AWS Cloud Practitioner — Top 50 Must-Know Points (CLF-C02)

 

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AWS Cloud Practitioner — Top 25 Must-Know Points (CLF-C02)

(These are the official exam weightage-based topics)

1. IAM (Identity & Access Management)

AWS permissions, users, groups, roles, MFA, least privilege.

2. EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

Virtual servers, pricing models (On-Demand, Reserved, Spot), security groups.

3. Lambda

Serverless compute — pay per request, event-driven, no servers to manage.

4. S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Object storage, durability 11 9s, storage classes, versioning, lifecycle rules.

5. S3 Glacier

Archival storage — extremely low-cost, slow retrieval.

6. EBS (Elastic Block Store)

Block storage for EC2, SSD vs HDD volumes, snapshots.

7. RDS (Relational Database Service)

Managed SQL databases — MySQL, PostgreSQL, Aurora.

8. DynamoDB

Fully serverless NoSQL, millisecond latency, auto-scaling.

9. VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

Networking service — subnets, route tables, NAT, NACLs.

10. CloudFront

Global CDN that caches content at edge locations.

11. Route 53

DNS service, domain registration, routing policies.

12. Load Balancers (ELB)

ALB / NLB / CLB — distribute traffic, improve availability.

13. Auto Scaling

Automatically increase/decrease EC2 capacity based on load.

14. SQS (Simple Queue Service)

Message queue — decouples applications.

15. SNS (Simple Notification Service)

Push notifications / publish-subscribe messaging.

16. EventBridge

Event bus connecting AWS services and apps.

17. API Gateway

Create + secure API endpoints, works with Lambda.

18. CloudWatch

Monitoring — metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards.

19. CloudTrail

Record all API activity across AWS accounts.

20. AWS Organizations

Multi-account management, SCPs (service control policies).

21. KMS (Key Management Service)

Encryption keys, integrates with S3, EBS, RDS, Lambda.

22. WAF & Shield

Web firewall + DDoS protection.

23. Cost Explorer

Track AWS spending, forecast, budgets.

24. Trusted Advisor

Best practice recommendations (cost, security, performance).

25. Shared Responsibility Model

AWS vs Customer roles in security — Guaranteed exam question.

26. AWS Global Infrastructure

Regions, Availability Zones, Edge Locations — high availability concept.

27. Well-Architected Framework

5 pillars — Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance, Cost Optimization.

28. Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF)

Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, Operations perspectives.

29. AWS Budgets

Set custom monthly/yearly budget alerts.

30. AWS Billing Dashboard

Central place to view invoices, usage, free-tier usage.

31. Free Tier Types

• 12-month free
• Always free
• Trials (short-term)

32. Amazon Cognito

User sign-up & sign-in, identity pools for mobile/web apps.

33. AWS Backup

Fully managed backup service for RDS, EFS, EC2, DynamoDB etc.

34. AWS Artifact

Compliance reports (ISO, SOC, PCI DSS).

35. AWS Service Health Dashboard

Shows outages and region-wise service status (public).

36. AWS Personal Health Dashboard

Personal alerts for your account when services affect you.

37. Amazon Lightsail

Simplified compute — static websites, VPS, WordPress.

38. AWS Outposts

Bring AWS hardware into on-premises datacenters (hybrid).

39. AWS Snowball / Snowmobile

Physical devices for TB–PB data migration.

40. AWS Storage Gateway

Hybrid storage between on-prem and AWS.

41. Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

Serverless NFS file storage for Linux.

42. Amazon FSx

High-performance file systems — FSx for Windows, FSx for Lustre.

43. AWS Systems Manager

Patch Manager, Session Manager, automation for EC2 + on-prem.

44. AWS Trusted Advisor Categories

Cost, Performance, Fault Tolerance, Security, Service Limits.

45. AWS IAM Identity Center (SSO)

Central login for multiple AWS accounts & applications.

46. AWS Marketplace

Buy ready-made software, AMIs, SaaS products.

47. AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)

Build + deploy serverless apps (Lambda + API Gateway).

48. AWS CloudFormation

Infrastructure as code — create stacks using templates.

49. Amazon MQ

Managed brokers for Apache ActiveMQ & RabbitMQ.

50. AWS X-Ray

Distributed tracing for debugging applications.

51. AWS Global Accelerator

Improves latency using AWS global network for your apps.

52. Amazon Inspector

Automated security vulnerability scanner.

53. AWS Shield Advanced

Premium DDoS protection for enterprises.

54. Amazon AppStream 2.0

Stream desktop applications to end users.

55. Amazon WorkSpaces

Fully managed virtual desktops (VDI).