Study Cards Flashcards by Amy Gray

Instance Families

Name EC2 instance families

(Hint: There are 5)

General purpose
Compute optimised
Memory optimised
Accelerated computing
Storage optimised

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Instance Families

General Purpose Instances

Key features and example usage

Key features:

Balanced compute, networking and memory resources
Can be used with a variety of workloads, for example:
- Application servers
- Small and medium dbs
- Backend servers for enterprise applications

Example usage:
Ideal when an application doesn’t require optimisation in a single resource area

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Instance Families

Compute Optimized Instances

Key features and example usage

Key features:
* Ideal for applications requiring high-performance processors
* Can be used for workloads Fuchs as web, application and gaming servers
* Can be used for batch processing workloads required processing many transactions in a single group

Example usage:
Ideal for high-performance web servers, compute-intensive applications servers and dedicated gaming servers

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Instance Families

Memory Optimized Instances

Key features and example usage

Key features:
* Designed to deliver fast performance for workloads processing large datasets in memory
* Can run workloads with high memory needs

Example usage:
Ideal for a high-performance database or a workload that involved performing real-time processing of a large amount of unstructured data

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Instance Families

Accelerated Computing Instances

Key features and example usage

Key features:
* Uses hardware accelerators, or coprocessors to perform some functions
* A hardware accelerator is a component that can expedite data processing
* Can be more efficient that performing some functions on CPUs

Example usage:
Ideal for workloads such as graphics applications, game streaming and application streaming

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Instance Families

Storage Optimized Instances

Key features and example usage

Key features:
* Designed for workloads that require high, sequential read and write access to large datasets on local storage

Example usage:
Ideal for workloads such as distributed file systems, data warehousing applications and high-frequency online transaction processing (OLTP) systems

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Instance Families

What is IOPS (input/output operations per second)?

What is the best instance family type for an high IOPS app?

What is it?
* IOPS is a metric that measures the performance of a storage device
* Indicates how many different input or output operations a device can perform

Which instance family is better suited?
Storage Optimised instance are designed to handle high IOPS requirements

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Pricing

Name the Amazon EC2 pricing models

(Hint: There are 5)

On-Demand Instances
Amazon EC Savings Plans
Reserved Instances
Spot Instances
Dedicated Hosts

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Pricing

On-Demand Instances

Key features

No upfront costs
No minimum contracts
Only pay for the compute time used
Ideal for short-term (less than 1 year), irregular workloads

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Pricing

Amazon EC2 Savings Plans

Key features

1-year or 3-year terms with commitment to a given compute amount
Potential savings of up to 72% vs On-Demand Instances
Usage over committed compute amount charged at On-Demand rate

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Pricing

Reserved Instances

Key features

(Hint: there are multiple types of Reserved Instances)

A billing discount applied to use of On-Demand Instances
Multiple types with varying terms:
- Standard Reserved (1-year or 3-year)
- Convertible Reserved (1-year or 3-year)
- Scheduled Reserved (1-year)
Service won’t be interrupted at the end of the term, will be switched to On-Demand rates until the instance is terminated or a new one is purchased

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Pricing

Spot Instances

Key features

Uses unused Amazon EC2 capacity as and when it is available
Ideal for workloads with flexible start and end times, or that can handle interruptions
Cost savings of up to 90% vs On-Demand Instances

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Pricing

Dedicated Hosts

Key features

Physical servers with Amazon EC2 instance capacity
Fully dedicated to your use
Can use your own per-socket, per-core or per-c/m licenses to help maintain license compliance
Most expensive Amazon EC2 option

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Scalability

What is scalability?

An architecture design allowing you to begin with only the resources you need and automatically scale in or out to respond to changing demand
Pay only for the resources you use
Always have enough capacity to meet customer needs

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Scalability

What is the purpose of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?

It automatically handles horizontal scaling, adding or removing Amazon EC2 Instances in response to changing application demand

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Scalability

Name two approaches to Amazon EC2 Auto Sclaing

Dynamic Scaling: Responds to changing demand
Predictive Scaling: Automatically schedules the right number of EC2 instances based on predicted demand

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Scalability

Scaling Up (Vertically) vs Scaling Out (Horizontally)

Scaling Up: Adding more power to the machines that are running
Scaling Out: Adding more resources to handle more traffic, for example more EC2 Instances
- Helps elasticity of the system

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Scalability

What is an AWS Auto Scaling Group?

An Auto Scaling group contains a collection of EC2 instances that are treated as a logical grouping for the purposes of automatic scaling and management

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Scalability

What are the main properties of an AWS Auto Scaling Group

(Hint: there are 3)

Minimum Capacity: The number of Amazon EC2 Instances that launch upon creation of the Auto Scaling Group
Desired Capacity: If not specified it defaults to the minimum capacity
Maximum Capacity: You may configure to scale out in response to increased demand, but only to your max EC2 Instance capacity

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Messaging and Queing

What is Elastic Load Balancing?

The Elastic Load Balancing service handles all incoming traffic requests and distributes them between resources, such as Amazon EC2 Instances

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Messaging and Queing

Name 3 features of Elastic Load Balancing

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Runs at a regional level, not at an individual EC2 Instance
Acts as a single point of contact for all incoming traffic
Automatically scalable

Messaging and Queing

What is Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)

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SQS allows you to send, store and receive messages at any volume, between software components

Messaging and Queing

What is Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)

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SNS is a publish / subscrive service where publishers publish messages to subscribers.

Subscibers can include web servers, email addresses and AWS Lambda functions

Tightly-Coupled vs Loosely-Coupled Architecture

Handling failures

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In a Tightly-coupled architecture, failure in a single component could cause cascading failures throughout
Loosely-coupled architecture prevents the entire application from failing if a single component fails

**Name 2 services that assist with creating a loosely-coupled architecture**

1. Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) 2. Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)

# Compute Services **What is a container?** | Serverless Computing

- A container is a package for your code - Code and dependencies are packaged into a single object - In AWS this is typically a Docker container

# Compute Services **What are Container Orchestration Services?** | Serverless Computing

Container orchestration services help you to deploy, manager and scale containerized applications

# Compute Services **Name Container Orchestrations Services offered by AWS** | Serverless Computing ## Footnote (***Hint:*** there are 2)

1. Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) 2. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

# Compute Services **Name the main features of AWS Lambda** | AWS Lambda ## Footnote (***Hint:*** We are expecting 3)

1. AWS Lambda is a serverless computing service 2. Allows you to run code without provisioning or managing servers 3. Only pay for compute time used - Charged only when your code is running

# Compute Services **When is AWS Lambda code run?** | AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda code is set to trigger from an event source, the code will only run when the specific trigger event is recorded.

# Compute Services **Features of Amazon Elastic Container Service** | Amazon ECS ## Footnote (***Hint:*** There are 4)

1. Highly scalable, high-performance container management system 2. Enables you to run and sclae containerized applications on AWS 3. Supports Docker containers 4. Can use API Calls to launch and stop Docker-enabled applications

# Compute Services **What is the Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service?** | Amazon EKS

A fully managed service that you can use to run Kubernetes on AWS

# Compute Services **What is AWS Fargate?**

* AWS is a serverless compute engine for containers * Works with both Amazon ECS and Amazon EKS * Do not need to provision or manager servers

**When should you use Amazon EC2?**

* You want to host traditional applications * You want full access to the Operating System (OS)

**When should you use AWS Lambdas?**

* When you want to host short-running applications * When you want server or event-driven applications * When you don't want to be responsible for provisioning or management of servers

**What are Regions?**

Geographically isolated areas, containing multiple availability zones, where you can access services for running your enterprise

**What factors should be considered when choosing a Region?**

1. Compliance - with data governance and legal requirements 2. Proximity - to your customers 3. Pricing

**What is an Availability Zone?**

One or more data centers, located tens of miles apart within a Region. Close enough proximity for low latency between AZs, but spaced apart with enough distance to reduce the chance of disasters affecting multiple AZs

**What are Edge Locations?**

They run Amazon CloudFront to help keep content closer to customers no matter where they are in the world by storing cached copies of content

**How can I interact with AWS?**

* Via the AWS Management Console - a web UI * Via the AWS Command Line (CLI) - Make API requests directly from the command line * Via Software Development Kits (SDKs) - APIs designed for a range of programming languages

**What is Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)?**

* Allows you to establish boundaries around your AWS resources * Holds resources in a private network organised into Subnets

**To grant PUBLIC traffic access to a VPC, what should you use?**

Attach an Internet Gateway

**To grant PRIVATE traffic access to a VPC, what should you use?**

Attach a Virtual Private Gateway, this will only allow traffic from an approved network

**What is a Subnet?** | Definition and Key Facts

**Definition**: A section of a VPC containing resources such as EC2 Instances **Key Facts:** * Allow control of traffic through gateways * PUBLIC Subnets contain resources accessible to public traffic * PRIVATE Subnets contain resources that should only be accessible to traffic on your private network * Subnets can communicate with each other

**What is AWS Direct Connect?**

Enables you to create a dedicated private connection between your data center and VPC

**What are Network Access Control Lists (ACLs)?** | Definition and Key Facts

**Definition**: A virtual firewall that controls inbound and outbound traffic at SUBNET LEVEL **Key Facts:** * Does not check Instances within a Subnet * Each AWS account includes a default ACL, when creating a VPC you can use the default or create custom ACLs * The default ACL allows ALL inbound and outbound traffic * Performs STATELESS packet filtering

**Considering Network ACLs, what is Stateless packet filtering?**

ALL inbound and outbound traffic is checked, every time

**What are Security Groups?** | Definition and Key Facts

**Definition**: A virtual firewall that controlls inbound and outbound traffic at the INSTANCE LEVEL **Key Facts:** * By default, denies all inbound traffic and allows all outbound traffic * Performs STATEFUL packet filtering

**Considering Network ACLs, what is Stateful packet filtering?**

The gate remembers previous decisions made for INBOUND packets

**What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?**

A network that delivers edge content to users based on their geographic location

**What is a Domain Name System (DNS)?**

A DNS translates human readable domain names to machine readable domain IP addresses

**What is Amazon Route 53?**

* It is a DNS Web Service * Highly available and highly scalable * Connects user requests to internet applications running on AWS or on-prem

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