AWS Solutions Architect flashcards, generated for you.

Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization (5 pillars total). All decisions should align with these principles to build secure, reliable, efficient, and cost-effective systems.

Use RDS for structured data requiring ACID transactions, complex queries, and relational schemas (SQL). Use DynamoDB for unstructured/semi-structured data, high-throughput key-value access, and flexible schemas requiring millisecond latency at scale.

Auto Scaling Groups (EC2) automatically launch/terminate instances based on CloudWatch metrics (CPU, memory, custom). Target Tracking Scaling Policies adjust capacity to maintain desired performance levels while Application Load Balancers distribute traffic across instances.

Availability Zones (AZs) are isolated data centers within a Region; failures in one AZ don't affect others. Regions are geographically distant. For multi-AZ resilience, deploy across AZs. For geographic redundancy/data residency, replicate across Regions.

At rest: Enable encryption with AWS KMS, S3 SSE, RDS encryption, or EBS encryption. In transit: Use TLS/HTTPS, VPN, AWS PrivateLink, and enforce secure protocols. Store encryption keys in AWS Secrets Manager or Parameter Store; rotate regularly.

S3 Transfer Acceleration: Fast uploads over public internet for individual files. DataSync: Automated, scheduled data transfers between on-premises and AWS. Snowball: Large-scale data migration (PB) offline. Choose based on data volume, timeline, and bandwidth constraints.

Use Route 53 with health checks and failover/geolocation routing to direct traffic to healthy Regions. Replicate data across Regions (RDS read replicas, S3 replication, DynamoDB global tables). Deploy in multiple AZs per Region. Use CloudFront for content delivery.

Create customer-managed policies with specific actions and resources (not wildcards). Use IAM roles instead of long-term access keys. Apply resource-based policies. Enable MFA for sensitive operations. Regularly audit with IAM Access Analyzer. Use service control policies (SCPs) for organization-wide guardrails.

Use Reserved Instances/Savings Plans for baseline capacity (committed discount). Use On-Demand/Spot Instances for variable load. Implement auto-scaling to match demand. Leverage Compute Optimizer for right-sizing. Monitor with Cost Explorer and set budgets/alerts. Choose cheaper Regions when applicable.

For strong consistency: Use single-Region databases with read replicas (acceptable latency). For eventual consistency: Use multi-Region DynamoDB global tables or S3 cross-Region replication. Use CloudFront/edge caching for read-heavy content. Consider trade-offs between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance (CAP theorem).