Final exam-prep section: AWS initialisms you must recognize, plus head-to-head comparisons of similarly-named or easily-confused services so you can pick the right one on the exam.

Know Your Initialisms

  • Learning initialisms lets you substitute them mentally and get through exam content much faster — in the wild people rarely say full service names 13:31:28
  • Core list 13:31:55 13:32:32 13:33:06:
    • IAM — Identity and Access Management; S3 — Simple Storage Service; SWF — Simple Workflow Service; SNS — Simple Notification Service; SQS — Simple Queue Service; SES — Simple Email Service; SSM — Systems Manager
    • RDS — Relational Database Service; VPC — Virtual Private Cloud; VPN — Virtual Private Network; CFN — CloudFormation; WAF — Web Application Firewall; MQ — Amazon ActiveMQ; ASG — Auto Scaling Group; TAM — Technical Account Manager
    • Load balancers: ELB (Elastic), ALB (Application), NLB (Network), GWLB (Gateway), CLB (Classic)
    • EC2 — Elastic Cloud Compute; ECS — Elastic Container Service; ECR — Elastic Container Repository; EBS — Elastic Block Storage; EMR — Elastic MapReduce; EFS — Elastic File Store; EB — Elastic Beanstalk; ES — Elasticsearch; EKS — Elastic Kubernetes Service; MSK — Managed Kafka Service (S and K are NOT backwards)
    • RAM — Resource Access Manager; ACM — Amazon Certificate Manager; PoLP — Principle of Least Privilege (a concept, not a service); IoT — Internet of Things (concept); RI — Reserved Instances 13:33:43

AWS Config vs AWS AppConfig

  • Both have "config" in the name but are completely different services 13:34:14:
    • AWS Config: governance tool for compliance-as-code — rules check resources are configured as expected; on drift you're notified or Config auto-remediates back to the expected state 13:34:14
    • AWS AppConfig: automates deploying application configuration variable changes to your web app — validators ensure a change won't break the app, with deployment monitoring and rollback 13:34:39

SNS vs SQS

  • Both connect apps via messages (application integration), but 13:35:11:
    • SNS: pub/sub model — send notifications to subscribers of topics via multiple protocols (HTTP, email, SQS, SMS); retries on HTTPS failure but no guaranteed delivery; great for webhooks, simple internal emails, triggering Lambdas (third-party analogues: Pusher, PubNub) 13:35:11 13:35:49
    • SQS: messages placed in a queue with guaranteed delivery; apps pull the queue via the SDK; retains messages up to 14 days; sequential or parallel delivery; at-least-once or exactly-once options; great for delayed tasks and queuing emails (analogues: RabbitMQ, Sidekiq) 13:35:11 13:36:15

SNS vs SES vs Pinpoint vs WorkMail

  • All four send email, but each has a different purpose 13:36:52:
    • SNS — practical/internal plain-text emails triggered by other AWS services; the classic exam example is a billing alarm notification; know topics and subscriptions 13:36:52 13:37:25
    • SES — transactional emails triggered by in-app actions (sign-up, password reset, invoices); sends HTML email (SNS cannot); receives inbound email; email templates; custom domains (SNS uses an Amazon-assigned address); reputation monitoring; similar to SendGrid 13:38:02
    • Pinpoint — promotional/marketing emails: campaigns, contact segmentation, customer journeys, A/B email testing; overlaps with SES but is purpose-built for promotion 13:38:37 13:39:04
    • WorkMail — an email web client like Gmail/Outlook for company email inside the AWS console 13:39:33

Amazon Inspector vs AWS Trusted Advisor

  • Both are security tools that perform audits 13:39:50:
    • Inspector: audits selected EC2 instances and generates a report from a long list of security checks 13:39:50
    • Trusted Advisor: no PDF report; a holistic view of recommendations across multiple services (open security-group ports, MFA on root, etc.), and covers five categories — not just security 13:40:18

"Connect" Services (unrelated despite the name)

  • Direct Connect: dedicated fiber-optic connection from your data center to AWS — private but NOT secure by itself; layer an AWS VPN on top for a secure connection 13:40:42 13:41:11
  • Amazon Connect: call center as a service — toll-free number, inbound/outbound calls, automated phone systems (IVR) 13:41:11
  • MediaConnect: video conversion — transcode videos to different formats, apply watermarks, insert intro clips 13:41:35

Elastic Transcoder vs MediaConvert

  • Both transcode video; Elastic Transcoder is the old way, AWS Elemental MediaConvert is the new way 13:42:01
  • Elastic Transcoder may still have APIs/workflows legacy customers rely on; MediaConvert is more robust — overlays images, inserts clips, extracts caption data, robust UI. Costs are basically the same, so use MediaConvert 13:42:25

AWS Artifact vs Amazon Inspector

  • Confused because both produce PDF reports 13:42:25:
    • Artifact answers "why should an enterprise trust AWS?" — compliance reports against global frameworks (SOC, PCI, …) 13:43:04
    • Inspector answers "how do we know this EC2 instance is secure?" — runs a script on the instance and generates a PDF of passed/failed security checks 13:43:04 13:43:34

ELB vs ALB vs NLB vs GWLB vs CLB

  • ELB is the main service; it offers four load balancer types 13:43:34:
    • ALB (Application): layer 7 HTTP/S; routing rules based on HTTP request content (e.g. route by subdomain); the only one that can attach a WAF 13:44:05 13:44:37
    • NLB (Network): layers 3/4 TCP/UDP; extreme performance — millions of requests/sec at ultra-low latency; single static IP per AZ; favored for video games 13:44:37 13:45:06
    • GWLB (Gateway): for deploying fleets of third-party virtual appliances (GENEVE protocol) 13:45:06
    • CLB (Classic): layers 3/4/7, built for the EC2-Classic network; no target groups (EC2 instances assigned directly); retired August 15, 2022 — don't use it 13:45:42 13:46:08