~/notes / aws cloud practitioner

Quick Reference & Terminology

#aws#reference
AWS Cloud Practitioner — all notes

AWS Services Quick Reference

This is a summary of all the AWS services and terms I learned throughout the four parts.

Identity and Access Management

  • AWS IAM Identity Center — Centralized service for managing workforce access to multiple AWS accounts and applications
  • AWS KMS — Key Management Service for encryption keys
  • AWS Secrets Manager — Securely stores database credentials, API keys, and tokens
  • AWS Certificate Manager — Provision, manage, deploy SSL/TLS certificates

Networking

  • VPC — Virtual Private Cloud
  • Route Tables — Direct traffic within your VPC
  • Security Groups — Stateful firewall for resources
  • NACL — Network Access Control List (stateless)
  • AWS Direct Connect — Dedicated private connection
  • VPG — Virtual Private Gateway
  • AWS Route 53 — DNS service

Compute

  • AWS EC2 — Elastic Compute Cloud
  • Reserved Instances — Commit to usage for discounts
  • Spot Instances — Bid on unused capacity
  • AWS Lambda — Serverless compute
  • AWS Fargate — Serverless containers
  • Amazon API Gateway — Create, publish, and secure APIs

Storage

  • Amazon S3 — Object storage with various storage classes
  • Amazon EBS — Elastic Block Storage
  • Amazon EFS — Elastic File System
  • Instance Store — Temporary block storage
  • AWS Storage Gateway — Hybrid storage integration

Databases

  • Amazon RDS — Managed relational database service
  • Amazon Aurora — High-performance MySQL/PostgreSQL compatible
  • Amazon DynamoDB — NoSQL key-value database
  • Amazon MemoryDB — In-memory database
  • Amazon Neptune — Graph database

Monitoring and Logging

  • AWS CloudTrail — Audit log of all API activity
  • Amazon CloudWatch — Metrics, dashboards, and alerts
  • AWS Health — Personalized view of AWS service health
  • AWS Config — Configuration history and change notifications

Security

  • AWS WAF — Web Application Firewall
  • AWS Shield — DDoS protection
  • AWS Inspector — Vulnerability assessments
  • AWS Security Hub — Centralized security posture management
  • Amazon GuardDuty — Threat detection

Scalability and Load Balancing

  • EC2 Auto Scaling — Automatic instance scaling
  • Elastic Load Balancing — Distribute traffic

Messaging and Notifications

  • Amazon SQS — Simple Queue Service
  • Amazon SNS — Simple Notification Service
  • Amazon SES — Simple Email Service
  • Amazon EventBridge — Serverless event bus

Data Analytics

  • Amazon Athena — Serverless SQL queries on S3
  • Amazon EMR — Big data analytics
  • AWS Glue — ETL service
  • Amazon Redshift — Data warehousing
  • Amazon Kinesis — Real-time streaming
  • Amazon QuickSight — Data visualization

AI and Machine Learning

  • Amazon SageMaker — Build, train, deploy ML models
  • Amazon Bedrock — Foundation Models
  • Amazon Comprehend — NLP insights
  • Amazon Q — Generative AI assistant
  • Amazon Rekognition — Image and video analysis
  • Amazon Translate — Machine translation
  • Amazon Lex — Chatbots and voice assistants
  • Amazon Polly — Text-to-speech
  • Amazon Transcribe — Speech-to-text
  • Amazon Textract — Document text extraction
  • Amazon Kendra — Enterprise search
  • Amazon Forecast — Business outcome predictions

Edge Services

  • AWS Outposts — On-premises AWS infrastructure
  • AWS Wavelength — 5G edge computing
  • AWS Local Zones — Low-latency extensions
  • Amazon CloudFront — CDN

Deployment and Management

  • AWS CloudFormation — Infrastructure as code
  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk — Easy application deployment
  • AWS CodeDeploy — Automated deployments
  • Amazon Lightsail — Simple VPS hosting
  • AWS Organizations — Multi-account management
  • AWS Trusted Advisor — Optimization recommendations
  • AWS Artifact — Compliance documents

Pricing and Cost Management

  • AWS Pricing Calculator — Estimate costs
  • AWS Cost Explorer — Analytics tool for costs
  • AWS Cost and Usage Reports — Detailed usage records
  • AWS Budgets — Set custom cost and usage alerts

Migration

  • AWS DMS — Database Migration Service
  • AWS Storage Gateway — Hybrid storage for backups
  • AWS Marketplace — Software and licensing

Important Terminology

TermDefinition
Availability ZoneA distinct location in an AWS Region insulated from failures in other AZs
RegionA named set of AWS resources in the same geographical area (at least 3 AZs)
Edge LocationA data center for service-specific operations (points of presence)
AvailabilityWhether an application is accessible and usable on demand
ResiliencyAbility of a system to recover and continue operating during disruptions
ScalabilityAbility to grow as workload demands change
ElasticityAbility to acquire and release resources automatically as needed
DurabilityAbility to ensure long-term data stability
CIDRClassless Inter-Domain Routing — IP address allocation methodology
MFAMulti-Factor Authentication
CSPCloud Service Provider
DNSDomain Name System — translates domain names to IP addresses
TLS/SSLCryptographic protocols for secure communication

References