CLF-C02 AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Questions and Answers

AWS WAF Overview:

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

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

Why AWS WAF Meets the Requirement:

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

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

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

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

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

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

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

AWS IAM Identity Center provides centralized access management across multiple AWS accounts, enabling organizations to manage employee access efficiently. It is specifically designed for this purpose within AWS Organizations. AWS STS provides temporary credentials but does not manage multiple account access centrally, while IAM Access Analyzer and Secrets Manager serve different purposes related to access and secret management.

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

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

The AWS Architecture Center provides examples, best practices, and architectural blueprints for various AWS Cloud solutions. It includes whitepapers, reference architectures, and detailed diagrams to help users design secure, scalable, and reliable applications on AWS. Other services like AWS Marketplace, Service Catalog, and Trusted Advisor do not offer solution design examples.

AWS Trusted Advisor provides checks and recommendations across various categories, including cost optimization, security, and performance. Access to all Trusted Advisor checks is available with AWS Business Support, ensuring the company can follow AWS best practices comprehensively. The Developer Support plan offers limited Trusted Advisor checks, and AWS Health Dashboard provides insights into service health but not specific best practice recommendations.

 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.

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

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

The Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance Marketplace allows customers to sell unused Standard Reserved Instances to other AWS users. This enables companies to recoup some of the costs if they no longer need certain RIs. Standard RIs cannot be converted to Savings Plans, and AWS Support does not facilitate the resale of RIs directly.

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

AWS SDKs Overview:

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

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

How AWS SDKs Meet the Requirement:

Enable developers to integrate AWS services into their applications easily.

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

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

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

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

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

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

Elasticity is a characteristic of the AWS Cloud that helps users eliminate underutilized CPU capacity. Elasticity refers to the ability to dynamically provision and de-provision computing resources as per demand, ensuring that the application or service always has the required resources to operate efficiently. Elasticity helps users optimize performance and costs, as theyonly pay for the resources they use and avoid wasting resources when the demand is low345. References: 3: Which characteristic of the aws cloud helps users eliminate …, 4: AWS Elastic Load Balancing and Application Load Balancer, 5: Which characteristic of the AWS Cloud helps users eliminate …

AWS Storage Gateway provides on-premises applications with low-latency access to data stored in AWS by caching frequently accessed data locally. It seamlessly integrates on-premises environments with cloud storage, enabling hybrid storage solutions. AWS DataSync is for data transfer, CloudFront is a content delivery network, and AWS Backup is for backup management, not low-latency access.

Amazon EC2 Spot Instancesoffer spare AWS compute capacity at a significantly reduced cost compared to On-Demand Instances. Spot Instances are ideal for fault-tolerant and flexibleworkloads that can tolerate interruptions, such as batch jobs, data processing, or large-scale computations. These instances may be interrupted by AWS if there is a demand for capacity, but they provide the best cost optimization for workloads that can handle such interruptions.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon Macie: A data security and privacy service, not relevant to running batch jobs.

B. Amazon Neptune: A graph database service, not relevant to compute optimization.

D. Amazon EC2 On-Demand Instances: Provide flexible compute capacity but at a higher cost than Spot Instances, which are more suitable for cost optimization.

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) Overview:

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

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

How ACM Meets the Goal:

Provides free public SSL/TLS certificates.

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

Reduces the operational overhead of managing SSL/TLS certificates.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

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

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

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

Understanding Cost Optimization Recommendations: In AWS, cost optimization involves identifying ways to reduce costs while maintaining or improving performance and capacity.

Top-Level KPI - Estimated Monthly Saving:

Definition: This KPI provides an estimate of how much you can save per month by following the recommended actions.

Importance: It helps you quantify the potential cost savings from rightsizing, purchasing reserved instances, or optimizing resource usage.

Decision-Making: Provides a clear financial benefit to justify changes in your resource configurations.

How to Use Estimated Monthly Saving:

Access Recommendations: Navigate to the AWS Cost Management Console to view rightsizing recommendations.

Review Savings Estimates: Look at the estimated monthly savings for each recommendation to understand the potential financial impact.

Implement Recommendations: Prioritize actions based on the savings estimates to maximize cost reduction.

AWS Cost Management

AWS Rightsizing Recommendations

Amazon Athena Overview:

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

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

How It Works for Cost Reports:

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

Athena can query these reports without requiring additional ETL processes.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

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

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

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

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

AWS Organizations enables consolidated billing across multiple AWS accounts and allows for centralized management of security and compliance policies. It provides account grouping and centralized payment management, making it the optimal choice for a company requiring consolidated billing and centralized governance. AWS Cost and Usage Report only provides billing information, and AWS Config and Security Hub offer monitoring and security insights but do not handle billing consolidation.

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

AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect applications from SQL injection attacks and other common web exploits. By defining rules to block, allow, or monitor specific types of requests, AWS WAF provides an effective defense against SQL injection. Network ACLs and Security Groups provide network-level security but do not inspect web traffic for specific attack patterns like SQL injection.

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

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

Amazon Neptuneis a fully managed graph database service optimized for storing and querying highly connected data. It supports popular graph models such as Property Graph and W3C's RDF, making it ideal for building graph queries for real-time fraud pattern detection and other applications that require complex relationships and data traversal.

B. Amazon DynamoDB: Incorrect, as it is a NoSQL database service that is not optimized for graph queries.

C. Amazon Timestream: Incorrect, as it is a time-series database service designed for storing and analyzing time-series data, not graph data.

D. Amazon Forecast: Incorrect, as it is a fully managed service that provides time-series forecasting capabilities, not for graph queries.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon Neptune

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

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

AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service that provides on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage. You can use AWS Storage Gateway to simplify storage management and reduce costs for key hybrid cloud storage use cases. One of these use cases is tape-based backup, which allows you to store data backups on virtual tapes in the AWS Cloud. You can use the Tape Gateway feature of AWS Storage Gateway to extend your existing physical tape library to the AWS Cloud. Tape Gateway provides a virtual tape infrastructure that scales seamlessly with your backup needs and eliminates the operational burden of provisioning, scaling, and maintaining a physical tape infrastructure123. References: 1: CloudStorage Appliances, Hybrid Device - AWS Storage Gateway - AWS, 2: AWS Storage Gateway Documentation, 3: AWS Storage Gateway Features | Amazon Web Services

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

AWS Artifact Overview:

AWS Artifact is a service that provides on-demand access to AWS compliance documentation and agreements.

It includes reports such as PCI DSS, SOC, and ISO certifications.

How AWS Artifact Meets the Requirement:

The PCI DSS compliance documentation can be downloaded directly from the Artifact console.

Artifact helps customers demonstrate compliance to auditors by providing official certifications and attestations.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

B. AWS Organizations:Used for managing accounts, not compliance reports.

C. AWS Trusted Advisor:Offers best practice checks but does not provide compliance documentation.

D. AWS Support Center:Provides customer support and ticket management but not compliance documentation.

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Well-Architected Framework

AWS CloudTrail

Under the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for managing the underlying infrastructure, including operating system-level updates on managed services like Amazon RDS. Customers are responsible for managing the database instance and configurations, but AWS handles OS updates for the infrastructure supporting RDS.

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that uses edge locations to cache content closer to users, reducing latency and improving performance. It supports the delivery of web content, such as videos and images, by caching copies at edge locations around the world. Amazon Kinesis, SQS, and Route 53 do not utilize edge locations for content caching.

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is a tool that helps organizations plan and execute their cloud transformation journey. The AWS CAF defines four phases of the cloud transformation journey: Envision, Align, Launch, and Scale. Each phase has a specific purpose and outcome1:

Envision: This phase helps you define your vision, goals, and expected outcomes for your cloud transformation. It also helps you identify and prioritize transformation opportunities across four domains: business, people, governance, and platform2.

Align: This phase helps you identify capability gaps across six perspectives: business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. It also helps you create strategies for improving your cloud readiness, ensure stakeholder alignment, and facilitate relevant organizational change management activities3.

Launch: This phase helps you deliver pilot initiatives in production and demonstrate incremental business value. It also helps you learn from pilots and adjust your approach before scaling to full production4.

Scale: This phase helps you expand production pilots and business value to desired scale and ensure that the business benefits associated with your cloud investments are realized and sustained.

The options A and B are the correct AWS CAF cloud transformation journey recommendations, as they are part of the four phases defined by the AWS CAF. The options C, D, and E are not AWS CAFcloud transformation journey recommendations, as they are not part of the four phases defined by the AWS CAF

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

AWS re:Post

Join the Conversation

Amazon EC2 On-Demand Instances are ideal for unpredictable workloads that do not require a long-term commitment. This option allows users to pay for compute capacity by the hour or second, with no long-term commitments. It is suitable for short-term, spiky, or unpredictable workloads that cannot be interrupted and require flexibility. Option A is better suited for Reserved Instances, Option B is ideal for Spot Instances, and Option D is more suited for Reserved Instances due to cost optimization for long-term use.

"There is no long-term commitment required when you purchase On-Demand Instances. You pay only for the seconds that your On-Demand Instances are in the running state, with a 60-second minimum. The price per second for a running On-Demand Instance is fixed, and is listed on the Amazon EC2 Pricing, On-Demand Pricing page. We recommend that you use On-Demand Instances for applications with short-term, irregular workloads that cannot be interrupted."https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-on-demand-instances.html

AnIAM useris created when the company needs to provide unique credentials (username and password) to individuals who need access to the AWS Management Console or programmatic access (using access keys) to AWS services.

B. When the company creates AWS access credentials for individuals: Correct, as an IAM user is created to provide credentials for specific individuals.

D. When the company needs to add users to IAM groups: Correct, as IAM users can be added to groups to apply permissions and policies at a group level.

A. When an application that runs on Amazon EC2 instances requires access to other AWS services: Incorrect, as an IAM role is more appropriate for applications running on EC2 to assume temporary credentials.

C. When the company creates an application that runs on a mobile phone that makes requests to AWS: Incorrect, as using Cognito or a role with temporary credentials is more suitable.

E. When users are authenticated in the corporate network and want to be able to use AWS without having to sign in a second time: Incorrect, as this use case typically involves IAM roles combined with AWS Single Sign-On (SSO).

AWS Cloud References:

IAM Users and Groups

IAM Roles

AWS Snow Family is a group of devices that transport data in and out of AWS. AWS Snow Family devices are physical devices that can transfer up to exabytes of data. One exabyte is 1 000 000 000 000 megabytes. AWS Snow Family devices are designed for use in remote locations where internet connectivity is limited or unavailable. You can use these devices to collect and process data at the edge, and then ship them back to AWS for data upload. AWS Snow Family consists of three types of devices: AWS Snowcone, AWS Snowball, and AWS Snowmobile1234. References: 1: Edge Computing Devices, Secure Data Transfer - AWS Snow Family - AWS, 2: AWS Snow Family Documentation, 3: AWS Snow Family - W3Schools, 4: AWS Snow Family: Data Storage, Migration, and Computation

Amazon Cognitois an AWS service that provides user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to web and mobile applications. It supports authentication for different identity providers, including social identity providers (such as Google, Facebook, and Apple), enterprise identity providers via SAML 2.0, and its own user pools.

Amazon Cognito offers:

User Poolsfor managing user registration, authentication, and account recovery.

Federated Identitiesfor managing user access from external identity providers.

Why other options are not suitable:

B. AWS Config: A service for tracking resource configuration changes, not related to user authentication.

C. Amazon GuardDuty: A threat detection service, not related to user sign-up or authentication.

D. AWS Systems Manager: A service to manage AWS resources, but it does not provide user authentication.

Spot Instances offer the lowest cost for Amazon EC2 and are suitable for non-production workloads like development and testing where occasional unavailability is acceptable. Spot Instances take advantage of unused EC2 capacity at a reduced cost, making them ideal for environments that can tolerate interruptions. Reserved or On-Demand Instances would be more expensive for this scenario, and Dedicated Hosts are not cost-effective for non-production environments.

The AWS Support plan that provides the full set of AWS Trusted Advisor checks at the lowest cost is theAWS Business Supportplan. The AWS Business Support plan includes access to the complete set of Trusted Advisor checks, which cover areas such as cost optimization, security, performance, fault tolerance, and service limits. This plan is specifically designed to support production workloads and includes 24/7 access to cloud support engineers, response times for impaired systems, and other enhanced technical support features.

AWS Developer Support, while more affordable, only provides limited Trusted Advisor checks, specifically around Service Limits and basic Security checks. Full access to all Trusted Advisor checks is only available with Business Support and higher-tier plans, such as Enterprise On-Ramp and Enterprise Support

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

Why Compute Optimized Instances (C Instances)?

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

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

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

Comparison with Other Instance Types:

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

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

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

Amazon EC2 Compute Optimized Family (C Instances)

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

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

AWS Reference Links:

Amazon EC2 Instance Types

Amazon EC2 Compute Optimized Instances

HPC on AWS

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

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

AWS KMS is the service that is used to provide encryption for Amazon EBS. AWS KMS is a managed service that enables you to easily create and control the encryption keys used to encrypt your data.Amazon EBS uses AWS KMS to encrypt and decrypt your EBS volumes and snapshots. You can choose to use either the default AWS managed CMK or your own customer managed CMK for encryption. AWS KMS also provides features such as key rotation, audit logging, and access control policies to help you manage your encryption keys and protect your data12. The other services are not used to provide encryption for Amazon EBS. AWS Certificate Manager is a service that lets you provision, manage, and deploy public and private SSL/TLScertificates for use with AWS services and your internal connected resources3. AWS Systems Manager is a service that provides a unified user interface to view and manage your AWS resources, automate common operational tasks, and apply compliance policies4. AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. References: Amazon EBS encryption, AWS Key Management Service, AWS Certificate Manager, AWS Systems Manager, [AWS Config]

AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) is designed to integrate with various AWS services to encrypt data at rest. It provides a secure and highly available service to create, control, and manage encryption keys used to encrypt your data. AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) is for managing SSL/TLS certificates, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is for managing user access and permissions, and AWS Security Hub is for security monitoring and compliance, but none of these services provide data encryption at rest like AWS KMS.QUESTION NO: 298

A company has an AWS Business Support plan. The company needs to gain access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT) to help mitigate DDoS events.

Which AWS service or resource must the company use to meet these requirements?

A. AWS Shield Standard

B. AWS Enterprise Support

C. AWS WAF

D. AWS Shield Advanced

Answer: D

AWS Shield Advanced provides enhanced protection against DDoS attacks and includes access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT) to help mitigate complex DDoS events. AWS Shield Standard offers basic DDoS protection, which is included with AWS services, but does not provide access to the DRT. AWS WAF is a web application firewall, and AWS Enterprise Support is a premium support plan but does not specifically provide DDoS mitigation services or access to the DRT.

An access key is a pair of long-term credentials that consists of an access key ID and a secret access key. An access key is used to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI or AWS API (directly or using the AWS SDK). An access key allows a user to access the AWS account through a CLI, which is a tool that enables users to interact with AWS services using commands in a terminal or a script12.

The other options are not correct, because:

To access the AWS account as the AWS account root user, a user needs the email address and password associated with the account. The root user has complete access to all AWS resources and services in the account. However, it is not recommended to use the root user for everyday tasks3.

To access the AWS account through the AWS Management Console, a user needs a user name and password. The console is a web-based interface that allows users to manage their AWS resources and services using a graphical user interface4.

To access all of a company’s AWS accounts, a user needs to use AWS Organizations, which is a service that enables users to centrally manage and govern multiple AWS accounts. AWS Organizations allows users to create groups of accounts and apply policies to them5.

Managing access keys for IAM users - AWS Identity and Access Management

What Is the AWS Command Line Interface? - AWS Command Line Interface

AWS account root user - AWS Identity and Access Management

What Is the AWS Management Console? - AWS Management Console

What Is AWS Organizations? - AWS Organizations

A network ACL (NACL) is an optional layer of security for your VPC that acts as a firewall for controlling traffic in and out of one or more subnets. You can create a network ACL and associate it with a subnet to apply rules that allow or deny traffic to or from the subnet. Network ACLs are stateless, meaning that they evaluate the source and destination IP addresses for both inbound and outbound traffic. You can also use network ACLs to block IP address ranges that are known to be malicious12.

The other options are not AWS services or tools that can be used to set up a firewall to control traffic going into and coming out of an Amazon VPC subnet. Security groups are another layer of security for your VPC that act as a firewall for your EC2 instances. Security groups are stateful, meaning that they automatically allow return traffic for allowed inbound traffic. Security groups can only filter traffic based on protocols, ports, and source or destination IP addresses, not on IP ranges3. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect your web applications from common web exploits. AWS WAF can filter web requests based on rules that you define, such as IP addresses, HTTP headers, HTTP body, or URI strings. AWS WAF does not apply to non-web traffic or to traffic within a VPC4. AWS Firewall Manager is a service that helps you centrally configure and manage firewall rules across your accounts and resources in AWS Organizations. You can use Firewall Manager to apply AWS WAF rules, AWS Network Firewall policies, and Amazon VPC security groups across your AWS accounts. AWS Firewall Manager does not provide a firewall service itself, but rather helps you manage other firewall services

Amazon CloudFrontis a content delivery network (CDN) that helps deliver your website content globally with low latency by caching copies of your website content at edge locations around the world. This helps ensure that users receive content from the edge location closest to them, thereby reducing latency and improving user experience.

A. Amazon Route 53: Incorrect, as it is a DNS web service that routes users to the appropriate endpoint, but it does not cache content or reduce latency.

C. Elastic Load Balancing: Incorrect, as it distributes incoming application or network traffic across multiple targets, but does not cache content globally.

D. AWS Lambda: Incorrect, as it is a serverless compute service, not intended for content delivery.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon CloudFront

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Lambda

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Concepts of Reliability:

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

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

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

How to Align with Reliability Pillar:

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

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

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

AWS Well-Architected Framework: Reliability Pillar

ASecurity Groupacts as a virtual firewall for your Amazon EC2 instances to control inbound and outbound traffic. It provides granular control over network connections to and from a specific EC2 instance or set of instances. Unlike Network ACLs, which operate at the subnet level, Security Groups operate at the instance level, allowing control over network traffic for individual instances.

A. Network ACL: Incorrect, as it controls traffic at the subnet level and not for individual instances.

B. AWS WAF: Incorrect, as AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect web applications from common web exploits but is not designed for controlling instance-level traffic.

C. Route table: Incorrect, as route tables are used for network routing within a VPC and do not act as firewalls.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Security Groups

AWS Trusted Advisor is a tool that helps customers optimize their AWS environment by providing real-time guidance in five key areas: cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits. However, the availability of the full set of Trusted Advisor checks depends on the AWS Support plan chosen.

AWS Developer Support: This plan provides access to only seven core Trusted Advisor checks. It is designed for developers experimenting or testing in AWS and does not offer the full set of Trusted Advisor checks.

AWS Business Support: This plan is the lowest-cost support plan that provides access to thefull set of AWS Trusted Advisor checks. Business Support is intended for production workloads, providing a broader range of checks, 24x7 access to Cloud Support Engineers, and more extensive support features.

AWS Enterprise On-Ramp Support: This plan offers access to all Trusted Advisor checks as well but is more expensive than the Business Support plan. It is designed for customers running production workloads and needing additional technical support but does not require the full level of engagement that comes with Enterprise Support.

AWS Enterprise Support: This is the most comprehensive and highest-cost support plan, providing access to all Trusted Advisor checks and a full range of AWS Support resources, including a Technical Account Manager (TAM), account management, concierge support, and more.

Conclusion:

The correct answer isB. AWS Business Support, as it provides access to the full set of AWS Trusted Advisor checks at thelowest cost. AWS Developer Support does not offer the complete checks, and both AWS Enterprise On-Ramp and AWS Enterprise Support are higher-cost plans that also provide the full checks.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Support Plans

AWS Trusted Advisor

AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service designed to discover, prepare, move, and integrate data from multiple sources for data analytics and machine learning purposes. It provides a managed ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) service that is ideal for preparing and transforming data for analytics. AWS Data Exchange is used for finding and subscribing to third-party data, Amazon Athena is for querying data stored in Amazon S3 using SQL, and Amazon EMR is for big data processing using Apache Hadoop and Spark, but AWS Glue is specifically designed for data integration and preparation tasks.

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

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

According to theAWS Shared Responsibility Model, AWS is responsible for the security "of" the cloud (such as protecting the infrastructure, including hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run AWS Cloud services). In contrast, customers are responsible for security "in" the cloud. This includes configuring and using AWS services securely.

D. Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) according to the principle of least privilegeis a customer's responsibility. Customers must manage their credentials, control access to resources, and ensure that IAM policies follow the principle of least privilege, which means granting only the permissions necessary to perform a task.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Patch the Amazon DynamoDB operating system: AWS is responsible for managing and patching the infrastructure for managed services like DynamoDB.

B. Secure Amazon CloudFront edge locations by allowing physical access according to the principle of least privilege: AWS handles physical security of its edge locations.

C. Protect the hardware that runs AWS services: AWS is responsible for protecting the physical hardware that runs AWS services.

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Direct Connect

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon Lex

Amazon RDS is a fully managed relational database service that supports several database engines, including PostgreSQL. Amazon RDS can run a managed PostgreSQL database that provides online transaction processing (OLTP), which is a type of database workload that handles frequent read and write operations on small amounts of data. Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL offers high performance, availability, scalability, security, and compatibility with the PostgreSQL community edition. Amazon RDS also provides automated backups, point-in-time recovery, encryption, monitoring, and maintenance for PostgreSQL databases. References:

Hosted PostgreSQL - Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL

OLTP Database, MySQL And PostgreSQL ManagedDatabase - Amazon Aurora

PostgreSQL options on AWS: Self- managed, managed, and serverless

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server is a fully managed file server that supports Microsoft workloads and file systems, including the SMB protocol. It provides features such as user quotas, end-user file restore, and Microsoft Active Directory integration. Amazon EFS is a fully managed file system that supports the NFS protocol, not SMB. Amazon FSx for Lustre is a fully managed file system that supports high-performance computing workloads, not Microsoft workloads. Amazon EBS is a block storage service that does not provide a file system or SMB support. References: Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre, Amazon EFS, Amazon EBS

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)is a scalable, fully managed, shared file storage service that is accessible from multiple Amazon EC2 instances. EFS is designed to provide highly available and durable file storage that can be mounted across multiple instances, making it ideal for shared file access.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. AWS Direct Connect: A network service to establish a dedicated network connection to AWS, not a file-sharing solution.

B. AWS Snowball Edge: A data transfer device for migrating data to and from AWS, not for ongoing file sharing.

C. AWS Backup: A service for centralized backup management, not for sharing files between EC2 instances.

Security groups and network ACLs are two AWS services that can be used to block network traffic to an instance. Security groups are virtual firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic for your instances at the instance level. You can specify which protocols, ports, and source or destination IP addresses are allowed or denied for each instance. Security groups are stateful, which means that they automatically allow return traffic for any allowed inbound or outbound traffic123. Network ACLs are virtual firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic for your subnets at the subnet level. You can create rules to allow or deny traffic based on protocols, ports, and source or destination IP addresses. Network ACLs are stateless, which means that you have to explicitly allow return traffic for any allowed inbound or outbound traffic456. References: 1: Security groups for your VPC - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, 2: Security Groups for Your VPC - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, 3: AWS Security Groups: Everything You Need to Know, 4: Network ACLs - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, 5: Control traffic to subnetsusing network ACLs - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, 6: AWS Network ACLs: Everything You Need to Know

Spot Instances provide a cost-effective option for running Amazon EC2 instances for workloads that can tolerate interruptions. They allow you to use unused EC2 capacity in the AWS Cloud at a discounted price, making them suitable for applications that are flexible in terms of start and stop times. On-Demand Instances are more expensive and do not provide discounts for short-term, interruptible workloads, while Reserved and Dedicated Instances are for long-term or specific hardware needs.

Amazon DynamoDBis a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. It is designed to handle unstructured data, offers high durability, and provides easy querying capabilities using key-value or document data models, making it suitable for applications that continuously produce unstructured data.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon RDS: A relational database service that is more suited for structured data and SQL queries.

B. Amazon Aurora: A MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database, also more suited for structured data.

C. Amazon QuickSight: A business intelligence service for data visualization, not for storing data.

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

AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) is a cloud-based service that makes it easy to centrally manage single sign-on (SSO) access to multiple AWS accounts and business applications. You can use AWS SSO to enable your users to sign in to the AWS Management Console or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) with their existing corporate credentials2. You can also manage SSO access and user permissions across all your AWS accounts in AWS Organizations3. References: AWS Single Sign-On - AWS Documentation, AWS Organizations - AWS Documentation

 Elasticity in the AWS Cloud refers to the ability to acquire resources as you need them and release resources when you no longer need them. In the cloud, you want to do this automatically1. This means that you can rightsized resources as demand shifts, and you can easily procure resources when they are needed. Elasticity is not related to how quickly an Amazon EC2 instance can be restarted, the maximum amount of RAM an Amazon EC2 instance can use, or the pay-as-you-go billing model. These are aspects of scalability, performance, and cost, respectively2.

For more information on elasticity, you can refer to the following sources:

Elasticity - AWS Well-Architected Framework

Elastic - Reactive Systems on AWS

What is the difference between scalability and elasticity?

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Cost Explorer

AWS CodeDeployis a fully managed deployment service that automates software deployments to a variety of compute services such as Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and on-premises servers. CodeDeploy makes it easy to release new features, helps avoid downtime during application deployment, and handles the complexity of updating applications in a scalable and reliable manner.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon AppFlow: A service to automate data flows between AWS and SaaS applications, not for application deployment.

C. AWS PrivateLink: A service to securely access AWS services from your virtual private cloud (VPC), not related to application deployments.

D. Amazon EKS Distro: A Kubernetes distribution for running Kubernetes clusters, not specifically designed for automated deployments.

Users can change their own IAM user password using:

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

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

Why other options are not suitable:

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

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

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

AWS 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 isavailable 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 CloudFormation is a service that allows developers to model and provision their AWS infrastructure in a repeatable and declarative way, using code and templates. AWS CloudFormation enables developers to define the resources they need for their development and production environments, such as compute, storage, network, and application services, and automate their creation and configuration. AWS CloudFormation also provides features such as change sets, nested stacks, and rollback triggers to help developers manage and update their infrastructure safely and efficiently12. References:

AWS CloudFormation

What is AWS CloudFormation?

When a company hosts its databases on Amazon EC2 instances, AWS and the customer share the responsibility for the security and management of the database environment. According to the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, while the customer is responsible for the security in the cloud. This means that AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs the EC2 instances, such as the hardware, software, networking, and facilities. The customer is responsible for properly configuring the security of the provided service, such as the guest operating system, the database software, the data, and the network traffic12.

One of the tasks that belongs to AWS when a company hosts its databases on Amazon EC2 instances is operating system patches. AWS provides regular updates and patches to the operating system of the EC2 instances, which are applied automatically by default. The customer can also choose to manually apply the patches or schedule them for a specific time window3. Operating system patches are important for maintaining the security and performance of the EC2 instances and the databases running on them.

The other tasks that belong to AWS when a company hosts its databases on Amazon EC2 instances are:

Operating system installations: AWS provides a variety of operating system options for the EC2 instances, such as Linux, Windows, and Amazon Linux. The customer can choose the operating system that best suits their database needs and AWS will install it on the EC2 instances4.

Server maintenance: AWS performs regular maintenance and repairs on the physical servers that host the EC2 instances, ensuring that they are in optimal condition and have adequate power, cooling, and network connectivity5.

Hardware lifecycle: AWS manages the lifecycle of the hardware that supports the EC2 instances, such as replacing faulty components, upgrading equipment, and decommissioning old servers.

The tasks that do not belong to AWS when a company hosts its databases on Amazon EC2 instances are:

Database backups: The customer is responsible for backing up their data and databases on the EC2 instances, using tools such as Amazon S3, Amazon EBS snapshots, or AWS Backup. Database backups are essential for data protection and recovery in case of failures or disasters.

Database software patches: The customer is responsible for applying patches and updates to the database software on the EC2 instances, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or SQL Server. Database software patches are important for fixing bugs, improving features, and addressing security vulnerabilities.

Database software install: The customer is responsible for installing the database software on the EC2 instances, choosing the version and configuration that meets their requirements. AWS provides some preconfigured AMIs (Amazon Machine Images) that include common database software, or the customer can use their own custom AMIs.

Shared Responsibility Model - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Shared responsibility model - Amazon Web Services: Risk and Compliance

Patching Amazon EC2 instances - AWS Systems Manager

Amazon EC2 FAQs - Amazon Web Services

Maintenance and Retirements - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

[Hardware Lifecycle - Amazon Web Services (AWS)]

[Backing Up Your Data - Amazon Web Services (AWS)]

[Database Patching - Amazon Web Services (AWS)]

[Installing Database Software on Amazon EC2 Instances - Amazon Web Services (AWS)]

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

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

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

TheBusiness perspectiveof the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) focuses on ensuring that cloud investments align with business strategies and that the organization achieves business value from cloud adoption. It provides real-time insights into the organization's strategic goals, financial objectives, and metrics.

This perspective helps answer questions about strategy, ensuring that cloud adoption aligns with the organization's long-term business goals.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Operations: Focuses on operating cloud environments effectively.

B. People: Focuses on human resources and organizational structure.

D. Platform: Focuses on infrastructure and architecture.

Amazon CloudWatch alarm is an AWS service or feature that can initiate an Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling action based on CPU utilization. Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service that collects and tracks metrics, logs, events, and alarms for your AWS resources and applications. Amazon CloudWatch alarms are actions that you can configure to send notifications or automatically make changes to the resources you are monitoring based on rules that you define67.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is a service that helps you maintain application availability and allows you to automatically add or remove EC2 instances according to definable conditions. You can create dynamic scaling policies that track a specific CloudWatch metric, such as CPU utilization, and define what action to take when the associated CloudWatch alarm is in ALARM. When the policy is in effect, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling adjusts the group’s desired capacity up or down when the threshold of an alarm is breached89. References: 6: Cloud Monitoring - Amazon CloudWatch - AWS, 7: Amazon CloudWatch Documentation, 8: Dynamic scaling for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, 9: Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Documentation

AWS Trusted Advisor is the service that can meet these requirements. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that helps you optimize your AWS environment by providing recommendations based on AWS best practices. Trusted Advisor continuously evaluates your AWS resources and services across five categories: cost optimization, performance, service limits, fault tolerance, and security. You can view the recommendations on the Trusted Advisor console or access them programmatically using the Trusted Advisor API. You can also set up notifications and alerts for any changes in the status of your checks. Trusted Advisor can help you improve your AWS environment by reducing costs, enhancing performance, increasing security, and ensuring reliability12. The other services are not designed to provide best practice recommendations in five categories. AWS Shield is a service that protects your AWS resources from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. AWS WAF is a service that helps you protect your web applications from common web exploits. AWS Service Catalog is a service that enables you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS34 . References: AWS Trusted Advisor, Achieve operational excellence with AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Shield, AWS WAF, [AWS Service Catalog]

According to the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, while customers are responsible for the security in the cloud. This means that AWS is responsible for the physical servers, networking, and operating system that run DynamoDB, while customers are responsible for the security of their data and access to the database. Customers need to manage database access permissions, such as creating and managing AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and roles, and using encryption and key management options to protect their data123. References: 1: Shared Responsibility Model - Amazon Web Services (AWS), 2: Security in Amazon DynamoDB - Amazon DynamoDB, 3: AWS Shared Responsibility Model - Introduction to DevOps …

Reducing Costs with AWS Cloud:

Capacity Adjustment (B):

Elasticity: AWS allows you to scale your resources up or down based on demand, which means you only pay for what you use. This reduces the cost of over-provisioning resources.

Auto Scaling: Automatically adjusts compute capacity based on usage, ensuring cost efficiency.

Eliminating On-Premises Costs (E):

No Infrastructure Maintenance: By using AWS, businesses do not need to invest in physical infrastructure or handle maintenance, reducing both capital and operational expenditures.

Managed Services: AWS offers managed services that reduce the need for in-house technical staff to manage and maintain infrastructure.

AWS Cloud Economics Center

AWS Benefits

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon RDS

AWS Global Accelerator is a service that improves network performance by sending traffic through the AWS worldwide network infrastructure. It uses the AWS global network to direct TCP or UDP traffic to a healthy application endpoint in the closest AWS Region to the client. This provides improvements in terms of latency, throughput, and jitter. Global Accelerator also introduces features such as TCP termination at the edge, jumbo frame support, and large receive side window and TCP buffers to optimize data transfer12. Route table, AWS Transit Gateway, and Amazon VPC are not services or features that improve network performance by sending traffic through the AWS worldwide network infrastructure. Route table is a resource that defines how traffic is routed within a VPC3. AWS Transit Gateway is a service that enables you to connect your VPCs and on-premises networks to a single gateway4. Amazon VPC is a service that lets you provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define5. References: Achieve up to 60% better performance for internet traffic with AWS Global Accelerator, Improving Performance on AWS and Hybrid Networks, Route tables, AWS Transit Gateway, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

TheAWS Pricing Calculatoris a web-based tool that allows customers to estimate their monthly AWS costs by configuring and projecting the costs of different AWS services. The calculator is specifically designed to help customers plan their AWS spending based on their specific architecture and usage patterns. The other options are not correct because:

B. Calculate historical AWS costs: This is incorrect as the AWS Pricing Calculator does not track or calculate historical costs. For historical costs, AWS Cost Explorer is used.

C. Provide in-depth information about AWS pricing strategies: While the AWS Pricing Calculator provides cost estimations, it does not provide detailed insights into AWS pricing strategies.

D. Provide users with access to their monthly bills: This is incorrect; AWS Billing and Cost Management provides access to actual billing information.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Pricing Calculator

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

The ability to scale resources up and down based on application load is tied to the advantage of "Stop guessing capacity." This feature allows users to scale resources automatically to match the demand, thereby avoiding over-provisioning or under-provisioning of resources. "Go global in minutes," "Benefit from massive economies of scale," and "Trade fixed expense for variable expense" are other advantages of cloud computing, but they do not specifically address scaling resources up and down based on load.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is a service that helps you maintain application availability and allows you to automatically add or remove EC2 instances according to definable conditions. You can create collections of EC2 instances, called Auto Scaling groups, and specify the minimum and maximum number of instances in each group. You can also define scaling policies that adjust the number of instances based on the demand on your application. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling helps you improve the performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of your EC2workloads123. References: 1: VDI Desktops - Amazon WorkSpaces Family - AWS, 2: What is Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling? - Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, 3: Discover Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Unit | Salesforce Trailhead

 Amazon EFS is a fully managed service that provides scalable and elastic file storage for multiple Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon EFS supports the Network File System (NFS) protocol, which allows multiple EC2 instances to access the same file system concurrently. You can learn more about Amazon EFS from this webpage or this digital course.

 Design for failure is one of the best practices of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. It means that the architecture should be resilient and fault-tolerant, and able to handle failures without impacting the availability and performance of the applications. By using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups, the ecommerce company can design for failure by automatically scaling the number of EC2 instances up or down based on demand or health status. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups can also distribute the EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones, which are isolated locations within an AWS Region that have independent power, cooling, and network connectivity. This way, the company can ensure that their web servers can handle traffic spikes, recover from failures, and provide a consistent user experience

Spot Instancesare the most cost-effective EC2 instance purchasing option for batch workloads that can handle interruptions and can be restarted from where they left off. Spot Instances offer significant cost savings (up to 90%) over On-Demand Instances by using spare EC2 capacity. They are ideal for workloads that are fault-tolerant and flexible in terms of timing.

A. Reserved Instances: Incorrect, as they require a long-term commitment and do not offer the flexibility needed for short-term, interruptible workloads.

C. Dedicated Instances: Incorrect, as they are designed to run on hardware dedicated to a single customer, which is more expensive.

D. On-Demand Instances: Incorrect, as they are more expensive than Spot Instances and are used for applications that require immediate or predictable capacity.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances

"The Reliability pillar encompasses the ability of a workload to perform its intended function correctly and consistently when it’s expected to. This includes the ability to operate and test the workload through its total lifecycle." https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/reliability.html

Understanding Amazon Snowball Edge: Amazon Snowball Edge is a data migration and edge computing device that helps in transferring large amounts of data to and from AWS.

No-Cost Activities:

Transfer into S3: AWS does not charge for transferring data from the Snowball Edge device into Amazon S3. This is part of the service to facilitate easy data migration into the AWS cloud.

Other Costs: The use of the Snowball Edge appliance for up to 10 days is included in the service fee. However, any usage beyond the 10-day period may incur additional costs.

How to Utilize Snowball Edge:

Order the Device: Use the AWS Management Console to order a Snowball Edge device.

Load Data: Transfer your data onto the Snowball Edge appliance.

Ship Back: Ship the device back to AWS, where the data will be uploaded to Amazon S3 at no additional cost.

Amazon Snowball Edge Pricing

Amazon Snowball Edge Documentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Shared Responsibility Model

The security best practices that should be followed are A and E.

A. Grant the developer access to only the AWS resources needed to perform the job. This is an example of the principle of least privilege, which means giving the minimum permissions necessary to achieve a task. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access, data leakage, or accidental damage to AWS resources.You canuse AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to create users, groups, roles, and policies that grant fine-grained access to AWS resources12.

E. Ensure the account password policy requires a minimum length. This is a basic security measure that helps prevent brute-force attacks or guessing of passwords. A longer password is harder to crack than a shorter one.You can use IAM to configure apassword policy that enforces a minimum password length, as well as other requirements such as complexity, expiration, and history34.

B. Share the AWS account root user credentials with the developer. This is a bad practice that should be avoided. The root user has full access to all AWS resources and services, and can perform sensitive actions such as changing billing information, closing the account, or deleting all resources. Sharing the root user credentials exposes your account to potential compromise or misuse.You should never share your root user credentials with anyone, and use them only for account administration tasks5.

C. Add the developer to the administrator’s group in IAM. This is also a bad practice that should be avoided. The administrator’s group has full access to all AWS resources and services, which is more than what a developer needs to perform their job. Adding the developer to the administrator’s group violates the principle of least privilege and increases the risk of unauthorized access, data leakage, or accidental damage to AWS resources.You should create a custom group for the developer that grants only the necessary permissions for their role12.

D. Configure a password policy that ensures the developer’s password cannot be changed. This is another bad practice that should be avoided. Preventing the developer from changing their password reduces their ability to protect their credentials and comply with security policies. For example, if the developer’s password is compromised, they cannot change it to prevent further unauthorized access. Or if the company requires periodic password rotation, they cannot update their password to meet this requirement.You should allow the developer to change their password as needed, and enforce a password policy that sets reasonable rules for password management34.

AWS Outposts is a service that provides fully managed AWS infrastructure and services on premises. It allows users to run applications that require low latency and local data processing, while seamlessly connecting to the AWS Cloud for a consistent hybrid experience. AWS IoT Greengrass isa service that provides local compute, messaging, data caching, sync, and ML inference capabilities for connected devices. AWS Lambda is a service that allows users to run code without provisioning or managing servers. AWS Snowball Edge is a device that provides a petabyte-scale data transport and edge computing solution.

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

Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It allows you to launch virtual servers, called instances, with different configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources. AWS Compute Optimizer analyzes the specifications and utilization metrics of your Amazon EC2 instances and generates recommendations for optimal instance types that can reduce costs and improve performance. You can view the recommendations on the AWS Compute Optimizer console or the Amazon EC2 console12.

Amazon RDS, Amazon Lightsail, and AWS Step Functions are not supported by AWS Compute Optimizer. Amazon RDS is a managed relational database service that lets you set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. 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. AWS Step Functions lets you coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows so you can build and update apps quickly3 .

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.

On-Demand Instances are the most cost-efficient pricing model for an uninterruptible workload that runs once a year for 24 hours. On-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour or second, depending on which instances you run. No long-term commitments or up-front payments are required. You can increase or decrease your compute capacity to meet the demands of your application and only pay the specified hourly rates for the instance you use1. This model is suitable for developing/testing applications with short-term or unpredictable workloads2. The other pricing models are not cost-efficient for this use case. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans require a commitment to a consistent amount of usage, in USD per hour, for a term of 1 or 3 years. They provide significant discounts compared to On-Demand Instances, but they are not flexible or scalable for workloads that run only once a year12. Spot Instances are the cheapest option, but they are not suitable for uninterruptible workloads, as they can be reclaimed by AWS at any time. They are recommended for applications that have flexible start and end times, or that are only feasible at very low compute prices12. Dedicated Instances are designed for compliance and licensing requirements, not for cost optimization. They are more expensive than the other options, as they run on single-tenant hardware12. References: Amazon EC2 – Secure and resizable compute capacity – AWS, Amazon EC2 - How AWS Pricing Works

Amazon Timestream is a fast, scalable, and serverless time-series database service for IoT and other operational applications that makes it easy to store and analyze trillions of events per day up to 1,000 times faster and at as little as 1/10th thecost of relational databases1. Amazon Timestream saves you time and cost in managing the lifecycle of time series data, and its purpose-built query engine lets you access and analyze recent and historical data together with a single query1. Amazon Timestream has built-in time series analytics functions, helping you identify trends and patterns in near real time1.

The other options are not suitable for storing and analyzing trillions of events per day. Amazon Neptune is a graph database service that supports highly connected data sets. Amazon Forecast is a machine learning service that generates accurate forecasts based on historical data. Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) is a document database service that supports MongoDB workloads.

1: Time Series Database – Amazon Timestream – Amazon Web Services

 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 AWS service that the company should use to meet these requirements is A. AWS Snowmobile.

AWS Snowmobile is a service that allows you to migrate large amounts of data to AWS using a 45-foot long ruggedized shipping container that can store up to 100 petabytes of data. AWS Snowmobile is designed for situations where you need to move massive amounts of data to the cloud in a fast, secure, and cost-effective way.AWS Snowmobile has the least possible operational overhead because it eliminates the need to buy, configure, or manage hundreds or thousands of storage devices12.

AWS Snowball Edge is a service that allows you to migrate data to AWS using a physical device that can store up to 80 terabytes of data and has compute and storage capabilities to run applications on the device. AWS Snowball Edge is suitable for situations where you have limited or intermittent network connectivity, or where bandwidth costs are high.However, AWS Snowball Edge has more operational overhead than AWS Snowmobile because you need to request multiple devices and transfer your data onto them using the client3.

AWS Data Exchange is a service that allows you to find, subscribe to, and use third-party data in the cloud.AWS Data Exchange is not a data migration service, but rather a data marketplace that enables data providers and data consumers to exchange data sets securely and efficiently4.

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) is a service that helps migrate databases to AWS.AWS DMS does not migrate file storage data, but rather supports various database platforms and engines as sources and targets5.

The scenario represents the operational excellence pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, which focuses on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value and continually improve supporting processes and procedures1. Security, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and reliability are the other four pillars of the framework1.

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

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 serviceto 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.

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

AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of a customer’s AWS account. AWS CloudTrail allows customers to track user activity and API usage across their AWS infrastructure. AWS CloudTrail can also provide a history of EC2 instance events, such as launch, stop, terminate, and reboot. Cost Explorer is a tool that enables customers to visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage over time. Amazon Inspector is an automated security assessment service that helps improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS. AWS Secrets Manager helps customers protect secrets needed to access their applications, services, and IT resources.

 Network ACLs (network access control lists) are an optional layer of security for your VPC that act as a firewall for controlling traffic in and out of one or more subnets. You can use network ACLs to allow or deny traffic based on protocol, port, or source and destination IP address. Network ACLs are stateless, meaning that they do not track the traffic that flows through them. Therefore, you must create rules for both inbound and outbound traffic.

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

The correct answer is B. Amazon Inspector.

Amazon Inspector is an automated vulnerability management service that continually scans AWS workloads for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure.Amazon Inspector automatically discovers workloads, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and Lambda functions, and scans them for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure12.

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that monitors your AWS accounts and workloads for malicious or unauthorized activity.Amazon GuardDuty does not scan for software vulnerabilities, but rather analyzes AWS CloudTrail, Amazon VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs to detect threats such as compromised credentials, backdoors, or crypto mining3.

AWS Security Hub is a security and compliance service that aggregates and prioritizes security findings from multiple AWS services and partner solutions.AWSSecurity Hub does not scan for software vulnerabilities, but rather provides a comprehensive view of your security posture across your AWS accounts4.

AWS Shield is a managed service that protects your web applications and network resources from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.AWS Shield does not scan for software vulnerabilities, but rather provides detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks at the network and application layers5.

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.

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

Securely store and rotate secrets.

Automatically manage secret rotation without disrupting applications.

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

Why other options are not suitable:

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

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

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

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

AWS Outposts is a service that delivers AWS infrastructure and services to virtually any on-premises or edge location for a truly consistent hybrid experience. AWS Outposts allows 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 Region. Run applications and workloads on premises using familiarAWS services, tools, and APIs2. AWS Outposts is the only AWS service that supports a hybridarchitecture that gives users the ability to extend AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs, and tools to data centers, co-location environments, or on-premises facilities. References: On-Premises Infrastructure - AWS Outposts Family

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

Amazon 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.

Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is a fully managed service that delivers real-time streaming data to destinations such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, and Splunk. You can use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to capture, transform, and load streaming data from multiple sources, such as web applications, mobile devices, IoT sensors, and social media.

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

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

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

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

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

 C is correct because moving a workload from a local data center to an architecture that is distributed between the local data center and the AWS Cloud is an example of an on-premises to hybrid migration. A 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. A is incorrect because on-premises to cloud native migration is the process of moving a workload from a local data center to an architecture that is fully hosted and managed on the AWS Cloud. B is incorrect because hybrid to cloud native migration is the process of moving a workload from an architecture that is distributed between the local data center and the AWS Cloud to an architecture that is fully hosted and managed on the AWS Cloud. D is incorrect because cloud native to hybrid migration is the process of moving a workload from an architecture that is fully hosted and managed on the AWS Cloud to an architecture that is distributed between the local data center and the AWS Cloud.

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.

AWS Business Support is the least expensive AWS Support plan that provides the full set of AWS Trusted Advisor best practice checks for cost optimization. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides best practices and recommendations for cost optimization, performance, security, and fault tolerance. AWS Business Support also provides other benefits, such as 24/7 technical support, unlimited cases, and faster response times. AWS Enterprise Support is the most expensive AWS Support plan that provides the same benefits as AWS Business Support, plus additional benefits, such as a technical account manager and enterprise concierge support. AWS Developer Support and AWS Basic Support are cheaper AWS Support plans that provide only a limited set of AWS Trusted Advisor best practice checks for cost optimization .

One of the benefits of operating in the AWS Cloud is the ability to expand compute, storage, and memory when needed, which enables users to scale their applications and resources up or down based on demand. This also helps users optimize their costs and performance. The ability to migrate on-premises network devices to the AWS Cloud, the ability to host custom hardware in the AWS Cloud, and the ability to customize the underlying hypervisor layer for Amazon EC2 are not benefits of operating in the AWS Cloud, as they are either not possible or not recommended by AWS .

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.

 D is correct because security groups are the AWS service or feature that can be used to control inbound and outbound traffic on an Amazon EC2 instance. Security groups act as a virtual firewall for the EC2 instance, allowing users to specify which protocols, ports, and source or destination IP addresses are allowed or denied. A is incorrect because internet gateways are the AWS service or feature that enable communication between instances in a VPC and the internet. They do not control the traffic on an EC2 instance. B is incorrect because AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the AWS service or feature that enables users to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. It does not control the traffic on an EC2 instance. C is incorrect because network ACLs are the AWS service or feature that provide an optional layer of security for the VPC that acts as a firewall for controlling traffic in and out of one or more subnets. They do not control the traffic on an EC2 instance.

AWS Budgets is a service that helps you plan your service usage, service costs, and instance reservations, and track how close your plan is to your budgeted amount. You can set custom budgets that alert you when you exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) your budgeted thresholds. You can also use AWS Budgets to set a maximum spending limit on AWS services each month and set up alerts for when you reach your spending limit. Cost Explorer is a service that enables you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. You can use Cost Explorer to view charts and graphs that show how your costs are trending, identify areas that need further inquiry, and see the impact of your cost management actions. However, Cost Explorer does not allow you to set a maximum spending limit or alerts for your AWS services. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides you real time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices, including security and performance. It can help you monitor for cost optimization opportunities, such as unused or underutilized resources, but it does not allow you to set a maximum spending limit or alerts for your AWS services. Service Quotas is a service that enables you to view and manage your quotas, also referred to as limits, from a central location. Quotas, also referred to as limits, are the maximum number of resources that you can create in your AWS account. However, Service Quotas does not allow you to set a maximum spending limit or alerts for your AWS services.

 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.

 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.

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 plan1. It is designed for developers who have little or no prior cloud experience and want to launch and manage applications on AWS with minimal complexity2. Amazon SageMaker is a service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models3. AWS Lambda is a service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers4. Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a fully managed container orchestration service.

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

 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

 Using AWS Artifact to access AWS documents about the compliance of the services, and getting the compliance of the application certified by a company assessor are actions that the company should take to meet the requirements of complying with credit card regulatory requirements. AWS Artifact is a service that provides on-demand access to AWS security and compliance reports and select online agreements. Reports available in AWS Artifact include our Service Organization Control (SOC) reports, Payment Card Industry (PCI) reports, and certifications from accreditation bodies across geographies and compliance verticals that validate the implementation and operating effectiveness of AWS security controls. AWS Artifact can help you demonstrate compliance with credit card regulatory requirements by providing you with proof that the AWS services and deployment are in compliance. Getting the compliance of the application certified by a company assessor is an action that the company should take to ensure that the application meets the specific requirements of the credit card industry. A company assessor is an independent third-party entity that is qualified to assess the compliance of the application with the relevant standards and regulations. Using Amazon Inspector to submit the application for certification is not an action that the company should take, because 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, but it does not provide certification for the applications. Ensuring that the application’s underlying hardware components comply with requirements is not an action that the company should take, because the application is deployed on AWS, and AWS is responsible for the security and compliance of the underlying hardware components. This is part of the shared responsibility model, where AWS is responsible for security of the cloud, and customers are responsible for security in the cloud. Using AWS Security Hub to certify the compliance of the application is not an action that the company should take, because AWS Security Hub is a service that gives you a comprehensive view of your security posture acrossyour AWS accounts and helps you check your environment against security industry standards and best practices, but it does not provide certification for the applications.

Identity and access management is one of the foundational capabilities for the operations perspective of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF). It involves managing the identities, roles, permissions, and credentials of users and systems that interact with AWS resources. Performance and capacity management is a capability for the platform perspective. Application portfolio management is a capability for the business perspective. Product management is a capability for the governance perspective.

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.

AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog that offers thousands of software products and solutions from independent software vendors (ISVs) and AWS partners. Customers can use AWS Marketplace to find, buy, and deploy software on AWS. Some of the benefits of using AWS Marketplace are:

Speed of business: You can quickly and easily discover and deploy software that meets your business needs, without having to go through lengthy procurement processes. You can also use AWS Marketplace to test and compare different solutions before making a purchase decision.

Fewer legal objections: You can benefit from standardized contract terms and conditions that are pre-negotiated between AWS and the ISVs. This reduces the time and effort required to review and approve legal agreements.

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.

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 theleast 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.

AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) is a managed service that enables you to easily encrypt your data. AWS KMS provides you with centralized control of the encryption keys used to protect your data. You can use AWS KMS to encrypt data in Amazon RDS and Amazon EBS volumes12

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

 Network ACLs (network access control lists) are an AWS service or feature that provides the functionality of applying security rules to a subnet for EC2 instances. A subnet is a logical partition of an IP network within a VPC (virtual private cloud). A VPC is a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where the company can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that they define. A network ACL is a virtual firewall that controls the inbound and outbound traffic for one or more subnets. The company can use network ACLs to allow or deny traffic based on protocol, port, or source and destination IP address. Network ACLs are stateless, meaning that they do not track the traffic that flows through them. Therefore, the company must create rules for both inbound and outbound traffic4

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.

The solution that achieves the goal of having Amazon EC2 instances share the same geographic area but use multiple independent underlying power sources is to use EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones in the same AWS Region. An Availability Zone is a physically isolated location within an AWS Region that has its own power, cooling, and network connectivity. An AWS Region is a geographical area that consists of two or more Availability Zones. By using multiple Availability Zones, users can increase the fault tolerance and resilience of their applications, as well as reduce latency for end users3. Using EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone, multiple AWS Regions, or the same edge location and the same AWS Region would not meet the requirement of having multiple independent power sources.

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 AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of best practices and guidelines for designing and operating workloads on AWS. It helps customers achieve operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability. The framework is based on six pillars, each with its own design principles, best practices, and questions. Customers can use the framework to assess their current state, identify gaps, and implement improvements12.

AWS Support is a service that provides technical assistance, guidance, and resources for AWS customers. It offers different plans with varying levels of access to AWS experts, response times, and features3. AWS Support does not provide a comprehensive framework for operational support.

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is a guidance tool that helps customers plan and execute their cloud migration journey. It provides a set of perspectives, capabilities, and best practices to align the business and technical aspects of cloud adoption4. AWS CAF does not focus on operational support for existing workloads on AWS.

AWS Managed Services (AMS) is a service that operates AWS infrastructure on behalf of customers. It provides a secure and compliant environment, automates commonactivities, and applies best practices for provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, and monitoring5. AMS does not provide a framework for customers to operate their own workloads on AWS.

Amazon Personalize is an AWS service that helps developers quickly build and deploy a custom recommendation engine with real-time personalization and user segmentation1. It uses machine learning (ML) to analyze customer data and provide relevant recommendations based on their preferences, behavior, and context.Amazon Personalize can be used for various use cases such as optimizing recommendations, targeting customers more accurately, maximizing the value of unstructured text, and promoting items using business rules1.

The other options are not suitable for providing product recommendations based on customer data. Amazon Polly is a service that converts text into lifelike speech. Amazon Comprehend is a service that uses natural language processing (NLP) toextract insights from text and documents. Amazon Rekognition is a service that uses computer vision (CV) to analyze images and videos for faces, objects, scenes, and activities.

1: Cloud Products - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

2: Recommender System – Amazon Personalize – Amazon Web Services

3: Top 25 AWS Services List 2023 - GeeksforGeeks

4: AWS to Azure services comparison - Azure Architecture Center

5: The 25+ Best AWS Cost Optimization Tools (Updated 2023) - CloudZero

6: Amazon Polly – Text-to-Speech Service - AWS

7: Natural Language Processing - Amazon Comprehend - AWS

8: Image and Video Analysis - Amazon Rekognition - AWS

The option that is a customer responsibility under the AWS shared responsibility model is B. Application data security.

According to the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, while the customer is responsible for the security in the cloud.This means that AWS manages the security of the underlying infrastructure, such as the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run the AWS services, while the customer manages the security of their applications, data, and resources that they use on top of AWS12.

Application data security is one of the customer responsibilities under the AWS shared responsibility model. This means that the customer is responsible for protecting their application data from unauthorized access, modification, deletion, or leakage.The customer can use various AWS services and features to help withapplication data security, such as encryption, key management, access control, logging, and auditing12.

Maintenance of underlying hardware of Amazon EC2 instances is not a customer responsibility under the AWS shared responsibility model. This is part of the AWS responsibility to secure the cloud.AWS manages the physical servers that host the Amazon EC2 instances and ensures that they are updated, patched, and replaced as needed13.

Physical security of data centers is not a customer responsibility under the AWS shared responsibility model. This is also part of the AWS responsibility to secure the cloud.AWS operates and controls the facilities where the AWS services are hosted and ensures that they are protected from unauthorized access, environmental hazards, fire, and theft14.

Maintenance of VPC components is not a customer responsibility under the AWS shared responsibility model. This is a shared responsibility between AWS and the customer.AWS provides the VPC service and ensures that it is secure and reliable, while the customer configures and manages their own VPCs and related components,such as subnets, route tables, security groups, network ACLs, gateways, and endpoints15.

AWS CloudTrail is the AWS service that can identify when an Amazon EC2 instance was terminated. AWS CloudTrail is a service that records API calls and events for AWS accounts and resources. AWS CloudTrail can capture the TerminateInstances event, which is triggered when an EC2 instance is terminated by a user or an AWS service. The event contains information such as the instance ID, the user identity, the source IP address, the time, and the reason for the termination12. Customers can use the CloudTrail console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDKs to viewand search for the TerminateInstances events in their event history or in their S3 buckets where they store their CloudTrail logs13.

Network ACLs are a feature that provide a layer of security at the subnet level by acting as a firewall to control traffic in and out of one or more subnets. Network ACLs can be configured with rules that allow or deny traffic based on the source and destination IP addresses, ports, and protocols5. Security groups are a feature that provide a layer of security at the instance level by acting as a firewall to control traffic to and from one or more instances. Security groups can be configured with rules that allow or deny traffic based on the source and destination IP addresses, ports, protocols, and security groups. NAT gateways are a feature that enable instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, but prevent the internet from initiating a connection with those instances. Route tables are a feature that determine where network traffic from a subnet or gateway is directed.

AWS Artifact is a service that provides on-demand access to AWS security and compliance documents, such as AWS ISO certifications, Payment Card Industry (PCI) reports, and Service Organization Control (SOC) reports. You can download these documents and submit them as evidence to your auditors or regulators to demonstrate the security and compliance of the AWS infrastructure and services that you use. AWS Artifact also allows you to review, accept, and manage AWS agreements, such as the Business Associate Addendum (BAA) for customers who are subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). References: AWS Artifact, What is AWS Artifact?

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

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 "theability 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.

AWS Outposts is an AWS service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to virtually any datacenter, co-location space, or on-premises facility. AWS Outposts enables you to run Amazon EC2 instances and other AWS services locally, while maintaining a consistent and seamless connection to the AWS Cloud. AWS Outposts is ideal for workloads that require low latency, local data processing, or data residency. By using AWS Outposts, the company can process personallyidentifiable information (PII) and keep data in the country where it was generated, while leveraging the benefits of AWS

AWS Shield is a managed DDoS protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS attacks are malicious attempts to disrupt the normal functioning of a website or application by overwhelming it with a large volume of traffic from multiple sources. AWS Shield provides two tiers of protection: Standard and Advanced. AWS Shield Standard is automatically enabled for all AWS customers at no additional cost. It protects your AWS resources, such as Amazon CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator, and Amazon Route 53, from the most common and frequently occurring network and transport layer DDoS attacks. AWS Shield Advanced is an optional paid service that provides additional protection for your AWS resources and applications, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), and AWS Elastic Beanstalk. AWSShield Advanced offers enhanced detection and mitigation capabilities, 24/7 access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT), real-time visibility and reporting, and cost protection against DDoS-related spikes in your AWS bill12

 AWS Shield, What is a DDOS Attack & How to Protect Your Site Against One

 Establishing an AWS Direct Connect connection between the VPC and the company’s on-premises network is the action that the company should take to meet the requirement of having a dedicated connection between the VPC and the company’s on-premises network. AWS Direct Connect is a service that lets you establish a dedicated network connection between your network and one of the AWS Direct Connect locations. Using AWS Direct Connect, you can create a private connection between AWS and your datacenter, office, or colocation environment, which can reduce your network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than internet-based connections. Establishing a VPN connection between the VPC and the company’s on-premises network is an action that the company can take to create a secure and encrypted connection between the VPC and the company’s on-premises network, but it is not a dedicated connection, as it uses the public internet as the transport mechanism. Attaching an internet gateway to the VPC and using the AWS public endpoints for connectivity is an action that the company can take to enable communication between the VPC and the internet, but it is not a dedicated connection, as it also uses the public internet as the transport mechanism. Configuring Amazon Connect to provide connectivity between the VPC and the company’s on-premises network is not an action that the company can take, because Amazon Connect is a service that lets you set up and manage a contact center in the cloud, but it does not provide network connectivity between the VPC and the company’s on-premises network.

B is correct because AWS Enterprise Support is the AWS Support plan that provides concierge service, a designated AWS technical account manager (TAM), and technical support that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This plan is designed for customers who run mission-critical workloads on AWS and need the highest level of support. A is incorrect because AWS Basic Support is the AWS Support plan that provides customer service and support for billing and account issues, service limit increases, and technical support for a limited set of AWS services. It does not provide concierge service, a designated TAM, or 24/7 technical support. C is incorrect because AWS Business Support is the AWS Support plan that provides customer service and support for billing and account issues, service limit increases, and technical support for all AWS services, as well as access to AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Support API. It does not provide concierge service or a designated TAM. D is incorrect because AWS Developer Support is the AWS Support plan that provides customer service and support for billing and account issues, service limit increases, and technicalsupport for all AWS services, as well as access to AWS Trusted Advisor. It does not provide concierge service, a designated TAM, or 24/7 technical support.

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 Polly is a service that turns text into lifelike speech, allowing you to create applications that talk, and build entirely new categories of speech-enabled products. Polly’s Text-to-Speech (TTS) service uses advanced deep learning technologies to synthesize natural sounding human speech1. Amazon Polly supports dozens of languages and a wide range of natural-sounding voices. You can customizeand control the speech output by using lexicons and SSML tags. You can also store and redistribute the speech output in standard audio formats like MP3 and OGG2.

Amazon Transcribe is a service that converts speech to text, enabling you to create text transcripts from audio or video files. It can recognize multiple speakers, different languages, accents, dialects, and background noises. It can also add punctuation and formatting to the transcripts. Amazon Transcribe is useful for applications such as subtitling, captioning, transcription, and voice search.

Amazon Rekognition is a service that provides image and video analysis using computer vision and deep learning. It can detect objects, faces, text, scenes, activities, and emotions in images and videos. It can also perform face recognition, face comparison, face search, celebrity recognition, and facial analysis. Amazon Rekognition is useful for applications such as security, social media, e-commerce, and media and entertainment.

Amazon Textract is a service that extracts text and data from scanned documents using optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning. It can identify the contents of fields in forms and tables, as well as the relationships between them. It can also preserve the layout and structure of the original document. Amazon Textract is useful for applications such as data entry, document management, compliance, and analytics.

 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.

 Physical and environmental controls are entirely the responsibility of AWS, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. 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 and environmental controls of the AWS global infrastructure, such as power, cooling, fire suppression, and physical access. The customer is responsible for the security in the cloud, which includes the configuration and management of the AWS resources and applications. For more information, see [AWS Shared Responsibility Model] and [AWS Cloud Security].

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.

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

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

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

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

 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 contentdelivery 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.

Amazon S3 is an AWS service that provides scalable, durable, and cost-effective object storage in the cloud. Amazon S3 can store any amount and type of data, such as server logs, and offers various storage classes with different performance and pricing characteristics. Amazon S3 is the most cost-effective option for storing server logs, as it offers low-cost storage classes, such as S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) and S3 Intelligent-Tiering, that are suitable for infrequently accessed or changing access patterns data. Amazon S3 also integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon Athena and Amazon OpenSearch Service, that can query the server logs directly from S3 without requiring any additional data loading or transformation. References: Amazon S3, Amazon S3 Storage Classes, Querying Data in Amazon S3

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances are instances that use spare EC2 capacity that is 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, high-performance computing (HPC), and test & development workloads. Spot Instances are ideal for workloads that can be interrupted, such as batch image rendering applications1. On-Demand Instances are instances that let you pay for compute capacity by the hour or second (minimum of 60 seconds) with no long-term commitments. This frees you from the costs and complexities of planning, purchasing, and maintaining hardware and transforms what are commonly large fixed costs into much smaller variable costs2. Reserved Instances are instances that provide you with a significant discount (up to 75%) compared to On-Demand Instance pricing. In exchange, you select a term and make an upfront payment to reserve a certain amount of compute capacity for that term3. Dedicated Instances are instances that run in a VPC on hardware that’s dedicated to a single customer. Your Dedicated Instances are physically isolated at the host hardware level from instances that belong to other AWS accounts4.

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

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

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].

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

 The AWS services or features that can control VPC traffic are security groups and network ACLs. Security groups are stateful firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level. You can assign one or more security groups to each instance in a VPC, and specify the rules that allow or deny traffic based on the protocol, port, and source or destination. Network ACLs are stateless firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level. You can associate one network ACL with each subnet in a VPC, and specify the rules that allow or deny traffic based on the protocol, port, and source or destination. AWS Direct Connect, Amazon GuardDuty, and Amazon Connect are not services or features that can control VPC traffic. AWS Direct Connect is a service that establishes a dedicated network connection between your premises and AWS. Amazon GuardDuty is a service that monitors your AWS account and workloads for malicious or unauthorized activity. Amazon Connect is a service that provides a cloud-based contact center solution.

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 Outposts is an AWS service that meets the requirement of running AWS services on premises with access to the company network and the company’s VPC. 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 is ideal for workloads that require low latency access to on-premises systems, local data processing, or local data storage2.

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 security groups are AWS features that act as instance-level firewalls to control inbound and outbound access. Security groups are virtual firewalls that can be attached to one or more Amazon EC2 instances. Users can configure rules for security groups to allow or deny traffic based on protocols, ports, and source or destination IP addresses. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS features that act as instance-level firewalls to control inbound and outbound access. Network access control list is an AWS feature that acts as a subnet-level firewall to control inbound and outbound access. AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service that provides real-time guidance to help users follow AWS best practices for security, performance, cost optimization, and fault tolerance. Virtual private gateways are AWS features that enable users to create a secure and encrypted connection between their VPC and their on-premises network. Reference: Security Groups for Your VPC

 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.

Cost optimization is the pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that aligns with the requirements of not relying on elaborate forecasting and paying only for the resources that are used. The cost optimization pillar focuses on the ability of a system to deliver business value at the lowest price point. Cost optimization involves using the right AWS services and resources for the workload, measuring and monitoring the cost and usage, and continuously improving the cost efficiency. Cost optimization also leverages the benefits of the AWS Cloud, such as pay-as-you-go pricing, elasticity, and scalability. For more information, see [Cost Optimization Pillar] and [Cost Optimization].

AWS Enterprise Support is the AWS Support plan that assigns an AWS concierge agent to a company’s account. AWS Enterprise Support is the highest level of support that AWS offers, and it provides the most comprehensive and personalized assistance. An AWS concierge agent is a dedicated technical account manager who acts as a single point of contact for the company and helps to optimize the AWS environment, resolve issues, and access AWS experts. For more information, see [AWS Support Plans] and [AWS Concierge Support].

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

 The correct answer is B because AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service that a cloud engineer can use to view API calls to AWS services. AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables customers to track user activity and API usage across their AWS account. AWS CloudTrail records the details of every API call made to AWS services, such as the identity of the caller, the time of the call, the source IP address of the caller, the parameters and responses of the call, and more. Customers can use AWS CloudTrail to audit, monitor, and troubleshoot their AWS resources and actions. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services that a cloud engineer can use to view API calls to AWS services. Amazon CloudWatch is an AWS service that enables customers to collect, analyze, and visualize metrics, logs, and events from their AWS resources and applications. AWS Config is an AWS service that enables customers to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of their AWS resources. AWS Artifact is an AWS service that provides customers with on-demand access to AWS compliance reports and select online agreements. Reference: AWS CloudTrail FAQs

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

S3 Intelligent-Tiering is cost-effective for data with unpredictable access patterns. It automatically moves data between two access tiers (frequent and infrequent) based on access patterns, which is suitable for data accessed daily or infrequently. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is for archival data accessed infrequently, and S3 One Zone-IA is for infrequent access data stored in a single availability zone, which may not be ideal for data accessed daily.

 The correct answer is C because AWS Outposts is an AWS service that enables the company to meet the requirements. AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to virtually any datacenter, co-location space, or on-premises facility. AWS Outposts allows customers to run their workloads on the same hardware and software that AWS uses in its cloud, while maintaining local access and control. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services that enable the company to meet the requirements. AWS Device Farm is an AWS service that enables customers to test their mobile and web applications on real devices in the AWS Cloud. AWS Fargate is an AWS service that enables customers to run containers without having to manage servers or clusters. AWS Ground Station is an AWS service that enables customers to communicate with satellites and downlink data from orbit. Reference: AWS Outposts FAQs

 Applying security requirements at all layers of a process is a policy that complies with guidance in the security pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The security pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework provides best practices for securing the user’s data and systems in the AWS Cloud. One of the design principles of the security pillar is to apply security at all layers, which means that the user should implement defense-in-depth strategies and avoid relying on a single security mechanism. For example, the user should use multiple security controls, such as encryption, firewalls, identity and access management, and logging and monitoring, to protect their data and resources at different layers.

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 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 AvailabilityZones. Reference: [Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones], [VPC Peering], [AWS VPN], [Placement Groups]

 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

 The correct answer is D because AWS Security Hub is a service that aggregates, organizes, and prioritizes security alerts and findings from multiple AWS services, such as Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, Amazon Macie, AWS Firewall Manager, and AWS IAM Access Analyzer. The other options are incorrect because they are not services that aggregate security alerts and findings from multiple AWS services. Amazon Detective is a service that helps users analyze and visualize security data to investigate and remediate potential issues. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps users find security vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices in their Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon Macie is a service that helps users discover, classify, and protect sensitive data stored in Amazon S3. Reference: AWS Security Hub FAQs

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

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

The statement that is true regarding pricing for these eight instances is: four instances will be charged as RIs, and four will be charged as regular instances. Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances (RIs) are a pricing model that allows users to reserve EC2 instances for a specific term and benefit from discounted hourly rates and capacity reservation. RIs are purchased for a specific AWS Region, and can be shared across multiple accounts in an organization in AWS Organizations for consolidated billing. However, RIs are applied on a first-come, first-served basis, and there is no guarantee that all instances in the organization will be charged at the RI rate. In this case, Account A has purchased five RIs and has four instances running, so all four instances will be charged at the RI rate. Account B has not purchased any RIs and also has four instances running, so all four instances will be charged at the regular rate. The remaining RI in Account A will not be applied to any instance in Account B, and will be wasted.

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

 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.

 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, andmonitoring. For more information, see What is Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)? and Amazon RDS for SQL Server.

 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

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

 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 CloudTrail is the service that will provide the information about the last time that a specific user accessed the AWS Management Console. AWS CloudTrail is a service that records the API calls and events made by or on behalf of your AWS account. You can use AWS CloudTrail to view, search, and download the history of AWS console sign-in events, which include the user name, date, time, source IP address, and other details of the sign-in activity. Amazon Cognito, Amazon Inspector, and Amazon GuardDuty are not services that will provide this information. Amazon Cognito is a service that provides user authentication and authorization for web and mobile applications. Amazon Inspector is a service that assesses the security and compliance of your applications running on AWS. Amazon GuardDuty is a service that monitors your AWS account and workloads for malicious or unauthorized activity.

 The correct answer is C because learning to improve from operational failures is a recommended design principle 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. Learning to improve from operational failures is a design principle of the operational excellence pillar, which focuses on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value and continually improve supporting processes and procedures. The other options are incorrect because they are not recommended design principles of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Reducing downtime by making infrastructure changes infrequently and in large increments is not a design principle of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, but rather a source of risk and inefficiency. A well-architected system should implement changes frequently and in small increments to minimize the impact and scope of failures. Investing the time to configure infrastructure manually is not a design principle of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, but rather a source of human error and inconsistency. A well-architected system should automate manual tasks to improve the speed and accuracy of operations. Using monolithic application design for centralization is not a design principle of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, but rather a source of complexity and rigidity. A well-architected system should use loosely coupled and distributed components to enable scalability and resilience. Reference: [AWS Well-Architected Framework]

 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 servicethat provides real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. None of these services or tools offer consolidated billing.

 Operations is an option that is a perspective that includes foundational capabilities of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF). Operations is one of the six perspectives of the AWS CAF, along with business, people, governance, platform, and security. Operations focuses on the processes and procedures to support the ongoing management and maintenance of the cloud-based IT assets. It covers topics such as monitoring, backup and recovery, change management, incident management, and automation5. Sustainability is not a perspective of the AWS CAF, but a concept that refers to the ability of a system to operate in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible manner. Performance efficiency is not a perspective of the AWS CAF, but a pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. It focuses on using the right resources and services for the workload, monitoring performance, and continuously improving the efficiency of the solution. Reliability is not a perspective of the AWS CAF, but a pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. It focuses on the ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or service disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand, and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or transient network issues.

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 ona 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.

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

A benefit of decoupling an AWS Cloud architecture is the ability to upgrade components independently. Decoupling is a way of designing systems to reduce interdependencies and minimize the impact of changes. Decoupling 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 maintainability. By decoupling an AWS Cloud architecture, the user can upgrade or modify one component without affecting the other components5.

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

 Amazon Redshift is a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service in the cloud. You can start with just a few hundred gigabytes of data and scale to a petabyte or more. This enables you to use your data to acquire new insights for your business and customers. Amazon Redshift is designed for complex analytical queries that often involve aggregations and joins across very large tables. Amazon Redshift supports standard SQL and integrates with many existing business intelligence tools1.

 The correct answer is B because AWS IAM policies can be used to control administrative access to the Amazon RDS service. The other options are incorrect because they are the responsibilities of AWS, not the company that is using Amazon RDS. AWS manages the provisioning, cabling, installation, and patching of the underlying infrastructure for Amazon RDS. Reference: Amazon RDS FAQs

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

Management of the guest operating systems is a customer’s responsibility, according to the AWS shared responsibility model. The AWS shared responsibility model defines the different security and compliance responsibilities of AWS and the customer. AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, which includes the physical infrastructure, hardware, software, and facilities that run the AWS Cloud. The customer is responsible for security in the cloud, which includes the configuration and management of the guest operating systems, applications, data, and network traffic protection

 AWS CloudFormation is a service that gives developers and businesses an easy way to create a collection of related AWS and third-party resources, and provision and manage them in an orderly and predictable fashion. You can use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create your own templates to describe the AWS and third-party resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run your application.

 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 servicemanagement tasks. For day-to-day tasks, it is recommended to use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) users or roles instead.

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

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

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

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.

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