AWS Cloud Studies > EC2 ( Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud ) > Flashcards

EC2 ( Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud ) Flashcards

(77 cards)

Study These Flashcards
1
Q

What is Amazon EC2

A

Is a Web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is an instance

A

It’s a virtual server in the cloud

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What are the Instance Types Categories ?

A
  • General Purpose Instances
  • Compute Optimized instances
  • Memory Optimized instances
  • Storage Optimized instances
  • Accelerated Computing Instances
  • HPC Optimized instances
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What are General Purpose Instances ?

A

Are instances that provide a balance of compute, memory and networking resources.

Eg.
Web servers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What are Compute Optimized instances ?

A

Are instances Optimized for compute intensive workloads

Eg.
Game servers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What are Memory Optimized instances ?

A

These instances are used for Memory-intensive workloads that process large data sets in memory.

Eg.
Big Data analytics

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What are Storage Optimized instances ?

A

They are instances designed for workloads that require sequential read and write access to very large data sets on local storage.

Eg.
Data Warehousing

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

What are Accelerated Computing Instances ?

A

These are GPU instances that use hardware accelerators.

Eg.
Machine/Deep learning

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What are HPC Optimized instances ?

A

These instances are optimized for High Performance Computing workloads.

Eg.
Complex Simulations

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What attributes are required for an EC2 instance to be created?

A

Instance Type
Instance Size
AMI

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What does AMI stand for ?

A

Amazon Machine image

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What is an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ?

A

It is a template that contains a software configuration such as an OS, Applications and Application server, this help provide the information required to launch an instance.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

True of False

AMI can only launch a single instance at a time ?

A

False

You can launch a single instance or multiple instances at a time

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What is Instance Store

A

It is disks that are physically attached to the host computer

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What do we call disk storage that is physically attached to the host computer ?

A

Instance Store

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What is the function of Instance Store ?

A

It provides Temporary block level storage for your instance.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What can you use for persistence storage for your EC2 instance ?

A

Amazon Elastic Block Store ( EBS )

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What is EBS ?

A

It is a Raw, unformatted external block device that provides persistent storage for your EC2 instance.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What does EC2 use Amazon S3 for ?

A

It uses it to store AMI (Amazon Machine Images )

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

What storage methods does Amazon EC2 have

A
  • Instance Store
  • Amazon ( EBS )
  • Amazon S3
  • Amazon ( EFS )
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What is Amazon EFS ( Elastic File System ) ?

A
  • It’s a file system that provides scalable file storage.
  • Aplications running on your EC2 instances can access your file system at the same time.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

What is a VPC ( Virtual Private Cloud ) ?

A

It’s a logically isolated area within the AWS Cloud.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

What does the VPC do ?

A

It lets you provision a Logically isolated area within the AWS Cloud where you can launch your EC2 instance in a virtual network that you define.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Can a VPC span multiple AZs ?

A

Yes it can, but not regions

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
What acts as a virtual firewall within a VPC/subnet ?
Security Group ( SG )
23
What is used to control traffic for your EC2 instances ?
Security Group ( SG )
24
List the steps to launch an EC2 instance
1) Select a Location ( Region & AZs ) 2) Select an Amazon Machine Image ( AMI ) 3) Determine instance type and sizes 4) Configure network access such as a VPC and specify a preferred subnet. 5) Add storage ( EBS / EFS / Instance Store ) 6) Option to add tags to instances 7) Configure SGs ( Security Groups ) 8) Can secure login information with the use of key pairs ( Public and Private keys )
25
What are tags used for ?
They are used to categorize your resources in helping to search and manage your resources.
26
What are the Pricing Models available for EC2 instances ?
On-Demand Reserved Savings Spot Choices
27
What other services are available to be used as Integration Points on EC2 ?
EBS S3 IAM CloudWatch
28
What is a Key Pair in EC2?
A set of public and private keys used to securely connect to an EC2 instance (SSH for Linux, RDP for Windows).
29
What are On-Demand Instances?
Instances billed per second/hour with no long-term commitment.
30
What are Reserved Instances (RIs)?
Instances with a 1- or 3-year commitment offering significant cost savings.
31
What are Spot Instances?
Instances that use spare AWS capacity at discounted rates but can be terminated by AWS with short notice.
32
What are Savings Plans?
- Flexible pricing models - Offering lower prices in exchange for a usage commitment.
33
What happens to EBS volumes when an EC2 instance stops?
EBS volumes remain intact (persistent storage).
34
What is a Security Group?
A virtual firewall that controls inbound and outbound traffic to an EC2 instance (stateful).
35
What is a Network ACL?
- A subnet-level firewall controlling inbound and outbound traffic - It stateless.
36
What is an Elastic IP?
A static public IPv4 address that can be associated with an EC2 instance.
36
What is an ENI?
An Elastic Network Interface — a virtual network card attached to an EC2 instance.
37
What is an Auto Scaling Group (ASG)?
Automatically adds or removes EC2 instances based on demand
38
What is an Availability Zone (AZ)?
- One or more discrete data centers within an AWS Region. - Designed for high availability - AZs are isolated from each other
38
What is an AWS Region?
- Physical geographic locations (e.g., us-east-1, eu-west-1). - Each region is isolated. - You choose region for latency & compliance. - It contains multiple Availability Zones.
39
What is an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)?
Distributes incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances for high availability.
40
What is EC2 Status Check?
Automated checks to monitor instance hardware and software health.
40
What is CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch monitors EC2 metrics like CPU utilization, disk I/O, and network traffic.
41
What is IAM Role for EC2?
It is a role that is attached to an EC2 instance to grant secure permissions without hardcoding credentials.
42
Why should you avoid using the root user for EC2 management?
For security best practice — use IAM users and roles instead.
43
What is the principle of least privilege?
Granting only the permissions necessary to perform a task
44
What is Placement Group?
A logical grouping of instances to influence placement for performance or fault tolerance (Cluster, Spread, Partition).
45
How can you secure SSH access to EC2?
Restrict Security Group to specific IPs Use key-based authentication Disable password login Use bastion hosts
46
What is EC2 Hibernate?
Saves RAM state to EBS so the instance resumes exactly where it left off.
47
A web application must remain available if one data center fails. How should EC2 instances be deployed?
Deploy EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones within the same Region and place them behind Elastic Load Balancing.
48
Traffic increases unpredictably. What is the most cost-effective scaling design?
Use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling with dynamic scaling policies based on metrics (e.g., CPU utilization).
49
How do you architect for fault isolation between tiers (web/app/database)?
Separate subnets per tier Deploy in multiple AZs Use Security Groups to control tier-to-tier traffic Place DB in private subnet
50
A database on EC2 requires high IOPS and low latency. Which EBS type?
Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1/io2) from Amazon Elastic Block Store.
51
Application logs must persist after instance termination. What should you use?
Separate EBS volume with DeleteOnTermination = false OR Ship logs to Amazon Simple Storage Service
52
Multiple EC2 instances need shared Linux file storage. What service?
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS).
53
When should you use Instance Store instead of EBS?
For temporary, high-speed storage where data loss is acceptable (e.g., caching, buffers).
54
An EC2 instance needs access to S3 without storing credentials. Best practice?
Attach an AWS Identity and Access Management role to the instance.
55
What is the key differences between Security Groups and NACLs?
Security Groups = Stateful, instance-level Network ACLs = Stateless, subnet-level
56
How should you securely allow SSH access to production EC2 instances?
Restrict Security Group to specific IP ranges Use bastion host or AWS Systems Manager Avoid 0.0.0.0/0
57
A workload runs continuously for 3 years. Cheapest option?
Savings Plans or Reserved Instances.
58
A fault-tolerant batch job can handle interruptions. Best pricing model?
Spot Instances.
59
Dev/test servers run only during business hours. Best approach?
Schedule start/stop Use Instance Scheduler Consider Savings Plans if predictable
60
CPU spikes trigger scaling events. What service monitors this metric?
Amazon CloudWatch
61
EC2 instance fails a system status check. What does it indicate?
Underlying AWS hardware issue.
62
Instance fails instance status check. What does it indicate?
OS-level or configuration issue inside the instance.
63
EC2 instances in private subnet need internet access for updates. Solution?
Route traffic through a NAT Gateway in a public subnet inside Amazon Virtual Private Cloud.
64
How do you provide a fixed public IP for an EC2 instance?
Associate an Elastic IP.
64
What ensures even traffic distribution across EC2 instances in multiple AZs?
ELB Elastic Load Balancer( ALB/NLB) with cross-zone load balancing enabled.
65
When should you use Placement Groups (Cluster)?
For low-latency, high-throughput workloads (e.g., HPC).
66
What is EC2 Hibernate useful for?
Preserving in-memory state for faster restart (RAM saved to EBS).
67
How can you automate patching of EC2 instances?
Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager.
68
What underlying technology improves EC2 performance and security isolation?
The AWS Nitro System.
69
Exam question mentions “decoupling application tiers.” What should you think?
Use services like SQS, load balancers, and Auto Scaling between EC2 tiers.
70
Exam question mentions “minimize operational overhead.” What is preferred?
Managed services over self-managed EC2 where possible.
AWS Cloud Studies
flashcards
Decks in class (32)
# Cards
Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2026 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions