SOA-C01 : AWS-SysOps ​​​​​: Part 07

SOA-C01 : AWS-SysOps ​​​​​: Part 07

1. A user has received a message from the support team that an issue occurred 1 week back between 3 AM to 4 AM and the EC2 server was not reachable. The user is checking the CloudWatch metrics of that instance. How can the user find the data easily using the CloudWatch console?

   • The user can find the data by giving the exact values in the time Tab under CloudWatch metrics
   • The user can find the data by filtering values of the last 1 week for a 1 hour period in the Relative tab under CloudWatch metrics
   • It is not possible to find the exact time from the console. The user has to use CLI to provide the specific time
   • The user can find the data by giving the exact values in the Absolute tab under CloudWatch metrics
   Explanation:
   If the user is viewing the data inside the CloudWatch console, the console provides options to filter values either using the relative period, such as days /hours or using the Absolute tab where the user can provide data with a specific date and time. The console also provides the option to search using the local timezone under the time range caption in the console.

2. A user has setup Auto Scaling with ELB on the EC2 instances. The user wants to configure that whenever the CPU utilization is below 10%, Auto Scaling should remove one instance. How can the user configure this?

   • The user can get an email using SNS when the CPU utilization is less than 10%. The user can use the desired capacity of Auto Scaling to remove the instance
   • Use CloudWatch to monitor the data and Auto Scaling to remove the instances using scheduled actions
   • Configure CloudWatch to send a notification to Auto Scaling Launch configuration when the CPU utilization is less than 10% and configure the Auto Scaling policy to remove the instance
   • Configure CloudWatch to send a notification to the Auto Scaling group when the CPU Utilization is less than 10% and configure the Auto Scaling policy to remove the instance
   Explanation:
   Amazon CloudWatch alarms watch a single metric over a time period that the user specifies and performs one or more actions based on the value of the metric relative to a given threshold over a number of time periods. The user can setup to receive a notification on the Auto Scaling group with the CloudWatch alarm when the CPU utilization is below a certain threshold. The user can configure the Auto Scaling policy to take action for removing the instance. When the CPU utilization is below 10% CloudWatch will send an alarm to the Auto Scaling group to execute the policy.

3. A user has enabled detailed CloudWatch metric monitoring on an Auto Scaling group. Which of the below mentioned metrics will help the user identify the total number of instances in an Auto Scaling group including pending, terminating and running instances?

   • GroupTotalInstances
   • GroupSumInstances
   • It is not possible to get a count of all the three metrics together. The user has to find the individual number of running, terminating and pending instances and sum it
   • GroupInstancesCount
   Explanation:
   CloudWatch is used to monitor AWS as well as the custom services. For Auto Scaling, CloudWatch provides various metrics to get the group information, such as the Number of Pending, Running or Terminating instances at any moment. If the user wants to get the total number of Running, Pending and Terminating instances at any moment, he can use the GroupTotalInstances metric.

4. A user is trying to configure the CloudWatch billing alarm. Which of the below mentioned steps should be performed by the user for the first time alarm creation in the AWS Account Management section?

   • Enable Receiving Billing Reports
   • Enable Receiving Billing Alerts
   • Enable AWS billing utility
   • Enable CloudWatch Billing Threshold
   Explanation:
   AWS CloudWatch supports enabling the billing alarm on the total AWS charges. Before the user can create an alarm on the estimated charges, he must enable monitoring of the estimated AWS charges, by selecting the option “Enable receiving billing alerts”. It takes about 15 minutes before the user can view the billing data. The user can then create the alarms.

5. A user is checking the CloudWatch metrics from the AWS console. The user notices that the CloudWatch data is coming in UTC. The user wants to convert the data to a local time zone. How can the user perform this?

   • In the CloudWatch dashboard the user should set the local time zone so that CloudWatch shows the data only in the local time zone
   • In the CloudWatch console select the local time zone under the Time Range tab to view the data as per the local timezone
   • The CloudWatch data is always in UTC; the user has to manually convert the data
   • The user should have send the local time zone while uploading the data so that CloudWatch will show the data only in the local time zone
   Explanation:
   If the user is viewing the data inside the CloudWatch console, the console provides options to filter values either using the relative period, such as days/hours or using the Absolute tab where the user can provide data with a specific date and time. The console also provides the option to search using the local time zone under the time range caption in the console because the time range tab allows the user to change the time zone.

6. An organization (Account ID 123412341234. has attached the below mentioned IAM policy to a user. What does this policy statement entitle the user to perform?

   

   • The policy allows the IAM user to modify all IAM users’ access keys using the console, SDK, CLI or APIs
   • The policy allows the IAM user to modify all IAM users’ credentials using the console, SDK, CLI or APIs
   • The policy allows the IAM user to modify all credentials using only the console
   • The policy allows the IAM user to modify the IAM user’s own credentials using the console, SDK, CLI or APIs
   Explanation:
   AWS Identity and Access Management is a web service which allows organizations to manage users and user permissions for various AWS services. If the organization (Account ID 123412341234. wants some of their users to manage keys (access and secret access keys. of all IAM users, the organization should set the below mentioned policy which entitles the IAM user to modify keys of all IAM users with CLI, SDK or API.
   

   

7. A user is trying to connect to a running EC2 instance using SSH. However, the user gets a connection time out error. Which of the below mentioned options is not a possible reason for rejection?

   • The access key to connect to the instance is wrong
   • The security group is not configured properly
   • The private key used to launch the instance is not correct
   • The instance CPU is heavily loaded
   Explanation:
   If the user is trying to connect to a Linux EC2 instance and receives the connection time out error the probable reasons are:

   Security group is not configured with the SSH port
   The private key pair is not right
   The user name to login is wrong
   The instance CPU is heavily loaded, so it does not allow more connections

8. A user has configured Elastic Load Balancing by enabling a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) negotiation configuration known as a Security Policy. Which of the below mentioned options is not part of this secure policy while negotiating the SSL connection between the user and the client?

   • SSL Protocols
   • Client Order Preference
   • SSL Ciphers
   • Server Order Preference
   Explanation:
   Elastic Load Balancing uses a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) negotiation configuration which is known as a Security Policy. It is used to negotiate the SSL connections between a client and the load balancer. A security policy is a combination of SSL Protocols, SSL Ciphers, and the Server Order Preference option.

9. A user has configured CloudWatch monitoring on an EBS backed EC2 instance. If the user has not attached any additional device, which of the below mentioned metrics will always show a 0 value?

   • DiskReadBytes
   • NetworkIn
   • NetworkOut
   • CPUUtilization
   Explanation:
   CloudWatch is used to monitor AWS as the well custom services. For EC2 when the user is monitoring the EC2 instances, it will capture the 7 Instance level and 3 system check parameters for the EC2 instance. Since this is an EBS backed instance, it will not have ephemeral storage attached to it. Out of the 7 EC2 metrics, the 4 metrics DiskReadOps, DiskWriteOps, DiskReadBytes and DiskWriteBytes are disk related data and available only when there is ephemeral storage attached to an instance. For an EBS backed instance without any additional device, this data will be 0.

10. A user has launched an EBS backed EC2 instance. What will be the difference while performing the restart or stop/start options on that instance?

    • For restart it does not charge for an extra hour, while every stop/start it will be charged as a separate hour
    • Every restart is charged by AWS as a separate hour, while multiple start/stop actions during a single hour will be counted as a single hour
    • For every restart or start/stop it will be charged as a separate hour
    • For restart it charges extra only once, while for every stop/start it will be charged as a separate hour
    Explanation:
    For an EC2 instance launched with an EBS backed AMI, each time the instance state is changed from stop to start/ running, AWS charges a full instance hour, even if these transitions happen multiple times within a single hour. Anyway, rebooting an instance AWS does not charge a new instance billing hour.

11. A user has created a queue named “myqueue” in US-East region with AWS SQS. The user’s AWS account ID is 123456789012. If the user wants to perform some action on this queue, which of the below Queue URL should he use?

    • http://sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/123456789012/myqueue
    • http://sqs.amazonaws.com/123456789012/myqueue
    • http://sqs. 123456789012.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/myqueue
    • http:// 123456789012.sqs. us-east-1.amazonaws.com/myqueue
    Explanation:
    When creating a new queue in SQS, the user must provide a queue name that is unique within the scope of all queues of user’s account. If the user creates queues using both the latest WSDL and a previous version, he will have a single namespace for all his queues. Amazon SQS assigns each queue created by user an identifier called a queue URL, which includes the queue name and other components that Amazon SQS determines. Whenever the user wants to perform an action on a queue, he must provide its queue URL. The queue URL for the account id 123456789012 & queue name “myqueue” in US-East-1 region will be http:// sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/123456789012/myqueue.

12. A sys admin is trying to understand the Auto Scaling activities. Which of the below mentioned processes is not performed by Auto Scaling?

    • Reboot Instance
    • Schedule Actions
    • Replace Unhealthy
    • Availability Zone Balancing

13. A sys admin is trying to understand EBS snapshots. Which of the below mentioned statements will not be useful to the admin to understand the concepts about a snapshot?

    • The snapshot is synchronous
    • It is recommended to stop the instance before taking a snapshot for consistent data
    • The snapshot is incremental
    • The snapshot captures the data that has been written to the hard disk when the snapshot command was executed
    Explanation:
    The AWS snapshot is a point in time backup of an EBS volume. When the snapshot command is executed it will capture the current state of the data that is written on the drive and take a backup. For a better and consistent snapshot of the root EBS volume, AWS recommends stopping the instance. For additional volumes it is recommended to unmount the device. The snapshots are asynchronous and incremental.

14. A root account owner has created an S3 bucket testmycloud. The account owner wants to allow everyone to upload the objects as well as enforce that the person who uploaded the object should manage the permission of those objects. Which is the easiest way to achieve this?

    • The root account owner should create a bucket policy which allows the IAM users to upload the object
    • The root account owner should create the bucket policy which allows the other account owners to set the object policy of that bucket
    • The root account should use ACL with the bucket to allow everyone to upload the object
    • The root account should create the IAM users and provide them the permission to upload content to the bucket
    Explanation:
    Each AWS S3 bucket and object has an ACL (Access Control List. associated with it. An ACL is a list of grants identifying the grantee and the permission granted. The user can use ACLs to grant basic read/write permissions to other AWS accounts. ACLs use an Amazon S3–specific XML schema. The user cannot grant permissions to other users in his account. ACLs are suitable for specific scenarios. For example, if a bucket owner allows other AWS accounts to upload objects, permissions to these objects can only be managed using the object ACL by the AWS account that owns the object.

15. An organization has setup consolidated billing with 3 different AWS accounts. Which of the below mentioned advantages will organization receive in terms of the AWS pricing?

    • The consolidated billing does not bring any cost advantage for the organization
    • All AWS accounts will be charged for S3 storage by combining the total storage of each account
    • The EC2 instances of each account will receive a total of 750*3 micro instance hours free
    • The free usage tier for all the 3 accounts will be 3 years and not a single year
    Explanation:
    AWS consolidated billing enables the organization to consolidate payments for multiple Amazon Web Services (AWS. accounts within a single organization by making a single paying account. For billing purposes, AWS treats all the accounts on the consolidated bill as one account. Some services, such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 have volume pricing tiers across certain usage dimensions that give the user lower prices when he uses the service more.

16. A user has launched two EBS backed EC2 instances in the US-East-1a region. The user wants to change the zone of one of the instances. How can the user change it?

    • Stop one of the instances and change the availability zone
    • The zone can only be modified using the AWS CLI
    • From the AWS EC2 console, select the Actions – > Change zones and specify new zone
    • Create an AMI of the running instance and launch the instance in a separate AZ
    Explanation:
    With AWS EC2, when a user is launching an instance he can select the availability zone (AZ. at the time of launch. If the zone is not selected, AWS selects it on behalf of the user. Once the instance is launched, the user cannot change the zone of that instance unless he creates an AMI of that instance and launches a new instance from it.

17. A user wants to make so that whenever the CPU utilization of the AWS EC2 instance is above 90%, the redlight of his bedroom turns on. Which of the below mentioned AWS services is helpful for this purpose?

    • AWS CloudWatch + AWS SES
    • AWS CloudWatch + AWS SNS
    • None. It is not possible to configure the light with the AWS infrastructure services
    • AWS CloudWatch and a dedicated software turning on the light
    Explanation:
    Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS. is a fast, flexible, and fully managed push messaging service. Amazon SNS can deliver notifications by SMS text message or email to the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS. queues or to any HTTP endpoint. The user can configure some sensor devices at his home which receives data on the HTTP end point (REST calls. and turn on the red light. The user can configure the CloudWatch alarm to send a notification to the AWS SNS HTTP end point (the sensor device. and it will turn the light red when there is an alarm condition.

18. An organization has added 3 of his AWS accounts to consolidated billing. One of the AWS accounts has purchased a Reserved Instance (RI. of a small instance size in the US-East-1a zone. All other AWS accounts are running instances of a small size in the same zone. What will happen in this case for the RI pricing?

    • Only the account that has purchased the RI will get the advantage of RI pricing
    • One instance of a small size and running in the US-East-1a zone of each AWS account will get the benefit of RI pricing
    • Any single instance from all the three accounts can get the benefit of AWS RI pricing if they are running in the same zone and are of the same size
    • If there are more than one instances of a small size running across multiple accounts in the same zone no one will get the benefit of RI
    Explanation:
    AWS consolidated billing enables the organization to consolidate payments for multiple Amazon Web Services (AWS. accounts within a single organization by making a single paying account. For billing purposes, consolidated billing treats all the accounts on the consolidated bill as one account. This means that all accounts on a consolidated bill can receive the hourly cost benefit of the Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances purchased by any other account. In this case only one Reserved Instance has been purchased by one account. Thus, only a single instance from any of the accounts will get the advantage of RI. AWS will implement the blended rate for each instance if more than one instance is running concurrently.

19. An organization is planning to use AWS for 5 different departments. The finance department is responsible to pay for all the accounts. However, they want the cost separation for each account to map with the right cost center. How can the finance department achieve this?

    • Create 5 separate accounts and make them a part of one consolidate billing
    • Create 5 separate accounts and use the IAM cross account access with the roles for better management
    • Create 5 separate IAM users and set a different policy for their access
    • Create 5 separate IAM groups and add users as per the department’s employees
    Explanation:
    AWS consolidated billing enables the organization to consolidate payments for multiple Amazon Web Services (AWS. accounts within a single organization by making a single paying account. Consolidated billing enables the organization to see a combined view of the AWS charges incurred by each account as well as obtain a detailed cost report for each of the individual AWS accounts associated with the paying account.

20. A user has setup an EBS backed instance and a CloudWatch alarm when the CPU utilization is more than 65%. The user has setup the alarm to watch it for 5 periods of 5 minutes each. The CPU utilization is 60% between 9 AM to 6 PM. The user has stopped the EC2 instance for 15 minutes between 11 AM to 11:15 AM. What will be the status of the alarm at 11:30 AM?

    • Alarm
    • OK
    • Insufficient Data
    • Error
    Explanation:
    Amazon CloudWatch alarm watches a single metric over a time period the user specifies and performs one or more actions based on the value of the metric relative to a given threshold over a number of time periods. The state of the alarm will be OK for the whole day. When the user stops the instance for three periods the alarm may not receive the data