Fundamentals of Amazon Web Services (AWS)

1. Why AWS is the most popular cloud platform?

AWS has lots of cool features which make it more unique and easier to use. It has pay-as-you-go prices. No upfront cost is required. AWS accounts are isolated at the hypervisor level.

1. What is a Hypervisor in Cloud Computing?

Hypervisor is a "Virtual machine monitor" software that creates & runs virtual machines. Examples - Oracle VM VirtualBox, QEMU, etc.

1. Explain Cloud Computing.

IAAS - Infrastructure as a code - Contains the basic building blocks for cloud IT. Examples - Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Elastic Block Store (EBS), etc. PAAS - Platform as a code - AWS manages the underlying infrastructures usually hardware and operating systems. Examples - Relational Database Service (RDS), Elastic Map Reduce ( EMR), Elastic Search, etc. SAAS - Software as a code - Complete products that are run and managed by the service provider. Mostly referring to end-user applications. Examples - Web-based emails, Office365, Salesforce.com.

1. What is Server-less Computing?

A cloud-native development model that allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage the servers, such model is known as Server-less computing, alias Function-as-a-service or Abstracted Services. The interesting part is that here the word server-less is a misnomer in the sense that servers are still there. Examples - are Amazon S3, Amazon Lambda, Amazon SNS, etc.

1. Why do we have to choose Regions in AWS?

We choose regions to optimize latency, minimize cost & address regulatory requirements. There are four aspects that we consider before choosing a region.

i. COMPLIANCE - this is regulatory control.

ii. LATENCY -  Depends on how close are our IT resources to our user base.

iii. PRICING - vary region to region due to different tax structures.

iv. SERVICE AVAILABILITY - Some of the new or old services are only limited to specific regions.

1. What do you understand about SDKs?

A set of tools that provide the developer the ability to build and run a custom app that can be connected to or connected to another program.

1. What are the ways to interact with Amazon web services API?

AWS Management Console - A web-based console. AWS Console mobile app is also there. AWS CLI - Used to eradicate human errors. Need to know the defined syntax. Control & automate AWS services through scripts. (pop) AWS SDKs - Used when we want to create or integrate our application source code with AWS Services. API enables access to AWS using HTTP calls. AWS SDKs are available for JavaScript, NodeJS, Python, .NET, Go, C++, etc. Mobile SDKs are also there for Android, IOS, Xamarin, React-native, etc.

1. What will AWS do in the time of natural disaster or other unavoidable accidents?

AWS clusters data centers together around the world. Here, one data center will always be connected to another one via reductant high-speed and low-latency links. Simplify the following terms: Availability Zone (AZ) - The clusters of Data Centers connected via reductant high-speed and low-latency links. Region - The clusters of Availability Zones connected via reductant high-speed and low-latency links.

1. Who is ultimately responsible for security in AWS?

AWS follows the " Shared Responsibility" Model when it comes to the security department which simply means, both the Customer & AWS are responsible for securing the AWS environment. Customers are responsible for the security in the cloud. AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud (tap).

1. Who is the Root User in AWS?

The email you used to sign up will become your root user of the AWS account. It has unrestricted access to everything in your account. When log-in to the account with email and password, you logged into the account as a Root User.

1. What exactly is AWS Identity & Access Management?

With AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), you can specify who or what can access services and resources in AWS. The IAM manages the login credentials & permissions to the AWS account itself. It allows us to create users. IAM is not responsible for application-level access management.

1. Explain the IAM user.

IAM users can represent a person or an application that uses its credentials to make AWS requests. IAM gets us very granular with permissions. IAM User + IAM Policy = Authentication.

1. Explains IAM policy.

A policy is an entity that, when attached to an identity or resource, defines its permissions. Grant or deny permission to take action. Here, actions are AWS API calls. Everything in AWS is an API call. IAM policies are JSON-based documents. The best practice is to attach IAM policies to groups.

1. What is JSON?

It is a text-based way of representing JavaScript object literals, arrays, and scalar data. JSON is relatively easy to read and write, while also easy for software to parse and generate. It is often used for serializing structured data and exchanging it over a network, typically between a server and web applications.

1. Explain the IAM role.

An IAM role is an IAM identity that you can create in your account that has specific permissions. It can be a person or application that needs temporary access to the AWS credentials. Decode the use of AWS credentials. Most AWS API calls need to be signed and authenticated. When I say "signed", I meant sending HTTP requests to AWS.

1. IAM user Vs IAM role

IAM users have static credentials i.e. access key ID & secret access key. The user has a username as well, while IAM roles do not have login credentials. No static credentials as well. They are assumed programmatically. Here, credentials expire & rotate.

17. Who is a federated user?

Federated identity allows authorized users to access multiple applications and domains using a single set of credentials. Federated users differ from normal IAM users in the sense that IAM users are created and maintained by AWS and are permanent entities whereas Federated users are generally created to provide temporary access to AWS resources. For Example:- When you enter a Food Court, you first obtain a card. You can then access the individual restaurant by swiping that card. Similarly, federated users can access AWS resources but for that, we need to create IAM users who have permission (Obtaining a card first) to access those resources.

I would like to thank you for being such a patient reader. Feel free to give your feedback as well. Stay tuned for more insights on Amazon Web Services.