Examworthyexamworthy.comAWS Certified Cloud Practitioner cheat sheet
Amazon Web Services
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At a glance
Format: Multiple choice and multiple response
Domain weight map
Heaviest first - spend your time hereHow this exam thinks
CLF-C02 is a recognition exam: nearly every question states a business need and the right answer is the AWS service, pricing model, support plan, or shared-responsibility boundary that matches it, so broad clean recognition beats deep knowledge of any one service.
Spot the trap
Tempting wrong answers, and why they failTempting but wrong
The AWS Management Console is a good fit for a nightly automated job that launches dozens of EC2 instances.
Why it fails
The console is a manual web interface operated by pointing and clicking through browser pages. It cannot be embedded in a scheduled script, so it forces an engineer to launch every instance by hand. Scripted, repeatable provisioning needs the AWS CLI instead.
Cloud Technology and Services
Tempting but wrong
Maintaining the physical security of the data centres hosting your Amazon EC2 instances is a customer responsibility.
Why it fails
It is not. Physical security of the facilities is security OF the cloud, which AWS owns. Customers never see or access the hardware, so it can never be a customer task.
Security and Compliance
Tempting but wrong
Moving to AWS guarantees every workload runs faster than it would on the company's own hardware.
Why it fails
AWS makes no universal performance guarantee. Raw speed is not the benefit being offered; the financial advantage is trading upfront capital expense for usage-based variable expense, so a business avoids committing to hardware it may not need.
Cloud Concepts
Tempting but wrong
On-Demand Instances are the cheapest choice for a steady production workload that runs continuously for three years.
Why it fails
On-Demand suits short or unpredictable workloads but charges the full standard rate. For steady multi-year usage a committed model like Reserved Instances costs far less, so On-Demand is the tempting default rather than the cheapest option.
Billing, Pricing, and Support
Tempting but wrong
AWS Trusted Advisor can launch EC2 instances as part of a scripted provisioning job.
Why it fails
AWS Trusted Advisor only inspects an account and recommends improvements for cost, security, performance, and fault tolerance. It does not provision or launch any resources, so it cannot run scripted instance launches. The AWS CLI is the scriptable tool for that.
Cloud Technology and Services
Tempting but wrong
With Amazon EC2, customers patch the firmware of the underlying host servers running the hypervisor.
Why it fails
They do not. Host firmware and the hypervisor sit below the guest OS boundary, so AWS maintains them. Only the guest OS patching belongs to the customer; do not confuse host patching with guest patching.
Security and Compliance
Tempting but wrong
Running on AWS removes the need to apply any security controls because AWS handles all of them.
Why it fails
AWS operates a shared responsibility model. AWS secures the underlying cloud, but the customer is still responsible for security in the cloud, such as data, access and configuration, so security is not fully handled by AWS.
Cloud Concepts
Tempting but wrong
Spot Instances are appropriate for an always-on production website that must never be interrupted.
Why it fails
Spot offers deep discounts on spare capacity but AWS can reclaim that capacity at short notice. That makes it unsuitable for an always-on production site that must not be interrupted; use Reserved Instances for steady production load.
Billing, Pricing, and Support
Key terms
Exam-day rules
- Read the scenario for the need it names first. One word or phrase usually states the requirement, a geography, a steady multi-year workload, a need for a second sign-in factor, and that is what picks the answer.
- On responsibility questions, draw the line: AWS secures the cloud (hardware, facilities, hypervisor) and the customer secures what they put in it. On EC2 that includes the guest operating system and its patches.
- Treat plausible-but-wrong options as the norm. Most distractors are real AWS services that simply answer a different need, so do not pick a familiar name, pick the one whose single job matches the requirement.
- Match the pricing model to the workload, not to the discount. Steady multi-year means Reserved Instances or Savings Plans, short and unpredictable means On-Demand, and interruptible fault-tolerant means Spot.
- Sort the billing tools by tense. The Pricing Calculator estimates before you build, Budgets alerts while you run, and Cost Explorer reviews after the bill arrives.
Revision schedule
- Day 1Map the blueprint and book a date
- Week 1Learn the cloud value vocabulary
- Weeks 1 to 3Build the service-recognition map
- Weeks 2 to 3Lock the shared responsibility model and security services
- Week 4Cover billing, pricing, and support