Cloud computing is quickly becoming the norm among enterprises that want more flexibility, greater efficiencies, lower costs, and improved disaster recovery—to name only a few of the benefits. Cloud computing providers are there to make the migrations happen, leading to stiff competition in the cloud-computing space.

As typically happens in a rapidly expanding market with high demand, several leaders rose to prominence right away: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google. Of these three market leaders, AWS is by far the dominant provider, with 40% of the market share and $14 billion in revenue projected for 2017. That’s not only good news for Amazon’s bottom line. It’s also good news for you if you’re moving into the field as an AWS Solutions Architect Associate. According to Glassdoor, the national average salary for an AWS Solutions Architect is $121,189 in the United States.

If that’s the career move you’re making, and you’re preparing for an AWS Solution Architect job interview, the information below will help you prepare. Chances are, you’re not the only one who is after that AWS job, so make sure you’re the best prepared, both in your aws training and certification and in your interview. Be ready to show your understanding of the key concepts, as well as the latest trends and best practices for working with the AWS architecture with some frequently asked AWS Solutions Architect interview questions.

What Do AWS Solution Architects Do?

AWS Solutions Architects are responsible for designing and managing applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. They work with developers and system administrators to ensure that applications are built to scale and perform optimally on the AWS platform. Solutions Architects also work with customers to help them understand how to best use the AWS platform to meet their business needs. In addition to their technical expertise, Solutions Architects must also be able to effectively communicate with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Basic:

This level covers fundamental concepts and skills required to become an AWS-certified solution architect. This includes understanding the basics of design patterns, data storage, security, and other topics related to the cloud computing environment.

Intermediate:

This level covers advanced topics in designing applications for AWS, including understanding how to scale an application across multiple regions or availability zones and how to design for fault tolerance.

Advanced:

This level covers advanced topics such as designing highly available.

Scenario-Based:

AWS Solution Architects are the most sought-after professionals in the IT industry. They have to be able to solve complex problems and design scalable solutions for businesses, which is why they need to be agile, creative and have a strong understanding of how all services work together.

  1. What is Amazon EC2?

EC2 is short for Elastic Compute Cloud, and it provides scalable computing capacity. Using Amazon EC2 eliminates the need to invest in hardware, leading to faster development and deployment of applications. You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual servers as needed, configure security and networking, and manage storage. It can scale up or down to handle changes in requirements, reducing the need to forecast traffic. EC2 provides virtual computing environments called “instances.”

  1. What Are Some of the Security Best Practices for Amazon EC2?

Security best practices for Amazon EC2 include using Identity and Access Management (IAM) to control access to AWS resources; restricting access by only allowing trusted hosts or networks to access ports on an instance; only opening up those permissions you require, and disabling password-based logins for instances launched from your AMI.

  1. What is Amazon S3? 

S3 is short for Simple Storage Service, and Amazon S3 is the most supported storage platform available. S3 is object storage that can store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere. Despite that versatility, it is practically unlimited as well as cost-effective because it is storage available on demand. In addition to these benefits, it offers unprecedented levels of durability and availability. Amazon S3 helps to manage data for cost optimization, access control, and compliance. 

  1. Can S3 Be Used with EC2 Instances, and If Yes, How?

Amazon S3 can be used for instances with root devices backed by local instance storage. That way, developers have access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of websites. To execute systems in the Amazon EC2 environment, developers load Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) into Amazon S3 and then move them between Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2.

Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 are two of the best-known web services that make up AWS.

  1. What Is Identity and Access Management (IAM) and How Is It Used?

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service for securely controlling access to AWS services. IAM lets you manage users, security credentials such as access keys, and permissions that control which AWS resources users and applications can access.

  1. What Is Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and Why Is It Used?

A VPC is the best way of connecting to your cloud resources from your own data center. Once you connect your datacenter to the VPC in which your instances are present, each instance is assigned a private IP address that can be accessed from your data center. That way, you can access your public cloud resources as if they were on your own private network.

  1. What Is Amazon Route 53?

Amazon Route 53 is a scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS). The name refers to TCP or UDP port 53, where DNS server requests are addressed.

  1. What Is Cloudtrail and How Do Cloudtrail and Route 53 Work Together?

CloudTrail is a service that captures information about every request sent to the Amazon Route 53 API by an AWS account, including requests that are sent by IAM users. CloudTrail saves log files of these requests to an Amazon S3 bucket. CloudTrail captures information about all requests. You can use information in the CloudTrail log files to determine which requests were sent to Amazon Route 53, the IP address that the request was sent from, who sent the request, when it was sent, and more.

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  1. When Would You Prefer Provisioned IOPS over Standard Rds Storage?

You would use Provisioned IOPS when you have batch-oriented workloads. Provisioned IOPS delivers high IO rates, but it is also expensive. However, batch processing workloads do not require manual intervention. 

  1. How Do Amazon Rds, Dynamodb, and Redshift Differ from Each Other?

Amazon RDS is a database management service for relational databases. It manages patching, upgrading, and data backups automatically. It’s a database management service for structured data only. On the other hand, DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service for dealing with unstructured data. Redshift is a data warehouse product used in data analysis.

Conclusion

These AWS Solutions Architect interview questions have given you insights into the kind of questions that might be asked in your next AWS Solutions Architect interview. We also have an article which includes comprehensive AWS interview questions, to brush up your AWS knowledge.

AWS is a multi-faceted cloud-computing solution made up of many web services with numerous benefits. In addition, it’s a changing and evolving solution, as Amazon continually looks for ways to improve the offering, to better serve the companies that use it. Prior to your interview, you might want to brush up on the latest AWS news to show that you are keeping up with those innovations.