I85PREP
⌘ K
AWS CRWT study materials
AWS CRWT study resources

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CRWT) practice questions

One question at a time. Build your AWS CRWT understanding.

First 50 of 200 questions. Each one lists the choices, the correct answer, and an explanation. The checker at the top of this page saves progress in this browser when it is available.

Continue in the practice tool above to load more questions, 50 at a time.

Question 1Cloud Concepts

A team wants to run a workload without provisioning or managing any servers, and wants AWS to handle capacity scaling automatically. Which cloud concept does this describe?

  1. Serverless computing Correct answer.
  2. Dedicated host tenancy
  3. Hybrid connectivity
  4. Lift-and-shift migration

Explanation

Serverless computing lets AWS manage provisioning and scaling of underlying capacity so the team deploys code or configuration only. Customers are billed for usage rather than for idle server capacity. Lift-and-shift, dedicated hosts, and hybrid connectivity all still involve servers the customer manages or reserves.

Question 2Cloud Concepts

Which statement best describes the AWS shared responsibility model?

  1. AWS is responsible for customer data classification and access policies.
  2. AWS secures the cloud infrastructure while customers secure what they put in the cloud. Correct answer.
  3. AWS and the customer jointly sign off on every application security control.
  4. The customer is responsible for physical security of AWS data centers.

Explanation

Under the shared responsibility model, AWS operates security of the cloud, covering facilities, hardware, and managed service infrastructure. Customers remain responsible for security in the cloud, including their data, identity configuration, and guest operating systems. This division is the defining principle of the model.

Question 3Cloud Concepts

A company needs to run a batch job that can be interrupted and restarted with minimal cost. Which AWS purchasing approach best fits this requirement?

  1. Savings Plans
  2. On-Demand Instances
  3. Dedicated Hosts
  4. Spot Instances Correct answer.

Explanation

Spot Instances offer spare EC2 capacity at steep discounts but can be reclaimed with short notice, which suits interruptible batch workloads. Dedicated Hosts and Savings Plans target steady or compliance-driven workloads. On-Demand offers flexibility but at higher cost than Spot.

Question 4Cloud Concepts

Which AWS global infrastructure component is a physically separate location with multiple isolated Availability Zones?

  1. Local Zone
  2. Edge location
  3. Region Correct answer.
  4. Availability Zone

Explanation

An AWS Region is a geographic area containing multiple isolated Availability Zones connected by low-latency links. Edge locations and Local Zones are smaller extensions used for content delivery or proximity, not full multi-AZ regions. Availability Zones are the building blocks inside a Region.

Question 5Cloud Concepts

What is the primary purpose of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)?

  1. To control who can access which AWS resources and under what conditions Correct answer.
  2. To distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones
  3. To encrypt data at rest across all AWS storage services
  4. To monitor application performance and set alarms

Explanation

IAM manages authentication and authorization by defining users, roles, and policies that grant or deny access to AWS resources. Encryption, monitoring, and traffic distribution are handled by other services. IAM is the access control layer for the account.

Question 6Cloud Concepts

A startup wants to avoid upfront capital expenditure for servers and instead pay only for what it uses. Which cloud benefit does this illustrate?

  1. Converting capital expense to variable operating expense Correct answer.
  2. Eliminating the need for network security
  3. Achieving fixed capacity planning
  4. Reducing the need for identity management

Explanation

Cloud computing shifts spending from upfront capital expense to variable operating expense based on consumption. This improves cash flow and aligns cost with demand. It does not remove security or identity obligations, and it reduces rather than creates fixed capacity planning.

Question 7Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service provides a managed relational database where AWS handles patching, backups, and failover?

  1. AWS Lambda
  2. Amazon S3
  3. Amazon RDS Correct answer.
  4. Amazon EC2

Explanation

Amazon RDS is a managed relational database service that automates provisioning, patching, backups, and multi-AZ failover. EC2 provides raw compute where the customer manages the database. S3 is object storage and Lambda is serverless compute.

Question 8Cloud Concepts

A company wants to store infrequently accessed data at lower cost while keeping millisecond retrieval when needed. Which S3 storage class is designed for this?

  1. S3 Glacier Deep Archive
  2. S3 Standard
  3. S3 Intelligent-Tiering
  4. S3 Standard-IA Correct answer.

Explanation

S3 Standard-IA is intended for infrequently accessed data that still requires rapid access, trading a lower storage price for a retrieval fee. S3 Standard is optimized for frequent access. Glacier Deep Archive is for long-term archival with retrieval times in hours.

Question 9Cloud Concepts

A solutions architect must design an application that tolerates the failure of an entire data center. Which approach best meets this requirement?

  1. Deploy only to edge locations
  2. Deploy across multiple Availability Zones within a Region Correct answer.
  3. Deploy all resources in a single Availability Zone
  4. Deploy a single large instance with more memory

Explanation

Availability Zones are isolated from one another, so distributing resources across multiple AZs in a Region lets the application survive the loss of one data center. A single AZ creates a single point of failure. Edge locations and larger instances do not provide data center fault isolation.

Question 10Cloud Concepts

Which characteristic of cloud computing allows resources to scale outward automatically as demand increases and scale back when demand falls?

  1. Elasticity Correct answer.
  2. Tenancy
  3. Durability
  4. Federation

Explanation

Elasticity is the ability to acquire and release resources automatically to match current demand. Durability refers to data persistence, federation relates to identity trust between systems, and tenancy describes how resources are shared or isolated. Only elasticity describes demand-driven scaling.

Question 11Cloud Concepts

A team is deploying an application and wants AWS to manage the underlying operating system patching for the compute layer. Which compute option best matches this need?

  1. A self-managed Kubernetes cluster on EC2
  2. AWS Fargate Correct answer.
  3. Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts
  4. Amazon EC2 with customer-managed AMIs

Explanation

AWS Fargate runs containers without requiring the customer to provision or patch the underlying hosts, so AWS handles the server layer. EC2-based options, including self-managed Kubernetes, leave operating system patching to the customer. Dedicated Hosts also require customer management of the guest OS.

Question 12Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service is best suited for decoupling application components by passing messages between them asynchronously?

  1. AWS CloudTrail
  2. Amazon SQS Correct answer.
  3. Amazon Route 53
  4. Amazon CloudFront

Explanation

Amazon SQS is a managed message queue that lets producers and consumers communicate asynchronously, buffering messages and decoupling components. Route 53 handles DNS, CloudTrail records API activity, and CloudFront delivers content. None of these provides queue-based decoupling.

Question 13Cloud Concepts

A company must keep certain regulated data within a specific country. Which AWS design decision most directly addresses this?

  1. Store data in a single Availability Zone worldwide
  2. Select a Region located in that country and restrict replication to it Correct answer.
  3. Enable cross-Region replication to every available Region
  4. Use only edge locations closest to the country

Explanation

Data residency requirements are met by choosing a Region inside the required jurisdiction and preventing replication outside it. Edge locations cache content but are not a data residency control. Replicating to all Regions would violate the requirement, and AZs are always within a Region.

Question 14Cloud Concepts

Which statement about the AWS Well-Architected Framework is accurate?

  1. It is a pricing calculator for estimating monthly bills.
  2. It provides design principles and best practices across pillars such as security and reliability. Correct answer.
  3. It is a service that automatically rewrites application code.
  4. It is a mandatory certification required before launching any workload.

Explanation

The Well-Architected Framework organizes guidance into pillars including operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability. It is advisory guidance, not a mandatory gate, pricing tool, or code transformer. Teams use it to review and improve architectures.

Question 15Cloud Concepts

A workload runs steadily 24 hours a day for three years. Which pricing option typically offers the greatest savings compared with On-Demand?

  1. On-Demand Instances renewed monthly
  2. A three-year Compute Savings Plan with all upfront payment Correct answer.
  3. Dedicated Hosts billed hourly
  4. Spot Instances with no interruption tolerance

Explanation

Long-term commitments with larger upfront payments produce the deepest discounts for predictable, steady workloads. A three-year all-upfront Savings Plan maximizes that discount. On-Demand offers no commitment discount, and Spot is unsuitable when interruptions cannot be tolerated.

Question 16Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service provides a central place to view billing and usage across multiple accounts in an organization?

  1. AWS Config
  2. AWS Organizations with consolidated billing Correct answer.
  3. Amazon Inspector
  4. AWS Shield

Explanation

AWS Organizations supports consolidated billing, aggregating usage and cost across member accounts and often qualifying for volume discounts. AWS Config tracks resource configuration, Inspector assesses vulnerabilities, and Shield provides DDoS protection. Only consolidated billing addresses cross-account cost visibility.

Question 17Cloud Concepts

A company wants to give an application running on EC2 temporary credentials to call S3 without storing long-term keys on the instance. Which mechanism should be used?

  1. An IAM role attached to the instance profile Correct answer.
  2. A long-term IAM user access key stored in a configuration file
  3. A shared access key distributed to all developers
  4. Root account credentials embedded in the application

Explanation

An IAM role attached through an instance profile supplies temporary, automatically rotated credentials to the instance. Long-term keys stored on disk, root credentials, and shared keys all increase exposure risk and violate least-privilege practice. Roles are the recommended mechanism for EC2 workloads.

Question 18Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service caches content at edge locations to reduce latency for globally distributed users?

  1. AWS Direct Connect
  2. Amazon CloudFront Correct answer.
  3. Amazon VPC
  4. Amazon EBS

Explanation

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network that caches content at edge locations close to users, lowering latency. VPC provides isolated networking, Direct Connect offers dedicated network links, and EBS provides block storage volumes. None of these caches content at the edge.

Question 19Cloud Concepts

A team must choose between a relational database and a NoSQL key-value store for a workload with unpredictable access patterns and very high request volume. Which consideration most strongly favors the NoSQL option?

  1. The need for a fixed schema enforced at the database level
  2. The ability to scale horizontally across partitions for high-throughput key access Correct answer.
  3. The need for complex multi-table joins with strict transactions
  4. The requirement to use SQL as the only query language

Explanation

NoSQL key-value stores such as DynamoDB scale horizontally by partitioning data, which suits very high request volumes with unpredictable patterns. Complex joins, SQL-only requirements, and rigid schemas are characteristics that favor relational databases instead. The distinguishing factor here is horizontal scalability for key-based access.

Question 20Cloud Concepts

Which AWS support plan provides access to a Technical Account Manager and concierge-style billing support?

  1. AWS Basic Support
  2. AWS Enterprise Support Correct answer.
  3. AWS Developer Support
  4. AWS Business Support

Explanation

AWS Enterprise Support includes a designated Technical Account Manager and concierge billing and account support. Basic is free with limited guidance, Developer targets early-stage development, and Business provides 24/7 support without a TAM. Only Enterprise includes the TAM role.

Question 21Cloud Concepts

An application writes to an SQS queue, and a worker processes messages. During a traffic spike the queue depth grows sharply while workers run at full capacity. Which design change best preserves responsiveness without over-provisioning workers permanently?

  1. Scale the worker fleet based on queue depth metrics Correct answer.
  2. Increase the message visibility timeout to several hours
  3. Disable the dead-letter queue to avoid rejected messages
  4. Move the workers into a single Availability Zone

Explanation

Scaling workers from a queue-depth metric such as ApproximateNumberOfMessagesVisible lets capacity track backlog and shrink afterward, which is the elasticity pattern for queue-based workloads. Extending visibility timeouts delays redelivery rather than adding throughput. Removing the dead-letter queue hides failures, and single-AZ placement reduces resilience.

Question 22Cloud Concepts

A company wants to run a stateless web tier that must survive the loss of one Availability Zone and continue serving traffic without manual intervention. Which combination best achieves this?

  1. A Network Load Balancer in one AZ with all instances in that AZ
  2. An Auto Scaling group with a desired capacity of one in a single AZ
  3. A single instance in one AZ behind an Elastic IP address
  4. An Application Load Balancer spanning multiple AZs with instances registered in each AZ Correct answer.

Explanation

An Application Load Balancer distributes traffic across registered targets in multiple Availability Zones and health-checks them, so losing one AZ leaves healthy targets elsewhere. A single instance, a single-AZ load balancer, and a one-instance group all leave a single point of failure. Multi-AZ registration is what provides automatic continued service.

Question 23Cloud Concepts

A regulated workload requires that only approved instance types and AMIs can be launched in an account, and any noncompliant launch must be blocked. Which approach enforces this requirement at launch time?

  1. An S3 lifecycle policy on billing reports
  2. An AWS Organizations service control policy restricting the allowed instance types and AMIs Correct answer.
  3. A monthly manual review of launched instances
  4. A CloudWatch dashboard displaying instance types in use

Explanation

Service control policies in AWS Organizations set the maximum permissions for member accounts and can deny launches that do not match approved instance types or AMIs, blocking them at the API level. Dashboards and manual reviews detect issues after the fact. S3 lifecycle rules manage object storage and have no bearing on EC2 launches.

Question 24Cloud Concepts

A team is comparing a multi-Region active-active design with a single-Region multi-AZ design for a critical service. Which trade-off statement is most accurate?

  1. Multi-Region active-active eliminates all consistency challenges
  2. Multi-Region removes the need for data replication between Regions
  3. Single-Region multi-AZ protects against a full Regional outage
  4. Multi-Region improves resilience to a Regional outage but adds replication complexity and cost Correct answer.

Explanation

Multi-Region active-active designs add protection against a Regional outage, but they require cross-Region data replication and introduce cost and consistency complexity. A single-Region multi-AZ design protects against AZ failure but not a Regional event. No architecture removes replication needs or all consistency challenges.

Question 25Cloud Concepts

A company is migrating a legacy application that depends on specific physical CPU and licensing constraints. Which EC2 tenancy option most directly satisfies both the licensing and isolation requirements?

  1. Shared tenancy with default settings
  2. Dedicated Hosts Correct answer.
  3. Spot Instances
  4. AWS Fargate

Explanation

Dedicated Hosts provide a physical server dedicated to one customer, which supports bring-your-own-license terms tied to sockets or cores and provides isolation from other tenants. Shared tenancy does not give that control, Spot Instances can be reclaimed, and Fargate abstracts hosts entirely.

Question 26Cloud Concepts

Which cloud concept describes the ability to provision resources in minutes instead of waiting weeks for hardware procurement?

  1. Agility Correct answer.
  2. Elasticity
  3. Durability
  4. Multi-tenancy

Explanation

Agility in cloud computing refers to the speed with which new resources can be provisioned and experiments launched, reducing the time from idea to production from weeks to minutes. Elasticity concerns matching capacity to demand, durability concerns data persistence, and multi-tenancy concerns shared infrastructure.

Question 27Cloud Concepts

A company wants to stop guessing about how much server capacity it needs before launching a product. Which cloud benefit most directly removes this capacity-planning risk?

  1. Fixed long-term capacity reservations
  2. Elastic scaling of resources on demand Correct answer.
  3. Manual capacity forecasting
  4. Colocation in a single data center

Explanation

Elastic scaling lets a company add or remove resources as actual demand is observed, so it no longer needs to over-provision ahead of launch. Fixed reservations, colocation, and manual forecasting all preserve the guesswork the company is trying to eliminate.

Question 28Cloud Concepts

Which statement best describes the AWS global infrastructure hierarchy?

  1. An Availability Zone spans multiple Regions to provide geographic redundancy
  2. A Region contains multiple Availability Zones, and Edge locations exist outside Regions for content delivery Correct answer.
  3. An Edge location contains multiple Regions, each with several Availability Zones
  4. A Region is a single data center replicated to Edge locations

Explanation

AWS organizes infrastructure into Regions, each containing multiple isolated Availability Zones, while Edge locations are separate points of presence used for services such as content delivery. Availability Zones never span Regions, and a Region is not a single data center.

Question 29Cloud Concepts

A development team needs to run code without provisioning or managing servers and pay only when the code executes. Which AWS compute model matches this requirement?

  1. Amazon EC2 On-Demand instances
  2. AWS Elastic Beanstalk
  3. AWS Lambda Correct answer.
  4. Amazon ECS on EC2 launch type

Explanation

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs code in response to events and bills per invocation and execution duration, with no server provisioning. EC2-based options require the team to manage or pay for underlying instances regardless of idle time.

Question 30Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service is a managed object storage service designed for storing and retrieving arbitrary amounts of data such as images, backups, and logs?

  1. Amazon RDS
  2. Amazon EBS
  3. Amazon EFS
  4. Amazon S3 Correct answer.

Explanation

Amazon S3 stores data as objects in buckets and scales virtually without limit, making it the standard choice for images, backups, and logs. EBS provides block volumes for instances, EFS is a shared file system, and RDS is a relational database service.

Question 31Cloud Concepts

A company wants a managed service to distribute incoming HTTP and HTTPS traffic across multiple targets in several Availability Zones. Which AWS service should it use?

  1. Amazon CloudFront
  2. Amazon Route 53
  3. Elastic Load Balancing Correct answer.
  4. AWS Direct Connect

Explanation

Elastic Load Balancing distributes incoming traffic across registered targets such as EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones and performs health checks. Route 53 resolves DNS names, CloudFront caches content at the edge, and Direct Connect provides private network connectivity.

Question 32Cloud Concepts

Which AWS tool provides a single dashboard for monitoring metrics and setting alarms on resources such as EC2 instances and Lambda functions?

  1. AWS CloudTrail
  2. AWS Config
  3. AWS Trusted Advisor
  4. Amazon CloudWatch Correct answer.

Explanation

Amazon CloudWatch collects metrics and logs, displays dashboards, and triggers alarms based on thresholds. CloudTrail records API activity, Config evaluates resource compliance, and Trusted Advisor offers best-practice recommendations.

Question 33Cloud Concepts

Under the AWS shared responsibility model, which task remains the customer's responsibility when using Amazon EC2?

  1. Patching the underlying hypervisor
  2. Maintaining the physical security of the data center
  3. Configuring security groups and patching the guest operating system Correct answer.
  4. Replacing failed physical disks in the host server

Explanation

AWS is responsible for security of the cloud, including hardware, hypervisor, and facilities, while the customer is responsible for security in the cloud, such as guest OS patching and security group configuration. Physical disks, hypervisor patching, and facility security all fall to AWS.

Question 34Cloud Concepts

A workload must remain available even if one Availability Zone becomes unavailable. Which design choice most directly achieves this within a single Region?

  1. Place instances in a single placement group with cluster strategy
  2. Replicate the workload to an Edge location
  3. Deploy all instances in one Availability Zone with larger instance sizes
  4. Distribute instances across at least two Availability Zones behind a load balancer Correct answer.

Explanation

Spreading instances across multiple Availability Zones ensures that the loss of one zone does not take down the entire workload, and a load balancer routes traffic to healthy targets. Larger instances, cluster placement groups, and Edge locations do not provide zone-level fault isolation for compute.

Question 35Cloud Concepts

A company runs a steady production workload and wants to reduce cost by committing to a one- or three-year term in exchange for a discount. Which AWS purchasing option fits?

  1. Spot Instances
  2. On-Demand Instances
  3. Reserved Instances or Savings Plans Correct answer.
  4. Dedicated Hosts

Explanation

Reserved Instances and Savings Plans offer significant discounts in exchange for a one- or three-year commitment to a consistent amount of usage. Spot Instances are interruptible, On-Demand has no commitment, and Dedicated Hosts address licensing or isolation needs rather than term-based savings.

Question 36Cloud Concepts

A team wants to run containerized workloads while AWS manages the underlying server capacity and orchestration. Which service best meets this requirement?

  1. Amazon ECS with the Fargate launch type Correct answer.
  2. AWS Batch on EC2
  3. Amazon ECS with the EC2 launch type
  4. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

Explanation

Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers in which AWS provisions and manages the underlying hosts, so the team only defines tasks and services. The EC2 launch type, Auto Scaling, and Batch on EC2 all require the team to manage instances.

Question 37Cloud Concepts

A company needs a managed data warehouse optimized for running complex analytical queries over petabytes of structured data. Which AWS service should it choose?

  1. Amazon Redshift Correct answer.
  2. Amazon ElastiCache
  3. Amazon Neptune
  4. Amazon DynamoDB

Explanation

Amazon Redshift is a managed, columnar data warehouse designed for large-scale analytical SQL queries. DynamoDB is a key-value document store, ElastiCache is an in-memory cache, and Neptune is a graph database.

Question 38Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service lets a company create a logically isolated virtual network with subnets, route tables, and gateways?

  1. AWS PrivateLink
  2. AWS Direct Connect
  3. Amazon VPC Correct answer.
  4. AWS Transit Gateway

Explanation

Amazon VPC provides the isolated virtual network in which subnets, route tables, internet gateways, and security controls are defined. Direct Connect is a dedicated link, Transit Gateway connects networks, and PrivateLink exposes services privately.

Question 39Cloud Concepts

A solutions architect is designing for the reliability pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Which practice aligns with that pillar?

  1. Manually rebuilding failed components after each incident
  2. Selecting the cheapest instance type regardless of failure behavior
  3. Automating recovery procedures and testing them regularly Correct answer.
  4. Minimizing the number of Availability Zones used to reduce complexity

Explanation

The reliability pillar emphasizes automatically recovering from failure, testing recovery procedures, and scaling horizontally to withstand disruption. Reducing zones, ignoring failure behavior for cost, and manual rebuilding all increase the chance of prolonged outages.

Question 40Cloud Concepts

A company wants to run its application across multiple AWS Regions to protect against a Region-wide outage. Which consideration is most important when choosing this approach?

  1. Data replication and consistency between Regions must be designed explicitly Correct answer.
  2. Availability Zones will span both Regions without configuration
  3. Edge locations automatically replicate all application data
  4. A single-Region deployment already protects against Region-wide outages

Explanation

Multi-Region designs require deliberate data replication, consistency handling, and failover routing because each Region is isolated by design. Edge locations do not replicate application data, Availability Zones remain within a Region, and a single-Region deployment cannot survive the loss of that Region.

Question 41Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service is purpose-built for running a managed message broker that supports publish/subscribe and queueing patterns using protocols such as AMQP and MQTT?

  1. AWS Step Functions
  2. Amazon SNS
  3. Amazon MQ Correct answer.
  4. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Explanation

Amazon MQ is a managed message broker for Apache ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ that supports standard protocols such as AMQP, MQTT, and JMS, which helps when migrating existing broker-based applications. SNS is pub/sub notifications, Kinesis handles streaming data, and Step Functions orchestrates workflows.

Question 42Cloud Concepts

A company wants to enforce that no S3 bucket in its organization can be made public. Which approach most directly provides preventive, organization-wide control?

  1. Enabling S3 versioning on all buckets
  2. Reviewing bucket policies monthly with a script
  3. Using AWS Organizations service control policies to deny public bucket policies Correct answer.
  4. Tagging buckets with a public-access attribute

Explanation

Service control policies in AWS Organizations set the maximum permissions for member accounts and can deny actions such as applying public bucket policies, providing preventive enforcement. Manual review is detective and error-prone, while versioning and tagging do not restrict permissions.

Question 43Cloud Concepts

An application's traffic is highly variable, with long idle periods and short bursts. Which combination best balances cost and availability for the compute tier?

  1. On-Demand or Spot capacity behind Auto Scaling with a small baseline Correct answer.
  2. Reserved Instances sized for peak load running continuously
  3. Dedicated Hosts sized for peak load
  4. A single large instance in one Availability Zone

Explanation

Auto Scaling with a modest baseline and On-Demand or Spot capacity for bursts matches spend to actual demand while maintaining availability across scaling events. Provisioning continuously for peak load wastes money during idle periods, and a single instance in one zone creates a failure risk.

Question 44Cloud Concepts

A regulated workload requires that data be encrypted at rest with keys the company controls and can rotate independently of AWS. Which AWS service should be used?

  1. AWS Key Management Service with customer managed keys Correct answer.
  2. S3 server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed keys
  3. TLS in transit only
  4. AWS Secrets Manager default encryption

Explanation

AWS KMS with customer managed keys gives the company control over key policies, rotation, and access, satisfying requirements for customer-controlled encryption keys. S3 managed keys are controlled by AWS, TLS protects data in transit rather than at rest, and Secrets Manager is for storing secrets.

Question 45Cloud Concepts

A team is choosing between provisioned throughput and on-demand capacity mode for Amazon DynamoDB. Which factor most strongly favors on-demand mode?

  1. Traffic is predictable and steady throughout the day
  2. The workload must run on a relational engine
  3. The workload requires complex multi-table joins
  4. Traffic is new and highly unpredictable with sharp spikes Correct answer.

Explanation

On-demand capacity mode automatically accommodates unpredictable or spiky traffic without capacity planning, which suits new workloads with unknown patterns. Steady predictable traffic is generally cheaper with provisioned capacity, and joins or relational engines point to a different database service entirely.

Question 46Cloud Concepts

A company is evaluating a serverless architecture for an event-driven image-processing pipeline. Which characteristic is a genuine trade-off of this approach?

  1. Execution duration and resource limits constrain long-running jobs Correct answer.
  2. The company must patch the underlying operating system
  3. Idle capacity is billed continuously
  4. There is no ability to scale automatically with demand

Explanation

Serverless functions impose limits on execution duration, memory, and other resources, so long-running or resource-intensive jobs may need a different compute model. Serverless scales automatically, removes OS patching from the customer, and does not bill for idle capacity.

Question 47Cloud Concepts

A company wants to reduce data transfer costs for users downloading large files from S3 across the globe. Which service most directly addresses this by caching content closer to users?

  1. AWS Global Accelerator
  2. Amazon CloudFront Correct answer.
  3. AWS Storage Gateway
  4. Amazon Route 53 latency routing

Explanation

CloudFront caches objects at edge locations near users, reducing latency and often lowering data transfer costs for repeated downloads. Global Accelerator improves routing for TCP and UDP traffic but does not cache content, Route 53 only resolves DNS, and Storage Gateway connects on-premises systems to AWS storage.

Question 48Cloud Concepts

Which AWS service provides a managed, highly available DNS web service with routing policies such as latency, geolocation, and failover?

  1. Amazon Route 53 Correct answer.
  2. Elastic Load Balancing
  3. AWS Direct Connect
  4. Amazon CloudFront

Explanation

Amazon Route 53 is a managed DNS service that supports routing policies including latency, geolocation, weighted, and failover to direct users to appropriate endpoints. Direct Connect is a private link, Elastic Load Balancing distributes traffic to targets, and CloudFront caches content at the edge.

Question 49Security and Compliance

A CloudWatch alarm must notify an on-call engineer by email when CPU utilization on an EC2 instance exceeds 80 percent. Which combination of services delivers this with the least operational effort?

  1. CloudWatch alarm action targeting an SNS topic with an email subscription Correct answer.
  2. AWS Config rule with a remediation action that publishes to an SQS queue
  3. CloudWatch Logs subscription filter targeting a Lambda function that sends email
  4. EventBridge scheduled rule invoking an SES template on a cron schedule

Explanation

CloudWatch alarms can directly invoke SNS topic actions, and an email subscription on that topic delivers the notification without custom code. This is the native, lowest-effort path for metric-threshold alerting.

Question 50Security and Compliance

Which AWS service is designed to centrally store and automatically rotate database credentials and other secrets used by applications?

  1. AWS Secrets Manager Correct answer.
  2. AWS Certificate Manager
  3. Amazon Inspector
  4. AWS Artifact

Explanation

Secrets Manager stores secrets and supports built-in rotation through Lambda rotation functions for supported data stores. That rotation capability is the defining feature that separates it from general parameter storage.