AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) key terms

On-demand delivery of computing resources such as servers, storage, and databases over the internet, with pay-as-you-go pricing instead of upfront hardware purchases.

The ability to automatically acquire more resources during demand spikes and release them when demand drops, matching capacity to actual workload needs.

Designing systems so they remain operational despite component failures, typically by running redundant resources across multiple locations and health-checking them continuously.

The property of a system that continues operating correctly even when one or more components fail, often through built-in redundancy rather than recovery after downtime.

The shift from buying and depreciating physical data center equipment upfront to paying only for consumed services as a recurring operating cost.

A financial estimate comparing all costs of an on-premises solution, including hardware, power, staffing, and facilities, against the full cost of a cloud approach.

The speed at which an organization can provision resources, experiment, and deliver new features, unconstrained by long hardware procurement cycles.

The worldwide footprint of data centers organized into Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations that host AWS services close to end users.

A set of best-practice design pillars, including operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability, used to evaluate workloads.

The AWS service for creating users, groups, and roles and writing policies that control which actions each principal may perform on which resources.

A JSON document that explicitly allows or denies specific actions on specific resources, attached to users, groups, roles, or resources themselves.

An identity with permission policies that trusted entities can temporarily assume, granting credentials without embedding long-term access keys in code.

The security principle of granting only the permissions needed to perform a task and nothing more, reducing the blast radius of compromised credentials.

An extra verification step beyond a password, such as a one-time code from a hardware token or app, required before sign-in succeeds.

The division of duties in which AWS secures the cloud itself, including facilities and hardware, while customers secure what they put in the cloud.

A stateful virtual firewall attached to resources such as EC2 instances that permits only explicitly allowed inbound and outbound traffic.

A stateless subnet-level firewall that evaluates ordered allow and deny rules for traffic entering or leaving a subnet.

Protecting stored data with cryptographic keys and protecting data moving across networks with protocols such as TLS, so intercepted or stolen data stays unreadable.

A managed service for creating and controlling encryption keys and defining who may use them, integrated with many AWS services for data encryption.

A logging service that records API activity and account events, providing an audit trail of who did what, when, and from where.

A service that continuously records resource configurations and evaluates them against rules, helping detect drift and noncompliant settings.

A self-service portal providing access to AWS compliance reports and agreements, such as audit attestations and certifications, for customer due diligence.

A service providing resizable virtual servers in the cloud, with a choice of instance types, operating systems, and purchasing options.

A preconfigured template containing an operating system, application stack, and settings used to launch EC2 instances consistently and repeatedly.

A capability that automatically adjusts the number of running instances based on demand or schedules, maintaining performance while controlling cost.

A managed service that distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets, improving availability and enabling horizontal scaling of applications.

A logically isolated virtual network in which you define IP address ranges, subnets, routing, and gateways for your AWS resources.

Durable object storage organized into buckets, offering storage classes tuned for different access patterns and lifecycle rules for automatic transitions.

Low-cost archival storage classes designed for infrequently accessed data, with retrieval times ranging from minutes to hours depending on the tier.

A managed relational database service that handles provisioning, patching, backups, and failover for engines such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others.

A fully managed NoSQL key-value and document database delivering single-digit millisecond performance at virtually any scale without server management.

A serverless compute service that runs code in response to events, charging only for execution time and requiring no server provisioning.

An operating model in which the provider manages all servers and scaling, and you deploy code or managed services while paying for actual usage.

One or more discrete data centers with independent power and networking within a Region, used to isolate failures and support redundancy.

A geographic area containing multiple isolated Availability Zones, chosen to meet latency, compliance, and service availability requirements.

A site closer to end users than a Region that caches content and terminates connections, reducing latency for global audiences.

A content delivery network that caches content at edge locations worldwide to speed delivery and reduce load on origin servers.

Running synchronized copies of a resource in separate Availability Zones so a failure triggers automatic failover with minimal interruption.

The probability that stored data will not be lost or corrupted over time, a property distinct from availability of the service.

A browser-based graphical interface for provisioning and monitoring AWS resources, useful for learning and for occasional administrative tasks.

A unified tool for managing AWS services from a terminal, well suited to scripting and repeatable automation tasks.

A billing model charging only for resources consumed, with no upfront commitment, so costs scale directly with usage.

A purchasing option committing to a one- or three-year term in exchange for a significant discount compared with on-demand rates.

A flexible discount model committing to a consistent hourly spend for one or three years, applying across eligible compute services.

Spare EC2 capacity offered at steep discounts that can be interrupted with short notice, suited to fault-tolerant or flexible workloads.

Charges that typically apply to data leaving AWS to the internet or crossing Regions, while many inbound transfers are free.

An offering that provides limited monthly usage of many services at no charge for a period or indefinitely, helping new users experiment.

A tool for setting spending or usage thresholds that trigger alerts or automated actions when actual or forecast amounts are exceeded.

A reporting interface for visualizing and analyzing historical spending patterns and forecasting future costs by service, account, or tag.

Labels attached to resources that appear in billing reports, enabling costs to be grouped by project, team, or environment.

An online tool for estimating the monthly cost of a proposed architecture before deploying it, using configurable service inputs.

Tiered support offerings ranging from basic self-service to enterprise plans with faster response times and a technical account manager.

An advisory service that inspects an account and recommends improvements across cost, security, performance, and fault tolerance.

A console tool for reviewing workloads against the Well-Architected Framework pillars and recording improvement plans over time.

A self-service repository of technical articles and answers to common questions, available to customers regardless of support plan.