AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Sample Questions and Explanations

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.

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.

AWS is responsible for security *of* the cloud: the buildings, hardware, and global network. Physical data center security is fully AWS's job.

Wrong choices

• The customer: Customers cannot enter AWS data centers, so they cannot protect them.
• The customer and AWS equally: Physical security is entirely AWS's job.
• The customer's internet provider: Internet providers have no role in AWS data center security.

With Amazon EC2 (IaaS), the customer manages the guest operating system, including security patches, plus the applications and data on it.

Wrong choices

• AWS: AWS patches the host and hardware, not the guest operating system on EC2.
• AWS Professional Services: Professional Services can be hired for projects, but patching is not automatically their job.
• The AWS Marketplace seller of the instance type: Instance types are not sold by Marketplace sellers, and they do not patch your servers.

On-Demand Instances are paid by the second or hour with no long-term commitment. They suit short-term, unpredictable workloads that cannot be interrupted.

Wrong choices

• Spot Instances: Spot Instances can be interrupted, which this workload cannot accept.
• Reserved Instances: Reserved Instances need a 1-year or 3-year commitment.
• Dedicated Hosts: Dedicated Hosts are physical servers for special needs and cost more.

Spot Instances use spare EC2 capacity at a large discount. AWS can take them back with a short warning, so they suit flexible jobs that can be interrupted.

Wrong choices

• On-Demand Instances: On-Demand works, but it costs more than Spot.
• Reserved Instances: Reserved Instances need a long-term commitment and suit steady use.
• Dedicated Hosts: Dedicated Hosts are the most expensive option.

With the cloud you trade fixed expense for variable expense. Instead of paying a large amount up front for servers and data centers, you pay only for the resources you use.

Wrong choices

• Benefit from massive economies of scale: This is about AWS's large size lowering prices, not about paying only for what you use.
• Increase speed and agility: This is about getting resources faster, not about how you pay.
• Go global in minutes: This is about reaching users in other parts of the world quickly.

In the cloud you can add or remove resources as demand changes, so you stop guessing capacity. You no longer pay for idle servers or run short when traffic grows.

Wrong choices

• Go global in minutes: This is about reaching new countries quickly, not about sizing for demand.
• Benefit from massive economies of scale: This is about lower prices from AWS's size.
• Stop spending money running and maintaining data centers: This is about letting AWS handle the building, power, and hardware.