--- tags: - cloud - l1 - flashcard-deck - aws-devops --- [Portal](../../../../library/portal/index.md) | **Level:** [L1: Foundations](../../../../library/portal/levels.md) | **Topics:** [Cloud Deep Dive](../../../../library/portal/topics.md) | **Domain:** Cloud id category difficulty tags question answer source_path aws-devops/0088be2410c7 aws-devops medium aws, cloudwatch, systems-manager "What the role ""EC2 Instance Profile"" is used for in regards to ECS?" EC2 Instance Profile used by ECS agent on an EC2 instance to:\n\n * Make API calls to ECS Service\n * Send logs to CloudWatch from the container\n * Use secrets defined in SSM Parameter Store or Secrets Manager\n * Pull container images from ECR (Registry)\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/135-what-the-role-ec2-instance-profile-is-used-for-in-.txt aws-devops/022c521e0319 aws-devops easy aws, cloudformation, config Explain what is CloudFormation "AWS definition: ""AWS CloudFormation is a service that helps you model and set up your Amazon Web Services resources so that you can spend less time managing those resources and more time focusing on your applications that run in AWS. You create a template that describes all the AWS resources that you want (like Amazon EC2 instances or Amazon RDS DB instances), and CloudFormation takes care of provisioning and configuring those resources for you.""\n\nRemember: CloudFormation = AWS-native IaC. Templates (JSON/YAML) define stacks. Drift detection shows manual changes. Rollback on failure by default." projects/knowledge/interview/aws/358-explain-what-is-cloudformation.txt aws-devops/034a1f2b1985 aws-devops medium aws, cloudformation What is CloudFormation in AWS? AWS CloudFormation: It's a service that helps model and set up your AWS resources using templates. It allows you to describe and provision all the infrastructure resources in your cloud environment.\n\nRemember: CloudFormation = AWS-native IaC. Templates (JSON/YAML) define stacks. Drift detection shows manual changes. Rollback on failure by default. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/429-what-is-cloudformation-in-aws.txt aws-devops/0bf2709fdfe3 aws-devops easy aws, cloudwatch What is AWS CloudWatch? "AWS definition: ""Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service...""\n\nMore on CloudWatch [here](https://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch)\n\nRemember: AWS DevOps services: CodeCommit (Git), CodeBuild (CI), CodeDeploy (CD), CodePipeline (orchestration), CloudFormation (IaC), Systems Manager (fleet ops).\n\nGotcha: AWS native DevOps tools work well together but can feel limited compared to GitHub Actions or GitLab CI. Evaluate before committing." projects/knowledge/interview/aws/344-what-is-aws-cloudwatch.txt aws-devops/0fb0d0b65b3e aws-devops hard aws, cloudwatch How can you customize the trigger for the scaling in/out of an auto scaling group? One way is to use CloudWatch alarms where an alarm will monitor a metric and based on a certain value (or range) you can choose to scale-in or scale-out the ASG.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/204-how-can-you-customize-the-trigger-for-the-scaling-.txt aws-devops/2027fbc2e3b2 aws-devops hard aws, cloudformation Why cloudformation when Terraform is already there. Both are like different languages for giving instructions to set up your office building. CloudFormation is AWS’s language, while Terraform is like a multi-language translator that works across different cloud providers. CloudFormation is AWS’s native service, while Terraform is a third-party, multi-cloud infrastructure provisioning tool.\n\nRemember: CloudFormation = AWS-native IaC. Templates (JSON/YAML) define stacks. Drift detection shows manual changes. Rollback on failure by default. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/414-why-cloudformation-when-terraform-is-already-there.txt aws-devops/3dcd0ea01c06 aws-devops easy aws, codedeploy, lambda What is AWS CodeDeploy? "Amazon definition: ""AWS CodeDeploy is a fully managed deployment service that automates software deployments to a variety of compute services such as Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, and your on-premises servers.""\n\nLearn more [here](https://aws.amazon.com/codedeploy)\n\nRemember: CodeDeploy supports EC2, ECS, and Lambda. Strategies: AllAtOnce, HalfAtATime, OneAtATime, Canary, Linear for ECS/Lambda." projects/knowledge/interview/aws/357-what-is-aws-codedeploy.txt aws-devops/481102bbeec4 aws-devops medium aws, x-ray Which service would you use for debugging and improving performances issues with your applications? AWS X-Ray. It traces requests across distributed services, builds a service map, and highlights latency bottlenecks and error rates to pinpoint performance issues.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/281-which-service-would-you-use-for-debugging-and-impr.txt aws-devops/56efadfdad95 aws-devops hard aws, eventbridge You would like to run an AWS Fargate task every time a file is uploaded to a certain S3 bucket. How would you achieve that? Use Amazon EventBridge so every time a file is uploaded to an S3 bucket (event) it will run an ECS task.\n\nSuch task should have an ECS Task Role so it can get the object from the S3 bucket (and possibly other permissions if it needs to update the DB for example).\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/396-you-would-like-to-run-an-aws-fargate-task-every-ti.txt aws-devops/5e1d71e6c8aa aws-devops medium aws, systems-manager What is AWS Systems Manager (SSM) and what operations does it support? SSM acts like a control panel to manage and automate office tasks (AWS resources). It helps in organizing and maintaining systems, automating tasks, and ensuring everything runs smoothly. It's a service used to manage AWS resources, automate tasks, and manage infrastructure.\n\nRemember: SSM = Swiss Army knife for fleet management. Session Manager (SSH-less shell), Parameter Store (config/secrets), Patch Manager, Run Command. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/419-what-is-aws-ssm.txt aws-devops/5ef72acb04ed aws-devops medium aws, cloudformation What would you use for easily creating similar AWS environments/resources for different customers? AWS CloudFormation — an infrastructure-as-code service that lets you model and provision AWS resources using declarative JSON/YAML templates. You can version-control templates and replicate identical stacks across accounts or regions.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/268-what-would-you-use-for-easily-creating-similar-aws.txt aws-devops/694ae1a405d1 aws-devops medium aws, cloudwatch What is CloudWatch in AWS and how is it utilized? CloudWatch: It's a monitoring and observability service in AWS used for collecting and tracking metrics, monitoring logs, and setting alarms. It's pivotal for resource optimization and troubleshooting.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/435-what-is-cloudwatch-in-aws-and-how-is-it-utilized.txt aws-devops/728c96849078 aws-devops easy aws, x-ray What is AWS X-Ray and how does it help with distributed tracing? "AWS definition: ""AWS X-Ray helps developers analyze and debug production, distributed applications, such as those built using a microservices architecture.""\nLearn more [here](https://aws.amazon.com/xray)\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console." projects/knowledge/interview/aws/365-what-is-aws-x-ray.txt aws-devops/76ce3f826256 aws-devops medium aws, codedeploy What would you use for automating code/software deployments? AWS CodeDeploy — a deployment service that automates code rollouts to EC2 instances, Lambda functions, or ECS services. It supports rolling, blue/green, and canary deployment strategies with automatic rollback on failure.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/266-what-would-you-use-for-automating-codesoftware-dep.txt aws-devops/7a7d59ff6037 aws-devops easy aws, monitoring "What is ""Amazon CloudWatch""?" A monitoring service for AWS resources and applications.\n\nRemember: AWS DevOps services: CodeCommit (Git), CodeBuild (CI), CodeDeploy (CD), CodePipeline (orchestration), CloudFormation (IaC), Systems Manager (fleet ops).\n\nGotcha: AWS native DevOps tools work well together but can feel limited compared to GitHub Actions or GitLab CI. Evaluate before committing. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/480-cloudwatch.txt aws-devops/7a847170b7b3 aws-devops easy aws, cdk, cloudformation What is AWS CDK and how does it define infrastructure in code? "AWS definition: ""The AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open-source software development framework to define cloud infrastructure as code and provision it through AWS CloudFormation. CDK gives the flexibility to use popular programming languages like TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C# and Go (in Developer Preview) to define your infrastructure, and AWS CDK provides a set of libraries for AWS services that abstract away the need to write raw CloudFormation templates.\n\nLearn more [here](https://aws.amazon.com/cdk)\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console." projects/knowledge/interview/aws/359-what-is-aws-cdk.txt aws-devops/87f8bed82e39 aws-devops hard aws, cloudwatch, x-ray How does AWS X-Ray assist in application performance monitoring? AWS X-Ray: It's a service that helps developers analyze and debug production, distributed applications. \nRole in Performance Monitoring: X-Ray provides insights into how an application is performing and where issues might occur in a distributed environment.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/448-how-does-aws-x-ray-assist-in-application-performan.txt aws-devops/8838430e16e9 aws-devops easy aws, config, opsworks What is AWS OpsWorks? "Amazon definition: ""AWS OpsWorks is a configuration management service that provides managed instances of Chef and Puppet.""\n\nLearn more about it [here](https://aws.amazon.com/opsworks)\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console." projects/knowledge/interview/aws/366-what-is-aws-opsworks.txt aws-devops/8a0788fa7bbe aws-devops hard aws, cloudwatch, eventbridge, lambda Specify one or more use cases for using AWS Lambda - Uploading images to S3 and tagging them or inserting information on the images to a database\n- Uploading videos to S3 and edit them or add subtitles/captions to them and store the result in S3\n- Use SNS and/or SQS to trigger functions based on notifications or messages received from these services.\n- Cron Jobs: Use Lambda together with CloudWatch events to schedule tasks/functions periodically.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/129-specify-one-or-more-use-cases-for-using-aws-lambda.txt aws-devops/8d928c2a026b aws-devops medium aws, cloudwatch You would like to monitor some of your resources in the different services. Which service would you use for that? Amazon CloudWatch. It collects metrics, logs, and events from AWS services, lets you set alarms, and can trigger automated actions when thresholds are breached.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/287-you-would-like-to-monitor-some-of-your-resources-i.txt aws-devops/948b8f09753c aws-devops easy aws, experience, cloud Tell me about your AWS experience. I've managed hundreds to thousands of EC2 instances, handled IAM policies and roles, S3 storage, CloudWatch monitoring, and CloudFormation-based deployments. I've supported multi-account environments and worked with governance controls like tagging standards and instance hardening. My strengths are operational reliability, automation, and designing clean, maintainable AWS workflows.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/461-tell-me-about-your-aws-experience.txt aws-devops/a13966902397 aws-devops medium aws, cloudwatch, route53 What Route 53 health checks are used for? Automated DNS failover based on monitoring:\n\n * Another health check\n * endpoint (app, AWS resource, server)\n * CloudWatch alarms\n\nRemember: AWS DevOps services: CodeCommit (Git), CodeBuild (CI), CodeDeploy (CD), CodePipeline (orchestration), CloudFormation (IaC), Systems Manager (fleet ops).\n\nGotcha: AWS native DevOps tools work well together but can feel limited compared to GitHub Actions or GitLab CI. Evaluate before committing. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/321-what-route-53-health-checks-are-used-for.txt aws-devops/aa0de1980b55 aws-devops easy aws, cloudwatch, monitoring What is AWS CloudWatch used for? Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service. It collects metrics (CPU, memory, network, etc.) from AWS resources and applications, logs from services or your apps, and events/alarms. You use CloudWatch to view dashboards, set alarms (e.g., trigger an action if CPU > 80%), and even trigger automated responses.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/475-what-is-cloudwatch.txt aws-devops/ae65b9c50984 aws-devops hard aws, config, opsworks What is AWS OpsWorks and its use cases in infrastructure management? OpsWorks: It's a configuration management service that provides managed instances of Chef and Puppet for infrastructure management. \nUse Cases: Application and infrastructure management, automation, and security patching are primary scenarios.\n\nRemember: infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) is the foundation of DevOps on AWS. Never click-configure production resources in the console. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/447-what-is-aws-opsworks-and-its-use-cases-in-infrastr.txt aws-devops/af3ed0613587 aws-devops medium aws, cloudformation, iac What is Amazon CloudFormation? AWS CloudFormation is an Infrastructure as Code service that lets you define AWS resources in JSON/YAML templates and automatically provisions and configures them. It provides a way to version and deploy stacks of resources in a predictable manner (a single template can spin up a whole environment).\n\nRemember: CloudFormation = AWS-native IaC. Templates (JSON/YAML) define stacks. Drift detection shows manual changes. Rollback on failure by default. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/471-what-is-cloudformation.txt aws-devops/b37ec577897a aws-devops easy aws, iac "What is ""AWS CloudFormation""?" A service for provisioning AWS infrastructure as code.\n\nRemember: CloudFormation = AWS-native IaC. Templates (JSON/YAML) define stacks. Drift detection shows manual changes. Rollback on failure by default. projects/knowledge/interview/aws/477-cloudformation.txt --- ## Wiki Navigation ### Related Content - [AWS CloudWatch](../../../../library/topics/aws-cloudwatch/index.md) (Topic Pack, L2) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS EC2](../../../../library/topics/aws-ec2/index.md) (Topic Pack, L1) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS ECS](../../../../library/topics/aws-ecs/index.md) (Topic Pack, L2) — Cloud Deep Dive - AWS General Flashcards *(CLI)* (flashcard_deck, L1) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS IAM](../../../../library/topics/aws-iam/index.md) (Topic Pack, L1) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS Lambda](../../../../library/topics/aws-lambda/index.md) (Topic Pack, L2) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS Networking](../../../../library/topics/aws-networking/index.md) (Topic Pack, L1) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS Route 53](../../../../library/topics/aws-route53/index.md) (Topic Pack, L2) — Cloud Deep Dive - [AWS S3 Deep Dive](../../../../library/topics/aws-s3-deep-dive/index.md) (Topic Pack, L1) — Cloud Deep Dive - [Azure Blob Storage](../../../../library/topics/azure-blob-storage/index.md) (Topic Pack, L1) — Cloud Deep Dive