AWS Certified Solutions Architect Application Integration and Modern Architectures Syllabus

Application Integration and Modern Architectures syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Application Integration and Modern Architectures in AWS Certified Solutions Architect, not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Messaging and Event-Driven Design

   3 topics

   • Queue and Notification Services
     • SQS visibility timeout and long polling
     • SNS topics, subscriptions, and filtering
     • SQS-SNS fan-out integration pattern
   • Event Routing and Orchestration
     • Amazon EventBridge buses and rules
     • AWS Step Functions state machines
     • Choreography vs orchestration patterns
   • Streaming and Real-Time Processing
     • Kinesis Data Streams shards and consumers
     • Amazon MSK (managed Kafka) use cases
2. 2

   API and Microservices Architectures

   3 topics

   • API Layer Design
     • API Gateway REST, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs
     • Throttling, caching, and usage plans
     • AppSync GraphQL APIs
   • Container Orchestration Patterns
     • ECS service discovery and task definitions
     • EKS networking and ingress
     • ECR image management
   • Serverless Application Patterns
     • Lambda integration with API Gateway and EventBridge
     • Synchronous vs asynchronous invocation models
3. 3

   Caching, CDN, and Static Content

   3 topics

   • Application Caching Strategies
     • Lazy loading vs write-through with ElastiCache
     • DynamoDB DAX in-memory acceleration
   • Content Delivery Architectures
     • S3 static website hosting with CloudFront
     • Origin Access Control and signed URLs/cookies
   • Decoupled Web Tier Patterns
     • Static frontend with serverless backend
     • Multi-tier reference architectures

Application Integration and Modern Architectures flashcards for AWS Certified Solutions Architect

19 of 52 cards from the Application Integration and Modern Architectures deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. What is Amazon SQS and what core problem does it solve in distributed systems?

   Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queue that lets you decouple and scale microservices by buffering messages between producers and consumers, so components can fail or scale independently without losing work.

2. What are the two SQS queue types and their key differences?

   Standard queues offer nearly unlimited throughput, at-least-once delivery, and best-effort ordering. FIFO queues guarantee exactly-once processing and strict ordering but are limited to 300 messages/sec (or 3,000/sec with batching, up to 70,000 with high-throughput mode).

3. What is the SQS visibility timeout and what is its default and maximum value?

   It is the period during which a received message is hidden from other consumers so it isn't processed twice. Default is 30 seconds; maximum is 12 hours.

4. What is an SQS dead-letter queue (DLQ) and how is it triggered?

   A DLQ is a separate queue that receives messages a consumer fails to process successfully. It is triggered when a message exceeds the source queue's maxReceiveCount (redrive policy), isolating poison-pill messages for debugging.

5. What is the difference between SQS short polling and long polling?

   Short polling returns immediately, sampling only a subset of servers (may return empty even when messages exist). Long polling waits up to WaitTimeSeconds (max 20s) for messages, reducing empty responses, API calls, and cost.

6. What is the maximum message size and retention period in SQS?

   Maximum message size is 256 KB (larger payloads use the Extended Client Library with S3). Retention ranges from 60 seconds to 14 days, defaulting to 4 days.

7. In SQS FIFO queues, what are message group ID and deduplication ID used for?

   Message group ID groups related messages so ordering is preserved within each group (and groups process in parallel). Deduplication ID prevents duplicate messages within a 5-minute deduplication window for exactly-once delivery.

8. What is Amazon SNS and what messaging pattern does it implement?

   Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) is a managed pub/sub messaging service. Publishers send messages to a topic, and SNS pushes (fans out) copies to all subscribed endpoints such as SQS, Lambda, HTTP/S, email, and SMS.

9. Describe the SNS-to-SQS fan-out pattern and why it is used.

   A single message published to an SNS topic is delivered to multiple SQS queues subscribed to it. This lets several systems process the same event asynchronously, decoupling producers from consumers and persisting messages durably in each queue.

10. What is the difference between SNS Standard and FIFO topics?

    Standard topics give high throughput, best-effort ordering, and at-least-once delivery. FIFO topics preserve strict ordering and exactly-once delivery, and can only deliver to SQS FIFO queues.

11. What is SNS message filtering and what advantage does it give subscribers?

    Filter policies let each subscription receive only messages whose attributes (or message body) match the policy, so subscribers get a relevant subset without filtering in application code—reducing unnecessary processing and cost.

12. What is Amazon EventBridge and how does it differ from SNS?

    EventBridge is a serverless event bus that routes events from AWS services, SaaS apps, and custom sources to targets using content-based rules. Unlike SNS, it offers schema discovery, a schema registry, event archive/replay, and richer JSON content filtering.

13. What are the three types of event buses in EventBridge?

    The default bus (receives AWS service events), custom buses (for your application events), and partner/SaaS event buses (receive events from integrated third-party SaaS providers).

14. What is an EventBridge rule and what two things can it specify?

    A rule matches incoming events using an event pattern (or runs on a schedule) and routes matched events to one or more targets. It defines both the matching criteria and the destination(s).

15. What is the EventBridge Schema Registry used for?

    It stores and organizes event schemas (including auto-discovered ones) and can generate code bindings, letting developers understand event structure and build strongly typed integrations against events.

16. What is EventBridge Pipes used for?

    EventBridge Pipes creates point-to-point integrations between a source and a target with optional filtering, enrichment, and transformation—reducing the glue code needed to connect services like SQS, DynamoDB Streams, or Kinesis to a target.

17. What is AWS Step Functions and what problem does it address?

    Step Functions is a serverless orchestration service that coordinates multiple services into workflows using a state machine, managing sequencing, branching, parallelism, error handling, and retries without custom orchestration code.

18. Compare Step Functions Standard and Express workflows.

    Standard workflows are durable, can run up to 1 year, support exactly-once execution, and are priced per state transition—ideal for long-running, auditable processes. Express workflows run up to 5 minutes, support high event rates, are priced by execution count/duration, and suit short, high-volume tasks.

19. Name the main state types available in Step Functions.

    Task, Choice (branching), Parallel, Map (iterate over a collection), Wait, Pass, Succeed, and Fail.

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