The AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate exam tests candidates on a variety of topics related to designing and deploying scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on AWS. Many of these topics extend beyond AWS and fall under the category of best practices as well as basic understanding of cloud architecture, responsibility, design, and compliance principles.

How much do you know about designing and deploying applications on AWS? What follows is a self-test of 25 questions based on the general concepts and related topics associated with study for this exam. The answers appear at the end of the questions. Good luck!

1. Which of the following is an AWS best practice for improving application performance?
A) Use AWS CloudFront to cache content closer to end-users.
B) Deploy applications in a single, large instance.
C) Use NAT instances to manage network traffic.
D) Use Amazon S3 to host the application database.

2. Which of the following is not a type of AWS global infrastructure region?
A) Standard
B) GovCloud
C) Local
D) Special

3. Which of the following is a fully managed NoSQL database service provided by AWS?
A) Amazon RDS
B) Amazon Aurora
C) Amazon DynamoDB
D) Amazon Redshift

4. Which AWS design principle emphasizes the importance of building components and services that are independent from one another?
A) Horizontal formatting
B) Automate Everything
C) Small Deployable Units
D) Implement loose coupling

5. Which of the following is the primary benefit of AWS Global Accelerator?
A) Improving server scalability
B) Reducing latency and increasing availability
C) Providing increased security
D) Optimizing global network performance

6. Which of the following is an AWS best practice for ensuring high availability of applications?
A) Deploy applications in a single availability zone.
B) Use multiple availability zones to deploy applications.
C) Use on-premise infrastructure for disaster recovery.
D) Disable automated backups to reduce costs.

7. What happens to data in the RAM when an EC2 instance is hibernated?
A) It is lost and needs to be reloaded upon instance restart.
B) It is transferred to a separate storage volume for temporary storage.
C) It remains intact and is preserved during instance hibernation.
D) It is automatically backed up to an Amazon S3 bucket for safekeeping.

8. Which AWS service provides a secure and durable way to store, process, and analyze big data in the cloud?
A) Amazon EMR
B) Amazon EC2
C) AWS Lambda
D) AWS Elastic Beanstalk

9. What is the primary goal of the AWS Well-Architected Framework?
A) It is used to assess customer needs.
B) It provides a consistent approach that can be used to evaluate architectures and implement designs which will scale.
C) It is used to reduce costs.
D) It is used to increase network bandwidth.

10. Which of the following AWS services provides tools to analyze and optimize resource usage?
A) AWS Cost Explorer
B) AWS CloudFormation
C) Amazon Elastic MapReduce
D) AWS Trusted Advisor

11. Who is responsible for securing data in transit between EC2 instances and other AWS services according to the AWS shared responsibility model?
A) AWS
B) The customer
C) Both AWS and the customer
D) Neither AWS or the customer

12. What is the primary benefit of using AWS spot instances?
A) Higher performance than on-demand instances
B) Guaranteed availability and uninterrupted usage
C) Increased reliability compared to on-demand instances
D) Significant cost savings compared to on-demand instances

13. Which of the following database services is designed for high-performance OLTP applications?
A) Amazon Aurora
B) Amazon RDS
C) Amazon STP
D) Amazon Redshift

14. Which AWS Design Principle focuses on the ability to manage changes to a system?
A) Security at All Layers
B) Prepare for Failure
C) Elasticity
D) Implement Loose Coupling

15. What is the purpose of the cooldown period in a Step Scaling policy?
A) To prevent scaling actions from occurring
B) To temporarily suspend further scaling actions after a change
C) To initiate scaling actions immediately without delay
D) To adjust the scaling thresholds based on workload fluctuations

Please visit GoCertify to attempt the remaining 10 questions of this quiz.

‍

ANSWERS

1. A: Using AWS CloudFront to cache content closer to end-users can significantly improve application performance. AWS CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) service that helps deliver content, such as web pages, images, videos, and other static or dynamic assets, to end-users with low latency and high data transfer speeds.
2. D: AWS global infrastructure is composed of various types of regions. These include Standard, Local, and GovCloud, but not Special.
3. C: Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service through Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed to provide fast/scalable storage for applications that require low-latency access to large amounts of structured and semi-structured data.
4. D: The AWS design principle "implement loose coupling" emphasizes the importance of building components and services that are decoupled and independent from one another. It promotes the design of systems where individual components can operate and evolve independently, without creating tight dependencies that hinder scalability, flexibility, and maintainability.
5. D: Global Accelerator uses the AWS global network to route traffic through the AWS edge locations closest to your users, reducing latency and improving application performance. It leverages the AWS global network backbone with high-speed, low-latency connections to ensure fast and reliable data transfer.
6. B: Using multiple availability zones (AZs) to deploy applications in AWS is highly recommended for ensuring high availability. Availability zones are distinct data centers within a geographic region that are engineered to be isolated from each other in terms of power, networking, and other infrastructure elements. Distributing an application across multiple availability zones can minimize the risk of single points of failure and increase the overall resilience and availability of an application.
7. C: Hibernation is a feature that allows you to pause and resume your EC2 instances while preserving the in-memory state.
8. A: Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) is a managed big data processing service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It simplifies the processing of large amounts of data using open-source frameworks such as Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, and Presto.
9. B: The AWS Well-Architected Framework serves as a guide to evaluate architectures, identify areas for improvement, and align solutions with AWS best practices. It helps customers build resilient, secure, high-performing, and cost-effective solutions on AWS, enabling them to achieve their business goals effectively.
10. D: AWS Trusted Advisor helps with analyzing and optimizing resource usage by providing insights and recommendations based on AWS best practices. It examines AWS infrastructure and usage patterns to identify areas where it may be possible to optimize resource utilization, reduce costs, and improve performance.
11. C: According to the AWS shared responsibility model, both AWS and the customer share responsibility for securing data in transit between EC2 instances and other AWS services. AWS is responsible for providing a secure infrastructure and ensuring the security of the AWS network and services. Customers are responsible for implementing appropriate security measures and configurations to secure the data in transit within their applications and between their EC2 instances and other AWS services.
12. D: Spot instances are a purchasing option provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allow you to bid on unused EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances. The pricing is determined by a dynamic bidding process, where you specify the maximum price you are willing to pay per hour for the instance and, if the spot price falls below your bid price, your instance will be provisioned, and you will pay the current spot price. This is typically at a significantly lower price compared to on-demand instances but the availability of spot instances depends on the unused capacity in the AWS cloud.
13. A: Amazon Aurora is a fully managed relational database engine provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL and is designed to deliver high performance, scalability, and durability for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. OLTP applications involve frequent, small, and fast database transactions and OLTP databases need to support concurrent access from multiple users and ensure high throughput and low latency for transactional operations.
14. B: The AWS design principle "Prepare for failure" emphasizes the importance of anticipating and managing failures proactively in order to enhance system resilience and mitigate the impact of potential disruptions. This principle recognizes that change is inevitable and emphasizes the need to manage changes effectively within a system.
15. B: The purpose of the cooldown period in a Step Scaling policy with Amazon Web Services (AWS) is to temporarily suspend further scaling actions after a change has been made. It serves as a time buffer during which additional scaling actions are prevented, allowing the newly applied changes to stabilize and have an effect on the system.

‍