Amazon Web Services SOA-C02 AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate (SOA-C02) Exam Practice Test

Here are the steps to configure Amazon EventBridge to meet the above requirements:

Log in to the AWS Management Console by using the AWS Management Console shortcut from the VM desktop. Make sure that you are logged in to the desired AWS account.

Go to the EventBridge service in the us-east-2 Region.

In the EventBridge service, navigate to the "Event buses" page.

Click on the "Create event bus" button.

Give a name to your event bus, and select "default" as the event source type.

Navigate to "Rules" page and create a new rule named "RunFunction"

In the "Event pattern" section, select "Schedule" as the event source and set the schedule to run every 15 minutes.

In the "Actions" section, select "Send to Lambda" and choose the existing AWS Lambda function named "LogEventFunction"

Create another rule named "SpotWarning"

In the "Event pattern" section, select "EC2" as the event source, and filter the events on "EC2 Spot Instance interruption"

In the "Actions" section, select "Send to SNS topic" and create a new standard Amazon SNS topic named "TopicEvents"

In the "Input Transformer" section, set the Input Path to {“instance” : “$.detail.instance-id”} and Input template to “The EC2 Spot Instance has been interrupted on account.

Now all Amazon EC2 events in the default event bus will be replayable for past 90 days.

Note:

You can use the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or SDKs to create and manage EventBridge resources.

You can use CloudTrail event history to replay events from the past 90 days.

You can refer to the AWS EventBridge documentation for more information on how to configure and use the service: https://aws.amazon.com/eventbridge/

Here are the steps to update an existing AWS CloudFormation stack:

Log in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to the CloudFormation service in the us-east-2 Region.

Find the existing stack named 1700182 and click on it.

Click on the "Update" button.

Choose "Replace current template" and upload the updated CloudFormation template from the Amazon S3 bucket named "cloudformation-bucket"

In the "Parameter" section, update the EC2 instance type to us-east-t2.nano and add the IP address range 192.168.100.0/30 for SSH access.

Replace the instance profile IAM role with IamRoleB.

In the "Capabilities" section, check the checkbox for "IAM Resources"

Choose the role CFServiceR01e and click on "Update Stack"

Wait for the stack to be updated.

Once the update is complete, navigate to the stack and click on the "Stack options" button, and select "Prevent updates to prevent accidental deletion"

To get the value of the Prodlnstanceld , navigate to the "Outputs" tab in the CloudFormation stack and find the key "Prodlnstanceld". The value corresponding to it is the value that you need to enter in the text box below.

Note:

You can use AWS CloudFormation to update an existing stack.

You can use the AWS CloudFormation service role to deploy updates.

You can refer to the AWS CloudFormation documentation for more information on how to update and manage stacks: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/

Here are the steps to configure an Amazon S3 bucket to serve a static error page in the event of a failure at the primary site:

Log in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to the S3 service in the us-east-2 Region.

Find the existing S3 bucket named lab-751906329398-26023898.com and click on it.

In the "Properties" tab, click on "Static website hosting" and select "Use this bucket to host a website".

In "Index Document" field, enter the name of the object that you want to use as the index document, in this case, "index.html"

In the "Permissions" tab, click on "Block Public Access", and make sure that "Block all public access" is turned OFF.

Click on "Bucket Policy" and add the following policy to allow public read access:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": "*",

"Action": "s3:GetObject",

"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::lab-751906329398-26023898.com/*"

}

]

}

Now navigate to the Amazon Route 53 service, and find the existing hosted zone named lab-751906329398-26023898.com.

Click on the "A record" and update the routing policy to "Primary - Failover" and add the existing ALB as the primary record.

Click on "Create Record" button and create a new secondary failover alias record for the domain lab-751906329398-26023898.com that routes traffic to the existing S3 bucket.

Now, when the primary site (ALB) goes down, traffic will be automatically routed to the S3 bucket serving the static error page.

Note:

You can use CloudWatch to monitor the health of your ALB.

You can use Amazon S3 to host a static website.

You can use Amazon Route 53 for routing traffic to different resources based on health checks.

You can refer to the AWS documentation for more information on how to configure and use these services:

https://aws.amazon.com/s3/

https://aws.amazon.com/route53/

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/

Graphical user interface, application, Teams Description automatically generated

To address the issue of an errant process consuming an entire processor and running at 100%, the SysOps administrator can automate the restarting of the instance using Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Systems Manager.

Enable Detailed Monitoring:

Ensure that detailed monitoring is enabled on the EC2 instance. Detailed monitoring provides data in 1-minute periods, which is crucial for detecting the 2-minute threshold accurately.

To allow the EC2 instance in the private subnet to establish a secure connection to an external web server, follow these steps:

Modify Security Group:

Add an outbound rule to the security group of the EC2 instance with the following parameters:

Type: HTTPS

Destination: 0.0.0.0/0

This allows outbound HTTPS traffic to the internet.

Service Control Policies (SCPs) in AWS Organizations act as permission guardrails, defining the maximum available permissions for IAM entities within an organization. An SCP does not grant permissions but instead limits them. When an SCP is attached to an organizational unit (OU), it restricts the permissions of all accounts within that OU.

In this scenario, the SCP explicitly denies the iam:CreateUser action. However, if the SCP does not explicitly allow other necessary actions, such as ec2:RunInstances, those actions are implicitly denied. This is because, by default, all actions are denied unless explicitly allowed in the SCP.

To resolve the issue, the SCP should be updated to include an explicit allow statement for the ec2:RunInstances action. This will permit users in the OU to launch EC2 instances while still denying the creation of IAM users.

To generate a monthly report showing all S3 buckets and their compliance with the requirement to block public read access, the SysOps administrator can take the following steps:

Create an AWS Config Aggregator:

Create an AWS Config aggregator in an aggregator account. Use the organization as the source to aggregate AWS Config data across all accounts in the organization.

If users are unable to connect to a specific Ubuntu EC2 instance using AWS Systems Manager Session Manager while other instances are accessible, the issue is likely due to IAM permissions:

Instance Profile Permissions: Ensure that the EC2 instance has the necessary IAM permissions to interact with Systems Manager. The AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore managed policy includes permissions required for the SSM Agent on the instance to communicate with the AWS Systems Manager service.

Attach Managed Policy: Attach the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore policy to the IAM role that is associated with the Ubuntu instance's instance profile. This step is crucial as it authorizes the instance to use Systems Manager services, including Session Manager.

Verify Configuration and Connectivity: After updating the instance profile, verify that users can connect via Session Manager. This solution does not require any changes to network security settings like security groups.

By ensuring that the instance has the appropriate IAM permissions, you resolve issues related to access control and Systems Manager functionality, allowing authorized personnel to connect securely without using SSH or RDP.

To monitor usage and quotas across multiple accounts, CloudWatch now supports cross-account observability with delegated administrators.

From CloudWatch cross-account observability:

A delegated administrator can monitor CloudWatch data from linked accounts in a central monitoring account.

Also:

You can use the SERVICE_QUOTA() function in a metric math expression to create alarms on quota utilization.

This is the most operationally efficient solution that meets the requirements, as it will allow the company to monitor the number of times that the web server returns an HTTP 404 response in real-time. The other solutions (creating a CloudWatch Logs subscription filter, an AWS Lambda function, or a script) will require additional steps and resources to monitor the number of times that the web server returns an HTTP 404 response.

A metric filter allows you to search for specific terms, phrases, or values in your log events, and then to create a metric based on the number of occurrences of those search terms. This allows you to create a CloudWatch Metric that can be used to create alarms and dashboards, which can be used to monitor the number of HTTP 404 responses returned by the web server.

To ensure that the Auto Scaling group scales out when CPU utilization rises above 50%, the administrator should configure the Auto Scaling group to dynamically scale based on demand. This is achieved by setting up a scaling policy that triggers based on specific CloudWatch alarms—like CPU utilization exceeding 50%. This dynamic scaling method directly responds to changes in workload, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently and promptly as demand increases. Option C is the correct answer, aligning with best practices for managing EC2 Auto Scaling based on real-time metrics. Further guidance is available in AWS documentation on dynamic scaling Dynamic Scaling for EC2.

To refer to resources created by the first CloudFormation template in the second template with minimal administrative effort, using the export and import functionality is the most efficient approach.

Exporting Outputs in the First Template:

In the first CloudFormation template, add an Outputs section to export the required values.

Use the Export field to specify the name of the exported value.

Example:

Outputs:

VPCID:

Description: The VPC ID

Value: !Ref MyVPC

Export:

Name: VPCID

Importing Values in the Second Template:

In the second CloudFormation template, use the Fn::ImportValue function to import the exported values from the first template.

Example:

Resources:

MySubnet:

Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet

Properties:

VpcId: !ImportValue VPCID

Efficiency and Best Practices:

This method ensures a clean separation of resources and allows easy reference to outputs from other stacks.

It simplifies the management and deployment process by leveraging CloudFormation's built-in export and import mechanisms.

AWS CloudFormation Exporting Stack Output Values

AWS CloudFormation Importing Values

To deploy and manage an identical Amazon VPC configuration across multiple AWS accounts efficiently:

AWS CloudFormation Template: Create a CloudFormation template that defines the VPC configuration. This template should include all necessary resources like subnets, route tables, internet gateways, etc.

Use CloudFormation StackSets: Utilize AWS CloudFormation StackSets to manage the deployment of the VPC template across the 50 AWS accounts. StackSets allow you to specify management and target accounts, automate deployments, and ensure consistency across all accounts.

Updating VPCs: When updates are required, modify the CloudFormation template and update the stack set. This will automatically apply the changes to all VPCs in the target accounts, ensuring uniformity and reducing operational overhead.

This method provides a centralized, consistent, and scalable way to manage resources across multiple AWS accounts, greatly simplifying the administration and ensuring compliance with organizational standards.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpc-network-acls.html

To block traffic to the external IP address identified by Amazon GuardDuty, the SysOps administrator should create a network ACL and add an outbound deny rule for traffic to the external IP address.

Network ACL:

Network ACLs (Access Control Lists) are stateless and operate at the subnet level. They can allow or deny specific inbound and outbound traffic based on rules.

Steps to Implement:

Go to the VPC console and select the network ACL associated with the subnet containing the EC2 instance.

Add an outbound rule to deny traffic to the external IP address provided by GuardDuty.

Ensure the rule is properly placed in the rule number order to be evaluated correctly.

Network ACLs

GuardDuty Documentation

The key requirements are:

Minimize application downtime

Minimize risk of failed deployment

From AWS Deployment Strategies:

Blue/Green deployment:Deploys new version alongside the old one, then switches traffic. Allows easy rollback and zero downtime.

Immutable deployment:Deploys a new environment (new EC2 instances) and switches traffic to it, without modifying existing instances.

Both provide safe, low-risk deployments with high availability.

Since the EC2 instance is attempting to access the internet using HTTP (port 80) but is configured only to allow HTTPS (port 443) traffic, the security group needs adjustment:

Security Group Configuration: The outbound rules of the security group associated with the EC2 instance must allow traffic over HTTP. Add an outbound rule that enables port 80 to destination 0.0.0.0/0. This rule will allow the instance to send HTTP requests to any IP address on the internet.

Test Connectivity: After updating the security group, test the connectivity using the curl command again to ensure the configuration allows internet access via HTTP.

This change is necessary because the existing security group configuration does not permit outbound HTTP traffic, which is essential for accessing websites using HTTP.

To enable automatic failover for RDS (MySQL in this case), you must configure it as a Multi-AZ deployment.

From Amazon RDS Multi-AZ documentation:

Multi-AZ deployments provide high availability and automatic failover support.

❌ Why other options are incorrect:

A: Changing engine to PostgreSQL does not help with failover.

C: Read replicas are used for scaling reads, not failover.

D: Automated backups help with point-in-time recovery, not failover.

When setting up an AWS managed VPN connection and creating a customer gateway resource, if the customer gateway device resides behind a NAT device, you should use the public IP address of the NAT device. This is because the VPN connection from AWS will be established to the public IP address that AWS can reach.

Identify the Public IP Address of the NAT Device:

Determine the public IP address assigned to the NAT device in front of the customer gateway.

Create Customer Gateway Resource:

Navigate to the VPC console in the AWS Management Console.

In the navigation pane, choose "Customer Gateways" and then click "Create Customer Gateway".

Enter a name for the customer gateway.

For the "IP Address", enter the public IP address of the NAT device.

Configure VPN Connection:

Create a VPN connection by navigating to the "VPN Connections" section and clicking "Create VPN Connection".

Select the created customer gateway and complete the VPN setup wizard.

Update Routing and Configuration:

Ensure that the routing configurations on both the AWS side and the on-premises side are updated to route traffic through the VPN connection.

Configure the customer gateway device (behind the NAT) to accept traffic from the NAT device and route it appropriately.

AWS Managed VPN Connections

Customer Gateway Resource

To track instance memory utilization and available disk space using Amazon CloudWatch, the SysOps administrator should install and configure the CloudWatch agent on all instances.

Install and Configure the CloudWatch Agent:

The CloudWatch agent can collect both system-level metrics (e.g., memory utilization, disk space) and application-level metrics and logs.

Install the CloudWatch agent on each EC2 instance and configure it to collect the necessary metrics.

Attach an IAM Role:

The EC2 instances need permissions to write logs and metrics to CloudWatch.

Attach an IAM role with the necessary permissions (e.g., CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy) to each EC2 instance.

Installing the CloudWatch Agent

Create IAM Roles to Use with the CloudWatch Agent

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-attribute-dependson.html

Syntax The DependsOn attribute can take a single string or list of strings. "DependsOn" : [ String, ... ] Example The following template contains an AWS::EC2::Instance resource with a DependsOn attribute that specifies myDB, an AWS::RDS::DBInstance. When CloudFormation creates this stack, it first creates myDB, then creates Ec2Instance.

Cluster placement groups are designed to place EC2 instances close together within a single Availability Zone, which reduces latency and maximizes network performance between instances.

Cluster Placement Group: Reduces network latency by keeping instances in close proximity within the same hardware, providing low-latency, high-throughput networking.

High Network Performance: Ideal for latency-sensitive applications, especially those running within a clustered architecture.

Spread placement groups are designed for high availability rather than low latency. Jumbo frames may improve throughput but not significantly reduce latency.

Step-by-Step Explanation:

Understand the Problem:

The threat of ransomware encrypting and holding company data hostage.

Need to protect an Amazon S3 bucket.

Analyze the Requirements:

Ensure that data in the S3 bucket is protected against unauthorized encryption or deletion.

Evaluate the Options:

Option A: Deny Post, Put, and Delete on the bucket.

Denying these actions would prevent any uploads or modifications to the bucket, making it unusable.

Option B: Enable server-side encryption on the bucket.

Server-side encryption protects data at rest but does not prevent the encryption of data by ransomware.

Option C: Enable Amazon S3 versioning on the bucket.

S3 versioning keeps multiple versions of an object in the bucket. If a file is overwritten or encrypted by ransomware, previous versions of the file can still be accessed.

Option D: Enable snapshots on the bucket.

Amazon S3 does not have a snapshot feature; this option is not applicable.

Select the Best Solution:

Option C: Enabling Amazon S3 versioning is the best solution as it allows access to previous versions of objects, providing protection against ransomware encryption by retaining prior, unencrypted versions.

Amazon S3 Versioning

Best Practices for Protecting Data with Amazon S3

Enabling S3 versioning ensures that previous versions of objects are preserved, providing a safeguard against ransomware by allowing recovery of unencrypted versions of data.

 AWS Config Managed Rule for S3 Logging:

The s3-bucket-logging-enabled AWS Config rule checks whether S3 buckets have logging enabled.

Steps:

Go to the AWS Management Console.

Navigate to AWS Config.

Create a rule using s3-bucket-logging-enabled.

Add a remediation action using an AWS Lambda function or Systems Manager Automation runbook.

AWS Config Managed Rules

 Using AWS Lambda for Remediation:

Create a Lambda function that enables logging on S3 buckets.

Steps:

Write a Lambda function in Python or Node.js to enable logging.

Configure the function to trigger on non-compliant buckets.

Objective:

Notify administrators via email whenever a root user sign-in event occurs.

Using Amazon EventBridge and Amazon SNS:

EventBridge: Captures the root user sign-in events from AWS CloudTrail.

SNS: Publishes email notifications to subscribed recipients.

Steps to Implement:

Step 1: Enable CloudTrail for management events if not already enabled.

Step 2: Create an EventBridge rule:

Event pattern:

{

"source": ["aws.signin"],

"detail-type": ["AWS Console Sign In via Root Account"]

}

Step 3: Set the rule target to an SNS topic.

Step 4: Subscribe email addresses to the SNS topic.

AWS References:

EventBridge Rules:Creating EventBridge Rules

SNS Subscriptions:Amazon SNS Subscriptions

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

Option A: Trusted Advisor does not directly send notifications for root sign-ins.

Option B: Using an EC2 instance and scripts is less efficient and not operationally optimized.

Option C: Sending notifications to SQS introduces unnecessary complexity and delays.

Retain the Security Group:

When deleting a CloudFormation stack, you can specify resources to be retained instead of deleted.

Steps:

Go to the AWS Management Console.

Navigate to CloudFormation and select the stack.

Choose to delete the stack.

In the deletion options, specify that the security group should be retained.

This will delete the stack but keep the security group, ensuring no impact on other applications.

Deleting a Stack

When EC2 instances in a VPC cannot resolve on-premises DNS names like mssql.example.com, it is usually because the default DHCP options set provided by AWS does not allow forwarding DNS queries outside of the VPC.

To resolve this, you must:

Create a Route 53 Resolver outbound endpoint in your VPC.

Define a forwarding rule for the example.com domain, specifying the on-premises DNS server as the target.

Associate the forwarding rule with the VPC where the EC2 instance resides.

This setup enables DNS queries for example.com to be forwarded from AWS to the on-premises DNS servers, thereby enabling name resolution for hybrid environments.

Exact Reference from AWS Documentation:

AWS Route 53 Resolver enables hybrid cloud DNS resolution. An outbound endpoint forwards DNS queries from the VPC to on-premises DNS servers via defined rules.

[Source: Amazon Route 53 Resolver Documentation – Forwarding outbound queries]

To ensure all objects in the S3 bucket are encrypted, including future objects, the following steps should be taken:

Enable Default Server-Side Encryption:

Edit the properties of the S3 bucket to enable default server-side encryption. This ensures that all new objects written to the bucket are encrypted by default.

Navigate to the S3 console, select the bucket, go to the "Properties" tab, and under "Default encryption", select the encryption method (SSE-S3, SSE-KMS, etc.).

When troubleshooting inability to access an EC2 instance from the internet, you should:

A: Verify that the security group rules allow inbound HTTP and HTTPS traffic on ports 80 and 443. Security groups act as a virtual firewall to control the traffic to instances.

D: Check that outbound rules in the network ACL allow traffic for ephemeral ports 1024-65535. This is crucial for return traffic from web requests, which typically use these higher port numbers for responses.

E: Confirm that any software-based firewalls on the instance (such as Windows Firewall or iptables in Linux) are configured to allow inbound traffic on HTTP and HTTPS. These steps will ensure that the web server is correctly configured to receive and respond to web traffic from the internet. AWS provides guidelines on these configurations in their documentation on security groups EC2 Security Groups and network ACLs Network ACLs.

To provide the ability to recover deleted EBS snapshots for a specified period, creating a Recycle Bin retention rule for EBS snapshots is the appropriate solution.

Recycle Bin:

The Recycle Bin for Amazon EBS snapshots allows you to recover snapshots that were deleted within a specified retention period.

Creating a Retention Rule:

Open the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager console.

Create a new Recycle Bin retention rule for EBS snapshots and specify the desired retention period.

Amazon EBS Recycle Bin

Several factors can affect the availability of an S3 object through a presigned URL:

Expiration of Presigned URL: A presigned URL is valid only until its specified expiration time. Once expired, it becomes inaccessible.

Invalid Access Key: If the access key of the SysOps administrator who generated the presigned URL is revoked or rotated, the URL will no longer be valid.

Other options like enabling Block Public Access or changing the object ACL to All Users are not necessary for presigned URLs, as these URLs temporarily grant access regardless of public bucket settings.

"A certificate is eligible for automatic renewal subject to the following considerations: ELIGIBLE if associated with another AWS service, such as Elastic Load Balancing or CloudFront. ELIGIBLE if exported since being issued or last renewed. ELIGIBLE if it is a private certificate issued by calling the ACM RequestCertificate API and then exported or associated with another AWS service. ELIGIBLE if it is a private certificate issued through the management console and then exported or associated with another AWS service." https://docs.aws.amazon.com/acm/latest/userguide/managed-renewal.html

To automate the initialization of additional EBS volumes on Windows EC2 instances, the most effective approach is to integrate initialization scripts within the instance so that they execute upon startup:

Configure Initialization Script: Use a Windows PowerShell script (InitializeDisks.ps1) to initialize and format the additional EBS volumes. The script can assign drive letters based on configurations specified in DriveLetterMappingConfig.json.

Automate at Launch: Ensure that the PowerShell script runs automatically upon instance startup. This can be configured through Windows Task Scheduler or by setting it up in the startup folder.

Create a Custom AMI: Once the instance is configured with the script and successfully initializes the disks on startup, create a new AMI from this setup. This AMI can then be used to launch new instances that will automatically initialize their additional EBS volumes with no manual intervention required.

This method leverages native Windows tools and AWS capabilities to automate EBS volume initialization, enhancing operational efficiency without additional external dependencies.

To monitor and automatically respond to security groups allowing SSH access:

AWS Config: This service can be used to detect security groups that allow SSH access publicly (Option B). AWS Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.

AWS Systems Manager Automation: This can automatically execute actions like closing the port when a non-compliant security group is detected (Option D). It allows the execution of automated workflows that can respond to Config rule findings, ensuring immediate remediation actions such as closing ports. These two services combined offer a comprehensive solution to monitor, detect, and rectify unwanted security group configurations automatically. AWS documentation on AWS Config AWS Config and on Systems Manager Automation Systems Manager Automation provides additional insights.

When an EC2 instance stops responding and the system status checks are failing, the recommended first step is to stop and then start the instance. This action will cause the instance to be moved to a new host, potentially resolving the underlying hardware issue.

Stop and Start the Instance:

In the AWS Management Console, navigate to the EC2 dashboard and stop the affected instance.

After the instance has stopped, start it again to launch it on a new host.

Aurora Auto Scaling:

Aurora Auto Scaling adjusts the number of Aurora Replicas in response to changes in connectivity or workload.

Steps:

Go to the AWS Management Console.

Navigate to RDS and select the Aurora cluster.

Under "Actions," choose "Add Aurora Replica" to initially add replicas if needed.

Go to the "Auto Scaling" section and create an auto scaling policy.

Set the target value for the DatabaseConnections metric to 195.

Define the minimum and maximum number of replicas.

Save the configuration.

This ensures that the Aurora cluster scales automatically when the number of connections approaches the threshold, improving read performance.

Aurora Auto Scaling

Using Amazon S3 Block Public Access as a centralized way to limit public access. Block Public Access settings override bucket policies and object permissions. Be sure to enable Block Public Access for all accounts and buckets that you don't want publicly accessible.

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/secure-s3-resources/#:~:text=Using%20Amazon%20S3%20Block%20Public,don 't%20want%20publicly%20accessible.

To ensure CloudTrail is re-enabled immediately if it is disabled, you can use AWS Config with an automatic remediation action.

Create AWS Config Rule:

Configure an AWS Config rule that triggers when there are changes to the CloudTrail configuration.

To reduce the cost of EC2 instances with a 1-year commitment across different regions, purchasing a Compute Savings Plan is the most suitable option.

Compute Savings Plan:

Compute Savings Plans provide the most flexibility and help to reduce your costs by up to 66%, offering savings on a variety of EC2 instance usage.

These plans apply to usage across any AWS Region, and they also apply to AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate usage.

Flexibility Across Regions:

Unlike Reserved Instances, which are tied to a specific instance family and region, Compute Savings Plans provide savings across any EC2 instance usage, regardless of region, instance family, operating system, or tenancy.

This flexibility is ideal for the company's requirement to migrate workloads from the eu-west-1 region to the eu-west-3 region within the commitment period.

Implementation:

Open the AWS Cost Management console.

Navigate to the "Savings Plans" section.

Purchase a Compute Savings Plan with a 1-year term.

AWS Savings Plans

Compute Savings Plans

To stop EC2 instances in a development environment when they are not in use, you can create a CloudWatch alarm based on CPU utilization.

Create CloudWatch Alarm:

Navigate to the CloudWatch console.

Select "Alarms" and click on "Create Alarm".

Choose the EC2 instance metric for CPU utilization.

Set the condition to trigger the alarm when the average CPU utilization is less than 5% for a continuous 30-minute period.

When an AWS CloudFormation stack is in the DELETE_FAILED state due to the inability to delete a specific resource, such as an Amazon EC2 security group, the recommended approach is to use the DeleteStack operation with the RetainResources parameter. By specifying the resource (in this case, the security group) in the RetainResources parameter, CloudFormation will retain that resource and proceed to delete the rest of the stack.

This method is particularly useful when a resource cannot be deleted because it is being referenced by other resources outside the stack or due to dependencies that prevent its deletion. By retaining the problematic resource, you can successfully delete the stack and then manually address the retained resource as needed.

AWS CloudFormation StackSets Overview:

StackSets allows for deployment of CloudFormation stacks across multiple AWS accounts and Regions.

A stack instance in the "OUTDATED" status indicates that the stack template or parameters differ between the StackSet and the stack instance.

Why the Stack Instance Fails:

The "OUTDATED" status occurs when the stack operation (creation or update) was not successfully completed in a specific Region.

In this case, the most likely reason is that the stack has not yet been deployed in the specified Region.

Steps to Resolve:

Check the deployment status in the CloudFormation StackSets Console.

Identify the Region where the stack is in the "OUTDATED" status.

Retry the stack deployment for that Region by running a stack set update or stack instance operation.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A: Local template changes do not impact CloudFormation unless submitted to AWS. This is unrelated to StackSets.

B: While creating a global resource might fail, it would result in an error status (e.g., "FAILED"), not "OUTDATED."

D: Using an old API version would cause errors in the API request, not affect the stack instance status.

To prioritize alarm notifications over information notifications in an Amazon SQS environment, creating separate queues for each type of notification is the best approach. This allows the application processing the queues to prioritize fetching messages from the alarm notifications queue first. Option D directly addresses the need for prioritization without complicating the existing infrastructure. This setup is supported by best practices for using Amazon SQS, where using multiple queues to segregate message types is a recommended strategy Amazon SQS Best Practices.

To address the issue of a fully utilized EBS volume causing application errors, the most efficient solution is to dynamically resize the existing EBS volume and extend the file system. AWS EBS supports Elastic Volumes, allowing you to increase volume size without detaching or stopping the instance.

Steps:

Modify the EBS Volume:

Navigate to the Amazon EC2 console.

Select the EBS volume attached to the instance.

Choose "Modify Volume" and increase the size as needed.

Confirm the modification.

Extend the File System:

Connect to the EC2 instance.

Use the lsblk command to identify the volume and partition.

If necessary, use the growpart command to extend the partition.

Depending on the file system:

For XFS: sudo xfs_growfs -d /mount-point

For ext4: sudo resize2fs /dev/xvda1

This approach minimizes downtime and avoids the need for creating new volumes or stopping the instance.

To make the application accessible only through the CloudFront distribution and not directly through the Application Load Balancer (ALB), you can add a custom HTTP header to the origin settings for the CloudFront distribution. You can then create a rule in the ALB listener to forward requests that contain the matching custom header and its value to the origin. You can also add a default rule to the ALB listener to return a fixed response code of 403 for requests that do not contain the matching custom header. This will allow you to redirect all requests to the CloudFront distribution and block direct access to the application through the ALB.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/restrict-access-to-load-balancer.html

For a Lambda function in Account A to access an S3 bucket in Account B, the correct IAM roles setup includes:

A: In Account A, create a Lambda execution role that has permissions to assume another role in Account B. In Account B, create a role with permissions to access the S3 bucket and trust the Lambda execution role from Account A to assume it. This configuration allows the Lambda function to assume the cross-account role and access the S3 bucket as needed, maintaining security and proper access control. AWS documentation provides more details on setting up cross-account roles for Lambda access AWS Lambda Permissions.

To manage scaling of EC2 instances in response to variable SQS message loads effectively:

Monitor SQS Queue Size: Utilize Amazon CloudWatch to monitor the number of visible messages in the SQS queue. This metric gives an indication of the workload that needs to be processed by the worker instances.

Metric Math Expression: Create a CloudWatch metric math expression that calculates the approximate number of messages visible per instance. This provides a more precise scaling metric, ensuring that each instance in the Auto Scaling group has a manageable load.

Target Tracking Scaling Policy: Implement a target tracking scaling policy based on this metric math expression. Configure the Auto Scaling group to automatically adjust its size to maintain a target value for the average number of SQS messages per instance. This approach ensures that the EC2 instances scale up during high traffic periods and scale down when the message load decreases.

This solution optimizes resource utilization and cost while maintaining performance by ensuring that the worker processes are neither overwhelmed nor idle.

This solution is operationally efficient and leverages AWS services to provide notifications when the Lambda function is not invoked, indicating that the file did not arrive.

Steps:

Create a CloudWatch Alarm:

Open the Amazon CloudWatch console.

In the navigation pane, choose "Alarms" and then "Create Alarm".

Select Lambda Metrics:

Choose "Select metric" and then navigate to "AWS Lambda" metrics.

Select the Lambda function that processes the S3 files.

Choose the "Invocations" metric.

Configure the Alarm:

Set the period to 1 hour.

Define the threshold condition to trigger when the Invocations metric is zero.

Under "Additional configuration", configure the alarm to treat missing data as "breaching".

Set Alarm Actions:

Configure the alarm action to send a notification to an Amazon SNS topic.

Create an SNS topic if one does not exist, and subscribe the application team to this topic.

Testing and Verification:

Ensure that the alarm triggers correctly by simulating a missing file scenario and confirming that the notification is sent to the SNS topic.

This approach uses CloudWatch to monitor the invocation frequency of the Lambda function, ensuring that the application team is notified whenever the expected file does not arrive within the specified timeframe.

To rotate an AWS KMS customer master key (CMK) with imported key material every 6 months, follow these steps:

Create a New CMK with New Imported Material:

Generate new key material according to your security policies.

Create a new CMK in AWS KMS and import the new key material into this CMK.

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior to protect AWS accounts and workloads. It provides detailed monitoring for unauthorized access attempts, including console login attempts from unusual locations.

Amazon GuardDuty:

GuardDuty analyzes VPC flow logs, AWS CloudTrail logs, and DNS logs to detect suspicious activity.

It generates findings, such as UnauthorizedAccess

/ConsoleLoginSuccess, to alert administrators about potential security issues.

Setup:

Enable GuardDuty in your AWS account.

Configure GuardDuty to monitor unauthorized console logins.

Set up notifications for the relevant findings to alert administrators.

Amazon GuardDuty

GuardDuty Finding Types

If a user is unable to connect to an EC2 instance via RDP, the issue could be related to network ACLs or route table configurations.

Network ACL Blocking Traffic:

A network ACL (NACL) associated with the bastion's subnet might be blocking traffic on port 3389 (RDP).

Open the Amazon VPC console and navigate to Network ACLs.

Check the inbound and outbound rules for the NACL associated with the subnet. Ensure that port 3389 is allowed.

Route Table Missing Route to Internet Gateway:

The subnet's route table may not have a route to the internet gateway, which is necessary for internet connectivity.

Open the Amazon VPC console and navigate to Route Tables.

Check the route table associated with the subnet. Ensure there is a route with destination 0.0.0.0/0 pointing to the internet gateway (igw-xxxxxxxx).

Ensuring proper configuration of network ACLs and route tables will enable the required internet connectivity for RDP access.

Network ACLs

Route Tables

To ensure that the CloudFormation stack fails and rolls back if the process stalls, you should add a CreationPolicy with a timeout set to 4 hours to the CloudFormation template.

CreationPolicy:

The CreationPolicy attribute enables you to specify how long CloudFormation should wait for a resource to be created or updated.

You can use this to ensure that the instance completes its software installation process within a specified period.

Adding CreationPolicy to the Template:

Add the CreationPolicy attribute to the EC2 resource in the CloudFormation template.

Set the Timeout to 4 hours (PT4H).

Example:

Resources:

MyInstance:

Type: 'AWS::EC2::Instance'

Properties:

InstanceType: t2.micro

ImageId: ami-0abcdef1234567890

CreationPolicy:

ResourceSignal:

Count: 1

Timeout: PT4H

Ensuring Rollback:

If the instance does not signal success within the specified timeout, CloudFormation will mark the stack as failed and roll back the changes.

AWS CloudFormation CreationPolicy

Using Creation Policies with CloudFormation

To resolve DNS names for on-premises resources from EC2 instances in a VPC, you use Amazon Route 53 Resolver outbound endpoints to forward DNS queries to on-premises DNS servers.

From the Route 53 Resolver documentation:

Resolver outbound endpoints allow DNS queries from resources in your VPC to be forwarded to DNS servers in your on-premises network over Direct Connect or VPN.

To enable an Amazon EC2 instance in a private subnet to access Amazon S3 via a gateway endpoint, the following configurations are essential:

Route Table Configuration:The route table associated with the private subnet must have a route that directs traffic destined for Amazon S3 to the S3 gateway endpoint. This ensures that requests to S3 are routed internally within the AWS network, without traversing the internet.

Security Group Configuration:The security group attached to the EC2 instance must allow outbound traffic to Amazon S3. This can be achieved by adding an outbound rule that permits traffic to the prefix list associated with Amazon S3. Prefix lists are managed sets of CIDR blocks for AWS services, and using them simplifies the management of security group rules.

By ensuring both the route table and security group are correctly configured, the EC2 instance in the private subnet can access Amazon S3 without requiring internet access, thus maintaining the isolation of the private subnet.

"C" because Elastic Load Balancing provides access logs that capture detailed information about requests sent to your load balancer

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/load-balancer-access-logs.html

"D" because "you can configure CloudFront to create log files that contain detailed information about every user request that CloudFront receives"

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/AccessLogs.html

Step-by-Step Explanation:

Understand the Problem:

The EC2 instance processes large data files and uses a 1 TB General Purpose SSD (gp2) EBS volume.

CloudWatch metrics show consistent high VolumeReadOps.

The requirement is to improve I/O performance while ensuring data integrity.

Analyze the Requirements:

Improve I/O performance.

Maintain data integrity.

Evaluate the Options:

Option A: Change the instance type to a large, burstable, general-purpose instance.

Burstable instances provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst to a higher level when needed. However, this does not address the I/O performance directly.

Option B: Change the instance type to an extra-large general-purpose instance.

A larger instance type might improve performance, but it does not directly address the I/O performance of the EBS volume.

Option C: Increase the EBS volume to a 2 TB General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume.

Increasing the size of a General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume can increase its IOPS. The larger the volume, the higher the baseline performance in terms of IOPS.

Option D: Move the data that resides on the EBS volume to the instance store.

Instance store volumes provide high I/O performance but are ephemeral, meaning data will be lost if the instance is stopped or terminated. This does not ensure data integrity.

Select the Best Solution:

Option C: Increasing the EBS volume size to 2 TB will provide higher IOPS, improving I/O performance while maintaining data integrity.

Amazon EBS Volume Types

General Purpose SSD (gp2) Volumes

Increasing the size of the General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume is an effective way to improve I/O performance while ensuring data integrity remains intact.

AWS provides a native integration with Slack via the AWS Support App, which allows:

Real-time updates for AWS Support cases in Slack

Replying to support cases and adding comments from Slack

Case creation and escalation from Slack

From the AWS Support App in Slack Documentation:

You must first authorize the Slack workspace in your AWS account using the AWS Support App setup process.

Then, add the specific Slack channel by specifying the channel ID and required case types (e.g., account, service limit, technical).

❌ Why the other options are incorrect:

A: Slack must authorize the workspace first, not just an AWS account.

C and D: Using SNS + EventBridge + Lambda is not necessary, as AWS provides a native Slack integration with full support case features.

To resolve issues with high disk I/O during the bootstrap process:

Increase EBS Volume IOPS: Higher IOPS allows the EBS volume to handle more input/output operations per second, which is critical for high I/O demands like downloading large Docker images.

Increase EBS Volume Throughput: Boosting throughput allows for faster data transfer rates, which is useful when the workload requires sustained high data throughput during initialization.

Increasing the instance size or changing the instance type is not necessary if the root cause is related specifically to EBS performance. Nitro instances generally provide higher performance and are well-suited for high I/O tasks.