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AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Flashcards

Every key term and definition you must know for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam — the shared responsibility model, IAM, pricing options, core services and more. Flip through the interactive deck in the practice center, or review the cards below.

Shared responsibility model

AWS = security OF the cloud (physical, hardware, network). Customer = security IN the cloud (data, IAM, guest OS, security groups).

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Regions, AZs and edge locations

Region = geographic area with 3+ AZs. AZ = isolated data centers. Edge location = CloudFront cache site.

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IAM

Identity & Access Management: users, groups, roles and policies. Global service. Grant least privilege.

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MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication: second layer of security beyond a password. Enable on the root account.

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Security group

Stateful virtual firewall at instance level. Allow-only rules for inbound and outbound traffic.

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CloudTrail

Records API activity for auditing, governance and compliance. "Who did what and when".

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CloudWatch

Monitors metrics, collects logs and triggers alarms. Operational visibility across AWS.

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GuardDuty

Threat detection service that monitors for malicious activity and unexpected behavior.

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AWS WAF

Web application firewall blocking SQL injection, XSS and common web exploits.

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EC2

Elastic Compute Cloud: resizable virtual servers, paid by the second.

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Spot Instances

Up to 90% discount on unused capacity. Can be interrupted with a 2-minute notice.

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Reserved / Savings Plans

1-3 year commitment for the biggest discounts (up to ~72%). Best for steady workloads.

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Lambda

Serverless compute: run code in response to events. No servers to manage, pay per invocation.

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S3

Object storage with 11 nines durability. Versioning and lifecycle rules.

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Glacier Deep Archive

Lowest-cost S3 storage class for long-term archives with retrieval in hours.

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RDS

Managed relational databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, Aurora.

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DynamoDB

Fully managed NoSQL key-value/document DB with single-digit millisecond latency.

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Route 53

DNS service: translates domain names to IP addresses. Also domain registration.

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CloudFront

CDN: caches content at edge locations worldwide for low-latency delivery.

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SQS

Message queue service to decouple application components. Pull-based.

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SNS

Pub/sub notification service. Push messages to email, SMS, Lambda, SQS, HTTP endpoints.

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VPC

Virtual Private Cloud: logically isolated virtual network with subnets, route tables and gateways.

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Well-Architected pillars

Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, Sustainability.

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AWS Free Tier

12-month free tier (e.g., 750h EC2/month), always-free services, and short trials for new accounts.

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Trusted Advisor

Checks for cost optimization, security, fault tolerance and service limits.

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Support plans

Basic (free) → Developer → Business → Enterprise (TAM, 15-min response).

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CLF-C02 exam

65 questions, 90 minutes, scaled score 100-1000, passing = 700. Domains: Concepts 24%, Security 30%, Tech 34%, Billing 12%.

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