DVA-C02 AWS Certified Developer - Associate Questions and Answers

This solution will meet the requirements by using AWS X-Ray to analyze and debug the performance issues with the distributed Lambda applications. AWS X-Ray is a service that collects data about requests that the applications serve, and provides tools to view, filter, and gain insights into that data. The developer can use AWS X-Ray to identify the root cause of the performance issues by examining the segments and errors that show the details of each request and the components that make up the applications. Option A is not optimal because it will use logging statements and Amazon CloudWatch, which may not provide enough information or visibility into the distributed applications. Option B is not optimal because it will use AWS CloudTrail, which is a service that records API calls and events for AWS services, not application performance data. Option D is not optimal because it will use Amazon Inspector, which is a service that helps improve the security and compliance of applications on Amazon EC2 instances, not Lambda functions.

References: AWS X-Ray, Using AWS X-Ray with AWS Lambda

The Deployment Preference Type property specifies how traffic should be shifted between versions of a Lambda function1. The Canary10Percent10Minutes option means that 10% of the traffic is immediately shifted to the new version, and after 10 minutes, the remaining 90% of the traffic is shifted1. This matches the requirement of shifting 10% of the traffic for the first 10 minutes, and then switching all traffic to the new version.

The AutoPublishAlias property enables AWS SAM to automatically create and update a Lambda alias that points to the latest version of the function1. This is required to use the Deployment Preference Type property1. The alias name can be specified by the developer, and it can be used to invoke the function with the latest code.

This solution will meet the requirements by using the Time to Live (TTL) feature of DynamoDB, which enables automatically deleting items from a table after a certain time period. The developer can add a new attribute of type Number that has a timestamp that is set to 48 hours after the blog post creation time, which represents the expiration time of the item. The developer can configure the DynamoDB table with a TTL that references the new attribute, which instructs DynamoDB to delete the item when the current time is greater than or equal to the expiration time. This solution is also cost-effective as it does not incur any additional charges for deleting expired items. Option A is not optimal because it will create a script to find and remove old posts with a table scan and a batch write item API operation, which may consume more read and write capacity units and incur more costs. Option B is not optimal because it will use Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and AWS Fargate to run the script, which may introduce additional costs and complexity for managing and scaling containers. Option C is not optimal because it will create a global secondary index (GSI) that uses the expiration time as a sort key, which may consume more storage space and incur more costs.

References: Time To Live, Managing DynamoDB Time To Live (TTL)

This solution will meet the requirements by using Amazon CloudFront, which is a content delivery network (CDN) service that speeds up the delivery of web content and APIs to end users. The developer can configure the CloudFront cache, which is a set of edge locations that store copies of popular or recently accessed content close to the viewers. The developer can also update the application to return cached content based upon the default request headers, which are a set of HTTP headers that CloudFront automatically forwards to the origin server and uses to determine whether an object in an edge location is still valid. By caching the POST requests, the developer can optimize the API resources and reduce the latency for repeated queries. Option B is not optimal because it will override the cache method in the selected stage of API Gateway, which is not possible or effective as API Gateway does not support caching for POST methods by default. Option C is not optimal because it will save the latest request response in Lambda /tmp directory, which is a local storage space that is available for each Lambda function invocation, not a cache that can be shared across multiple invocations or requests. Option D is not optimal because it will save the latest request in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, which is a service that provides secure and scalable storage for configuration data and secrets, not a cache for API responses.

References: [Amazon CloudFront], [Caching Content Based on Request Headers]

This solution is the most efficient method to grant users access to AWS resources without requiring them to log in. Amazon Cognito is a service that provides user sign-up, sign-in, and access control for web and mobile applications. Amazon Cognito identity pools support both authenticated and unauthenticated users. Unauthenticated users receive access to your AWS resources even if they aren’t logged in with any of your identity providers (IdPs). You can use Amazon Cognito to associate unauthenticated users with an IAM role that has limited access to resources, such as Amazon S3 buckets or DynamoDB tables. This degree of access is useful to display content to users before they log in or to allow them to perform certain actions without signing up. Using an identity provider to securely authenticate with the application will require users to log in, which does not meet the requirement. Creating an AWS Lambda function to create an IAM user when a user accesses the application will incur unnecessary costs and complexity, and may pose security risks if not implemented properly. Creating credentials using AWS KMS and applying them to users when using the application will also incur unnecessary costs and complexity, and may not provide fine-grained access control for resources.

Mocking API Responses: API Gateway's Mock integration type enables simulating API behavior without invoking backend services.

Testing with Sample Data: Using captured responses from the real third-party API ensures realistic testing of the integration code.

Focus on Integration Logic: This solution allows the developer to isolate and test the application's interaction with the payment APIs, even without a test environment from the third-party providers.

References:

Amazon API Gateway Mock Integrations: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/how-to-mock-integration.html

The Secrets Manager Agent provides an out-of-the-box solution for securely caching secrets locally, reducing latency and operational overhead.

Why Option B is Correct:

Caching: The agent securely caches secrets locally, minimizing Secrets Manager API calls.

Security: Secrets remain secure during retrieval and storage.

Low Operational Overhead: Managed solution eliminates the need for custom logic.

Why Not Other Options:

Option A: Custom scripts introduce complexity and require ongoing maintenance.

Option C: Using Redis requires managing an additional service, increasing overhead.

Option D: Storing secrets in S3 lacks the fine-grained security controls of Secrets Manager.

References:

Caching Secrets in AWS Secrets Manager

IAM instance profiles are containers for IAM roles that can be associated with EC2 instances. An IAM role is a set of permissions that grant access to AWS resources. An IAM role can be used to allow an EC2 instance to access an S3 bucket by including the appropriate permissions in the role’s policy. The S3:ListBucket permission allows listing the objects in an S3 bucket. By updating the IAM instance profile with this permission, the application on the EC2 instance can retrieve the objects from the S3 bucket and display them to the user. Reference: Using an IAM role to grant permissions to applications running on Amazon EC2 instances

AWS CloudFormation is a service that allows developers to model and provision AWS resources using templates. A CloudFormation template can define the load test resources, such as EC2 instances, load balancers, and Auto Scaling groups. A CloudFormation stack set is a collection of stacks that can be created and managed from a single template in multiple Regions and accounts. The AWS CLI create-stack-set command can be used to create a stack set from a template and specify the Regions where the stacks should be created. Reference: Working with AWS CloudFormation stack sets

The HTTP header that the developer should use for this analysis is the X-Forwarded-For header. This header contains the IP address of the client that made the request to the Application Load Balancer. The developer can use this header to analyze patterns for the client IP addresses that use the application. The other headers either contain information about the protocol, host, or port of the request, which are not relevant for the analysis.

Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) is a fully managed messaging service that enables pub/sub communication between distributed systems. The developer can create an SNS topic and configure the Lambda function to publish messages with specific attributes to the topic. The developer can subscribe each partner to the SNS topic and apply the appropriate filter policy to the topic subscriptions. This way, each partner will receive updates for only their own orders based on the message attributes. This solution will meet the requirements in the most scalable way and allow adding new partners in the future with minimal code changes.

References:

[Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)]

[Filtering Messages with Attributes - Amazon Simple Notification Service]

Why Option B is Correct:The pilot light strategy keeps a minimal version of the environment in another Region and scales up during a disaster. It achieves an RTO and RPO of hours at a low cost and complexity.

Why Other Options are Incorrect:

Option A: Warm standby is more expensive as it keeps a scaled-down, fully functioning version running in another Region.

Option C: Backup and restore has a longer RTO and RPO than hours.

Option D: Multi-site active-active is costly and more complex than required.

AWS Documentation References:

Disaster Recovery Strategies on AWS

Maximum concurrency for SQS as an event source allows customers to control the maximum concurrent invokes by the SQS event source1. When multiple SQS event sources are configured to a function, customers can control the maximum concurrent invokes of individual SQS event source1.

In this scenario, the developer needs to resolve the issue of the third-party API frequently returning an HTTP 429 Too Many Requests error message, which prevents a significant number of messages from being processed successfully. To achieve this, the developer can follow these steps:

Find out the documented rate limits of the third-party API, which specify how many requests can be made in a given time period.

Configure maximum concurrency on the SQS event source based on the rate limits of the third-party API. This will limit the number of concurrent invokes by the SQS event source and prevent exceeding the rate limits of the third-party API.

Test and monitor the application performance and adjust the maximum concurrency value as needed.

By using this solution, the developer can reduce the frequency of HTTP 429 errors and improve the message processing success rate. The developer can also avoid throttling or blocking by the third-party API.

The solution that will meet the requirements is to write data to Amazon ElastiCache. This way, the application can write session data to a fast, scalable, and reliable in-memory data store that can be served reliably across multiple requests. The other options either involve writing data to persistent storage, which is slower and more expensive than in-memory storage, or writing data to the root filesystem, which is not shared among multiple EC2 instances.

This solution will meet the requirements with the least operational overhead because it uses Amazon S3 as a scalable, secure, and durable storage service for the reports. The presigned URL will allow customers to access their reports for a limited time (8 hours) without requiring additional authentication. The S3 Lifecycle configuration rules will automatically delete the reports that are older than 2 days, reducing storage costs and complying with the data retention policy. Option A is not optimal because it will incur additional costs and complexity to store the reports as DynamoDB items, which have a size limit of 400 KB. Option B is not optimal because it will not provide customers with access to their reports within one hour, as Amazon SNS email delivery is not guaranteed. Option D is not optimal because it will require more operational overhead to manage an RDS database and a Lambda function for storing and deleting the reports.

References: Amazon S3 Presigned URLs, Amazon S3 Lifecycle

Why Option A is Correct:Encrypting PII at rest and in transit before storing it in DynamoDB ensures end-to-end security. Using the AWS Database Encryption SDK with KMS keys allows the Lambda function to encrypt data before transmission, meeting security and compliance requirements.

Why Other Options are Incorrect:

Option B: While AWS-managed KMS keys encrypt DynamoDB data at rest, they do not encrypt data in transit.

Option C: DynamoDB streams process updates after the data is written to the table, failing to encrypt PII in transit.

Option D: Step Functions and SQS add unnecessary complexity and still require encryption logic for both transit and at rest.

AWS Documentation References:

Encrypting Data in DynamoDB

AWS Database Encryption SDK

Comprehensive Detailed Step by Step Explanation with All AWS Developer References:The AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) includes features for local testing and debugging of AWS Lambda functions. One of the most efficient ways to generate test payloads that match actual AWS event structures is by using the sam local generate-event command.

sam local generate-event: This command allows developers to create pre-configured test event payloads for various AWS services (e.g., S3, API Gateway, SNS). These generated events accurately reflect the format that the service would use in a live environment, reducing the manual work required to create these events from scratch.

Operational Overhead: This approach reduces overhead since the developer does not need to manually create or maintain test events. It ensures that the structure is correct and up-to-date with the latest AWS standards.

Alternatives:

Option A suggests using shareable test events, but manually creating or sharing these events introduces more overhead.

Option B and C both involve manually storing and maintaining test events, which adds unnecessary complexity compared to using sam local generate-event.

Amazon S3 supports resource-based policies, which are JSON documents that specify the permissions for accessing S3 resources. A resource-based policy can be used to enforce encryption in transit by denying access to requests that do not use HTTPS. The condition key aws:SecureTransport can be used to check if the request was sent using SSL. If the value of this key is false, the request is denied; otherwise, the request is allowed. Reference: How do I use an S3 bucket policy to require requests to use Secure Socket Layer (SSL)?

The solution that will solve this problem is to create and inspect the Lambda dead-letter queue. Troubleshoot the failed functions. Reprocess the events. This way, the developer can identify and fix any issues that caused the Lambda function to fail when invoked asynchronously by API Gateway. The developer can also reprocess any orders that were not processed due to failures. The other options either do not address the root cause of the problem, or do not help recover from failures.

AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps securely store, rotate, and manage secrets such as API keys, passwords, and tokens. The developer can store the API credentials in AWS Secrets Manager and retrieve them at runtime by using the AWS SDK. This solution will meet the requirements of security, code management, and performance. Storing the API credentials in a local code variable or an S3 object is not secure, as it exposes the credentials to unauthorized access or leakage. Storing the API credentials in a DynamoDB table is also not secure, as it requires additional encryption and access control measures. Moreover, retrieving the credentials from S3 or DynamoDB may affect application performance due to network latency.

References:

[What Is AWS Secrets Manager? - AWS Secrets Manager]

[Retrieving a Secret - AWS Secrets Manager]

This solution will limit the ability to download a premier content file in the S3 bucket to paid subscribers only because it uses a pre-signed object URL that grants temporary access to an S3 object for a specified duration. The pre-signed object URL can be generated by the company’s website when a paid subscriber requests a download, and can be verified by Amazon S3 using the signature in the URL. Option A is not optimal because it will allow anyone to download the content from the S3 bucket without verifying their subscription status. Option C is not optimal because it will require additional steps and costs to configure multi-factor authentication for accessing the S3 bucket objects, which may not be feasible or user-friendly for paid subscribers. Option D is not optimal because it will not prevent non-paying website visitors from accessing the S3 bucket objects, but only encrypt them at rest.

References: Share an Object with Others, [Using Amazon S3 Pre-Signed URLs]

Why Option C is Correct:SQL Server Always On availability groups require a shared storage solution. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server provides the shared storage necessary to implement Always On availability groups in a highly available configuration.

Why Other Options are Incorrect:

Option A: A single EBS volume cannot provide shared storage for Always On availability groups.

Option B: RDS does not support SQL Server Always On availability groups.

Option D: S3 is not a suitable storage tier for SQL Server database operations.

AWS Documentation References:

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server

This solution will meet the requirements by using AWS Secrets Manager, which is a service that helps protect secrets such as database credentials by encrypting them with AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) and enabling automatic rotation of secrets. The developer can use an AWS Secrets Manager resource in AWS CloudFormation template, which enables creating and managing secrets as part of a CloudFormation stack. The developer can use an AWS::SecretsManager::Secret resource type to generate and rotate the password for accessing RDS database during deployment. The developer can also specify a RotationSchedule property for the secret resource, which defines how often to rotate the secret and which Lambda function to use for rotation logic. Option A is not optimal because it will use an AWS Lambda function as a CloudFormation custom resource, which may introduce additional complexity and overhead for creating and managing a custom resource and implementing rotation logic. Option B is not optimal because it will use an AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store resource with the SecureString data type, which does not support automatic rotation of secrets. Option C is not optimal because it will use a cron daemon on the application’s host to generate and rotate the password, which may incur more costs and require more maintenance for running and securing a host.

References: [AWS Secrets Manager], [AWS::SecretsManager::Secret]

The solution that will meet the requirements is to add a test phase to the amplify.yml build settings for the application. This way, the developer can run end-to-end tests on every code commit and catch any bugs before deploying to production. The other options either do not support end-to-end testing, or do not run tests automatically.

AWS Amplify is a set of tools and services that enables developers to build and deploy full-stack web and mobile applications that are powered by AWS. AWS Amplify supports hosting static websites on Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront, with HTTPS enabled by default. AWS Amplify also integrates with various version control systems, such as AWS CodeCommit, Bitbucket, and GitHub, and allows developers to connect different branches to different environments. AWS Amplify automatically builds and deploys the website whenever code changes are merged to a connected branch, enabling phased releases with minimal operational overhead. Reference: AWS Amplify Console

This solution will meet the requirements by creating a single S3 bucket policy that denies access to the S3 bucket unless the request comes from one of the specified VPC endpoints. The aws:SourceVpce condition key is used to match the ID of the VPC endpoint that is used to access the S3 bucket. The StringNotEquals condition operator is used to negate the condition, so that only requests from the listed VPC endpoints are allowed. Option A is not optimal because it will create multiple S3 bucket policies, which is not possible as only one bucket policy can be attached to an S3 bucket. Option B is not optimal because it will use the aws:SourceVpc condition key, which matches the ID of the VPC that is used to access the S3 bucket, not the VPC endpoint. Option C is not optimal because it will use the StringNotEquals condition operator with a single value, which will deny access to the S3 bucket from all VPC endpoints except one.

References: Using Amazon S3 Bucket Policies and User Policies, AWS Global Condition Context Keys

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and consistent performance with seamless scalability. The developer can store each employee’s contact information in a DynamoDB table along with the object keys for the photos stored in Amazon S3. Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. The developer can use AWS APIs to search and retrieve the employee details and photos from DynamoDB and S3.

References:

[Amazon DynamoDB]

[Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)]

Why Option A is Correct:Converting a Lambda function to use a container image involves packaging the function code into a container image, storing the image in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), and updating the function to use the ECR repository URI.

Why Other Options are Incorrect:

Option B: SAM templates support container-based Lambda deployment, but storing the image in S3 is not applicable.

Option C: CloudFormation does not natively support specifying Lambda container images in S3.

Option D: While partially correct, it omits the need to specify the image tag for the deployment.

AWS Documentation References:

Lambda Container Images

This solution allows the Lambda function to be invoked by the DynamoDB stream whenever updates are made to items in the DynamoDB table. Event source mapping is a feature of Lambda that enables a function to be triggered by an event source, such as a DynamoDB stream, an Amazon Kinesis stream, or an Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) queue. The developer can configure event source mapping for the Lambda function using the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDKs. Changing the StreamViewType parameter value to NEW_AND_OLD_IMAGES for the DynamoDB table will not affect the invocation of the Lambda function, but only change the information that is written to the stream record. Mapping an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic to the DynamoDB stream will not invoke the Lambda function directly, but require an additional subscription from the Lambda function to the SNS topic. Increasing the maximum runtime (timeout) setting of the Lambda function will not affect the invocation of the Lambda function, but only change how long the function can run before it is terminated.

To create a central logging solution for microservices, using Amazon CloudWatch Logs is a recommended and effective approach. Here's why:

Amazon CloudWatch Logs Streams allow you to centralize logs from different services, which is crucial as the number of microservices increases.

Each microservice can have its own dedicated log stream within Amazon CloudWatch Logs, providing clear segregation of logs while still allowing centralized management.

This setup enables developers to monitor, search, and analyze logs efficiently using tools like CloudWatch Insights.

Other options like CloudTrail (B) are designed for API activity monitoring, not application logs. VPC Flow Logs (C) focus on network traffic rather than application behavior. AWS Cloud Map (D) is for service discovery and routing, not logging.

Amazon S3 supports server-side encryption, which encrypts data at rest on the server that stores the data. One of the encryption options is SSE-S3, which uses keys managed by S3. To use SSE-S3, the x-amz-server-side-encryption header must be set to AES256 when invoking the PutObject API operation. This instructs S3 to encrypt the object data with SSE-S3 before saving it on disks in its data centers and decrypt it when it is downloaded. Reference: Protecting data using server-side encryption with Amazon S3-managed encryption keys (SSE-S3)

In the CloudFormation template, the developer should create a parameter with the list of approved EC2 instance types as AllowedValues. This way, users can select the instance type they want to use when launching the CloudFormation stack, but only from the approved list.

Amazon EC2 instances can send the state-change notification events to Amazon EventBridge. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/monitoring-instance-state-changes.html Amazon EventBridge can send and receive events between event buses in AWS accounts. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eventbridge/latest/userguide/eb-cross-account.html

Amazon CloudWatch is a service that monitors AWS resources and applications. The developer can publish custom metrics to CloudWatch that record the failures of the external payment processing API calls. The developer can configure a CloudWatch alarm to notify the existing SNS topic when the error rate exceeds 5% of the total number of transactions in an hour. This solution will meet the requirements in a near real-time and scalable way.

References:

[What Is Amazon CloudWatch? - Amazon CloudWatch]

[Publishing Custom Metrics - Amazon CloudWatch]

[Creating Amazon CloudWatch Alarms - Amazon CloudWatch]

The command that will meet the requirements is sam sync -watch. This command enables AWS SAM Accelerate mode, which allows the developer to only redeploy the Lambda functions that have changed. The -watch flag enables file watching, which automatically detects changes in the source code and triggers a redeployment. The other commands either do not enable AWS SAM Accelerate mode, or do not redeploy the Lambda functions automatically.

A feature branch is a branch that is created from the main branch to work on a specific feature or task1. Feature branches allow developers to isolate their work from the main branch and avoid conflicts with other changes1. Feature branches can be merged back to the main branch when the feature or task is completed and tested1.

In this scenario, the developer needs to maintain two parallel streams of work: one for fixing and updating the current version of the application that is deployed in production, and another for developing the new version of the application. The developer can use feature branches to achieve this goal.

The developer can create a feature branch from the main branch for production bug fixes. This branch will contain the code that is currently deployed in production, and any fixes or updates that need to be applied to it. The developer can push this branch to the CodeCommit repository and use it to deploy changes to the production environment.

The developer can also create a second feature branch from the main branch for development of the new version of the application. This branch will contain the code that is under development for the new version, and any changes or enhancements that are part of it. The developer can push this branch to the CodeCommit repository and use it to test and deploy the new version of the application in a separate environment.

By using feature branches, the developer can keep the main branch stable and clean, and avoid mixing code from different versions of the application. The developer can also easily switch between branches and merge them when needed.

Global Secondary Index (GSI): GSIs enable alternative query patterns on a DynamoDB table by using different partition and sort keys.

Addressing Query Bottleneck: By making the slow-query attribute the GSI's partition key, you optimize queries on that attribute.

Scalability: GSIs automatically scale to handle increasing data volumes.

References:

Amazon DynamoDB Global Secondary Indexes: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/GSI.html

This solution will solve the deployment issue by deploying the new version of the application to one new EC2 instance at a time, while keeping the old version running on the existing instances. This way, there will always be at least four instances serving traffic during the deployment, and no downtime or performance degradation will occur. Option A is not optimal because it will increase the cost of running the Elastic Beanstalk environment without solving the deployment issue. Option B is not optimal because it will split the traffic between two versions of the application, which may cause inconsistency and confusion for the customers. Option D is not optimal because it will deploy the new version of the application to two existing instances at a time, which may reduce the capacity below four instances during the deployment.

References: AWS Elastic Beanstalk Deployment Policies

Amazon Cognito user pools support Lambda triggers, which are custom functions that can be executed at various stages of the user pool workflow. A post authentication Lambda trigger can be used to perform custom actions after a user is authenticated, such as sending an email notification. Amazon SES is a cloud-based email sending service that can be used to send transactional or marketing emails. A Lambda function can use the Amazon SES API to send an email to the user’s email address after the user logs in successfully. Reference: Post authentication Lambda trigger

DynamoDB TTL (Time-to-Live): A native feature that automatically deletes items after a specified expiration time.

Efficiency: Eliminates the need for scheduled deletion jobs, optimizing write throughput by avoiding potential throttling conflicts.

Seamless Integration: TTL works directly within DynamoDB, requiring minimal development overhead.

References:

DynamoDB TTL Documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/TTL.html

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and consistent performance with seamless scalability. DynamoDB Streams is a feature that captures data modification events in DynamoDB tables. The developer can enable DynamoDB Streams on the table and create a trigger to connect the DynamoDB stream to the Lambda function. This solution will enable the Lambda function to detect changes to the DynamoDB table in near real time.

References:

[Amazon DynamoDB]

[DynamoDB Streams - Amazon DynamoDB]

[Using AWS Lambda with Amazon DynamoDB - AWS Lambda]

Amazon ElastiCache for Redis: An in-memory data store known for extremely low latency, ideal for caching frequently accessed, complex data.

Write-Through Caching: Ensures that data is always consistent between the cache and the database. Writes go to both Redis and RDS.

Performance Gains: Redis handles reads with minimal latency, offloading the RDS database and improving the application's responsiveness.

References:

Amazon ElastiCache for Redis Documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonElastiCache/latest/red-ug/

Caching Strategies: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonElastiCache/latest/red-ug/Strategies.html

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides block level storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances1. Amazon EBS encryption offers a straight-forward encryption solution for your EBS resources associated with your EC2 instances1. When you create an encrypted EBS volume and attach it to a supported instance type, the following types of data are encrypted: Data at rest inside the volume, all data moving between the volume and the instance, all snapshots created from the volume, and all volumes created from those snapshots1. Therefore, option A is correct.

API Gateway Stages: Stages in API Gateway represent distinct environments (like PROD and DEV) allowing different configurations.

Stage Variables: Stage variables store environment-specific information, including Lambda function aliases.

Ease of Management: This solution offers a straightforward way to manage different Lambda function versions across environments.

References:

API Gateway Stages: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/set-up-stages.html

API Gateway Stage Variables: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/stage-variables.html

Lambda Layers: These are designed to package dependencies that you can share across functions.

How to Use:

Create a layer, upload your 100MB library as a zip.

Attach the layer to your function.

In your function code, import the library from the standard layer path.

References:

Lambda Layers: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-layers.html

AWS Lambda is a service that lets developers run code without provisioning or managing servers. Lambda provides a local file system that can be used to store temporary files during invocation. The local file system is mounted under the /tmp directory and has a limit of 512 MB. The temporary files are accessible only by the Lambda function that created them and are deleted after the function execution ends. The developer can store temporary files that are less than 10 MB in the /tmp directory and access and modify them multiple times during invocation.

References:

[What Is AWS Lambda? - AWS Lambda]

[AWS Lambda Execution Environment - AWS Lambda]

This solution allows the environment variables to be passed to the container when it is launched by AWS Fargate using Amazon ECS. The task definition is a text file that describes one or more containers that form an application. It contains various parameters for configuring the containers, such as CPU and memory requirements, network mode, and environment variables. The environment parameter is an array of key-value pairs that specify environment variables to pass to a container. Defining an array that includes the environment variables under the entryPoint parameter within the task definition will not pass them to the container, but use them as command-line arguments for overriding the default entry point of a container. Defining an array that includes the environment variables under the environment or entryPoint parameter within the service definition will not pass them to the container, but cause an error because these parameters are not valid for a service definition.

Comprehensive and Detailed Step-by-Step Explanation:The requirement is to query records by CustomerID, which is not the current partition key (OrderID). To achieve this efficiently:

Option A: Create a GSI with CustomerID as the Partition Key:

A Global Secondary Index (GSI) allows developers to create a different partition key and optional sort key for querying the data.

By creating a GSI with CustomerID as the partition key, the developer can query the table efficiently using CustomerID as the primary lookup key.

This avoids scanning the entire table and matches the requirement.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

Option B: Using CustomerID as a sort key for the GSI and performing a scan operation is inefficient. Queries are optimized, but scans are not.

Option C and D: Local Secondary Indexes (LSI) are only valid when the partition key remains the same as the base table. Since OrderID is the base table’s partition key, using CustomerID as the partition key or sort key in an LSI is not valid.

References:

Amazon DynamoDB Documentation: GSIs

Configuring the Lambda function to use ephemeral storage and processing data in the /tmp directory improves performance by leveraging local storage during execution.

Why Option C is Correct:

Ephemeral Storage: Lambda provides temporary storage (up to 10 GB) in the /tmp directory for each invocation, which is faster than pulling data directly from S3 multiple times.

Performance Boost: Data can be downloaded to /tmp, processed locally, and uploaded to the destination S3 bucket, minimizing S3 network calls.

Low Overhead: This approach requires only minimal changes to the function's configuration.

Why Not Other Options:

Option A: Using Amazon EFS adds complexity and is unnecessary for this use case.

Option B: Scheduling the function does not address the root cause of slow performance.

Option D: Lambda layers improve deployment efficiency, not runtime performance for this scenario.

References:

Using Ephemeral Storage in AWS Lambda

Best Practices for S3 and Lambda Performance

The correct answer is C. The developer did not update the Docker image tag to a new version.

C. The developer did not update the Docker image tag to a new version. This is correct. When deploying an application to Amazon EKS, the developer needs to specify the Docker image tag that contains the application code and configuration. If the developer does not update the Docker image tag to a new version after making changes to the application, the EKS cluster will continue to use the old Docker image tag that references the original backend resources. To fix this issue, the developer should update the Docker image tag to a new version and redeploy the application to the EKS cluster.

A. The developer did not successfully create the new AWS account. This is incorrect. The creation of a new AWS account is not related to the application’s connection to the backend resources. The developer can use any AWS account to host the EKS cluster and the backend resources, as long as they have the proper permissions and configurations.

B. The developer added a new tag to the Docker image. This is incorrect. Adding a new tag to the Docker image is not enough to deploy the changes to the application. The developer also needs to update the Docker image tag in the EKS cluster configuration, so that the EKS cluster can pull and run the new Docker image.

D. The developer pushed the changes to a new Docker image tag. This is incorrect. Pushing the changes to a new Docker image tag is not enough to deploy the changes to the application. The developer also needs to update the Docker image tag in the EKS cluster configuration, so that the EKS cluster can pull and run the new Docker image.

References:

1: Amazon EKS User Guide, “Deploying applications to your Amazon EKS cluster”, https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/deploying-applications.html

2: Amazon ECR User Guide, “Pushing an image”, https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECR/latest/userguide/docker-push-ecr-image.html

3: Amazon EKS User Guide, “Updating an Amazon EKS cluster”, https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/update-cluster.html

The response from the API call indicates that the ProvisionedThroughputExceededException exception has occurred. This exception means that the rate of incoming requests exceeds the throughput limit for one or more shards in a stream. To mitigate this exception, the developer can use one or more of the following techniques:

Implement retries with exponential backoff. This will introduce randomness in the retry intervals and avoid overwhelming the shards with retries.

Reduce the frequency and/or size of the requests. This will reduce the load on the shards and avoid throttling errors.

Increase the number of shards in the stream. This will increase the throughput capacity of the stream and accommodate higher request rates.

Use a PutRecord API instead of PutRecords. This will reduce the number of records per request and avoid exceeding the payload limit.

References:

[ProvisionedThroughputExceededException - Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Service API Reference]

[Best Practices for Handling Kinesis Data Streams Errors]

AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports several deployment policies, and in this case, the requirement is to forward a specific percentage of traffic to the new version without causing downtime. The Traffic-splitting deployment policy is the most appropriate choice.

Traffic-splitting Deployment: This deployment method allows you to gradually shift a specified percentage of incoming traffic from the old environment version to the new one. During the evaluation period, if any issues are detected, the traffic can be redirected back to the old version.

No Downtime: This method ensures no downtime since both versions of the application run concurrently, and traffic is split between them.

Alternatives:

Rolling deployments (Option A): These gradually replace instances but may result in partial downtime if some instances fail during deployment.

In-place deployments (Option C): In-place deployments replace instances without creating new ones, which can lead to downtime.

Immutable deployments (Option D): While this ensures no downtime by creating entirely new instances, it doesn't provide traffic splitting during the evaluation phase.

The immutable deployment method is the best option for this scenario, because it meets the requirements of maintaining full capacity, avoiding service interruption, and minimizing the cost of additional resources.

The immutable deployment method creates a new set of instances in a separate Auto Scaling group and deploys the new version of the application to them. Then, it swaps the new instances with the old ones and terminates the old instances. This way, the application maintains full capacity during the deployment and avoids any downtime. The cost of additional resources is also minimized, because the new instances are only created for a short time and then replaced by the old ones.

The other deployment methods do not meet all the requirements:

The all at once method deploys the new version to all instances simultaneously, which causes a short period of downtime and reduced capacity.

The rolling with additional batch method deploys the new version in batches, but for the first batch it creates new instances instead of using the existing ones. This increases the cost of additional resources and reduces the capacity of the original environment.

The blue/green method creates a new environment with a new set of instances and deploys the new version to them. Then, it swaps the URLs between the old and new environments. This method maintains full capacity and avoids service interruption, but it also increases the cost of additional resources significantly, because it duplicates the entire environment.

Using Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached to store and manage the session data will reduce the memory load and improve the performance of the web server. Using Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance to store the application data will provide a scalable, reliable, and managed database service. Option A is not optimal because it does not address the memory issue of the web server. Option C is not optimal because it does not provide a persistent storage for the application data. Option D is not optimal because it does not provide a high availability and durability for the session data.

References: Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon RDS

The AWS Serverless Application Model Command Line Interface (AWS SAM CLI) is a command-line tool for local development and testing of Serverless applications2. The sam local start-api subcommand of AWS SAM CLI is used to simulate a REST API by starting a new local endpoint3. Therefore, option D is correct.

This solution meets the requirements with the least amount of configuration because it uses a feature of AWS CDK that allows custom logic to be executed during stack deployment or deletion. The AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is a software development framework that allows you to define cloud infrastructure as code and provision it through CloudFormation. An AWS CDK custom resource is a construct that enables you to create resources that are not natively supported by CloudFormation or perform tasks that are not supported by CloudFormation during stack deployment or deletion. The developer can write a handler function in the code that uses AWS SDK calls to check for and delete unused resources, and create an AWS CDK custom resource that attaches the function code to a Lambda function and invokes it when the deployment stack runs. This way, the developer can automate the cleanup process without requiring additional configuration or integration. Creating a CloudFormation template from a JSON file will require additional configuration and integration with the central AWS CDK application. Creating an API in AWS Amplify will require additional configuration and integration with the central AWS CDK application and may not provide optimal performance or availability. Writing a handler function in the AWS Lambda console will require additional configuration and integration with the central AWS CDK application.

Comprehensive and Detailed Step-by-Step Explanation:

Option C: Edge-Optimized API Gateway with Custom Domain Name:

Edge-Optimized API Gateway: This endpoint type automatically leverages the Amazon CloudFront global distribution network, minimizing latency for API users distributed globally.

Custom Domain Name: API Gateway supports custom domain names for APIs. Importing the TLS certificate into AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) and associating it with the custom domain name ensures secure connections.

Disabling the Default Endpoint: Prevents direct access via the default API Gateway URL, enforcing the use of the custom domain name.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

Option A: While CloudFront can distribute API requests globally, API Gateway with edge-optimized endpoints already provides this functionality natively without requiring Lambda@Edge.

Option B: Private endpoint types are used for internal access via VPC, which does not meet the global distribution and low-latency requirement.

Option D: CloudFront Functions are not needed because API Gateway’s edge-optimized endpoints handle global distribution efficiently.

References:

Amazon API Gateway Custom Domain Names

Amazon API Gateway Endpoint Types

The combination of steps that the developer should take to fix the errors is to deploy AWS X-Ray as a sidecar container to the microservices and instrument the ECS task to send the stdout and stderr output to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. This way, the developer can use AWS X-Ray to analyze and debug the performance of the microservices and identify any issues or bottlenecks. The developer can also use CloudWatch Logs to monitor and troubleshoot the logs from the ECS task and detect any errors or exceptions. The other options either involve using AWS X-Ray as a daemon set, which is not supported by Fargate, or using the PutTraceSegments API call, which is not necessary when using a sidecar container.

The solution that will meet the requirements is to use the AWS SDK ssm PutParameter operation in the Lambda function from the existing custom resource to store the credentials as a parameter. Set the parameter value to reference the new credentials. Set the parameter type to SecureString. This way, the developer can store the API credentials with minimal operational overhead, as AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store provides secure and scalable storage for configuration data. The SecureString parameter type encrypts the parameter value with AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS). The other options either involve adding additional resources to the CloudFormation template, which increases complexity and cost, or do not encrypt the parameter value, which reduces security.

Why Option B is Correct:RDS Proxy manages database connections efficiently, reducing overhead on the RDS instance and mitigating "too many connections" errors.

Why Other Options are Incorrect:

Option A: DAX is for DynamoDB, not RDS.

Option C: Migration to PostgreSQL does not address the current issue.

Option D: ElastiCache is useful for caching but does not solve connection pool issues.

AWS Documentation References:

Amazon RDS Proxy

This solution allows the developer to keep the dependencies of the Lambda functions up to date with the least additional complexity because it eliminates the need to update each function individually. A Lambda layer is a ZIP archive that contains libraries, custom runtimes, or other dependencies. The developer can create a layer that contains all of the shared dependencies and attach it to multiple Lambda functions. When the developer updates the layer, all of the functions that use the layer will have access to the latest version of the dependencies.

EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events) is the ideal service for real-time event monitoring.

CloudTrail logs IAM role creation.

EventBridge rules can filter CloudTrail events and trigger SNS notifications instantly.

Why Option C is Correct:Ensuring that pipeline artifacts are encrypted with a customer-managed AWS KMS key involves configuring the S3 bucket policy to require encryption. This policy ensures all objects uploaded to the bucket are encrypted with the specified KMS key.

Why Other Options are Incorrect:

Option A: A gateway endpoint improves S3 access efficiency but does not enforce encryption.

Option B: Encrypting CloudWatch Logs is unrelated to securing pipeline artifacts.

Option D: Configuring SNS for encryption does not affect the artifacts stored in the S3 bucket.

AWS Documentation References:

Using Server-Side Encryption with S3 Bucket Policies

AWS CloudFormation is a service that enables developers to model and provision AWS resources using templates. The developer can use the following steps to avoid accidental database deletion in the future:

Set up AWS CodeDeploy to deploy the most recent version of the application at runtime. This will ensure that the application code is always up to date and does not depend on the AMI.

Remove any commands that perform operating system patching from the UserData script. This will reduce the time that the UserData script takes to run and speed up the instance launch process.

References:

[What Is AWS CloudFormation? - AWS CloudFormation]

[What Is AWS CodeDeploy? - AWS CodeDeploy]

[Running Commands on Your Linux Instance at Launch - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud]

CloudFormation and Dynamic References: The DefinitionSubstitutions property in CloudFormation allows you to pass values into Step Functions state machines at runtime.

Cost-Effectiveness: This solution is cost-effective as it leverages CloudFormation's built-in capabilities, avoiding the need for additional services like Secrets Manager or AppConfig.

References:

AWS Step Functions State Machine: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-resource-stepfunctions-statemachine.html

CloudFormation DefinitionSubstitutions: https://github.com/aws-cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-resource-providers-stepfunctions/issues/14

Lambda Concurrency: The 'maximum concurrency' setting in event source mappings controls the maximum number of simultaneous invocations Lambda allows for that specific source.

Prioritizing Queues: Setting a lower maximum concurrency for the 'high priority queue' ensures it's processed first while allowing more concurrent invocations from the 'low priority queue'.

Batching: Batch size settings affect the number of messages Lambda retrieves from a queue per invocation, which is less relevant to the prioritization requirement.

References:

Lambda Event Source Mappings: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/invocation-eventsourcemapping.html

Lambda Concurrency: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-concurrency.html

AWS Secrets Manager: Built for managing secrets, providing encryption, automatic rotation, and access control.

Customer Master Key (CMK): Provides an extra layer of control over encryption through AWS KMS.

Automatic Rotation: Enhances security by regularly changing the secret.

User Data Script: Allows secrets retrieval at instance startup and sets them as environment variables for seamless use within the application.

References:

AWS Secrets Manager Documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/

AWS KMS Documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/

User Data for EC2 Instances: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/user-data.html

This is a frequent trouble. Web applications cannot access the resources in other domains by default, except some exceptions. You must configure CORS on the resources to be accessed. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/cors.html

This step should be completed prior to deploying the application because it prepares the application artifacts for deployment. The AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) is a framework that simplifies building and deploying serverless applications on AWS. The AWS SAM CLI is a command-line tool that helps you create, test, and deploy serverless applications using AWS SAM templates. The sam package command bundles the application artifacts, such as Lambda function code and API definitions, and uploads them to an Amazon S3 bucket. The command also returns a CloudFormation template that is ready to be deployed with the sam deploy command. Compressing the application to a zip file and uploading it to AWS Lambda will not work because it does not use AWS SAM templates or CloudFormation. Testing the new Lambda function by first tracing it in AWS X-Ray will not prepare the application for deployment, but only monitor its performance and errors. Creating the application environment using the eb create my-env command will not work because it is a command for AWS Elastic Beanstalk, not AWS SAM.

Amazon API Gateway provides tools for creating and documenting web APIs that route HTTP requests to Lambda functions2. You can secure access to your API with authentication and authorization controls. Your APIs can serve traffic over the internet or can be accessible only within your VPC2. You can override the cache method in the selected stage of API Gateway2. Therefore, option B is correct.

Comprehensive Detailed and Lengthy Step-by-Step Explanation with All AWS Developer References:

1. Understanding the Use Case:

The goal is to store objects in an S3 bucket while optimizing storage costs. The key conditions are:

Objects are accessed infrequently after 1 week.

Objects must remain immediately accessible at all times.

2. AWS S3 Storage Classes Overview:

Amazon S3 offers various storage classes, each optimized for specific use cases:

S3 Standard: Best for frequently accessed data with low latency and high throughput needs.

S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA): Optimized for infrequently accessed data but requires the same availability and immediate access as Standard storage. It provides lower storage costs but incurs retrieval charges.

S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval (formerly S3 Glacier): Designed for archival data with retrieval latency ranging from minutes to hours. This does not meet the requirement for "immediate access."

S3 Glacier Deep Archive: Lowest-cost storage, suitable for rarely accessed data with retrieval times of hours.

3. Explanation of the Options:

Option A:"Create an S3 Lifecycle rule to expire objects after 7 days."Expiring objects after 7 days deletes them permanently, which does not fulfill the requirement of retaining the objects for later infrequent access.

Option B:"Create an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after 7 days."This is the correct solution. S3 Standard-IA is ideal for objects accessed infrequently but still need to be available immediately. Transitioning objects to this storage class reduces storage costs while maintaining availability and low latency.

Option C:"Create an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after 7 days."S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval is a low-cost archival solution. However, it does not provide immediate access as retrieval requires minutes to hours. This option does not meet the requirement.

Option D:"Create an S3 Lifecycle rule to delete objects that have delete markers."This option is irrelevant to the given use case, as it addresses versioning cleanup, which is not enabled in the described S3 bucket.

4. Implementation Steps for Option B:

To transition objects to S3 Standard-IA after 7 days:

Navigate to the S3 Console:

Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the S3 service.

Select the Target Bucket:

Choose the bucket where the objects are stored.

Set Up a Lifecycle Rule:

Go to the Management tab.

Under Lifecycle Rules, click Create lifecycle rule.

Define the Rule Name and Scope:

Provide a descriptive name for the rule.

Specify whether the rule applies to the entire bucket or a subset of objects (using a prefix or tag filter).

Configure Transitions:

Choose Add transition.

Specify that objects should transition to S3 Standard-IA after 7 days.

Review and Save the Rule:

Review the rule configuration and click Save.

5. Cost Optimization Benefits:

Transitioning to S3 Standard-IA results in cost savings as it offers:

Lower storage costs compared to S3 Standard.

Immediate access to objects when required.However, remember that there is a retrieval cost associated with S3 Standard-IA, so it is best suited for data with low retrieval frequency.

References:

Amazon S3 Lifecycle Configuration Guide

Amazon S3 Storage Classes

AWS S3 Pricing

AWS Documentation on S3 Standard-IA

Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is a service that delivers real-time streaming data to destinations such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics. The developer can implement Kinesis Data Firehose data transformation as an AWS Lambda function. The function can remove pattern-based customer identifiers from the data and return the modified data to Kinesis Data Firehose. The developer can set an Amazon S3 bucket as the destination of the delivery stream.

References:

[What Is Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose? - Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose]

[Data Transformation - Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose]

This solution will meet the requirements by using AWS Secrets Manager and AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to securely store the parameter values outside the code in an encrypted format. AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps protect secrets such as database credentials by encrypting them with AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) and enabling automatic rotation of secrets. The developer can create an RDS database secret in AWS Secrets Manager and set the user name, password, database, host, and port for accessing the RDS database. The developer can also turn on secret rotation, which will change the database credentials periodically according to a specified schedule or event. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is a service that provides secure and scalable storage for configuration data and secrets. The developer can create Secure String parameters in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store for the DynamoDB table, S3 bucket, and SNS topic, which will encrypt them with AWS KMS. The developer can also reuse the parameter values from other applications and update them without modifying code. Option A is not optimal because it will create encrypted Lambda environment variables for the DynamoDB table, S3 bucket, and SNS topic, which may not be reusable or updatable without modifying code. Option C is not optimal because it will create RDS database parameters in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, which does not support automatic rotation of secrets. Option D is not optimal because it will store the DynamoDB table, S3 bucket, and SNS topic in Amazon S3, which may introduce additional costs and complexity for accessing configuration data.

References: AWS Secrets Manager, [AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store]