AWS Interview Questions

AWS is an abbreviation for Amazon Web Services, the market's leading cloud provider. It provides over 170 AWS services to developers, allowing them to access them from anywhere at any time. Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform offering scalable and cost-effective solutions. 

AWS provides several on-demand operations, such as compute power, database storage, content delivery, and so on, to assist businesses in scaling and growing.

In this article, we'll be interacting with some interview questions for AWS. These AWS interview questions will help boost your confidence and knowledge about your future dream companies.

 

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AWS Interview Questions

Let's explore more interesting and important questions required for interview questions in AWS. For your convenience, the questions in AWS are presented below in various difficulty levels.

Easy Level AWS Interview Questions

In this section, we will look at some basic AWS interview questions and their answers.

1. What is Amazon EC2?
Ans. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, also called Amazon EC2, is a cloud computing service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that enables users to rent virtual machines (instances) in the cloud. It provides scalable computing capacity and a variety of instance types, operating systems, and software packages. 

Users pay only for the resources they use and can easily scale up or down as needed. EC2 enables organizations to save on infrastructure costs and run their applications and services in the cloud.
 

2. What are the features of Amazon CloudWatch?
Ans. The Amazon CloudWatch has the following features:

• Monitors AWS environments such as CPU utilization, EC2, Amazon RDS instances, Amazon SQS, S3, Load Balancer, SNS, and so on.
   
• It helps to trigger alarms based on a variety of metrics.
   

3. Describe availability zones and Amazon EC2 regions.
Ans. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a cloud computing web service that provides resizable compute capacity. It is available in multiple regions and Availability Zones. Availability Zones are distinct areas within each region with their own power, cooling, and networking infrastructure. 

They add redundancy and fault tolerance and are linked to the other Availability Zones in the same region via low-latency, high-throughput networks. To ensure that applications continue to run in the event of an outage, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can be used to launch instances across Availability Zones.
 

4. Explain Amazon EC2 root device volume.
Ans. The root device drive contains the image used to boot an EC2  Elastic Compute Cloud) instance. This happens when an Amazon Machine Image starts a new EC2 instance. EBS (Elastic block store) can support this root device volume. In general, the lifespan of an EC2 instance does not affect the root device data on Amazon EBS.
 

5. What is the difference between stopping and terminating an EC2 instance?
Ans. While you may believe that stopping and terminating are synonymous, there is a distinction. When you stop an EC2 instance, it performs a normal shutdown and enters a stopped state. When you terminate an instance, it is moved to a stopped state, and any EBS volumes attached to it are deleted and cannot be recovered.
 

6. Define Amazon Machine Image
Ans. An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is an AWS-supported and maintained image that contains the information needed to launch an instance. When you launch an instance, you need to specify an AMI. When you need multiple instances with the same configuration, you can launch them all from a single Amazon Machine Image.
 

 7. What are some common AMI design types?
Ans. There are numerous types of AMIs, but the following are some of the most common:

• Basic AMIs: These are minimal images that contain only the necessary components to launch an instance. They may include only the operating system, a few common utilities, and necessary drivers.
   
• Custom AMIs: These are customised images that contain additional software, applications, and configuration settings, based on specific requirements or use cases. They can be created from an existing instance or imported from an external source.
   
• Marketplace AMIs: These are pre-built AMIs publicly available on the AWS Marketplace. They are created and maintained by independent software vendors. They can be used to launch instances with a wide range of applications and services, such as databases, web servers, and content management systems.
   
• AWS-supplied AMIs: These are Amazon-managed AMIs maintained by AWS and include a wide range of pre-installed software packages, tools, and applications. They are available for various operating systems and can be used for a wide range of use cases, such as development, testing, and production.
   

8. What exactly is CloudFront geo-targeting?
Ans. Geo-targeting is the practice of showing personalized content to customers based on their geographic location without changing the URL. This allows you to create customized content for a specific geographical area's audience while keeping their needs in mind.
 

9. What are AWS Key-Pairs?
Ans. The Key-Pairs are password-protected login credentials for Virtual Machines that we use to verify our identity when connecting to Amazon EC2 instances. The Key-Pairs consist of private and public keys that allow us to connect to the instances.

AWS key pairs are an important security mechanism as they provide a secure way to access EC2 instances. By using key pairs, users can ensure that only authorized users can access their instances. Additionally, key pairs allow for secure access to instances without sharing passwords or other sensitive information.
 

10. Define PaaS.
Ans. PaaS (Platform as a Service) facilitates the operation of multiple cloud platforms, primarily for program development, testing, and oversight. PaaS (Platform as a Service) offers a runtime environment. The cloud service provider manages back-end scalability in PaaS, so end users do not need to worry about managing infrastructure.

11. What is AWS Lambda?
Ans. Amazon Lambda is a compute service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows you to run code without provisioning or managing servers. It supports many programming languages, such as Node.js, Python, Java, Go, and C#, among others. 

You can use Lambda to build a variety of applications, such as data processing, real-time stream processing, event-driven systems, and web applications.

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Medium Level AWS Interview Questions

In this section, we will discuss some intermediate level AWS interview questions and their answers. It is essential because developing your confidence for the interview will help you to crack your interview easily.

12. Is there any alternative tool to log into the cloud environment other than the console?
Ans. The following can assist you in logging into AWS resources:

• Command-line interface (CLI): Many cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, provide a CLI that allows users to access cloud resources from the command line. The CLI allows users to automate tasks, write scripts, and quickly perform common tasks without using the console.
   
• API/SDKs: Cloud providers also provide APIs and software development kits (SDKs) that allow developers to access cloud resources programmatically. The APIs and SDKs can be used to create custom applications, automate tasks, and integrate cloud resources with other applications.
   
• Third-party tools: There are many third-party tools available that allow users to manage cloud environments. These tools can provide additional functionality, automation, and ease-of-use compared to the native console.
   
• Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP): For Windows and Linux instances, respectively, users can use RDP to access and manage instances remotely. RDP provide a secure way to remotely access instances without using the console.

 

13. Define Amazon DynamoDB.
Ans. Amazon DynamoDB is an extremely scalable, fast, and high-performance database that can handle any volume of requests while storing and retrieving any amount of data.

Amazon DynamoDB is designed to be highly available, with automatic scaling and replication of data across multiple availability zones to ensure that the data is always accessible and durable. It is also highly flexible, allowing users to specify the schema of their data and add or remove columns at any time.

14. What are the distinctions between the operating systems Solaris and AIX? Is it possible to use them with Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
Ans.  

Solaris	AIX
Solaris is primarily designed to run on systems using SPARC processors, which are commonly used in Sun Microsystems hardware.	AIX is designed to run on IBM's Power Architecture processors.
Solaris uses the ZFS file system by default.	AIX uses the JFS2 file system.
Solaris provides virtualization through zones, which are similar to containers.	AIX provides virtualization through its proprietary technology called PowerVM, which offers partitioning and virtualization at the hardware level.

AWS does not currently support all operating systems because they each have their own set of restrictions.
 

15. Describe the process for vertically scaling an AWS instance.
Ans. Steps to scale vertically on AWS are:-

• Step 1: Create a new and larger instance of AWS.
   
• Step 2: Pause the existing one.
   
• Step 3: Remove and discard the server's root EBS volume.
   
• Step 4: Pause the live instance to delete its existing root volume.
   
• Step 5: Finally, after taking note of the ID number, insert the root volume into the new server and restart it.
   

16. What is AWS Data Pipeline?
Ans. Amazon Web Services Data Pipeline is a web service that allows you to automate the movement and transformation of data. You specify the parameters for your data transformations, and AWS Data Pipeline implements the logic you specify. AWS Data Pipeline allows you to create data-driven workflows in which tasks are dependent on the successful completion of previously performed tasks. 

17. What are the various types of load balancers available on AWS?
Ans. Elastic Load Balancing supports three different types of load balancers:

• Classic Load Balancer (CLB): This is the oldest type of load balancer on AWS, and it is used for distributing traffic across multiple EC2 instances. It operates at Layer 4 (transport layer) of the OSI model and supports TCP and SSL protocols. It can also be used for HTTP and HTTPS traffic.
   
• Application Load Balancer (ALB): This type of load balancer is used for distributing traffic across multiple EC2 instances or containers, based on application-level information such as HTTP headers and URL paths. It operates at Layer 7 (application layer) of the OSI model and supports HTTP, HTTPS, and WebSockets protocols. ALBs can also provide advanced routing features, such as host-based routing and path-based routing.
   
• Network Load Balancer (NLB): This type of load balancer is used for distributing traffic across multiple EC2 instances or containers, based on IP protocol data. It operates at Layer 4 (transport layer) of the OSI model and supports TCP, UDP, and TLS protocols. NLBs are designed to handle very high levels of traffic, and they can also provide static IP addresses that remain constant over time.  
   

18. What is Amazon CloudFront, and how is it used in cloud computing?
Ans. AWS's Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that enables you to quickly and efficiently send content to users worldwide, including images, videos, and software updates. It is used in cloud computing to improve the performance and scalability of web applications, and to reduce the heavy load on the main server.

Amazon CloudFront is commonly used in the following scenarios:

• Improved performance: You can use Amazon CloudFront to improve the performance of web applications, especially for users located far from the origin server.
   
• Global reach: You can use Amazon CloudFront to distribute content to users around the world, with low latency and high transfer speeds.
   
• Cost optimization: You can use Amazon CloudFront to reduce the load on the origin server, and to optimize the cost of serving content by taking advantage of caching and compression.
   

19. What is AWS Power User Access?
Ans. Power User Access is Administrator Access that allows you to create, delete, and modify resources. However, the Administrator user has no control over users or permissions and thus cannot permit others. Power users can generate Key Management Services. 

(KMS) keys used to encrypt, decrypt, and re-encrypt data and  manage and view all KMS keys and Identity and Access Management (IAM) identities. 
 

20. What does managing policies in AWS IAM entail?
Ans. There are two types of managed policies: those you manage and those that AWS manages. They are AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) resources that use IAM policy language to express permissions. They can be created, edited, and operated independently of the IAM users, groups, and roles to which they are attached.

To manage policies in AWS IAM, you can perform the following actions:

• Create policies: You can create custom policies for your specific requirements using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS API. You can also use pre-built policies provided by AWS.
   
• Edit policies: You can modify existing policies to add or remove permissions or to update resource or service definitions.
   
• Assign policies: You can assign policies to users, groups, or roles to grant them the necessary permissions to access specific resources and services.
   
• Test policies: You can test your policies to ensure that they are correctly configured and that users are only able to perform the actions they are authorized to perform.
   

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Advance Level AWS Interview Questions 

In this section, we will discuss some hard level AWS interview questions and their answers that are most frequently asked in interviews.

 

21. What is a DDoS attack, and what services can minimize them?
Ans. A DDoS attack is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator accesses a website and creates multiple sessions so that other legitimate users cannot access the service. The following native tools can assist you in denying DDoS attacks on your AWS services:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN): It is a network of servers distributed across multiple geographic locations. CDNs can help to distribute the traffic load and mitigate DDoS attacks by using distributed servers to absorb the attack traffic.
   
• Web Application Firewall (WAF): A WAF is a security tool that monitors and filters incoming web traffic to a website or web application. A WAF can help to identify and block malicious traffic that may be part of a DDoS attack.
   
• Anti-DDoS services: Many cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, offer anti-DDoS services that can detect and mitigate DDoS attacks in real-time.
   
• Load balancers: Load balancers can distribute incoming traffic across multiple servers, which can help to absorb the impact of a DDoS attack.
   
• DNS services: DNS providers can help to mitigate DDoS attacks by using global Anycast networks to distribute traffic and absorb attacks.

22. What do you understand by "changing" in Amazon EC2?
Ans. In Amazon EC2, "changing" refers to modifying the characteristics of an EC2 instance, such as its instance type, storage, or networking configuration. EC2 provides the ability to modify certain attributes of an instance while it's running or to stop and start the instance with different configurations.
 

23. Can S3 be used in conjunction with EC2 instances, and if so, how?
Ans. Amazon S3  stands for Simple Storage Service. It is a fully managed cloud-based storage service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It provides developers with a highly scalable, secure, durable, and highly available object storage infrastructure that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data from available on the web.

For instances that have local instance storage for their root devices, Amazon S3 can be used. Developers will have access to the same highly scalable, dependable, fast, and low-cost data storage infrastructure used by Amazon to power its global network of websites. Developers load Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) into Amazon S3 and then move them between Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2 to execute systems in the Amazon EC2 environment. Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 are two of the most widely used AWS web services.
 

24. How do RTO and RPO work in AWS?
Ans. Recovery Time Objective (RTO)  is the maximum time your company or organization is willing to wait for a recovery to complete following an outage. RPO, or Recovery Point Objective, on the other hand, is the maximum amount of data loss your company is willing to accept in terms of time.

25. What is the difference between an Amazon RDS and an Amazon EC2 instance with a database installed?
Ans. 

Amazon RDS	Amazon EC2
Amazon RDS is a managed database service.	Amazon EC2 is an unmanaged compute service.
Amazon RDS is focused on providing a managed database service.	Amazon EC2 is focused on providing resizable compute capacity.
Amazon RDS provides automated backups.	Amazon EC2 does not provides automated backups.
Amazon RDS pricing is based on a pay-per-use model.	Amazon EC2 pricing is based on fixed pricing per instance type and usage time.

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26. What is Amazon Web Services S3 Transfer Acceleration?
Ans. AWS S3 Transfer Acceleration is a service that uses the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network to make data transfers to and from Amazon S3 faster and more reliable. Transfer acceleration can be enabled via the S3 console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or the Amazon Web Services SDKs.
 

27. What is Amazon Web Services Elastic Beanstalk for Java and Oracle?
Ans. AWS Elastic Beanstalk for Java and Oracle is an entirely managed service that permits you to deploy and run Java web applications and services alongside Oracle databases. It handles infrastructure provisioning, application deployment, and application monitoring.
 

28. What are the Amazon VPC components?
Ans. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a private AWS subsection where users can locate AWS resources such as EC2 instances and databases while having complete control over who has access to them.
The main VPC network components are:

• Internet Gateway
   
• Subnets
   
• NAT Gateways
   
• Customer Gateways
   
• Virtual Private Gateways
   

The Internet Gateway connects your VPC to the public internet, whereas Subnets are the functional components of your private cloud's IP address range. Customer Gateways connect the Amazon VPC side of a VPN connection to the internet or other AWS services. 

In contrast, NAT Gateways link instances of your private subnet to other AWS services or the internet.
 

29. Describe Connection Draining.
Ans. Connection Draining is an Amazon Web Services service that enables us to serve current requests on servers that are being decommissioned or updated.
By enabling Connection Draining, we allow the Load Balancer to force an outgoing instance to complete its existing requests for a predetermined time before sending any new requests. If Connection Draining is not enabled, all pending requests will fail, and a departing instance will be terminated immediately.
 

30. How does AWS manage elasticity and scaling for its clients?
Ans. AWS offers its customers automatic scalability and elasticity through services such as Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing. Customers can use these services to increase or decrease their resources based on demand automatically.