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🇺🇸 AWS Certified Solutions Architect · flashcards
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure Flashcards
52 question-and-answer cards covering Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure as it is examined in AWS Certified Solutions Architect. 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
How many usable IP addresses does AWS reserve in each subnet, and how many total are reserved?
AWS reserves 5 IP addresses in every subnet (network address, VPC router, DNS, future use, and broadcast), so a /28 (16 addresses) yields 11 usable.
What is the difference between a public IP and an Elastic IP on EC2?
A public IP is dynamic and changes when the instance stops/starts; an Elastic IP (EIP) is a static, allocatable public IPv4 address you own and can remap between instances.
What is the allowed VPC CIDR block size range?
A VPC CIDR can be between /16 (65,536 addresses) and /28 (16 addresses).
What is AWS Direct Connect?
A dedicated, private network connection from your on-premises data center to AWS, providing consistent low latency and bandwidth, bypassing the public internet.
What is an AWS Site-to-Site VPN?
An encrypted IPsec tunnel over the public internet connecting your on-premises network to your VPC via a Virtual Private Gateway or Transit Gateway.
What is the main trade-off between Direct Connect and Site-to-Site VPN?
Direct Connect offers consistent, dedicated low-latency bandwidth but takes time to provision and costs more; VPN is quick to set up and cheaper but rides the public internet with variable performance.
What is AWS Transit Gateway?
A network transit hub that connects multiple VPCs and on-premises networks through a central gateway, simplifying many-to-many connectivity instead of complex VPC peering meshes.
What is the difference between VPC Peering and Transit Gateway?
VPC Peering is a one-to-one, non-transitive connection between two VPCs; Transit Gateway is a hub-and-spoke that scales to thousands of VPCs with transitive routing.
What is an Amazon EC2 instance?
A virtual server in the AWS cloud providing resizable compute capacity, launched from an AMI with a chosen instance type, networking, and storage.
What is an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)?
A template containing the OS, application server, and applications used to launch an EC2 instance; it defines the root volume, launch permissions, and block device mapping.
What are the EC2 instance purchasing options?
On-Demand (pay per second/hour, no commitment), Reserved Instances/Savings Plans (1-3 yr commitment for discount), Spot Instances (spare capacity at steep discount, can be interrupted), and Dedicated Hosts/Instances.
When should you use EC2 Spot Instances?
For fault-tolerant, flexible, or stateless workloads (batch jobs, CI/CD, big data) where interruptions are acceptable, in exchange for up to ~90% discount.
What is the difference between stopping and terminating an EC2 instance?
Stopping halts the instance but keeps the EBS root volume and data (you stop paying for compute); terminating deletes the instance and, by default, its root EBS volume.
What are EC2 instance families optimized for?
General Purpose (balanced, T/M), Compute Optimized (C), Memory Optimized (R/X), Storage Optimized (I/D), and Accelerated Computing (P/G with GPUs).
What is the difference between Amazon EBS, EFS, and S3?
EBS = block storage attached to a single EC2 instance (like a virtual disk); EFS = shared file storage (NFS) mountable by many instances; S3 = object storage accessed via API over HTTP(S).
What is Amazon S3 and what is its durability?
Amazon Simple Storage Service is object storage offering 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability, storing data as objects in buckets accessed via a globally unique namespace.
What is the difference between Amazon EBS and an instance store?
EBS is network-attached, persistent block storage that survives instance stop/terminate (if retained); an instance store is physically attached ephemeral storage that is lost when the instance stops or terminates.
Which S3 storage class is best for infrequently accessed data needing rapid retrieval?
S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (Standard-IA), or One Zone-IA for non-critical data stored in a single AZ at lower cost.
Which AWS storage service is best for archival data with retrieval times of minutes to hours?
Amazon S3 Glacier (Flexible Retrieval or Deep Archive) for low-cost long-term archive storage.
Can an EBS volume be attached to multiple instances at once?
By default no (one instance per volume in the same AZ); only certain provisioned IOPS io1/io2 volumes support EBS Multi-Attach within the same AZ for clustered apps.
What is Amazon RDS and which engines does it support?
Amazon Relational Database Service is a managed relational database supporting MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, and Amazon Aurora; AWS handles patching, backups, and failover.
When should you choose Amazon DynamoDB over Amazon RDS?
Choose DynamoDB for serverless, key-value/document workloads needing single-digit-millisecond latency at any scale with flexible schema; choose RDS when you need relational structure, joins, and ACID SQL transactions.
What is Amazon Aurora and what advantage does it offer?
A MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible managed relational database built for the cloud, offering up to ~5x MySQL/3x PostgreSQL throughput, storage that auto-scales, and six-way replication across three AZs.
Which AWS database service is purpose-built for in-memory caching to reduce database load?
Amazon ElastiCache (Redis or Memcached), used to cache frequently accessed data for sub-millisecond read performance.
What this deck covers
The Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure deck follows the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure syllabus — 3 chapters and 9 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 17.3 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 163 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure flashcards FAQ
How many Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure flashcards are in this AWS Certified Solutions Architect deck?
52 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these AWS Certified Solutions Architect flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 52-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure cards cover?
They follow the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Core AWS Services and Global Infrastructure syllabus — 3 chapters and 9 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.