Interview questions for AWS will be broken down by developer (beginner)

and architect (intermediate) level questions. Services covered for

developer profile include EC2 / S3 / Api Gateway / Lambdas / SQS / SNS
and architect level questions cover above services and additionally
include DynamoDB / IAM / EKS / ECS / Route 53 / Cloudfront.

Navigation links:
Developer_Profile_Questions
Architect_level_questions

Developer Profile Questions

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
1. What are the benefits of using EC2's auto-scaling
feature?
 Answer: Auto-scaling automatically adjusts the number
of EC2 instances based on demand, helping to ensure
optimal performance and cost-efficiency.
2. How can EC2 Spot Instances help save costs?
 Answer: Spot Instances allow users to bid on spare
AWS capacity at lower prices, potentially saving up to 90%
compared to On-Demand prices.
3. What are security groups for EC2 instances?
 Answer: Security Groups allow to configure allowed
traffic to and from EC2 machines on defined ports.
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
4. How does S3 versioning help with data protection?
 Answer: S3 versioning keeps multiple versions of an
object, allowing recovery from accidental deletions or
overwrites.
5. What is the purpose of S3 lifecycle management?
 Answer: S3 lifecycle management automates moving
objects to cheaper storage classes or deleting them after a
set period, helping to reduce costs.
6. How do S3 bucket policies work?
 Answer: S3 bucket policies are used to control access
to the bucket and its objects by specifying permissions.
Amazon API Gateway
7. What is throttling in API Gateway and why is it
important?
 Answer: Throttling limits the number of API requests to
prevent overloading backend services and ensures fair
usage among clients.
8. How can you secure APIs with API Gateway?
 Answer: APIs can be secured using API Keys, Lambda
Authorizers, IAM roles, and enabling SSL/TLS for data
transmission.
AWS Lambda
 9. What are the benefits of AWS Lambda's event-driven
architecture?
 Answer: It allows code to run in response to events
from various services, providing scalability and reducing
the need to manage servers.
10. How do environment variables in AWS Lambda
help?
 Answer: Environment variables allow you to manage
configuration settings separately from your code, making it
more flexible and easier to manage.
11. How can you monitor Lambda functions?
 Answer: Monitoring can be done using AWS
CloudWatch Logs and setting up CloudWatch Alarms to
track performance and errors.
Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service)
12. How does SQS help in decoupling microservices?
 Answer: SQS allows services to communicate
asynchronously, improving fault tolerance and handling traffic
spikes.
13. What is the purpose of FIFO queues in SQS?
 Answer: FIFO queues ensure messages are processed in the
exact order they are sent and are not duplicated.
Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service)
14. What type of notifications can SNS send to
subscribers?
 Answer: SNS can send messages to various endpoints like
email, SMS, and SQS, allowing broad communication.
15. Why use SNS for application-to-application
communication?
 Answer: SNS enables scalable, real-time message delivery to
multiple endpoints, making it easier to decouple and scale
applications.

Architect level questions

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
1. How does EC2 auto-scaling handle instance health
checks?
 Answer: EC2 auto-scaling uses EC2 instance status
checks and load balancer health checks to monitor
instance health. Unhealthy instances are automatically
terminated and replaced.
2. Explain the benefits of using Elastic IP addresses with
EC2 instances.
 Answer: Elastic IP addresses provide a static, public
IPv4 address that can be associated with any EC2 instance,
 allowing for quick reassignment in case of instance
failures.
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
3. How can you improve data retrieval speeds in S3 for
frequently accessed objects?
 Answer: Use S3 Transfer Acceleration, which leverages
Amazon CloudFront’s globally distributed edge locations, to
speed up uploads and downloads or even by simply using
CloudFront distribution.
4. Describe the Cross-Region Replication feature in S3.
 Answer: Cross-Region Replication automatically
replicates objects in a bucket in one AWS region to a
bucket in another region, enhancing data availability and
disaster recovery.
Amazon API Gateway
5. How can you implement authorization in API Gateway?
 Answer: Authorization can be implemented using IAM
roles and policies, Lambda authorizers, or Amazon Cognito
user pools to control access to APIs.
6. What are the benefits of using RESTful APIs with API
Gateway?
 Answer: RESTful APIs with API Gateway provide
scalable, flexible, and secure interfaces for interacting with
backend services, along with built-in monitoring and
logging.
AWS Lambda
7. How can you optimize the performance of a Lambda
function?
 Answer: Optimize performance by allocating
appropriate memory, minimizing package size, keeping
functions stateless, and using environment variables for
configuration.
8. Explain the concept of cold starts in Lambda and how
to mitigate them.
 Answer: Cold starts occur when a Lambda function is
invoked after being idle, leading to increased latency.
Mitigation strategies include using provisioned concurrency
and optimizing code initialization.
Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service)
9. What are the differences between Standard and FIFO
queues in SQS?
 Answer: Standard queues offer high throughput with
at-least-once delivery and best-effort ordering, while FIFO
queues provide exactly-once processing and strict message
ordering.
10. How can you ensure secure communication with
SQS?
 Answer: Secure communication is ensured by using
AWS IAM policies, SSL/TLS for data in transit, and
encrypting data at rest with AWS KMS.
Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service)
11. How can you use SNS to implement a fan-out
pattern?
 Answer: The fan-out pattern is implemented by
publishing a message to an SNS topic, which then delivers
the message to multiple subscribed endpoints such as SQS
queues, Lambda functions, or HTTP endpoints.
12. What is the purpose of message filtering in SNS?
 Answer: Message filtering allows subscribers to receive
only the messages matching message attributes allowing
possibility to discard messages which are not relevant.
Amazon DynamoDB
13. How does DynamoDB handle read and write
throughput?
 Answer: DynamoDB provides on-demand and
provisioned capacity modes to handle read and write
throughput. Provisioned mode allows specifying capacity
units, while on-demand mode scales automatically.
14. What is DynamoDB Global Tables, and how does it
benefit applications?
 Answer: DynamoDB Global Tables provide a fully
replicated, multi-region database, allowing applications to
read and write data from the nearest region, improving
performance and availability.
AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management)
15. How can IAM roles enhance security in AWS
environments?
 Answer: IAM roles provide temporary security
credentials for users or services, allowing them to access
AWS resources without embedding long-term credentials in
the application code.
16. Explain the concept of IAM policies.
 Answer: IAM policies are JSON documents that define
permissions for actions on AWS resources. They can be
attached to users, groups, or roles to grant or restrict
access.
Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service)
17. What are the advantages of using EKS for
container orchestration?
 Answer: EKS provides a managed Kubernetes service,
simplifying deployment, scaling, and management of
containerized applications with high availability and
security.
18. How does EKS integrate with other AWS
services?
 Answer: EKS integrates with services like IAM for
access control, CloudWatch for logging and monitoring, and
ELB for load balancing, enhancing the overall functionality
and security of applications.
Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service)
19. What is the difference between ECS and EKS?
 Answer: ECS is a fully managed container orchestration
service that uses AWS Fargate for serverless compute,
while EKS is a managed Kubernetes service offering
flexibility for running containerized applications.
Amazon Route 53
20. How does Route 53 support high availability for
applications?
 Answer: Route 53 provides high availability through
health checks, DNS failover, and latency-based routing,
ensuring traffic is directed to healthy and low-latency
endpoints.
Amazon CloudFront
21. How does CloudFront enhance the performance of
web applications?
 Answer: CloudFront delivers content through a global
network of edge locations, reducing latency by caching
copies of content closer to users and leveraging advanced
networking optimizations.