CLF-C02 Sample Questions Answers

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.

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

 The AWS account root user is the email address that you use to sign up for AWS. The root user has complete access to all AWS services and resources in the account. The root user can perform tasks that only the root user can do, such as changing the AWS Support plan, closing the account, and restoring IAM user permissions34

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

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.

The approach that will achieve the goal of designing a reliable web application that is hosted on Amazon EC2 is to spread EC2 instances across more than one Availability Zone. An Availability Zone is a physically isolated location within an AWS Region that has its own power, cooling, and network connectivity. By spreading EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones, users can increase the fault tolerance and availability of their web applications, as well as reduce latency for end users2. Launching large EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone, spreading EC2 instances across more than one security group, or using an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from AWS Marketplace are not sufficient to ensure reliability, as they do not provide redundancy or resilience in case of an outage in one Availability Zone.

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

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is a tool that helps organizations understand how cloud adoption transforms the way they work, and it provides structure to identify and address gaps in skills and processes. Applying the AWS CAF in your organization results in an actionable plan that helps you prepare the cloud environment, enable your staff with new skills, and migrate your applications. AWS Pricing Calculator is a tool that helps you estimate the cost of AWS services for your use cases and compare the cost of different AWS service configurations. AWS Well-Architected Framework is a tool that helps you review and improve your cloud-based architectures and better understand the business impact of your design decisions. AWS Budgets is a tool that helps you plan your service usage, service costs, and instance reservations, and track how close your plan is to your budgeted amount.

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

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 center, which can support the requirement of retaining certain data on-premises due to legal obligations5.

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.

 The trade of infrastructure expenses for operating expenses is one of the benefits of the AWS Cloud. By moving to the AWS Cloud, the company can avoid the upfront costs of purchasing and maintaining on-premises infrastructure, such as servers, storage, network, and software. Instead, the company can pay only for the AWS resources and services that they use, as they use them. This reduces the risk and complexity of planning and managing IT infrastructure, and allows the company to focus on innovation and growth. Increased speed to market, massive economies of scale, and the ability to go global in minutes are also benefits of the AWS Cloud, but they are not the best ones to describe this scenario. Increased speed to market means that the company can launch new products and services faster by using AWS services and tools. Massive economies of scale means that the company can benefit from the lower costs and higher performance that AWS achieves by operating at a large scale. The ability to go global in minutes means that the company can deploy their applications and data in multiple regions and availability zones around the world to reach their customers faster and improve performance and reliability5

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

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.

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

Amazon RDS is a managed database service that handles most of the common database administration tasks, such as hardware provisioning, server maintenance, backup and recovery, patching, scaling, and replication. However, Amazon RDS does not optimize the application that interacts with the database. The company is stillresponsible for tuning the performance, security, and availability of the application according to its business requirements and best practices12.

 AWS Pricing Calculator lets customers explore AWS services, and create an estimate for the cost of their use cases on AWS. AWS Pricing Calculator can also compare the costs of different AWS Regions and configurations. Cost Explorer is a tool that enables customers to visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage over time. AWS Budgets gives customers the ability to set custom budgets that alert them when their costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) their budgeted amount. AWS Purchase Order Management is a feature that allows customers to pay for their AWS invoices using purchase orders.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is the AWS service that allows customers to deploy applications in the AWS Cloud as quickly as possible. AWS Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment, from capacity provisioning, load balancing, and auto-scaling to application health monitoring. Customers can upload their code and Elastic Beanstalk will take care of the rest1. AWS Elastic Beanstalk also minimizes the complexity that is related to the management of AWS resources. Customers can retain full control of the underlying AWS resources powering their applications and adjust the settings to suittheir needs1. Customers can also use the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or APIs to manage their applications1.

AWS Config is the AWS service that enables customers to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of their AWS resources. AWS Config continuously monitors and records the configuration changes of the resources and evaluates them against desired configurations or best practices2. AWS Config does not help customers deploy applications in the AWS Cloud as quickly as possible or minimize the complexity that is related to the management of AWS resources.

Amazon EC2 is the AWS service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Customers can launch virtual servers called instances and choose from various configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources3. Amazon EC2 does not automatically handle the deployment or management of AWS resources for customers. Customers have to manually provision, configure, monitor, and scale their instances and other related resources.

Amazon Personalize is the AWS service that enables customers to create personalized recommendations for their users based on their behavior and preferences. Amazon Personalize uses machine learning to analyze data and deliver real-time recommendations4. Amazon Personalize does not help customers deploy applications in the AWS Cloud as quickly as possible or minimize the complexity that is related to the management of AWS resources.

AWS Professional Services is a team of experts that help customers achieve their desired outcomes using the AWS Cloud. One of the benefits that AWS Professional Services provides is advisory solutions for AWS adoption, which include guidance on cloud strategy, architecture, migration, and innovation2. Management of the ongoing security of user data, technical support 24 hours a day, 7days a week, and monitoring of monthly billing costs in AWS accounts are not benefits that AWSProfessional Services provides, as they are either the responsibility of the customer or the features of other AWS services or support plans3

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

Cloud fluency is a capability that belongs to the people perspective of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF). Cloud fluency is the ability of the workforce to understand the benefits, challenges, and best practices of cloud computing, and to apply them to their roles and responsibilities. Cloud fluency helps the organization to adopt a cloud mindset, culture, and skills, and to leverage the full potential of the cloud. Cloud fluency can be achieved through various methods, such as training, certification, mentoring, coaching, and hands-on experience. Cloud fluency is one of the four capabilities of the people perspective, along with culture, organizational structure, and leadership. The other three capabilities belong to different perspectives of the AWS CAF. Data architecture is a capability of the platform perspective, which helps you design and implement data solutions that meet your business and technical requirements. Event management is a capability of the operations perspective, which helps you monitor and respond to events that affect the availability, performance, and security of your cloud resources. Strategic partnership is a capability of the business perspective, which helps you establish and maintain relationships with external stakeholders, such as customers, partners, suppliers, and regulators, to create value and achieve your business goals. References: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework: People Perspective, AWS CAF - Cloud Adoption Framework - W3Schools

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.

AWS Application Discovery Service is a service that helps you plan your migration to the AWS Cloud by collecting usage and configuration data about your on-premises servers and databases. This data includes information such as the hostname, IP address, and MAC address of each server, as well as the performance metrics, network connections, and processes running on them. You can use AWS Application Discovery Service to discover your on-premises inventory, map the dependencies between servers and applications, and estimate the cost and effort of migrating to AWS. You can also export the data to other AWS services, such as AWS Migration Hub and AWS Database Migration Service, to support your migration tasks. AWS Application Discovery Service offers two ways of performing discovery: agentless discovery and agent-based discovery. Agentless discovery uses a virtual appliance that you deploy on your VMware vCenter to collect data from your virtual machines and hosts. Agent-based discovery uses an agent that you install on each of your physical or virtual servers to collect data. You can choose the method that best suits your environment and needs. AWS DataSync is a service that helps you transfer data between your on-premises storage and AWS storage services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon EFS, and Amazon FSx for Windows File Server. AWS DataSync does not collect information about your on-premises infrastructure, but rather focuses on optimizing the data transfer speed, security, and reliability. AWS Application Migration Service is a service that helps you migrate your applications from your on-premises or cloud environment to AWS without making any changes to the applications, their architecture, or the migrated servers. AWS Application Migration Service does not collect information about your on-premises infrastructure, but rather uses a lightweight agent to replicate your servers as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) and launch them as EC2 instances on AWS. AWS Database Migration Service is a service that helps you migrate your databases from your on-premises or cloud environment to AWS, either as a one-time migration or as a continuous replication. AWS Database MigrationService does not collect information about your on-premises infrastructure, but rather uses a source and a target endpoint to connect to your databases and transfer the data. References: AWS Application Discovery Service, AWS DataSync, AWS Application Migration Service, [AWS Database Migration Service]

AWS Direct Connect is a service that provides a dedicated network connection from on premises to the AWS Cloud. It can reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than internet-based connections. It can also provide low latency for applications that require real-time data transfer4. Amazon VPC is a service that provides a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where users can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that they define. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a service that provides a scalable and durable stream of data records for real-time data processing. Amazon OpenSearch Service is a service that provides a fully managed, scalable, and secure search and analytics solution that is compatible with Elasticsearch.

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

AWS CodePipeline is a continuous delivery and deployment service that automates the release process of software applications across different stages, such as source code, build, test, and deploy2. AWSAppSync, AWS Cloud9, and AWS CodeCommit are other AWS services related to application development, but they do not provide continuous delivery and deployment solutions34 .

 B is correct because Reserved Instances are the instance purchasing option that offers the most cost-effective way to use Amazon EC2 instances for a stable production workload that will run for 1 year, as they provide significant discounts compared to On-Demand Instances in exchange for a commitment to use a specific amount of computing power for a period of time. A is incorrect because Dedicated Hosts are the instance purchasing option that allows customers to use physical servers that are fully dedicated to their use, which is more expensive and less flexible than Reserved Instances. C is incorrect because On-Demand Instances are the instance purchasing option that allows customers to pay for compute capacity by the hour or second with no long-term commitments, which is more suitable for short-term, variable, and unpredictable workloads. D is incorrect because Spot Instances are the instance purchasing option that allows customers to bid on spare Amazon EC2 computing capacity, which is more suitable for flexible, scalable, and fault-tolerant workloads that can tolerate interruptions.

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.

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

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

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).

C is correct because turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA) for added security during the login process is one of the IAM security best practices recommended by AWS. MFA adds an extra layer of protection on top of the user name and password, making it harder for attackers to access the AWS account. A is incorrect because using the account root user access keys for administrative tasks is not a good practice, as the root user has full access to all the resources in the AWS account and can cause irreparable damage if compromised. AWS recommends creating individual IAM users with the least privilege principle and using roles for applications that run on Amazon EC2 instances. B is incorrect because granting broad permissions so that all company employees can access the resources they need is not a good practice, as it increases the risk of unauthorized or accidental actions on the AWS resources. AWS recommends granting only the permissions that are required to perform a task and using groups to assign permissions to IAM users. D is incorrect because avoiding rotating credentials to prevent issues in production applications is not a good practice, as it increases the risk of credential leakage or compromise. AWS recommends rotating credentials regularly and using temporary security credentials from AWS STS when possible.

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]

The set of tasks that would meet the requirement of having higher availability for a MySQL database running on a single Amazon EC2 instance is to migrate to Amazon RDS and enable Multi-AZ. Amazon RDS is a fully managed relational database service that supports MySQL and other popular database engines. By enabling Multi-AZ, users can have a primary database in one Availability Zone and a synchronous standby replica in another Availability Zone. In case of a planned or unplanned outage of the primary database, Amazon RDS automatically fails over to the standby replica with minimal disruption3. Adding an Application Load Balancer in front of the EC2 instance, configuring EC2 Auto Recovery to move the instance to another Availability Zone, or enabling termination protection for the EC2 instance would not provide higher availability for the database, as they do not address the single point of failure or data replication issues.

 AWS Cost Explorer is an AWS service or tool that the company can use to periodically review its AWS account for cost optimization opportunities. AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that enables the company to visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage over time. The company can use AWS Cost Explorer to access interactive graphs and tables that show the breakdown of their costs and usage by service, region, account, tag, and more. The company can also use AWS Cost Explorer to forecast their future costs, identify trends and anomalies, and discover potential savings by using Reserved Instances or Savings Plans.

Changing AWS Support plans is a task that must be performed by using the AWS account root user credentials. The root user is the email address that you used to sign up for AWS. It has complete access to all AWS services and resources in the account. You should use the root user only to perform a few account and service management tasks, such as changing AWS Support plans, closing the account, or changing the account name or email address. Making changes to AWS production resources, accessing AWS Cost and Usage Reports, and granting auditors access to an AWS account for a compliance audit are tasks that can be performed by using IAM users or roles, which are entities that you create in AWS to delegate permissions to access AWS services and resources.

Agility in AWS Cloud computing means the ability to rapidly provision and deprovision AWS resources as needed, and the ability to experiment quickly with new ideas and solutions. Agility helps businesses to respond to changing customer demands, market opportunities, and competitive threats, and to innovate faster and cheaper. Agility also reduces the risk of failure, as businesses can test and validate their assumptions before committing to large-scale deployments. Some of the benefits of agility in AWS Cloud computing are:

The speed at which AWS resources are implemented: AWS provides a variety of services and tools that allow you to create, configure, and launch AWS resources in minutes, using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), the AWS Software Development Kits (AWS SDKs), or the AWS CloudFormation templates. You can also use the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) to define your AWS resources as code using familiar programming languages, and synthesize them into AWS CloudFormation templates. You can also use the AWS Service Catalog to create and manage standardized portfolios of AWS resources that meet your organizational policies and best practices. AWS also offers on-demand, pay-as-you-go pricing models, soyou only pay for the resources you use, and you can scale them up or down as your needs change12345

The ability to experiment quickly: AWS enables you to experiment quickly with new ideas and solutions, without having to invest in upfront capital or long-term commitments. You can use AWS to create and test multiple prototypes, hypotheses, and minimum viable products (MVPs) in parallel, and measure their performance and feedback. You can also use AWS to leverage existing services and solutions, such as AWS Marketplace, AWS Solutions, and AWS Quick Starts, that can help you accelerate your innovation process. AWS also supports a culture of experimentation and learning, by providing tools and resources for continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), testing, monitoring, and analytics.

 Six advantages of cloud computing - Overview of Amazon Web Services, AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), AWS Service Catalog, AWS Pricing, AWS CloudFormation, [Experimentation and Testing - AWS Well-Architected Framework], [AWS Marketplace], [AWS Solutions], [AWS Quick Starts], [AWS Developer Tools]

 Amazon CloudWatch is a service that provides monitoring and observability for AWS resources and applications. Users can create custom dashboards to collect and visualize metrics, logs, alarms, and events from different sources5. AWS X-Ray is a service that provides distributed tracing and analysis for applications. AWS Systems Manager is a service that provides operational management for AWS resources and applications. AWS CloudTrail is a service that provides governance, compliance, and auditing for AWS account activity.

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

 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.

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.

AWS Migration Hub assists users in planning and tracking the progress of their server and application migrations. It centralizes migration tracking across various AWS services, providing visibility into application inventory and migration status. While AWS Application Migration Service also assists with migrations, Migration Hub is specifically designed for tracking migration data comprehensively.

The AWS service or resource that will meet these requirements is D. AWS Partner Network (APN).

AWS Partner Network (APN) is a global community of consulting and technology partners that offer a wide range of services and solutions for AWS customers. APN partners can help customers design, architect, build, migrate, and manage their workloads and applications on AWS.APN partners have access to various resources, training, tools, and support to enhance their AWS expertise and deliver value to customers12.

AWS Support is a service that provides technical assistance and guidance for AWS customers. AWS Support offers different plans with varying levels of response time, access channels, and features.AWS Support does not directly engage third-party consultants, but rather connects customers with AWS experts and resources3.

AWS Organizations is a service that allows customers to manage multiple AWS accounts within a single organization. AWS Organizations enables customers to create groups of accounts, apply policies, automate account creation, and consolidate billing.AWS Organizations does not directly engage third-party consultants, but rather helps customers simplify and optimize their AWS account management4.

AWS Service Catalog is a service that allows customers to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS. AWS Service Catalogenables customers to control the configuration, deployment, and governance of their IT services.AWS Service Catalog does not directly engage third-party consultants, but rather helps customers standardize and streamline their IT service delivery5.

AWS Pricing Calculator and AWS Application Discovery Service are the best combination of AWS services or tools to meet the requirements of determining the total cost of ownership for compute resources that will be hosted on the AWS Cloud. AWS Pricing Calculator is a tool that enables you to estimate the cost of using AWS services based on your usage scenarios and requirements. You can use AWS Pricing Calculator to compare the costs of running your applications on-premises or on AWS, and to optimize your AWS spending. AWS Application Discovery Service is a service that helps you plan your migration to the AWS Cloud by collecting and analyzing information about your on-premises servers, applications, and dependencies. You can use AWS Application Discovery Service to identify the inventory of your on-premises infrastructure, group servers by applications, and estimate the performance and resource utilization of your applications45

According to the AWS shared responsibility model, AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, which includes the virtualization layer down to the physical security of the facilities in which AWSservices operate1. The customer is responsible for the security in the cloud, which includes the configuration and management of the AWS resources and applications that they use1.

AWS Outposts extend AWS infrastructure and services to on-premises locations, providing low-latency access to AWS resources and ensuring data residency. This service is suitable for hybrid environments that require the same AWS services and infrastructure to be available locally. Wavelength, Transit Gateway, and Ground Station do not specifically address low-latency access to on-premises resources or data residency.

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

AWS 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 .

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

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

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

The Operations perspective helps you monitor and manage your cloud workloads to ensure that they are delivered at a level that meets your business needs. Common stakeholders include chief operations officer (COO), cloud director, cloud operations manager, and cloud operations engineers1. The Operations perspective covers capabilities such as workload health monitoring, incident management, change management, release management, configuration management, and disaster recovery2.

The Business perspective helps ensure that your cloud investments accelerate your digital transformation ambitions and business outcomes. Common stakeholders include chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief information officer (CIO), and chief technology officer (CTO). The Business perspective covers capabilities such as business case development, value realization, portfolio management, and stakeholder management3.

The Governance perspective helps you orchestrate your cloud initiatives while maximizing organizational benefits and minimizing transformation-related risks. Common stakeholders include chief transformation officer, CIO, CTO, CFO, chief data officer (CDO), and chief risk officer (CRO). The Governance perspective covers capabilities such as governance framework, budget and cost management, compliance management, and data governance4.

The Platform perspective helps you build an enterprise-grade, scalable, hybrid cloud platform, modernize existing workloads, and implement new cloud-native solutions. Common stakeholders include CTO, technology leaders, architects, and engineers. The Platform perspective covers capabilities such as platform design and implementation, workload migration and modernization, cloud-native development, and DevOps5.

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

 Amazon 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 a relational database management system (RDBMS), so it is compatible with other RDBMS applications. You can use standard SQL to query the data.

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

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

Amazon Cognito is a service that enables you to add user sign-up and sign-in features to your web and mobile applications. Amazon Cognito also supports social and enterprise identity federation, which means you can allow your users to sign in with their existing credentials from identity providers such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. Amazon Cognito integrates with OpenID Connect (OIDC) and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 protocols to facilitate the authentication and authorization process. Amazon Cognito also provides advanced security features, such as adaptive authentication, user verification, and multi-factor authentication (MFA). References: Amazon Cognito, What is Amazon Cognito?

 AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations. AWS Config can also track changes to your EC2 instances over time and provide a history report of the modifications. AWS Service Catalog, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS Artifact are not the best services to meet this requirement. AWS Service Catalog is a service that allows you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that monitors your AWS resources and applications and provides metrics, alarms, dashboards, and logs. AWS Artifact is a service that provides on-demand access to AWS security and compliance reports and online agreements

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

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.

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]

 Amazon S3 and Amazon EBS are two AWS services that can be used to store files . Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers high scalability, durability, availability, and performance. Amazon EBS is a block storage service that provides persistent and low-latency storage volumes for Amazon EC2 instances. AWS Lambda, Amazon SageMaker, and AWS Storage Gateway are other AWS services that have different purposes, such as serverless computing, machine learning, and hybrid cloud storage .

Availability Zones are components of AWS infrastructure that can help the company ensure that the application is highly resilient. Availability Zones are multiple, isolated locations within each AWS Region. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security, and is connected to the other Availability Zones in the same Region via low-latency, high-throughput, and highly redundant networking. Availability Zones allow you to operate production applications and databases that are more highly available, fault tolerant, and scalable than would be possible from a single data center. 

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.

The correct answer is D. Platform.

The Platform perspective in the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) includes a capability for well-designed data and analytics architecture. This capability helps you design, implement, and optimize your data and analytics solutions on AWS, using services such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon EMR, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Athena, and Amazon QuickSight.A well-designed data and analytics architecture enables you to collect, store, process, analyze, and visualize data from various sources, and derive insights that can drive your business decisions12.

The Security perspective does not include a capability for data and analytics architecture, but it does include a capability for data protection, which helps you secure your data at rest and in transit using encryption, key management, access control, and auditing13.

The Governance perspective does not include a capability for data and analytics architecture, but it does include a capability for data governance, which helps you manage the quality, availability, usability, integrity, and security of your data assets14.

The Operations perspective does not include a capability for data and analytics architecture, but it does include a capability for data operations, which helps youmonitor, troubleshoot, and optimize the performance and availability of your data pipelines and workloads1.

Network ACLs (NACLs) are subnet-level firewalls in AWS, controlling inbound and outbound traffic for VPC subnets. They provide an additional layer of security by allowing or denying traffic based on IP protocol, source and destination IP, and port. Security groups operate at the instance level, while Traffic Mirroring and Internet Gateways do not function as firewalls at the subnet level.

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

AWS 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

Amazon EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events) allows users to respond to changes in the state of AWS resources. It can be configured to invoke an AWS Lambda function when an EC2 instance enters the “stopping” state, providing a serverless way to automate responses to changes in EC2 instance states. AWS Config, SNS, and CloudFormation do not provide direct triggering for specific instance state changes.

AWS Config enables users to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of AWS resources. It provides information that can be used by external auditors to ensure compliance with various regulatory requirements by tracking changes and maintaining configuration history. Amazon Cognito, FSx, and Inspector do not provide detailed configuration tracking for audit purposes.

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 Systems Manager offers the capability to automate patching for Amazon EC2 instances, including Windows instances, through Patch Manager. It can automate patching tasks, schedule updates, and apply patches based on specified baselines. AWS Organizations and Control Tower focus on account management and governance, while Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) is unrelated to patch management.

AWS Trusted Advisoris a service that provides real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. It offers checks in five categories: cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits. By continuously monitoring the AWS environment, AWS Trusted Advisor helps ensure that additional developments, integrations, changes, and growth do not jeopardize the optimized infrastructure by providing ongoing optimization and security recommendations.

B. AWS Health Dashboard: Incorrect, as it provides personalized view of service health and status updates but does not offer continuous optimization and security advice.

C. Amazon Connect: Incorrect, as it is a contact center service, not related to infrastructure optimization or security.

D. AWS Systems Manager: Incorrect, as it provides operational insights and management for AWS resources but is not specifically focused on ongoing optimization and security checks.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Trusted Advisor

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

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

"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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Shared Responsibility Model

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

AWS App Runneris a fully managed service that makes it easy for developers to quickly deploy containerized web applications and APIs at scale. It can automatically build container images from source code or directly from a container registry, and then deploy the application without requiring deep container knowledge or expertise.

AWS App Runner meets the requirements of:

Automatically creating container images from source code.

Managing the deployment of the containerized application with minimal operational overhead.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. AWS Elastic Beanstalk: While it simplifies deploying and scaling web applications, it does not automatically create container images from source code.

B. Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS): ECS is a container orchestration service that requires more manual setup for creating and managing container images and deployments.

D. Amazon EC2: This service provides virtual servers but does not offer managed container image creation or deployment.

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

TheAWS Developer Supportplan is the lowest-cost AWS Support plan that provides basic guidance and technical support for running production workloads. It offers 24/7 access to AWS customer service, documentation, whitepapers, and access to a limited set of Trusted Advisor checks. This plan is ideal for non-critical workloads or early development phases but provides lower levels of support compared to the Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, and Enterprise plans.

B. Enterprise On-Ramp: Incorrect, as it is a higher-cost support plan designed for production workloads needing more guidance and technical support.

C. Enterprise: Incorrect, as it is the most expensive support plan, providing a Technical Account Manager and other premium support features.

D. Business: Incorrect, as it provides comprehensive support for production workloads but is more expensive than the Developer plan.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Support Plans

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

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)is a scalable object storage service that allows users to store and retrieve any amount of data at any time from anywhere on the web. S3 provides the ability to make objects (files) publicly accessible via a public URL, which allows users to download files directly. S3 is highly durable, scalable, and secure, making it an ideal service for storing files that need to be accessed publicly.

Why other options are not suitable:

A. Amazon Redshift: A data warehouse service designed for complex queries and analytics, not for storing and publicly sharing files.

B. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS): Provides block storage for use with EC2 instances, but does not support public URLs or direct file access from the web.

C. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS): A managed file storage service for use with EC2 instances, not designed for public access via URLs.

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

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

AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources. This service enables you to easily rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle. Users and applications retrieve secrets with a call to Secrets Manager APIs, eliminating the need to hardcode sensitive information in plain text. Secrets Manager offers secret rotation with built-in integration for Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, Amazon DocumentDB, and other AWS services1. You can also extend Secrets Manager to rotate other types of secrets, such as credentials for Oracle, SQL Server, or MongoDB databases, by using custom AWS Lambda functions2. Secrets Manager enables you to control access to secrets using fine-grained permissions and audit secret rotation centrally for resources in the AWS Cloud, third-party services, and on-premises3. Therefore, AWS Secrets Manager supports the requirement of rotating database user credentials with the least amount of operational overhead, compared to the other options. References:

What Is AWS Secrets Manager? - AWS Secrets Manager

Rotating Your AWS Secrets Manager Secrets - AWS Secrets Manager

AWS Secrets Manager Features - AWS Secrets Manager

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

Agility is the AWS Cloud benefit that gives a company the ability to quickly deploy cloud resources to access compute, storage, and database infrastructures in a matter of minutes. Agility means that you can reduce the time to make IT resources available to your developers from weeks to just minutes, resulting in a dramatic increase in innovation and responsiveness1. AWS provides a range of services and tools that enable you to launch, scale, and manage your cloud applications with ease and speed, such as AWS CloudFormation, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS CodeDeploy, and AWS Quick Starts2345. References:

Six advantages of cloud computing - Overview of Amazon Web Services

[AWS CloudFormation]

[AWS Elastic Beanstalk]

[AWS CodeDeploy]

AWS Quick Starts

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

AWS Direct Connect

What is AWS Direct Connect?

AWS Direct Connect User Guide

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

Amazon EC2 instance store provides temporary block-level storage for your EC2 instance. This storage is located on disks that are physically attached to the host computer. Instance store is ideal for temporary storage of information that changes frequently, such as buffers, caches, scratch data,and other temporary content. It can also be used to store temporary data that you replicate across a fleet of instances, such as a load-balanced pool of web servers. An instance store consists of one or more instance store volumes exposed as block devices. The size of an instance store as well as the number of devices available varies by instance type and instance size. The virtual devices for instance store volumes are ephemeral[0-23]. Instance types that support one instance store volume have ephemeral0. Instance types that support two or more instance store volumes have ephemeral0, ephemeral1, and so on. Instance store pricing Instance store volumes are included as part of the instance’s usage cost. The data on an instance store volume persists even if the instance is rebooted. However, the data does not persist if the instance is stopped, hibernated, or terminated. When the instance is stopped, hibernated, or terminated, every block of the instance store volume is cryptographically erased. Therefore, do not rely on instance store volumes for valuable, long-term data. If you need to retain the data stored on an instance store volume beyond the lifetime of the instance, you need to manually copy that data to more persistent storage, such as an Amazon EBS volume, an Amazon S3 bucket, or an Amazon EFS file system. There are some events that can result in your data not persisting throughout the lifetime of the instance. The following table indicates whether data on instance store volumes is persisted during specific events, for both virtualized and bare metal instances1. References: Amazon EC2 instance store - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Loose coupling is a design principle that involves reducing dependencies between application components so that they can operate independently. This approach ensures that the failure of one component does not affect the availability of the others, thereby improving the application's fault tolerance and resilience. Disposable resources, automation, and rightsizing are valuable principles in cloud architecture, but they do not directly address the requirement of remaining available despite the failure of an individual component like loose coupling does.

Cost allocation tags are an AWS feature that allows for detailed tracking of cloud costs by tagging resources. These tags can be customized to represent departments, projects, or cost centers, enabling organizations to allocate and monitor expenses accurately. By using cost allocation tags, companies can create reports that break down costs by tag, providing granular insights into their cloud spending. This feature is critical for achieving detailed cost management and is a core part of AWS’s billing and cost management offerings.

AWS Organizations is the AWS service or feature that allows users to create new AWS accounts, group multiple accounts to organize workflows, and apply policies to groups of accounts. AWS Organizations enables users to centrally manage and govern their AWS environment across multiple accounts. Users can create organizational units (OUs) to group accounts based on their business needs, such as by function, project, or region. Users can also apply service control policies (SCPs) toOUs or individual accounts to define the permissions and restrictions for the AWS services and resources that they can access. AWS Organizations also offers features such as consolidated billing, account creation automation, and trusted access12. References:

AWS Organizations

What is AWS Organizations?

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?

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

Why S3 Intelligent-Tiering is Cost-Effective:

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

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

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

When to Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering:

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

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

Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering

Amazon S3 Storage Classes

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

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 Service Catalog enables companies to create, manage, and distribute catalogs of approved infrastructure as code (IaC) templates and software configurations. This service supports infrastructure automation by allowing users to deploy resources using predefined templates, which align with the company's policies and best practices. It helps in managing cloud resources at scale by utilizing IaC principles, enabling consistent deployments, and enforcing governance across AWS resources. AWS Service Catalog is an excellent choice for organizations implementing IaC.

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

Why other options are not suitable:

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

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

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

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 Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) and AWS Step Functions are AWS services that can be used to achieve a loosely coupled architecture. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queuing service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. AWS Step Functions lets you coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows so you can build and update apps quickly. Using Step Functions, you can design and run workflows that stitch together services such as AWS Lambda and Amazon SNS into feature-rich applications. References: Amazon SQS, AWS Step Functions

AWS Cost Explorer provides a visualization of historical AWS spending patterns and allows users to project future costs based on past usage. It offers advanced filtering and grouping features, enabling users to analyze costs and usage at a granular level. The AWS Cost and Usage Report provides detailed AWS cost and usage data but does not offer visualization or future cost projections. AWS Budgets is used for setting custom cost and usage budgets and receiving alerts. Amazon CloudWatch is for monitoring AWS resources and applications, not for cost management.

 AWS Organizations helps to centrally manage billing and allow controlled access to resources across AWS accounts. AWS Organizations is a service that enables the user to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that can be managed as a single unit. AWS Organizations allows the user to create groups of accounts and apply policies to them, such as service control policies (SCPs) that specify the services and actions that users and roles can access in the accounts. AWS Organizations also enables the user to use consolidated billing, which combines the usage and charges from all the accounts in the organization into a single bill.

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

AWS 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 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.

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.

EC2 Instance Savings Plans are a flexible pricing model that offer discounted hourly rates on Amazon EC2 instance usage for a 1 or 3 year term. EC2 Instance Savings Plans provide savings up to 72% off On-Demand rates, in exchange for a commitment to a specific instance family in a chosen AWS Region (for example, M5 in Virginia). These plans automatically apply to usage regardless of size (for example, m5.xlarge, m5.2xlarge, etc.), OS (for example, Windows, Linux, etc.), and tenancy (Host, Dedicated, Default) within the specified family in a Region. With an EC2Instance Savings Plan, you can change your instance size within the instance family (for example, from c5.xlarge to c5.2xlarge) or the operating system (for example, from Windows to Linux), or move from Dedicated tenancy to Default and continue to receive the discounted rate provided by your EC2 Instance Savings Plan4567. References: 4: Compute Savings Plans – Amazon Web Services, 5: What are Savings Plans? - Savings Plans, 6: How To Cut Your AWS Bill With Savings Plans (and avoid some common …, 7: AWS Savings Plans vs Reserved Instances - GorillaStack

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

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

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

To obtain these reports:

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

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

Why other options are not suitable:

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

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

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

Understanding Operational Excellence: The Operational Excellence pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework focuses on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value and continuously improving supporting processes and procedures.

Key Concepts of Operational Excellence:

Small, Reversible Changes: Making changes in small, incremental steps allows for easier troubleshooting and rollback if issues arise.

Regular Updates: Regularly updating components ensures that systems stay up-to-date with the latest features, security patches, and performance improvements.

Automation: Implementing automation for deployments, updates, and monitoring to reduce human error and increase efficiency.

Continuous Improvement: Encouraging continuous learning and process improvement to enhance operational processes.

Implementing Operational Excellence:

Deployment Automation: Use CI/CD pipelines to automate deployments and ensure that changes can be rolled back if necessary.

Monitoring and Logging: Implement comprehensive monitoring and logging to track system health and performance.

Incident Response: Develop a robust incident response plan to handle issues quickly and efficiently.

Documentation and Training: Maintain thorough documentation and provide training to ensure teams can effectively manage and improve operations.

AWS Well-Architected Framework: Operational Excellence Pillar

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

AWS Marketplace is an online store that helps customers find, buy, and immediately start using the software and services that run on AWS. Customers can choose from a wide range of software products in popular categories such as security, networking, storage, machine learning, business intelligence, database, and DevOps. Customers can also use AWS Marketplace to purchase software as a service (SaaS) solutions that are integrated with AWS. Customers can benefit from simplified procurement, billing, and deployment processes, as well as flexible pricing options and free trials. Customers can also leverage AWS Marketplace to discover and subscribe to solutions offered by AWS Partners, such as the security software vendor mentioned in the question. References: AWS Marketplace, [AWS Marketplace: Software as a Service (SaaS)], [AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials: Module 6 - AWS Pricing, Billing, and Support]

Amazon Redshiftis a fully managed data warehouse service that enables users to analyze large amounts of data quickly and cost-effectively. It is designed specifically for online analytical processing (OLAP) and is optimized for complex queries against large datasets. Amazon Redshift uses columnar storage, data compression, and massively parallel processing (MPP) to handle petabyte-scale data warehouse environments.

A. Amazon RDS: Incorrect, as it is a managed relational database service for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads, not specifically designed for data warehousing.

B. Amazon DynamoDB: Incorrect, as it is a NoSQL database service for fast and flexible data storage, not a data warehouse.

D. Amazon Aurora: Incorrect, as it is a MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database designed for high performance and availability for OLTP workloads, not data warehousing.

AWS Cloud References:

Amazon Redshift

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 Transit Gateway is a network transit hub that you can use to interconnect your VPCs and on-premises networks through a central gateway. AWS Transit Gateway simplifies and scales the connectivity between your on-premises networks and AWS, as you only need to create and manage a single connection from the central gateway to each on-premises network, rather than individual connections to each VPC. You can also use AWS Transit Gateway to connect to other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS PrivateLink12. AWS Transit Gateway supports thousands of VPCs per gateway, and enables you to peer Transit Gateways across AWS Regions3.

The other options are not AWS services or features that can simplify and scale the connectivity between on-premises networks and hundreds of VPCs using AWS Direct Connect. VPC endpoints enable private connectivity between your VPCs and supported AWS services, but do not support on-premises networks4. Amazon Route 53 is a DNS service that helps you route internet traffic to your resources, but does not provide network connectivity5. AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you securely store and manage secrets, such as database credentials and API keys, but does not relate to network connectivity

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

When you run a NoSQL database on Amazon EC2 instances, you are responsible for managing the database layer and the guest operating system of the instances. This means that you need to perform tasks such as updating the operating system, maintaining high availability, and configuring the security group firewall. AWS is responsible for managing the physical infrastructure that hosts the EC2 instances. This means that AWS ensures that the hardware and firmware of the servers, routers, switches, and other devices are updated and secure. AWS also handles the power, cooling, networking, and security of the data centers12. References: CLF-C02: Which task is responsibility of AWS to run NoSQL database on …, Best Practices for Hosting NoSQL Databases on Amazon EC2

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 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 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

Making frequent, small, reversible changes is one of the design principles for operational excellence in the AWS Cloud, as defined by the AWS Well-Architected Framework. This principle means that you should design your workloads to allow for rapid and safe changes, such as deploying updates, rolling back failures, and experimenting with new features. By making small and reversible changes, you can reduce the risk of errors, minimize the impact of failures, and increase the speed of recovery2. References: 2: AWS Documentation - AWS Well-Architected Framework - Operational Excellence Pillar

The concept of granting access only to the resources needed to perform a task is known as least privilege access. This is a security best practice in IAM that helps to reduce the risk of unauthorized or malicious actions. By applying least privilege access, you can limit the permissions of your IAM users, groups, and roles to the minimum required for their specific tasks. You can also use conditions, permissions boundaries, and IAM Access Analyzer to further restrict and verify access. References: Security best practices in IAM, Policies and permissions in IAM, Use IAM policies to grant the least privileges required to access Amazon RDS resources, How to Design a Least Privilege Architecture in AWS, 12 Azure & AWS IAM Security Best Practices

AWS CloudTrailis a service that enables governance, compliance, and operational 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. CloudTrail logs provide a history of AWS API calls for your account, including those made by the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command-line tools, and other AWS services. In this case, AWS CloudTrail will help the administrator identify which user deleted the resources by reviewing the event history that records details such as which user performed the action, the time of the action, and which resources were affected.

B. Amazon Inspector: Incorrect, as it is a security assessment service that helps identify vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices, not for tracking user activity.

C. Amazon GuardDuty: Incorrect, as it is a threat detection service that monitors malicious activity and unauthorized behavior, not specifically for tracking changes made by users.

D. AWS Trusted Advisor: Incorrect, as it provides best practices and guidance for cost optimization, security, fault tolerance, and performance, not for logging user actions.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS CloudTrail

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

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.

AWS Outposts is an AWS offering that brings AWS infrastructure and services to a customer's on-premises location. It allows companies to run AWS services locally while meeting any regulatory or compliance requirements to keep data or applications on-premises. Dedicated Instances are EC2 instances that run on hardware dedicated to a single customer but are still within AWS data centers. Amazon CloudFront is a CDN service, and AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers, neither of which meets the requirement for running an application on-premises.

TheAWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK)currently supports multiple programming languages, includingPythonandTypeScript. These languages allow developers to define cloud infrastructure using familiar programming constructs. Python and TypeScript are among the first languages supported by AWS CDK, which also supports Java, C#, and JavaScript. This enables developers to use their existing programming skills and tools to define cloud infrastructure in code.

B. Swift: Incorrect, as Swift is not currently supported by AWS CDK.

D. Ruby: Incorrect, as Ruby is not currently supported by AWS CDK.

E. PHP: Incorrect, as PHP is not currently supported by AWS CDK.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK)

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

 IAM roles are a secure way to grant permissions to applications running on an Amazon EC2 instance to make calls to other AWS services. IAM roles are entities that have specific permissions policies attached to them. You can create an IAM role and associate it with an EC2 instance when you launch it or later. The applications on the instance can then use the temporary credentials provided by the role to access AWS resources that the role allows. This way, you do not have tostore any long-term credentials or access keys on the instance, which reduces the risk of compromise or misuse12.

The other options are not correct, because:

Security groups are virtual firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic for your EC2 instances. Security groups do not grant permissions to access other AWS services, but rather filter the network traffic based on rules that you define3.

AWS Firewall Manager is a service that helps you centrally configure and manage firewall rules across your accounts and resources. AWS Firewall Manager works with AWS WAF, AWS Shield Advanced, and Amazon VPC security groups. AWS Firewall Manager does not grant permissions to access other AWS services, but rather helps you enforce consistent security policies across your AWS infrastructure4.

IAM user SSH keys are credentials that allow you to connect to your EC2 instance using SSH. SSH keys do not grant permissions to access other AWS services, but rather authenticate your identity when you log in to your instance5.

Using an IAM role to grant permissions to applications running on Amazon EC2 instances - AWS Identity and Access Management

IAM roles for Amazon EC2 - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Security groups for your VPC - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

What is AWS Firewall Manager? - AWS Firewall Manager

Connecting to your Linux instance using SSH - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

When a company moves from on-premises IT architecture to the AWS Cloud, it gains several benefits:

A. Reduced or eliminated tasks for hardware troubleshooting, capacity planning, and procurement: In an on-premises environment, companies must maintain their own hardware, which involves procuring servers, configuring them, managing capacity, and troubleshooting hardware failures. Moving to the AWS Cloud eliminates or greatly reduces these tasks since AWS is responsible for the underlying infrastructure.

E. Faster deployment of new features and applications: AWS provides scalable resources and automation tools that allow companies to deploy applications faster. Services like AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS Lambda help streamline the deployment process, enabling quicker time-to-market for new features and applications.

Why other options are not suitable:

B. Elimination of the need for trained IT staff: While the cloud reduces certain operational burdens, it does not eliminate the need for skilled IT professionals to manage cloud services, ensure proper configurations, handle security, and manage applications.

C. Automatic security configuration of all applications that are migrated to the cloud: AWS provides security tools and services, but security configurations and management still require input from the customer to tailor them to specific application requirements.

D. Elimination of the need for disaster recovery planning: While AWS offers robust disaster recovery options, companies must still plan and implement disaster recovery strategies, such as backups and multi-region deployments.

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a fully managed, scalable, and serverless NFS (Network File System) file system specifically designed for use with AWS services and on-premises resources. It enables companies to create and configure file systems that can be accessed from multiple Amazon EC2instances simultaneously, making it ideal for use cases that require shared file storage for AWS compute services.

Why Amazon EFS Fits the Requirements:

Managed Service: Amazon EFS is a fully managed file storage service that simplifies the process of setting up and managing NFS file systems.

Scalability and Elasticity: EFS automatically scales to accommodate the storage needs of applications, without the need to provision or manage storage capacity.

NFS Compatibility: Amazon EFS natively supports the NFSv4 protocol, making it compatible with a wide range of applications and workloads that require NFS access.

Integration with AWS Compute Services: EFS integrates seamlessly with Amazon EC2 and other AWS services, providing a shared file storage solution across multiple instances and services within the AWS cloud environment.

Why Other Options Do Not Fit:

A. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS): While EBS provides block-level storage that can be attached to individual EC2 instances, it is not a file system, nor does it provide managed NFS file storage capabilities. EBS is designed for single-instance access rather than shared file access across multiple instances.

B. AWS Storage Gateway Tape Gateway: Tape Gateway is designed for archival purposes and allows companies to store virtual tape backups in Amazon S3 or Glacier. It does not support NFS file storage and is not intended for regular compute access.

C. Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval: Amazon S3 Glacier is optimized for data archiving and long-term storage of infrequently accessed data, but it does not provide NFS file system capabilities, nor is it suitable for high-performance access needs associated with compute services.

For more details, you can refer to theAWS Cloud Practitioner Essentialscontent, specifically the modules onStorage Serviceswhere Amazon EFS is covered as the managed NFS file storage solution offered by AWS.

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

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

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

TheReliabilitypillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework focuses on the ability of a system to recover from failures and disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand, and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or network issues. This includes the ability to automatically recover from service interruptions and implement mechanisms that anticipate, respond to, and prevent failures.

A. Security: Incorrect, as it focuses on protecting information, systems, and assets while delivering business value.

B. Performance efficiency: Incorrect, as it focuses on using IT and computing resources efficiently.

C. Operational excellence: Incorrect, as it focuses on operations in the cloud, including monitoring and managing systems.

AWS Cloud References:

AWS Well-Architected Framework - Reliability Pillar

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

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

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

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

The 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

 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

The correct answer is C because AWS CloudTrail is a service that will help a company identify the user who deleted an Amazon EC2 instance yesterday. AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables users 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. Users can use AWS CloudTrail to audit, monitor, and troubleshoot their AWS resources and actions. The other options are incorrect because they are not services that will help a company identify the user who deleted an Amazon EC2 instance yesterday. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that enables users to collect, analyze, and visualize metrics, logs, and events from their AWS resources and applications. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides real-time guidance to help users follow AWS best practices for security, performance, cost optimization, and fault tolerance. Amazon Inspector is a service that helps users find security vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices in their Amazon EC2 instances. Reference: AWS CloudTrail FAQs

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

 The 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

The company should deploy the EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones to design a highly available application. Availability Zones are isolated locations within an AWS Region that are engineered to be fault-tolerant and operate independently of each other. By deploying the EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones, the company can ensure that their application can withstand the failure of an entire Availability Zone and continue to operate with minimal disruption. Deploying the EC2 instances across multiple edge locations, VPCs, or AWS accounts will not provide the same level of availability and fault tolerance as Availability Zones. Edge locations are part of the Amazon CloudFront service, which is a content delivery network (CDN) that caches and serves webcontent to users. VPCs are virtual networks that isolate the AWS resources within an AWS Region. AWS accounts are the primary units of ownership and access control for AWS resources12

The design principles for reliability in the AWS Cloud are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

AWS Control Tower uses AWS CloudFormation to create resources in your landing zone. AWS CloudFormation is a service that helps you model and set up your AWS resources using templates. AWS Control Tower supports creating AWS::ControlTower::EnabledControl resources in AWS CloudFormation. Therefore, the correct answer is A. You can learn more about AWS Control Tower and AWS CloudFormation

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

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

AWS Snowball Edge is a service that provides a physical device that can store up to 100 TB of data and perform local data processing on premises. It enables users to transfer data to and from the AWS Cloud in areas with limited or no internet connectivity. It also supports AWS Greengrass, which allows users to run AWS Lambda functions and other AWS services locally without a stable internet connection. Amazon S3 is a storage service that provides scalable, durable, and secure object storage. It requires a stable internet connection to transfer data to and from the AWS Cloud. AWS Storage Gateway is a service that provides a hybrid storage solution that connects on-premises applications to AWS Cloud storage services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon S3 Glacier, and Amazon EBS. It requires a stable internet connection to synchronize data between the on-premises and cloud storage. AWS Backup is a service that provides a centralized and automated solution to back up data across AWS services and on-premises resources. It requires a stable internet connection to transfer data to and from the AWS Cloud.

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

 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

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

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

Amazon Redshift is the service that meets the requirements of using standard SQL to query and combine exabytes of structured and semi-structured data across a data warehouse, operational database, and data lake. Amazon Redshift is a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service that allows you to run complex analytic queries using standard SQL and your existing business intelligence tools. Amazon Redshift also supports Redshift Spectrum, a feature that allows you to directly query and join data stored in Amazon S3 using the same SQL syntax. Amazon Redshift can scale up or down to handle any volume of data and deliver fast query performance5

Amazon Kendra is a service that provides a highly accurate and easy-to-use enterprise search service that is powered by machine learning. Kendra delivers powerful natural language search capabilities to your websites and applications so your end users can more easily find the information they need within the vast amount of content spread across your company. Amazon SageMaker is a service that provides a fully managed platform for data scientists and developers to quickly and easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models at any scale. Amazon Augmented AI (Amazon A2I) is a service that makes it easy to build the workflows required for human review of ML predictions. Amazon A2I brings human review to all developers, removing the undifferentiated heavy lifting associated with building human review systems or managing large numbers of human reviewers. 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. None of these services provide an enterprise search service that is powered by machine learning.

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

The correct answer is A because Amazon CloudFront is an AWS service that provides secure delivery of data, videos, applications, and APIs to users globally with low latency and high transfer speeds. Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network (CDN) that integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and AWS Shield. Amazon CloudFront delivers content through a worldwide network of edge locations that are located close to the end users. The other options are incorrect because they are not AWS services that provide secure delivery of data, videos, applications, and APIs to users globally with low latency and high transfer speeds. Elastic Load Balancing is an AWS service that distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses. Amazon S3 is an AWS service that provides object storage for data of any size and type. Amazon Elastic Transcoder is an AWS service that converts media files from their original source format into different formats that will play on various devices. Reference: Amazon CloudFront FAQs

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

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

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

The correct answer is C because Dedicated Hosts are Amazon EC2 instances that are required when a user wants to utilize their existing per-socket, per-core, or per-virtual machine software licenses for a Microsoft Windows server running on AWS. Dedicated Hosts are physical servers that are dedicated to a single customer. Dedicated Hosts allow customers to use their existing server-bound software licenses, such as Windows Server, SQL Server, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, subject to their license terms. The other options are incorrect because they are not Amazon EC2 instances that are required when a user wants to utilize their existing per-socket, per-core, or per-virtual machine software licenses for a Microsoft Windows server running on AWS. Spot Instances are spare Amazon EC2 instances that are available at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. Spot Instances are suitable for stateless, fault-tolerant, and flexible workloads that can recover from interruptions easily. Dedicated Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that run on hardware that is dedicated to a single customer, but not to a specific physical server. Dedicated Instances do not allow customers to use their existing server-bound software licenses. Reserved Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that are reserved for a specific period of time (one or three years) in exchange for a lower hourly rate. Reserved Instances are suitable for steady-state or predictable workloads that run for a long duration. Reserved Instances do not allow customers to use their existing server-bound software licenses. Reference: Dedicated Hosts, Amazon EC2 Instance Purchasing Options

The AWS service that is designed to help users orchestrate a workflow process for a set of AWS Lambda functions is AWS Step Functions. AWS Step Functions is a service that helps userscoordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows that can be triggered by events, such as messages, API calls, or schedules. AWS Step Functions allows users to create and visualize complex workflows that can include branching, parallel execution, error handling, retries, and timeouts. AWS Step Functions can integrate with AWS Lambda to orchestrate a sequence of Lambda functions that perform different tasks or logic. Amazon DynamoDB, AWS CodePipeline, and AWS Batch are not the best services to use for orchestrating a workflow process for a set of AWS Lambda functions. Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and consistent performance, scalability, and flexibility. AWS CodePipeline is a fully managed continuous delivery service that helps users automate the release process of their applications. AWS Batch is a fully managed service that helps users run batch computing workloads on the AWS Cloud.

 Security groups are virtual firewalls that control the inbound and outbound traffic for Amazon EC2 instances. They can be used to allow access to an Amazon EC2 instance through only a specific port, such as port 22 for SSH or port 80 for HTTP. Security groups cannot deny access to malicious IP addresses at a subnet level, as they only allow or deny traffic based on the rules defined by the customer. To block malicious IP addresses, customers can use network ACLs, which are stateless firewalls that can be applied to subnets. Security groups cannot protect data that is cached by Amazon CloudFront, as they only apply to EC2 instances. To protect data that is cached by Amazon CloudFront, customers can use encryption, signed URLs, or signed cookies. Security groups are not stateless firewalls, as they track the state of the traffic and automatically allow the response traffic to flow back to the source. Stateless firewalls do not track the state of the traffic and require rules for both inbound and outbound traffic.

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

AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service that enables users to accomplish the task of recording API calls made to AWS services. AWS CloudTrail is a service that tracks user activity and API usage across the 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. Users can use AWS CloudTrail to audit, monitor, and troubleshoot their AWS resources and actions. The other options are incorrect because they are not tasks that users can accomplish using AWS CloudTrail. Generating an IAM user credentials report is a task that users can accomplish using IAM, which is an AWS service that enables users to manage access and permissions to AWS resources and services. Assessing the compliance of AWS resource configurations with policies and guidelines is a task that users can accomplish using AWS Config, which is an AWS service that enables users to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of their AWS resources. Ensuring that Amazon EC2 instances are patched with the latest security updates is a task that users can accomplish using AWS Systems Manager, which is an AWS service that enables users to automate operational tasks, manage configuration and compliance, and monitor system health and performance. Reference: AWS CloudTrail FAQs

The correct answer to the question is D because AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service that can be used to accomplish the goal of identifying any security group that is allowing unrestricted incoming SSH traffic. AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides customers with recommendations that help them follow AWS best practices. Trusted Advisor evaluates the customer’s AWS environment and identifies ways to optimize their AWS infrastructure, improve security and performance, reduce costs, and monitor service quotas. One of the checks that Trusted Advisor performs is the Security Groups - Specific Ports Unrestricted check, which flags security groups that allow unrestricted access to specific ports, such as port 22 for SSH. Customers can use this check to review and modify their security group rules to restrict SSH access to only authorized sources. Reference: Security Groups - Specific Ports Unrestricted

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Amazon S3 offers unlimited storage for any amount of data. You can store as many objects as you want, and each object can be as large as 5 terabytes. You pay only for the storage space that you actually use, and there are no minimum commitments or upfront fees. Amazon S3 also provides high durability, availability, scalability, and security for your data.

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].

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

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

Architecture optimization is the best practice for cost governance that this example shows. Architecture optimization is the process of designing and implementing AWS solutions that are efficient, scalable, and cost-effective. By using specific AWS services to improve efficiency and reduce cost, the company is following the architecture optimization best practice. Some of the techniques for architecture optimization include using the right size and type of resources, leveraging elasticity and scalability, choosing the most suitable storage class, and using serverless and managed services2.

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

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

AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources. This service enables you to easily rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle1. Amazon S3 is a storage service that does not offer automatic rotation of credentials. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is a service that provides secure, hierarchical storage for configuration data management and secrets management2, but it does not offer automatic rotation of credentials. AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of your AWS account3, but it does not store or rotate credentials.

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

 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 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

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

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

 The correct answer is C because AWS Trusted Advisor is an AWS service or tool that provides users with the ability to monitor AWS service quotas. AWS Trusted Advisor is an online tool that provides users with real-time guidance to help them provision their resources following AWS best practices. 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 provide users with the ability to monitor AWS service quotas. AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables users to track user activity and API usage across their AWS account. AWS Cost and Usage Reports is a tool that enables users to access comprehensive information about their AWS costs and usage. AWS Budgets is a tool that enables users to plan their service usage, costs, and reservations. Reference: [AWS Trusted Advisor FAQs]

AWS customers are responsible for enabling encryption of data at rest for Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS). Amazon EBS encryption offers a simple encryption solution for your EBSvolumes that does not require you to build, maintain, and secure your own key management infrastructure. You can encrypt both the boot and data volumes of your EC2 instances. You can use AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer master keys (CMKs) or your own CMKs to encrypt your volumes2.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is the AWS service or tool that can help the company launch the number of EC2 instances that will be needed to handle the workload. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling automatically adjusts the capacity of the EC2 instances based on the demand and the predefined scaling policies. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling also helps to improve availability and reduce costs by scaling in and out as needed. For more information, see What is Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling? and [Getting Started with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling].

The correct answer is D because AWS Enterprise Support is the support plan that provides customers with access to an AWS technical account manager (TAM). AWS Enterprise Support is the highest level of support plan offered by AWS, and it provides customers with the most comprehensive and personalized support experience. An AWS TAM is a dedicated technical resource who works closely with customers to understand their business and technical needs, provide proactive guidance, and coordinate support across AWS teams. The other options are incorrect because they are not support plans that provide customers with access to an AWS TAM. AWS Basic Support is the default and free support plan that provides customers with access to online documentation, forums, and account information. AWS Developer Support is the lowest level of paid support plan that provides customers with access to technical support during business hours, general guidance, and best practice recommendations. AWS Business Support is the intermediate level of paid support plan that provides customers with access to technical support 24/7, system health checks, architectural guidance, and case management. Reference: AWS Support Plans

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

 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

AWS 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.

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

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. It supports both document and key-value data models and is designed to handle large amounts of data across multiple servers. Other options, like Amazon RDS and Aurora, are managed relational database services, and Amazon Redshift is a data warehousing service.