AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner: Cloud Technology and Services Concepts
Importance ★★★★★ · 34% (estimate)
Overview
This chapter is the largest part of the exam. It covers the AWS global infrastructure, ways to access AWS, and the main services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, AI, and application integration. Most questions describe a need in one sentence and ask which service fits.
AWS is built from Regions around the world. Each Region contains multiple isolated Availability Zones, and each Availability Zone is one or more data centers. Edge locations cache content for Amazon CloudFront. Local Zones bring AWS close to large cities, Wavelength Zones sit inside 5G networks, and Outposts puts AWS hardware in your own building. Choose a Region by compliance, latency to users, service availability, and price, because not every service is in every Region.
For compute, Amazon EC2 gives virtual servers, AWS Lambda runs code on events without servers, Fargate runs containers without servers, and Elastic Beanstalk and Lightsail make deployment simple. Elastic Load Balancing spreads traffic and EC2 Auto Scaling adds or removes instances. For storage, Amazon S3 is object storage, Amazon EBS is a block volume for one instance, and Amazon EFS is a shared file system. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost class for archives.
For databases, Amazon RDS is managed relational, DynamoDB is serverless NoSQL, Redshift is a data warehouse, and ElastiCache is an in-memory cache. Athena queries data in S3 with SQL, Kinesis handles streaming data, and Glue prepares data. SQS queues messages, SNS sends to many subscribers, EventBridge routes events, and Step Functions runs workflows. AI services include Rekognition for images, Textract for documents, Comprehend for text, Transcribe for speech to text, Polly for text to speech, and Bedrock for foundation models.
Key concepts
Region and Availability Zone
A Region is a geographic area with multiple isolated Availability Zones. An Availability Zone is one or more data centers with separate power and networking.
Memory tipMulti-AZ = higher availability
Edge location and CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront caches content at edge locations close to users so it loads faster.
Memory tipCache close to users = CloudFront
S3, EBS, EFS
S3 stores objects in buckets, EBS is a block volume for an EC2 instance, and EFS is a file system many instances share.
Memory tipHard drive for EC2 = EBS
Database choices
RDS for managed relational databases, DynamoDB for serverless NoSQL, Redshift for analytics, ElastiCache for in-memory caching.
Memory tipData warehouse = Redshift
Serverless
AWS manages the servers so you do not. Lambda, Fargate, and DynamoDB are serverless; EC2 is not.
Memory tipRun code on events = Lambda
SQS vs SNS
SQS holds messages in a queue until a consumer processes them. SNS sends one message to many subscribers at once.
Memory tipQueue = SQS, notify = SNS
Infrastructure as code
AWS CloudFormation builds resources from template files so the same environment can be created again and again.
Memory tipTemplates = CloudFormation
Often tested
- Private dedicated link to AWS = Direct Connect; encrypted over the internet = Site-to-Site VPN.
- DNS = Route 53; private network = VPC.
- Metrics and alarms = CloudWatch.
- SQL on files in S3 without servers = Athena.
- Speech to text = Transcribe; text to speech = Polly.
- Managed Kubernetes = EKS; AWS's own container service = ECS.
Easy to confuse: Storage services
| Service | Type | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | Object storage | Photos, documents, backups, data lakes |
| Amazon EBS | Block storage | Disk for one EC2 instance |
| Amazon EFS | File storage | Shared files for many Linux instances |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | Archive storage | Rarely used records; hours to retrieve |
3 sample questions
Verified practice questions from this unit.
Question 1. What is an Availability Zone?
- ① A site that caches content close to users for Amazon CloudFront
- ② A single rack of servers rented to one customer
- ③ One or more separate data centers with their own power and networking, inside a Region
- ④ A separate geographic area of the world that contains several data centers
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Answer: ③ One or more separate data centers with their own power and networking, inside a Region
Key point: Region > Availability Zones (isolated data centers)
An Availability Zone (AZ) is one or more discrete data centers with redundant power, networking, and connectivity. Each Region has multiple AZs that are isolated from each other.
Wrong choices
- A separate geographic area of the world that contains several data centers: That describes a Region, which contains several Availability Zones.
- A site that caches content close to users for Amazon CloudFront: That describes an edge location.
- A single rack of servers rented to one customer: Availability Zones are much larger and are shared by many customers.
Question 2. A video website wants to cache its images and videos close to viewers around the world so pages load faster. Which service should it use?
- ① Amazon S3 Glacier
- ② Amazon Route 53
- ③ AWS Direct Connect
- ④ Amazon CloudFront
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Answer: ④ Amazon CloudFront
Key point: Cache content at edge locations = CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN). It caches content at edge locations near users so it is delivered with low delay.
Wrong choices
- Amazon Route 53: Route 53 is a DNS service; it does not cache content.
- AWS Direct Connect: Direct Connect links a data center to AWS with a private connection.
- Amazon S3 Glacier: S3 Glacier storage classes are for long-term archives.
Question 3. A company needs virtual servers in the cloud where it can choose the operating system and install its own software. Which service should it use?
- ① AWS Lambda
- ② Amazon S3
- ③ Amazon RDS
- ④ Amazon EC2
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Answer: ④ Amazon EC2
Key point: Virtual servers = EC2
Amazon EC2 provides resizable virtual servers (instances). You choose the instance type and operating system and control the software.
Wrong choices
- AWS Lambda: Lambda runs code without servers you manage, so you cannot choose and manage the operating system.
- Amazon S3: S3 stores objects; it does not run servers.
- Amazon RDS: RDS is a managed relational database.
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