Content Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services

Task Statement 3.8: Identify other AWS services.

Let's get started with the last task statement and talk about other AWS services that you may see on your exam. Before we jump in to talk about different services, I want to add in AWS monitoring and observability services. Part of the fundamentals needed for this course is knowing and understanding the AWS Well-Architected Framework. One of the best practices is staying current and continual improvement of your designs. It is critical for continuous improvement to track and respond to key metrics for applications and the infrastructure in your environment. Know how to use Amazon CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray to observe what is happening in your systems. Know that you can trigger automated actions based on key metrics using CloudWatch alarms. Additionally, know how to respond in near real-time to changes in your environment using Amazon EventBridge. Remember, we need to understand the fundamentals of the services under this task statement. Ensure you understand each category. For example, application integration on AWS is a suite of services that enable communication between decoupled components within microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. So what are some AWS application integration services? Ensure you have depth in Amazon EventBridge, Amazon Simple Notification Service, or Amazon SNS, and Amazon Simple Queue Service, Amazon SQS, and load balancing to decouple workloads. In order to scale, you need visibility, so ensure you understand the basics of CloudWatch metrics, alarms, and dashboards. Additionally, look at how metrics can be used as the basis for an Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling. For alarms and EventBridge, know how to add in automations and alerts and remediations for scaling events based on alarms created in Amazon CloudWatch. These alarms are triggered when a metric such as an EC2 CPU utilization crosses a certain threshold for a defined amount of time. Knowing how to choose what metrics to monitor for scaling is something you should be very familiar with for the real world and if you're interested in taking the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam. Let's dive a bit deeper into a few of these services. Amazon SQS is a queuing system that provides fully managed highly available message queues. And SQS can be used for inter-process, servers, and services messaging. The way a queue works is if you have a queue you add a message to the queue, and then something else retrieves messages from that queue. So it offers an asynchronous way to talk between two components of an application. And SQS has two types of polling, short polling and long polling. Short polling is a single API call to check the queue for any messages, and you will get the messages available in the queue up to a maximum of 10 messages or you'll get no messages. With short polling, it responds immediately to any messages in the queue, meaning you will need to constantly be sending API calls to check the queue for messages, and this consumes a lot of API calls. But you can also use long polling, and this is the same process to check for messages in the queue as short polling; however, you wait for a certain amount of time, and that time is known as the WaitTimeSeconds. And long polling is more efficient because you have a lot less API calls to the queue, but also a lot less of empty API calls. SQS queues come in two different types too; standard and first in or first out, also known as FIFO queues. Standard was the AWS original, and FIFO queues were added later. But there are a few differences to know for your exam. Standard queues are distributed and scalable to nearly an unlimited message volume, but the order of the message is not guaranteed, it is best-effort, and messages are guaranteed to be delivered at least once, but sometimes the messages are delivered more than once. You can have duplicate messages or an out of order messages but you will have great performance. FIFO queues were introduced to solve this problem. FIFO queues guarantee that messages are delivered in the order that they were received and they are only ever delivered once, so duplicates do not occur. Let's also talk about the SQS architecture. SQS is used when you need to decouple two different parts of a system, and decouple is an exam keyword. So if you see decouple, asynchronous messaging, or the ability to have independent scaling of your application on your exam, the correct answer might be SQS. Now, let's also dive deeper into Amazon SNS. SNS is a highly available, durable and secure pub sub messaging. It is a public AWS service, so you need network connectivity, and it is accessible wherever network connectivity is available. SNS coordinates the sending and delivery of messages, and SNS is used by many AWS services, such as CloudWatch when alarms change states, auto scaling groups can be configured to send notifications to a topic when a scaling event occurs, and also with CloudFormation when stacks change state and so on. Let's also talk about business application services such as Amazon Connect and Amazon Simple Email Service, or Amazon SES. What is a business application service? Well, it is a service that improves agility and lowers cost. Amazon Connect is a contact center that helps to provide customer service for voice and chat across customers and agents. Amazon SES is a cost-effective, flexible, and scalable email service to send mail from within any application. And with Amazon SES you can send emails securely, globally, and at scale. Here's a question I saw debated on an internal AWS Slack channel. It was actually for the AWS Certified Database Specialty practice exam but the gist of it was, it was trying to choose between Amazon SNS and Amazon SES. The question was asking for a notification with immediate and the least effort to configure. So remember to ensure you understand exactly what the question is asking when you're reviewing the questions and answer responses. Amazon SES is a great choice if you need the email to come from a custom domain. What are some customer engagement services and what are they used for? Customer engagement services help to create the best customer experience across the entire life cycle. AWS provides AWS Activate for Startups, AWS IQ, AWS Managed Services, and AWS Support. AWS Activate provides eligible startups with free tools, resources, and content, designed to simplify every step of the startup journey. AWS IQ connects you to an AWS certified expert for hands-on help for your AWS projects. AWS Managed Services is infrastructure operations management for AWS, and it is an enterprise service that provides ongoing management of your AWS infrastructure. AWS Support offers a range of plans that provide access to tools and expertise that support the success and operational health of your AWS solutions. AWS support plans provide 24/7 access to customer service, AWS documentation, technical papers, and support forums. For technical support and more resources to plan, deploy, and improve your AWS environment, you can choose a support plan for your AWS use cases. What about developer services? What is a developer service, and what services and tools does AWS offer? Developer services and tools are designed to help developers practice DevOps and deliver and to deploy. Some of the services that AWS provides are: AWS AppConfig, AWS Cloud9, AWS CloudShell, AWS CodeArtifact, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeStar, and AWS X-Ray. How familiar are you with these services? Ensure you dive deeper. What about end-user computing services? What are they and what are they used for? End-user services provide secure access to the application and desktops needed. Some services in AWS are Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon WorkSpaces, and Amazon WorkSpaces Web. Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed application streaming service that provides users with instant access to their desktop applications from anywhere. Amazon WorkSpaces helps to provision virtual cloud-based Microsoft Windows, Amazon Linux, or Ubuntu Linux desktops for your users known as WorkSpaces. Amazon WorkSpaces Web is an on-demand, fully managed, Linux-based service designed to facilitate secure browser access to internal websites and software-as-a-service applications. We're almost done, but let's also talk about AWS services for front-end web and mobile services to help developers develop workflows and deliver and deploy securely. AWS Amplify is a complete solution that lets front-end web and mobile developers easily build, ship, and host, full-stack applications on AWS. AWS AppSync provides a robust, scalable GraphQL interface for application developers to combine data from multiple sources, including Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, and HTTP APIs. Let's wrap up this lesson and talk about IoT services such as AWS IoT Core and AWS IoT Greengrass. What are IOT services used for? Well, they help to securely connect and manage devices, collect and analyze device data, and build and deploy solutions. AWS IoT provides device software that can help you integrate your IoT devices into AWS IoT-based solutions. AWS IoT Greengrass is a software that extends cloud capabilities to local devices to collect and analyze data closer to the source of the information, react autonomously to local events, and communicate securely with each other on local networks. Local devices can also communicate securely with AWS IoT Core and export IoT data to AWS. For this task statement, ensure you can choose the appropriate service for requirements and use cases as well as choosing the appropriate support options for your business. Let's get started with the fifth walkthrough question.