWS Region as the primary Aurora cluster, and provides read scaling and high availability. However, this does not provide cross-Region disaster recovery.

Amazon Route 53 is the AWS service that provides DNS resolution. DNS (Domain Name System) is a service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable cloud DNS service that offers domain name registration, DNS routing, and health checking. Amazon Route 53 can route the traffic to various AWS services, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Amazon CloudFront. Amazon Route 53 can also integrate with other AWS services, such as AWS Certificate Manager, AWS Shield, and AWS WAF. For more information, see [What is Amazon Route 53?] and [Amazon Route 53 Features].

 The benefit of the AWS Cloud that helps companies achieve lower usage costs because of the aggregate usage of all AWS users is economies of scale. Economies of scale means that AWS can achieve lower costs and higher efficiency by operating at a massive scale and passing the savings to the customers. AWS leverages the aggregate usage of all AWS users to negotiate better prices with hardware vendors, optimize power consumption, and improve operational processes. As a result, AWS can offer lower and more flexible pricing options to the customers, such as pay-as-you-go, reserved, and spot pricing models. No need to guess capacity, ability to go global in minutes, and increased speed and agility are other benefits of the AWS Cloud, but they are not directly related to the aggregate usage of all AWS users. No need to guess capacity means that AWS customers can avoid the risk of over-provisioning or under-provisioning resources, and scale up or down as needed. Ability to go global in minutes means that AWS customers can deploy their applications and data in multiple regions around the world, and deliver them to users with high performance and availability. Increased speed and agility means that AWS customers can quickly and easily provision and access AWS resources, and accelerate their innovation and time to market.

 Security groups and network access control lists (network ACLs) are two AWS network services or features that allow CIDR block notation when providing an IP address range. Security groups act as a firewall for associated Amazon EC2 instances, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level. Network ACLs act as a firewall for associated subnets, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level. Both security groups and network ACLs use CIDR block notation to specify the IP address ranges that are allowed or denied

AWS Pricing Calculator is a web-based planning tool that customers can use to create estimates for their AWS use cases. They can use it to model their solutions before building them, explore the AWS service price points, and review the calculations behind their estimates. Therefore, the correct answer is A. You can learn more about AWS Pricing Calculator and how it works from this page.

AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) is a service that enables applications to request temporary, limited-privilege credentials for authentication with other AWS APIs. AWS STS can be used to grant access to AWS resources to users who are federated (using IAM roles), switched (using IAM users), or cross-account (using IAM roles). AWS STS can also be used to assume a role within the same account or a different account. The credentials issued by AWS STS are short-term and have a limited scope, which can enhance the security and compliance of the application. AWS STS OverviewAWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service built for DevOps engineers, developers, site reliability engineers (SREs), and IT managers. CloudWatch provides you with data and actionable insights to monitor your applications, respond to system-wide performance changes, optimize resource utilization, and get a unified view of operational health. CloudWatch collects monitoring and operational data in the form of logs, metrics, and events, providing you with a unified view of AWS resources, applications, and services that run on AWS and on-premises servers

AWS Lambda is a service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You can use Lambda to process event notifications from Amazon S3 when objects are uploaded or deleted. Lambda integrates directly with the event notification and invokes your code automatically. Therefore, the correct answer is A. 

AWS Secrets Manager is the AWS service where database credentials should be stored for maximum security. AWS Secrets Manager helps to protect the secrets, such as database credentials, passwords, API keys, and tokens, that are used to access applications, services, and resources. AWS Secrets Manager enables secure storage, encryption, rotation, and retrieval of the secrets. AWS Secrets Manager also integrates with other AWS services, such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS), and AWS Lambda. For more information, see [What is AWS Secrets Manager?] and [Getting Started with AWS Secrets Manager].

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 the feature of the AWS Cloud that gives users the ability to pay based on current needs rather than forecasted needs. Pay-as-you-go pricing means that users only pay for the AWS services and resources they use, without any upfront or long-term commitments. This allows users to scale up or down their usage depending on their changing business requirements, and avoid paying for idle or unused capacity. Pay-as-you-go pricing also enables users to benefit from the economies of scale and lower costs of AWS as they grow their business5

 The ability to deploy to AWS on a global scale is a cloud benefit that AWS offers to its users. AWS has a global infrastructure that consists of AWS Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations. Users can choose from multiple AWS Regions around the world to deploy their applications and data closer to their end users, while also meeting their compliance and regulatory requirements. Users can also leverage AWS services, such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon Route 53, and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the performance and availability of their global applications. AWS also provides tools and guidance to help users optimize their global deployments, such as AWS Well-Architected Framework, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS Migration Hub. AWS Global Infrastructure [AWS Cloud Value Framework] AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

Amazon RDS is the AWS service that will meet the requirements of migrating a relational database server to the AWS Cloud and minimizing administrative overhead of database maintenance tasks. Amazon RDS is a fully managed relational database service that handles routine database tasks, such as provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, failure detection, and repair. Amazon RDS supports several database engines, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and Amazon Aurora5.

 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 from this page.

 AWS Config is a service that enables users to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of AWS resources. It continuously monitors and records the configuration changes of the resources and evaluates them against desired configurations and best practices. It also provides a detailed view of the resource configuration history and relationships, as well as compliance reports and notifications. AWS Config can help users maintain consistent and secure configurations, troubleshoot issues, and simplify compliance auditing. AWS Config OverviewAWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

 AWS Direct Connect gives users the ability to provision a dedicated and private network connection from their internal network to AWS. AWS Direct Connect links the user’s internal network to an AWS Direct Connect location over a standard Ethernet fiber-optic cable. One end of the cable is connected to the user’s router, the other to an AWS Direct Connect router. With this connection in place, the user can create virtual interfaces directly to the AWS cloud and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), bypassing internet service providers in the network path2.

 The AWS account root user is the first sign-in identity that is available when an AWS account is created. It has complete access to all AWS services and resources in the account. The root user email address and password are the same credentials that are used to sign in to the AWS Management Console4. The root user should be used only to perform a few account and service management tasks. For day-to-day tasks, it is recommended to use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) users or roles instead.

 The correct answers are C and D because S3 bucket policies and IAM user policies are AWS features that will meet the requirements. S3 bucket policies are access policies that can be attached to Amazon S3 buckets to grant or deny permissions to the bucket and the objects it contains. S3 bucket policies can be used to control who has permission to read, write, or delete objects that the company stores in the S3 bucket. IAM user policies are access policies that can be attached to IAM users to grant or deny permissions to AWS resources and actions. IAM user policies can be used to control who has permission to read, write, or delete objects that the company stores in the S3 bucket. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS features that will meet the requirements. Security groups and network ACLs are AWS features that act as firewalls to control inbound and outbound traffic to and from Amazon EC2 instances and subnets. Security groups and network ACLs do not control who has permission to read, write, or delete objects that the company stores in the S3 bucket. S3 bucket versioning is an AWS feature that enables users to keep multiple versions of the same object in the same bucket. S3 bucket versioning can be used to recover from accidental overwrites or deletions of objects, but it does not control who has permission to read, write, or delete objects that the company stores in the S3 bucket. Reference: Using Bucket Policies and User Policies, Security Groups for Your VPC, Network ACLs, [Using Versioning]

 AWS Lambda is a compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. AWS Lambda executes your code only when needed and scales automatically, from a few requests per day to thousands per second. You pay only for the compute time you consume - there is no charge when your code is not running. With AWS Lambda, you can run code for virtually any type of application or backend service - all with zero administration. AWS Lambda runs your code on a high-availability compute infrastructure and performs all of the administration of the compute resources, including server and operating system maintenance, capacity provisioning and automatic scaling, code monitoring and logging

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 internal websites 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]

 One of the advantages of AWS Cloud computing is that it minimizes variable costs by leveraging economies of scale. This means that AWS can achieve lower costs per unit of computing resources by spreading the fixed costs of building and maintaining data centers over a large number of customers. As a result, AWS can offer lower and more predictable prices to its customers, who only pay for the resources they consume. Therefore, the correct answer is B. You can learn more about AWS pricing and economies of scale from this page.

Some of the advantages of using Amazon EC2 instances to host applications in the AWS Cloud instead of on premises are:

• EC2 integrates with Amazon VPC, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). Amazon VPC lets you provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. AWS CloudTrail enables governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of your AWS account. AWS IAM enables you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. Therefore, the correct answer is B. You can learn more about Amazon EC2 and its integration with other AWS services from this page.
• EC2 has a flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing model. You only pay for the compute capacity you use, and you can scale up and down as needed. You can also choose from different pricing options, such as On-Demand, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and Spot Instances, to optimize your costs. Therefore, the correct answer is D. You can learn more about Amazon EC2 pricing from this page.

The other options are incorrect because:

• EC2 does not include operating system patch management. You are responsible for managing and maintaining your own operating systems on EC2 instances. You can use AWS Systems Manager to automate common maintenance tasks, such as applying patches, or use Amazon EC2 Image Builder to create and maintain secure images. Therefore, the incorrect answer is A.
• EC2 does not have a 100% service level agreement (SLA). The EC2 SLA guarantees 99.99% availability for each EC2 Region, not for each individual instance. Therefore, the incorrect answer is C.
• EC2 does not have automatic storage cost optimization. You are responsible for choosing the right storage option for your EC2 instances, such as Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) or Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), and monitoring and optimizing your storage costs. You can use AWS Cost Explorer or AWS Trusted Advisor to analyze and reduce your storage spending. Therefore, the incorrect answer is E.

AWS Storage Gateway file gateway allows companies to use protocols such as NFS and SMB to store and retrieve objects in Amazon S3. File gateway provides a seamless integration between on-premises applications and Amazon S3, and enables low-latency access to data through local caching. File gateway also supports encryption, compression, and lifecycle management of the objects in Amazon S3. For more information, see What is AWS Storage Gateway? and File Gateway.

The AWS services and features that are provided to all customers at no charge are VPC and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). VPC is a service that allows you to launch AWS resources in a logically isolated virtual network that you define. You can create and use a VPC at no additional charge, and you only pay for the resources that you launch in the VPC, such as EC2 instances or EBS volumes. IAM is a service that allows you to manage access and permissions to AWS resources. You can create and use IAM users, groups, roles, and policies at no additional charge, and you only pay for the AWS resources that the IAM entities access. Amazon Aurora, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Polly are not free services, and they charge based on the usage and features that you choose5

AWS is responsible for decommissioning end-of-life underlying storage devices that are used to host data on AWS. AWS follows strict and audited data destruction processes to ensure that customer data is not exposed to unauthorized individuals or devices when an AWS storage device reaches the end of its useful life. AWS uses techniques detailed in DoD 5220.22-M (“National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual”) or NIST 800-88 (“Guidelines for Media Sanitization”) to destroy data as part of the decommissioning process3.

 The AWS service that the company should use for the data warehouse is Amazon Redshift. Amazon Redshift is a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service that is optimized for analytical queries. It can integrate with various data sources and business intelligence tools to provide fast and cost-effective insights. Amazon Redshift also offers high availability, scalability, security, and compliance features. [Amazon Redshift Overview]

 Access to all AWS resources will be denied if a newly created IAM user has no IAM policy attached and logs in and attempts to view the AWS resources in the account. IAM policies are the way to grant permissions to IAM users, groups, and roles to access and manage AWS resources. By default, IAM users have no permissions, unless they are explicitly granted by an IAM policy. Therefore, a newly created IAM user without any IAM policy attached will not be able to view or perform any actions on the AWS resources in the account. Access to the AWS billing services and AWS CLI will also be denied, unless the user has the necessary permissions.

Creating an IAM role with the required permissions and attaching the role to the EC2 instance is the most operationally efficient solution to delegate permissions. An IAM role is an entity that defines a set of permissions for making AWS service requests. An IAM role can be assumed by an EC2 instance to access other AWS resources, such as Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB, without having to store any credentials on the instance. This solution is more secure and scalable than using IAM users and their access keys. For more information, see [IAM Roles for Amazon EC2] and [Using an IAM Role to Grant Permissions to Applications Running on Amazon EC2 Instances].

The correct answer is B because placing the EC2 instances in two separate Availability Zones within the same AWS Region is the best way to meet the requirement. Availability Zones are isolated locations within an AWS Region that have independent power, cooling, and networking. Users can launch their resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, in multiple Availability Zones to increase the fault tolerance and resilience of their applications. Availability Zones within the same AWS Region are connected with low-latency, high-throughput, and highly redundant networking. The other options are incorrect because they are not the best ways to meet the requirement. Placing the EC2 instances in two separate AWS Regions connected with a VPC peering connection is not the best way to meet the requirement because AWS Regions are geographically dispersed and may have higher communication latency between them than Availability Zones within the same AWS Region. VPC peering connection is a networking connection between two VPCs that enables users to route traffic between them using private IP addresses. Placing one EC2 instance on premises and the other in an AWS Region, and then connecting them by using an AWS VPN connection is not the best way to meet the requirement because on-premises and AWS Region are geographically dispersed and may have higher communication latency between them than Availability Zones within the same AWS Region. AWS VPN connection is a secure and encrypted connection between a user’s network and their VPC. Placing both EC2 instances in a placement group for dedicated bandwidth is not the best way to meet the requirement because a placement group is a logical grouping of instances within a single Availability Zone that enables users to launch instances with specific performance characteristics. A placement group does not ensure that the instances are in separate data centers, and it does not provide low-latency communication between instances in different Availability Zones. Reference: [Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones], [VPC Peering], [AWS VPN], [Placement Groups]

 The services that can be used to deploy applications on AWS are:

• AWS Elastic Beanstalk. This is a service that simplifies the deployment and management of web applications on AWS. Users can upload their application code and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the provisioning, scaling, load balancing, monitoring, and health checking of the resources needed to run the application. Users can also retain full control and access to the underlying resources and customize their configuration settings. Elastic Beanstalk supports multiple platforms, such as Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker. [AWS Elastic Beanstalk Overview] AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com
• AWS OpsWorks. This is a service that provides configuration management and automation for AWS resources. Users can define the application architecture and the configuration of each resource using Chef or Puppet, which are popular open-source automation platforms. OpsWorks then automatically creates and configures the resources according to the user’s specifications. OpsWorks also provides features such as auto scaling, monitoring, and integration with other AWS services. OpsWorks has two offerings: OpsWorks for Chef Automate and OpsWorks for Puppet Enterprise. [AWS OpsWorks Overview] AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) is a service that provides fully managed pub/sub messaging. Pub/sub messaging is a pattern that uses a combination of publishers and subscribers. Publishers are entities that produce messages and send them to topics. Subscribers are entities that receive messages from topics. Topics are logical access points that act as communication channels between publishers and subscribers. Amazon SNS enables applications to decouple, scale, and coordinate the delivery of messages to multiple endpoints, such as email, SMS, mobile push notifications, Lambda functions, SQS queues, and HTTP/S endpoints. Amazon SNS OverviewAWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

 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

Amazon GuardDuty is a service that provides intelligent threat detection and continuous monitoring for the AWS environment. It analyzes network and account activity using machine learning and threat intelligence to identify potential security threats, such as unauthorized access, compromised credentials, malicious hosts, and reconnaissance activities. It also generates detailed and actionable findings that can be viewed on the AWS Management Console or sent to other AWS services, such as Amazon CloudWatch Events and AWS Lambda, for further analysis or remediation. Amazon GuardDuty OverviewAWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - aws.amazon.com

 AWS Pricing Calculator can be used to estimate costs before deployment. AWS Pricing Calculator is a tool that helps the user to compare the cost of AWS services for different use cases and configurations. The user can create estimates for various AWS services, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and more. The user can also adjust the parameters, such as region, instance type, storage size, and duration, to see how they affect the cost. AWS Pricing Calculator provides a detailed breakdown of the estimated cost, as well as a summary of the key drivers of the cost.

 AWS Health API is available to a company that has an AWS Business Support plan. The AWS Health API provides programmatic access to the AWS Health information that is presented in the AWS Personal Health Dashboard. The AWS Health API can help users get timely and personalized information about events that can affect the availability and performance of their AWS resources, such as scheduled maintenance, network issues, or service disruptions. The AWS Health API can also integrate with other AWS services, such as Amazon CloudWatch Events and AWS Lambda, to enable automated actions and notifications. AWS Health API OverviewAWS Support Plans

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.

 Designing loosely coupled components is a design principle that should be considered when architecting in the AWS Cloud. Loose coupling is a way of designing systems to reduce interdependencies and minimize the impact of changes. Loose coupling allows components to interact with each other through well-defined interfaces, rather than direct references. This reduces the risk of failures and errors propagating across the system, and enables greater scalability, availability, and maintainability5.

An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is a deployable Amazon EC2 instance template that is prepackaged with software and security requirements. It provides the information required to launch an instance, which is a virtual server in the cloud. You can use an AMI to launch as many instances as you need. You can also create your own custom AMIs or use AMIs shared by other AWS users1.

 Amazon EventBridge is the service that the company should use to meet the requirement of invoking the Lambda function once a day at a specific time. Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service that allows you to easily connect your applications with data from AWS services, SaaS applications, and your own applications. You can use Amazon EventBridge to create rules that match events and route them to targets such as AWS Lambda functions, Amazon SNS topics, Amazon SQS queues, or other AWS services. You can also use Amazon EventBridge to create scheduled rules that trigger your targets at a specific time or interval, such as once a day. AWS Managed Services (AMS), AWS CodeStar, and AWS Step Functions are not services that the company should use to meet this requirement. AMS is a service that provides operational management for your AWS infrastructure and applications. AWS CodeStar is a service that provides a unified user interface for managing software development projects on AWS. AWS Step Functions is a service that coordinates multiple AWS services into serverless workflows.

Amazon Athena is the AWS service that the developer should use to write a simple query that can read all of the .csv files stored in an Amazon S3 bucket and generate a summary report. Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that allows users to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Amazon Athena does not require any server setup or management, and users only pay for the queries they run. Amazon Athena can handle various data formats, including .csv, and can integrate with other AWS services such as Amazon QuickSight for data visualization

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

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 Rekognition is the AWS service that the company should use to build the capability of identifying and removing inappropriate photos. Amazon Rekognition is a service that uses deep learning technology to analyze images and videos for various purposes, such as face detection, object recognition, text extraction, and content moderation. Amazon Rekognition can help users detect unsafe or inappropriate content in images and videos, such as nudity, violence, or drugs, and provide confidence scores for each label. Amazon Rekognition does not require any machine learning expertise, and users can easily integrate it with other AWS services

Amazon RDS is the AWS service that will meet the requirements of using a managed service to simplify the setup, operation, and scaling of a MySQL database in the AWS Cloud. Amazon RDS is a relational database service that supports MySQL and other popular database engines. Amazon RDS handles routine database tasks such as provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, and scaling. Amazon RDS also offers high availability, security, and compatibility features3

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. One of the customer responsibilities is to ensure that Amazon EBS volumes are backed up.

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

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 failover between those Regions enhances the reliability of the application by reducing the impact of regional failures and increasing the availability of the application4

 AWS offers different support plans to meet the needs of different customers. The AWS Enterprise Support plan is the highest level of support that provides customers with concierge-like service, where the main focus is helping them achieve their outcomes and find success in the cloud. One of the benefits of the AWS Enterprise Support plan is that customers get designated support from an AWS technical account manager (TAM), who provides consultative architectural and operational guidance based on their applications and use cases. Therefore, the correct answer is B. You can learn more about AWS support plans and their benefits from this page.

 The correct answer is B because ensuring the environmental safety and security of the AWS infrastructure that hosts Workspaces is the responsibility of AWS, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. 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. The other options are incorrect because they are the responsibility of the customer, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. Setting up multi-factor authentication (MFA) for each Workspaces user account, providing security for Workspaces user accounts through AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), configuring AWS CloudTrail to log API calls and user activity, and encrypting data at rest and in transit are all tasks that the customer has to perform to secure their Workspaces environment. Reference: AWS Shared Responsibility Model, Amazon WorkSpaces Security

 AWS Organizations is an account management service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. AWS Organizations includes consolidated billing and account management capabilities that enable you to better meet the budgetary, security, and compliance needs of your business1.

The user authentication services managed by AWS are: Amazon Cognito and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). These services help users securely manage and control access to their AWS resources and applications. Amazon Cognito is a service that provides user sign-up, sign-in, and access control for web and mobile applications. Amazon Cognito supports various identity providers, such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon, as well as custom user pools. AWS IAM is a service that enables users to create and manage users, groups, roles, and permissions for AWS services and resources. AWS IAM supports various authentication methods, such as passwords, access keys, and multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Economies of scale is the advantage of AWS Cloud computing that minimizes variable costs. Economies of scale refers to the reduction in the cost per unit as the output increases. AWS Cloud computing leverages economies of scale by providing a large pool of shared resources that can be accessed on demand and paid for as needed. AWS Cloud computing also passes the cost savings to the customers by offering lower prices and discounts. For more information, see Economies of Scale and AWS Pricing.

 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 and practices 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

Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) is the AWS service or feature that is used to send both text and email messages from distributed applications. Amazon SNS is a fully managed pub/sub messaging service that enables the user to send messages to multiple subscribers or endpoints, such as email addresses, phone numbers, HTTP endpoints, AWS Lambda functions, and more. Amazon SNS can be used to send notifications, alerts, confirmations, and reminders from applications to users or other applications4.

The correct answers to the questions are B and E because reliability and operational excellence are pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. 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 AWS Well-Architected Framework consists of five pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization. Each pillar has a set of design principles that describe the characteristics of a well-architected system. Reliability is the pillar that focuses on the ability of a system to recover from failures and meet business and customer demand. Operational excellence is the pillar that focuses on the ability of a system to run and monitor processes that support business outcomes and continually improve. The other options are incorrect because they are not pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Availability, scalability, and responsive design are important aspects of cloud architecture, but they are not separate pillars in the framework. Availability and scalability are related to the reliability and performance efficiency pillars, while responsive design is related to the customer experience and user interface. Reference: AWS Well-Architected Framework

 AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Compute Optimizer are the AWS services that can provide information to the company about whether its newly imported Amazon EC2 instances are the appropriate size and type. AWS Trusted Advisor is an online tool that provides best practices recommendations in five categories: cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits. AWS Trusted Advisor can help users identify underutilized or idle EC2 instances, and suggest ways to reduce costs and improve performance. AWS Compute Optimizer is a service that analyzes the configuration and utilization metrics of EC2 instances and delivers recommendations for optimal instance types, sizes, and configurations. AWS Compute Optimizer helps users improve performance, reduce costs, and eliminate underutilized resources

AWS Compute Optimizer is the AWS service or tool that provides recommendations to help users get rightsized Amazon EC2 instances based on historical workload usage data. AWS Compute Optimizer analyzes the configuration and performance characteristics of the EC2 instances and delivers recommendations for optimal instance types, sizes, and configurations. AWS Compute Optimizer helps users improve performance, reduce costs, and eliminate underutilized resources

The advantage that users experience when they move on-premises workloads to the AWS Cloud is: elimination of expenses for running and maintaining data centers. By moving on-premises workloads to the AWS Cloud, users can reduce or eliminate the costs associated with owning and operating physical servers, storage, network equipment, and facilities. These costs include hardware purchase, maintenance, repair, power, cooling, security, and staff. Users can also benefit from the pay-as-you-go pricing model of AWS, which allows them to pay only for the resources they use, and scale up or down as needed.

The pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that is supported by the goals of protecting AWS Cloud information, systems, and assets while performing risk assessment and mitigation tasks is security. Security is the ability to protect information, systems, and assets while delivering business value through risk assessments and mitigation strategies. The security pillar covers topics such as identity and access management, data protection, infrastructure protection, detective controls, incident response, and compliance

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 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

 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

Rightsizing is the cloud concept that this analysis demonstrates. Rightsizing is the process of optimizing the performance and cost of your AWS resources by selecting the most appropriate type, size, and configuration based on your workload requirements and usage patterns. Rightsizing can help you achieve potential cost savings by reducing the over-provisioning or under-utilization of your resources. You can use various AWS tools and services, such as AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Compute Optimizer, and AWS Trusted Advisor, to analyze your resource utilization and performance metrics, and receive recommendations for rightsizing.

 The correct answers are A and C because Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and resources that are distributed across multiple Availability Zones are AWS services and features that will improve availability and reduce the impact of failures for the web application. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is a service that enables users to automatically adjust the number of Amazon EC2 instances in response to changes in demand or performance. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling helps users to maintain optimal availability and performance of their applications by adding or removing instances as needed. Resources that are distributed across multiple Availability Zones are AWS features that enable users to increase the fault tolerance and resilience of their applications. Availability Zones are isolated locations within an AWS Region that have independent power, cooling, and networking. Users can launch their resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, in multiple Availability Zones to protect their applications from the failure of a single location. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services and features that will improve availability and reduce the impact of failures for the web application. VPC subnet ACLs are AWS features that enable users to control the inbound and outbound traffic to and from their subnets within a VPC. VPC subnet ACLs do not check the health of a service, but rather filter the network traffic based on rules. Configuration of AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) is an AWS service that enables users to migrate their on-premises servers to AWS. Configuration of AWS SMS does not help to move the Amazon EC2 instances to a different AWS Region, but rather to migrate the servers from the source environment to AWS. Resources that are distributed across multiple AWS points of presence are AWS features that enable users to deliver content to their end users with low latency and high performance. AWS points of presence are edge locations that are part of the AWS Global Infrastructure. Users can use services such as Amazon CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator to distribute their content across multiple AWS points of presence. Reference: Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, [Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones]