AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate AWS Foundations, Global Infrastructure & Account Management Syllabus

AWS Foundations, Global Infrastructure & Account Management syllabus: all 3 chapters

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics.

1. 1

   AWS Global Infrastructure

   3 topics

   • Regions, Availability Zones and Edge Locations
     • Selecting a Region (latency, compliance, cost, service availability)
     • Multi-AZ vs Multi-Region design intent
     • Local Zones, Wavelength and Outposts
   • Edge network and content delivery footprint
     • CloudFront edge and regional edge caches
     • Points of Presence (PoP)
   • Service categories and the Well-Architected mindset
     • Global vs Regional vs AZ-scoped services
2. 2

   AWS Account Structure & Billing

   4 topics

   • Root user vs IAM principals
     • Securing the root account (MFA, no access keys)
   • AWS Organizations and consolidated billing
     • Organizational Units (OUs) and Service Control Policies (SCPs)
     • Consolidated billing and volume discounts
   • Cost management tooling
     • Cost Explorer, Budgets and Cost Anomaly Detection
     • Billing alarms and the Free Tier
   • Pricing fundamentals across compute, storage and data transfer
3. 3

   Ways to Interact with AWS

   4 topics

   • AWS Management Console
   • AWS CLI and SDKs
     • Credentials, profiles and named configurations
   • Infrastructure as Code with CloudFormation
     • Templates, stacks and stack sets
     • AWS CDK overview
   • AWS Support plans and Trusted Advisor

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate AWS Foundations, Global Infrastructure & Account Management flashcards — 51 questions with answers

1. What is an AWS Region?

   A separate geographic area containing a cluster of data centers; each Region is fully isolated from others and consists of multiple Availability Zones.

2. What is an AWS Availability Zone (AZ)?

   One or more discrete data centers within a Region, each with redundant power, networking, and connectivity, physically separated but connected via low-latency, high-bandwidth links.

3. What is the minimum number of Availability Zones an AWS Region contains?

   Each Region has a minimum of 3 (originally documented as at least 2, but modern Regions have 3 or more) isolated and physically separate AZs.

4. What is an AWS Edge Location?

   A site used by Amazon CloudFront (and other edge services) to cache content closer to end users for low-latency content delivery; there are far more edge locations than Regions or AZs.

5. How do Edge Locations differ from Availability Zones?

   Edge locations cache/deliver content at the network edge for low latency, while AZs are full data centers that host compute, storage, and databases within a Region.

6. What is a Regional Edge Cache in CloudFront?

   A mid-tier cache between origin servers and edge locations that holds content longer, reducing origin load and improving cache hit ratios for less-frequently accessed objects.

7. Why does AWS use a global edge network for content delivery?

   To serve cached static and dynamic content from locations physically near users, reducing latency, lowering origin load, and improving performance and availability.

8. What is an AWS Local Zone?

   An extension of a Region that places compute, storage, and select services closer to large population/industry centers for single-digit-millisecond latency to end users.

9. What are the six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework?

   Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability.

10. What does the 'Reliability' pillar of the Well-Architected Framework focus on?

    The ability of a workload to perform its intended function correctly and consistently, including recovery from failures and meeting demand.

11. What does the 'Cost Optimization' pillar of the Well-Architected Framework focus on?

    Running systems to deliver business value at the lowest price point by avoiding unnecessary costs and analyzing spend over time.

12. Name three broad AWS service categories.

    Examples include Compute (EC2, Lambda), Storage (S3, EBS), Database (RDS, DynamoDB), Networking (VPC, Route 53), and Security/Identity (IAM).

13. Which AWS compute service is serverless and runs code without provisioning servers?

    AWS Lambda.

14. What is the AWS root user?

    The identity created when an AWS account is opened, accessed via the account email and password, with complete unrestricted access to all resources and account settings.

15. Why should you avoid using the root user for daily tasks?

    It has unlimited privileges; compromise is catastrophic. Best practice is to enable MFA on it, lock it away, and perform daily work using IAM principals with least privilege.

16. What is an IAM principal?

    An entity (root user, IAM user, IAM role, or federated user) that can make a request to perform an action on an AWS resource.

17. What is the difference between an IAM user and an IAM role?

    An IAM user has long-term credentials tied to a person/application; a role provides temporary credentials assumed by trusted entities and has no permanent credentials.

18. List the few tasks that REQUIRE the AWS root user.

    Tasks like changing the account name/email/root password, closing the account, changing the support plan, and restoring IAM user permissions—actions only the root user can perform.

19. What is an IAM policy?

    A JSON document that defines permissions (allow/deny) for actions on resources, attached to users, groups, or roles to grant access.

20. What is the principle of least privilege in IAM?

    Granting only the permissions required to perform a task and nothing more, reducing security risk.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate AWS Foundations, Global Infrastructure & Account Management FAQ