Hello cloud devs! In this blog we have come up with a cheat sheet for you to quickly revise important AWS concepts whether you have your cloud practitioner certificate exam tomorrow or an interview for a cloud developer role. This cheat sheet can be really helpful.
1. Types of cloud computing services
- Infrastructure as a service (IAAS) – These are the services related network, storage and servers. Examples – EC2, EBS, S3, VPC etc.
- Platform as a service (PAAS) – These services are basically tools provided by cloud providers to help the developers in building and hosting web applications. Examples – AWS lambda, Elastic beanstalk, lightsail, dynamoDB etc.
- Software as service (SAAS) – It is a cloud based model that allows users to access and use software applications over the internet. for example – Gitlab, Microsoft teams, netflix etc.
Note:- AWS does not provide any SaaS service.
2. Types of cloud deployment Models:
- Public cloud: A cloud service provider provides resources over the internet on pay as you go basis. Examples of public cloud – AWS , Azure , GCP etc.
- Private cloud: A single organization owns and uses a data center for its needs over a private network. Examples – AWS VPC, VMware , IBM cloud private etc.
- Hybrid cloud: When an organization uses a combination of private and public cloud for its applications and data then its called hybrid cloud model.
- Multi Cloud: When an organization uses services of multiple vendors for its cloud infrastructure needs then it’s called a multi cloud model. For example – A combination AWS and Azure.
3. 6 Pillars of AWS well architected framework
- Operational excellence
- Security
- Reliability
- Performance efficiency
- Cost optimization
- Sustainability
4. Important Database services of AWS:
- Amazon DynamoDB: It is a NoSQL and serverless database service.
- Amazon DocumentDB: It is a NoSQL database service based on MongoDB. It is not serverless
- Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora: Both of these are relational database services provided by AWS, but they differ in performance, pricing architecture etc.
- Amazon Redshift: It’s a petabyte scale data warehouse service.
- Amazon Athena: It is a serverless query service that allows you to analyze data directly in S3 using standard SQL queries.
- AWS glue: This service is used to extract transform and load data.
5. Difference between DynamoDB and DocumentDB
| DynamoDB | DocumentDB |
| It is an AWS flagship product | It is an AWS service for creating a MongoDB based database |
| Data is mainly stored in the form of key value pairs with a bit of JSON support | Data is stored in the form JSON documents with more data types supported |
| Can not store complex data structures | Can store complex data structures like nested objects and arrays |
6. Difference between Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Amazon Elastic container registry (ECR)
Both are used to manage docker containers , difference is that ECS mainly used to run/launch and stop the docker containers whereas ECR is used to store docker images
7. AWS storage Gateway
AWS storage gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service that connects your existing on-promises storage with AWS cloud. Types AWS storage gateway :
- Tape Gateway
- File Gateway
- Amazon S3 file gateway
- Amazon FSx file gateway
- Volume Gateway
8. Amazon VPN and Amazon VPC
Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) – Amazon VPC lets you provision a virtually isolated section within AWS cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. You can not use Amazon VPC to connect your on-premises network with AWS cloud
Amazon VPN (Virtual Private Network) – Amazon VPN solutions establish secure connections between on-premises networks, remote offices, client devices and the AWS global network
9. AWS regions, Availability zones, Data Centers
AWS has its data centers spread across different regions in the world. A region is a geographical group of several availability zones (AZ), each region consists of minimum 3 AZ and each AZ can consist of 1 or more individual data centers.
10. AWS Edge locations
Amazon Edge location is a site that Amazon Cloudfront uses to cache copies of your content for faster delivery to users at any location. Edge locations are smaller data centers as compared to the data centers present in Availability zones and are strategically located in different cities around the world. When the end user needs some data that is already cached in Cloudfront, it is served to the user through the nearest edge location instead of going all the way to the Availability zone, thus saving time.
