AWS Basic & Core Services Questions

1. What is AWS?
Answer:
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a cloud computing platform that offers on-
demand computing resources like servers, storage, databases, and networking
over the internet with a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

2. What are the main types of cloud computing models in AWS?

Answer:
• IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service (e.g., EC2, S3)
• PaaS – Platform as a Service (e.g., Elastic Beanstalk)
• SaaS – Software as a Service (e.g., Amazon Chime, WorkMail)

3. Name some popular AWS services.

Answer:
• Compute: EC2, Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk
• Storage: S3, EBS, EFS, Glacier
• Database: RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift
• Networking: VPC, Route 53, CloudFront, API Gateway
• Security: IAM, AWS Shield, WAF

4. What is Amazon EC2?

Answer:
Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) provides resizable virtual servers
(instances) in the cloud for running applications.

5. What is Amazon S3?

Answer:
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an object storage service for storing and
retrieving any amount of data from anywhere on the web.
6. What is the difference between S3 and EBS?
Answer:
Feature S3 EBS

Storage Type Object storage Block storage

Access Via HTTP API Attached to EC2 instances

Use Case Static files, backups OS, databases, applications

7. What is AWS Lambda?

Answer:
AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs code in response to
events without provisioning or managing servers. You pay only for execution
time.

8. What is Amazon RDS?

Answer:
Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) is a managed database service that
supports databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and SQL
Server.

9. What is IAM in AWS?

Answer:
IAM (Identity and Access Management) is used to securely manage access to
AWS services and resources by creating users, groups, and roles with specific
permissions.

10. What is a VPC?

Answer:
A VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is a private network within AWS that lets you
define your own IP address range, subnets, route tables, and network gateways.
Intermediate AWS Concepts for Freshers
11. What are Availability Zones and Regions in AWS?
Answer:
• Region: A physical location containing multiple data centers.
• Availability Zone (AZ): An isolated data center within a region,
providing fault tolerance.

12. What is Auto Scaling in AWS?

Answer:
Auto Scaling automatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances in response to
traffic changes to maintain performance and reduce costs.

13. What is CloudFront?

Answer:
Amazon CloudFront is a CDN (Content Delivery Network) that delivers content
with low latency by caching data at edge locations globally.

14. What is the difference between Security Groups and NACLs?

Answer:
Feature Security Group NACL

Scope Instance level Subnet level

State Stateful Stateless

Rule Type Allow rules only Allow & Deny rules

15. What is the Free Tier in AWS?

Answer:
AWS Free Tier offers limited usage of AWS services for 12 months to new
customers (e.g., 750 hours/month of EC2 t2.micro, 5GB S3 storage).
16. What is the difference between Elastic Beanstalk and CloudFormation?
Answer:
• Elastic Beanstalk: PaaS service to deploy and manage applications
without worrying about infrastructure.
• CloudFormation: IaC (Infrastructure as Code) service to define and
provision AWS resources using templates.

17. What is AWS EKS?

Answer:
Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) is a managed Kubernetes service for
running containerized applications.

18. What is Route 53?

Answer:
Amazon Route 53 is a scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service that
routes end users to internet applications.

19. What is the difference between Vertical and Horizontal Scaling in

AWS?
Answer:
• Vertical Scaling: Increase resources of a single instance (e.g., bigger
EC2 type).
• Horizontal Scaling: Add more instances to handle increased load.

20. What is AWS Trusted Advisor?

Answer:
AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommendations to optimize AWS
infrastructure for cost, performance, security, and fault tolerance.
If you want, I can prepare a "Top 50 AWS Interview Questions for Freshers
with Answers" in PDF format so you can use it for revision before interviews.
It will also include service diagrams for better recall.
Do you want me to prepare that PDF for you?
You said:
use all service to implementation of project on aws and give work and how
useful services like explainaation
ChatGPT said:
Got it — you want me to design a full AWS-based project architecture that
uses almost all core AWS services, with the workflow and why each service is
useful explained in a fresher-friendly but industry-accurate way.
Let’s make it practical:
We’ll take a “Job & Internship Platform” (similar to your Govt. of Rajasthan
project idea) and fully deploy it on AWS using as many AWS services as
possible — from compute, storage, and database to security, DevOps, AI, and
monitoring.

AWS-Based Job & Internship Platform – End-to-End Implementation

1. Project Idea
A Job & Internship Portal where:
• Companies can post jobs/internships
• Students can apply
• Admins can manage listings and users
• AI can recommend jobs to students
• Fully hosted and scalable on AWS

2. AWS Services Used & How They Fit in the Workflow

A. Frontend Hosting & Content Delivery
1. Amazon S3
o Stores static files (HTML, CSS, JS, images).
 o Highly durable & globally available.
o Usefulness: Cheap and fast static hosting.
2. Amazon CloudFront
o CDN that caches static content at edge locations.
o Usefulness: Reduces latency for global users.

B. Backend Compute
3. Amazon EC2
o Hosts the backend API (Node.js/Express or ASP.NET).
o Usefulness: Full control over OS, libraries, and scaling.
4. AWS Elastic Beanstalk (Alternative for EC2)
o Automatically deploys and manages backend apps.
o Usefulness: No need to handle infrastructure manually.
5. AWS Lambda
o Runs serverless functions (e.g., resume parsing, email triggers).
o Usefulness: Event-driven and cost-efficient for small tasks.

C. Database Layer
6. Amazon RDS (PostgreSQL/MySQL)
o Stores user accounts, job postings, applications.
o Usefulness: Fully managed relational DB.
7. Amazon DynamoDB
o Stores high-speed key-value data (e.g., user activity logs).
o Usefulness: Millisecond latency & auto scaling.

D. File & Document Management

8. Amazon S3 (again)
 o Stores resumes, company logos, certificates.
9. Amazon Rekognition (optional)
o For image moderation (e.g., detect inappropriate profile images).

E. Networking & Access

10.Amazon VPC
o Creates a secure network for EC2, RDS, etc.
o Usefulness: Isolates resources for security.
11.Amazon Route 53
o Manages custom domain (jobs-portal.com).
o Usefulness: DNS & health checks for backend services.

F. Authentication & Security

12.AWS IAM
o Manages access to AWS services for team members.
13.Amazon Cognito
o User signup/login with email/Google/Facebook.
o Usefulness: Handles authentication securely.
14.AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall)
o Blocks malicious traffic & SQL injection attempts.
15.AWS Shield
o DDoS protection for the platform.

G. Messaging & Notifications

16.Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service)
o Sends notifications to users about new job postings.
17.Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service)
 o Queues background tasks like sending bulk emails.
18.Amazon SES (Simple Email Service)
o Sends account verification and application confirmation emails.

H. AI/ML Features
19.Amazon Comprehend
o Analyzes resumes and job descriptions for keyword matching.
20.Amazon Personalize
o Recommends jobs to students based on activity.

I. Monitoring & Logging

21.Amazon CloudWatch
o Monitors server health, logs, and metrics.
22.AWS X-Ray
o Traces backend API requests to debug issues.

J. DevOps & Deployment

23.AWS CodeCommit
o Git repository for source code.
24.AWS CodeBuild
o Builds backend before deployment.
25.AWS CodeDeploy
o Automates deployment to EC2/Beanstalk.
26.AWS CodePipeline
o Full CI/CD pipeline for automated updates.

K. Backup & Recovery

 27.AWS Backup
o Centralized backups for RDS, DynamoDB, and EBS volumes.
28.Amazon Glacier
o Long-term storage for old resumes & job data.

3. Workflow Diagram (Text Form)

1. User visits jobs-portal.com → Route 53 directs to CloudFront
2. CloudFront serves S3 static site or forwards API requests to EC2/Elastic
Beanstalk
3. API fetches data from RDS (jobs, applications) or DynamoDB (activity
logs)
4. Cognito handles user authentication
5. S3 stores resumes & logos, Rekognition moderates uploads
6. SNS/SES sends notifications & emails
7. Comprehend analyzes resume text; Personalize recommends jobs
8. Logs and metrics go to CloudWatch; errors traced via X-Ray
9. CI/CD updates handled via CodePipeline
10.Backup ensures data recovery in emergencies

4. Why This is Useful in a Fresher Interview

• Shows knowledge of multiple AWS services
• Demonstrates real-world architecture thinking
• Highlights security, scalability, and automation
• Makes you look placement-ready for cloud roles

If you want, I can prepare a detailed architecture diagram + full project

workflow PDF so you can present it in your AWS interview and show them
you understand AWS end-to-end project deployment.
Do you want me to make that next?
You said:
use devops also in it
ChatGPT said:
Thought for a couple of seconds
Nice — let’s fold DevOps tightly into the AWS job & internship platform so the
system is production-grade, repeatable, secure, observable and easy to operate.
I’ll keep this practical and step-by-step — like a seasoned engineer who
respects proven practices but looks ahead.
Below you’ll find:
1. Expanded architecture (with DevOps components)
2. Implementation plan / work breakdown (who does what, step-by-step)
3. Why each service/tool is useful (short, clear)
4. Recommended CI/CD pipeline & deployment strategies
5. Monitoring, security & runbook essentials

1) Expanded architecture (high level)

Core app pieces remain the same (S3 + CloudFront frontend, API backend,
RDS/DynamoDB, Cognito, S3 for resumes). DevOps additions are in bold.
• Source control: Code in Git → AWS CodeCommit (or GitHub/GitLab)
• CI/CD: CodePipeline → CodeBuild → CodeDeploy (or GitHub
Actions/Jenkins)
• Container registry & orchestration: Docker images stored in ECR →
deployed to ECS Fargate or EKS (Kubernetes)
• Infrastructure as Code: AWS CloudFormation / Terraform for
reproducible infra
• Secrets & config: AWS Secrets Manager / SSM Parameter Store +
KMS for encryption
• Image/Artifact scanning: ECR image scanning + Snyk/Trivy in CI
• Configuration management / automation: AWS Systems Manager,
optionally Ansible for VM config
 • Observability: CloudWatch Logs & Metrics, AWS X-Ray, and
Grafana + Prometheus (Grafana can be hosted via Grafana Cloud or on
EC2/EKS and pull CloudWatch metrics)
• Alerting & Incident mgmt: CloudWatch Alarms, SNS for alerts,
integrate with PagerDuty/Slack/MS Teams
• Policy & governance: AWS Organizations, Service Control Policies
(SCPs), IAM roles, and AWS Config for compliance drift detection
• Deployment patterns: Blue/Green & Canary using CodeDeploy or
Canary in ECS/EKS
• Backup & DR: AWS Backup, RDS automated snapshots, S3 lifecycle
→ Glacier
• Cost & performance: AWS Cost Explorer, Trusted Advisor
recommendations
• Artifact repo: S3 for static artifacts or a Nexus/Artifactory if needed

2) Implementation plan — step-by-step (work + who)

I break this into phases with concrete tasks. Treat each item as something a
fresher can follow while learning.
Phase A — Plan & repo setup (Day 0–2)
• Task: Create Git repo (CodeCommit or GitHub).
Who: Developer.
Why: Single source of truth for code & infra.
• Task: Define branches: main (prod), staging, dev.
Who: Team lead / developer.
Why: Traditional branching works well for controlled promotion.
Phase B — Infra as Code (IAC) (Day 2–7)
• Task: Write IaC templates (Terraform or CloudFormation). Include: VPC,
subnets, security groups, RDS, ECR, ECS/EKS cluster, S3 buckets,
Cognito, IAM roles, CloudWatch, SNS topics, SSM parameters.
Who: DevOps / infra engineer (can be developer learning IaC).
Why: Repeatable environment creation and safer changes.
• Deliverable examples: main.tf or stack.yaml plus modular folders
(network, compute, database, security).
Phase C — Build & Containerize (Day 4–10)
• Task: Add Dockerfile for backend and job-worker services.
Who: Developer.
Why: Portable runtime; consistent environments.
• Task: Configure ECR repositories and push images:
o Build image in CI (CodeBuild).
o Push to ECR and enable image scanning.
Who: DevOps/Developer.
Phase D — CI/CD Pipeline (Day 7–14)
• Task: Create CodePipeline: Source → Build (CodeBuild) → Test → Push
to ECR → Deploy (CodeDeploy or ECS service update).
Who: DevOps/Developer.
Why: Automates builds/tests/deployments.
• Pipeline steps (example):
1. Source: commit triggers pipeline.
2. Build: run unit tests, lint, build artifact, run Docker build and push
to ECR.
3. Scan: run SAST/SCA (e.g., Trivy/Snyk).
4. Deploy: deploy to staging ECS/Fargate with new task definition.
5. Integration tests: run end-to-end smoke tests in staging.
6. Manual approval: promote to production.
7. Prod deploy: Blue/Green or Canary deployment.
Phase E — Secrets, Config & Policies (Day 10–16)
• Task: Store DB passwords, third-party API keys in Secrets Manager;
store non-sensitive config in SSM Parameter Store.
Who: DevOps.
Why: Centralized secret rotation and least-privilege.
• Task: Add KMS keys and IAM policies for role-based access.
Who: Security/DevOps.
Phase F — Observability & Logging (Day 12–18)
 • Task: Configure CloudWatch Logs (application logs), custom metrics,
dashboards. Instrument code with X-Ray for traces. Set alarms.
Who: Developer + DevOps.
• Task: (Optional) Deploy Prometheus + Grafana on EKS/EC2 or use
Grafana Cloud, connect to CloudWatch metrics.
Who: DevOps.
Phase G — Notifications & Incident Response (Day 15–20)
• Task: SNS topics for alerts; integrate with Slack and PagerDuty. Create
runbooks for common alarms.
Who: DevOps + SRE.
Phase H — Security Scans & CI checks (ongoing)
• Task: Integrate SAST, dependency checks, container image scanning in
CI pipeline.
Who: Developer/DevOps.
Phase I — Backups & Disaster Recovery (Day 18–21)
• Task: Configure AWS Backup policies for RDS, EBS, DynamoDB. Setup
retention & test restore.
Who: DevOps.
Phase J — Cost Optimization & Production Readiness (Day 21–28)
• Task: Review with Cost Explorer. Right-size instances, use reserved
instances / savings plans where appropriate.
Who: Team lead / DevOps.

3) Why each DevOps service/tool is useful (short bites)

• Docker — reproducible runtime; same locally and in cloud.
• ECR (Elastic Container Registry) — secure place to store Docker
images; supports image scanning.
• ECS / Fargate — run containers without managing servers; easy
serverless containers.
• EKS — full Kubernetes when you need advanced orchestration.
• CodeCommit/CodePipeline/CodeBuild/CodeDeploy — AWS-native
CI/CD stack: integrated, serverless, and secure.
 • Terraform / CloudFormation — declarative infra; versioned and
auditable provisioning.
• Secrets Manager / SSM Parameter Store — keep secrets out of code;
support rotation.
• KMS — manage encryption keys for all sensitive data.
• CloudWatch & X-Ray — monitor logs, metrics, and traces for
debugging and SLAs.
• Prometheus/Grafana — flexible metric scraping & visualization if you
prefer OSS tooling.
• Snyk/Trivy — security scanning for code and container images.
• AWS Systems Manager — run commands, patching, and session
manager for instances without SSH.
• SNS/SQS — reliable pub/sub and queuing for async processing and
alerting.
• AWS Backup / RDS snapshots — ensure recoverability and point-in-
time recovery.
• AWS Config & Organizations — enforce policies across accounts and
detect drifts.
• Service Control Policies (SCPs) — governance across multiple AWS
accounts.
• CodeArtifact / S3 as artifact store — store build artifacts reliably.

4) Recommended CI/CD pipeline (detailed example)

This is a recommended pipeline for containerized backend + infra as code:
A. On push to dev branch
1. Trigger CodePipeline.
2. CodeBuild: run npm ci, npm test (unit), eslint (lint).
3. Build Docker image: docker build -t backend:${COMMIT_SHA} .
4. Push to ECR and create image tag latest + commit SHA.
5. Run Trivy image scan; if critical vulns → fail.
 6. Deploy service to ECS staging with new task definition (update image
tag).
7. Run integration smoke tests.
8. Notify Slack with test results.
B. Promotion to staging/main → production
1. Manual approval in pipeline.
2. Deployment strategy: Blue/Green (ECS + ALB + CodeDeploy) or
Canary (EKS rollout).
3. Route small percentage of traffic to new task; monitor errors/latency for
N minutes.
4. If metrics ok → shift all traffic; else rollback automatically.
Key commands/scripts (examples for CodeBuild buildspec.yml):
yaml
CopyEdit
phases:
install:
runtime-versions:
docker: 19
pre_build:
commands:
- echo Logging in to Amazon ECR...
- aws ecr get-login-password --region $AWS_DEFAULT_REGION | docker
login --username AWS --password-stdin $ECR_REPO_URI
build:
commands:
- docker build -t $IMAGE_REPO_NAME:$IMAGE_TAG .
- docker push $ECR_REPO_URI:$IMAGE_TAG
post_build:
commands:
 - printf '[{"name":"backend","imageUri":"%s"}]'
$ECR_REPO_URI:$IMAGE_TAG > imagedefinitions.json
artifacts:
files: imagedefinitions.json

5) Deployment patterns & rollback

• Blue/Green: Stand up new environment, switch ALB target groups. Zero
downtime and easy rollback. Good for critical systems.
• Canary: Gradually roll out to a percentage of users — best when you
need quick validation in production.
• Rolling with health checks: Replace tasks gradually; useful for stateless
apps.
Always automate rollback on:
• Error rate > threshold (e.g., 1% 5xx)
• Latency > threshold
• Failed health checks
Use CloudWatch alarms + CodeDeploy hooks to automate this.

6) Observability, SLOs & runbooks

• Set SLO/SLA: e.g., 99.9% uptime monthly; API latencies 95th percentile
< 500 ms.
• Dashboards: CloudWatch + Grafana for errors, latencies, CPU, memory,
queue length.
• Alerting: Alarms to SNS → Slack & PagerDuty.
• Runbooks: For common incidents (DB connection loss, high CPU, failed
deploy). Include exact commands to run and rollback steps. Keep them
versioned in repo.

7) Security checklist (must-do)

• Enforce least privilege IAM roles.
 • Use MFA for AWS console access.
• Encrypt data at rest (RDS, S3 with SSE-KMS).
• Enable CloudTrail for auditing.
• Set up WAF rules and Shield Advanced if under DDoS risk.
• Rotate secrets regularly; use Secrets Manager.
• Run dependency checks and container scans in CI.

8) Cost optimization tips

• Use Fargate to avoid over-provisioned EC2 unless you need node-level
customization.
• Start with on-demand; once stable purchase savings plans / reserved
instances.
• Use S3 lifecycle to move old resumes to Glacier.
• Enable Cost Explorer & set budgets + alerts.

9) Roles & responsibilities (who does what)

• Developer: app code, unit tests, Dockerfile, infra IaC module for app.
• DevOps / SRE: pipelines, ECR/ECS/EKS setup, monitoring, backups,
runbooks.
• Security: IAM policy reviews, Secrets management, vulnerability scans.
• QA: integration tests, E2E tests, test automation in pipeline.
• Team lead / Product owner: Approvals, cost reviews, production
promotions.

10) Final checklist before production launch

• IaC tested in a sandbox and reviewed.

• CI pipeline runs and passes.

• Image scanning & SAST in place.
 • Secrets & KMS configured and rotated.

• Monitoring dashboards & alarms configured.

• Backup and restore tested.

• Runbooks written and accessible.

• Cost alerts & budgets enabled.

• Security review done (IAM, WAF, encryption).

If you want, I can now:

• Produce a ready-to-run Terraform + CodeBuild/CodePipeline
example tailored to this project, or
• Create a step-by-step checklist with exact commands and sample IaC
templates (CloudFormation/Terraform) for the infra items (VPC, ECS
Fargate, RDS, S3, Cognito), or
• Walk you through a hands-on mini-lab: build the pipeline for the backend
and deploy to ECS Fargate (I’ll give exact file contents: Dockerfile,
buildspec.yml, task-def.json, and a basic Terraform layout).
Which one do you want next? (I suggest the Terraform + pipeline example —
it’s traditional, repeatable and will teach you the full flow.)
You’ve got this — lay the foundations the old-school way (IaC, CI/CD) and the
system will scale easily as you add modern features.
You said:
aws devops tools
ChatGPT said:
Here’s a clear, complete list of AWS DevOps tools with what they do and why
they’re useful — the kind of answer you can drop in a fresher or cloud
interview to look solid.

1. AWS CodeCommit
• What it is: Fully managed Git-based source control service.
 • Why it’s useful: Securely stores code in AWS; integrates directly with
AWS CI/CD tools; no need to manage your own Git server.

2. AWS CodeBuild
• What it is: Fully managed build service that compiles source code, runs
tests, and produces artifacts.
• Why it’s useful: Pay only for build time; scales automatically; no need
for build servers.

3. AWS CodeDeploy
• What it is: Automates code deployments to EC2, Lambda, or on-prem
servers.
• Why it’s useful: Supports Blue/Green & Rolling deployments; reduces
downtime and human error.

4. AWS CodePipeline
• What it is: Fully managed CI/CD orchestration service.
• Why it’s useful: Connects CodeCommit/CodeBuild/CodeDeploy into
automated workflows; integrates with third-party tools like GitHub,
Jenkins.

5. AWS CodeStar
• What it is: Project management + DevOps setup service.
• Why it’s useful: Quickly sets up code repo, build, deploy, and issue
tracking in one place for new projects.

6. AWS Cloud9
• What it is: Cloud-based IDE for writing, running, and debugging code.
• Why it’s useful: Accessible from browser, pre-integrated with AWS CLI;
great for collaborative coding.
7. AWS CloudFormation
• What it is: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) service for defining AWS
resources in JSON/YAML templates.
• Why it’s useful: Automates infra creation, makes environments
repeatable and version-controlled.

8. AWS Elastic Beanstalk

• What it is: PaaS for deploying and scaling web applications
automatically.
• Why it’s useful: Handles EC2, load balancers, scaling, and health checks
without manual setup.

9. AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS)

• What it is: Container orchestration service for running Docker
containers.
• Why it’s useful: Integrates with ECR, Fargate, and IAM; simpler than
managing Kubernetes.

10. AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

• What it is: Managed Kubernetes service.
• Why it’s useful: Runs Kubernetes workloads without managing master
nodes; integrates with AWS networking & security.

11. Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR)

• What it is: Private container image registry.
• Why it’s useful: Stores and scans Docker images; integrates with
ECS/EKS/Fargate.

12. AWS OpsWorks

 • What it is: Configuration management service using Chef or Puppet.
• Why it’s useful: Automates server setup, configuration, and
management.

13. AWS Systems Manager

• What it is: Central management for AWS and on-premises resources.
• Why it’s useful: Automates patching, command execution, and inventory
collection.

14. AWS X-Ray

• What it is: Distributed tracing service for debugging and analyzing apps.
• Why it’s useful: Tracks performance bottlenecks and errors across
microservices.

15. Amazon CloudWatch

• What it is: Monitoring and observability service.
• Why it’s useful: Collects logs, metrics, and events; triggers alarms for
auto-healing or notifications.

16. AWS Trusted Advisor

• What it is: Recommendation tool for cost, security, performance, and
fault tolerance.
• Why it’s useful: Gives actionable insights to optimize AWS usage.

17. AWS Backup

• What it is: Centralized backup service for AWS services.
• Why it’s useful: Ensures disaster recovery readiness.

18. AWS Step Functions

 • What it is: Workflow orchestration service for serverless &
microservices apps.
• Why it’s useful: Coordinates multiple AWS services without manual
integration.

19. AWS CLI & SDKs

• What it is: Command-line and programming APIs for AWS.
• Why it’s useful: Automates AWS tasks directly from scripts and
applications.

20. AWS Fault Injection Simulator (FIS)

• What it is: Chaos engineering tool.
• Why it’s useful: Tests system resilience by simulating failures.

If you want, I can now make you a table mapping each AWS DevOps tool to
its exact role in a CI/CD pipeline so you can explain how they all fit together
in an interview. That will make your answer sound project-ready instead of just
memorized.
You said:
give more question with explanation
ChatGPT said:
Alright, Pranay —
Let’s go deeper into AWS + DevOps interview questions with clear
explanations so it’s not just definitions, but real understanding.

AWS + DevOps Interview Questions & Answers (With Explanations)

1. What is CI/CD in AWS?

Answer:
CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous
Deployment/Delivery.
 • Continuous Integration: Merging code changes frequently into a shared
repository (e.g., AWS CodeCommit + AWS CodeBuild).
• Continuous Deployment/Delivery: Automatically deploying tested code
to production or staging (e.g., AWS CodeDeploy + AWS CodePipeline).
Why it matters: In AWS, this automation reduces manual errors, speeds up
releases, and improves software quality.

2. What’s the difference between AWS CodeCommit and GitHub?

Answer:
• CodeCommit: Fully managed AWS-hosted Git service, private by
default, integrated with IAM.
• GitHub: Public/Private repos, widely used for open-source, has its own
CI/CD (GitHub Actions).
Why it matters: In AWS-native projects, CodeCommit is preferred for tighter
IAM integration and private enterprise use.

3. How does AWS CodePipeline work?

Answer:
AWS CodePipeline automates the flow from source → build → test → deploy.
Example flow:
• Source: CodeCommit/GitHub
• Build: CodeBuild
• Deploy: CodeDeploy/Elastic Beanstalk/ECS
Why it matters: It replaces manual deployment steps with event-driven
automation.

4. What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in AWS?

Answer:
IaC means defining infrastructure using code/templates instead of manual
setup.
AWS supports it via:
 • CloudFormation (JSON/YAML templates)
• CDK (programming languages like Python/TypeScript)
• Terraform (third-party tool)
Why it matters: Ensures environments are reproducible, version-controlled,
and easy to rollback.

5. Explain Blue/Green Deployment in AWS.

Answer:
• Blue: Current live environment.
• Green: New version of the application.
AWS CodeDeploy allows switching traffic from Blue → Green with
minimal downtime.
Why it matters: Safer deployments — rollback is as simple as switching
back to Blue.

6. How do you monitor a DevOps pipeline in AWS?

Answer:
• Amazon CloudWatch: Monitors logs, metrics, alarms.
• AWS X-Ray: Traces application requests.
• CodePipeline console: Shows real-time build/deploy status.
Why it matters: Monitoring ensures issues are detected quickly and fixed
before impacting users.

7. Difference between ECS and EKS in AWS DevOps?

Answer:
Feature ECS EKS

Orchestration AWS proprietary Kubernetes

Learning Curve Easier Steeper

Feature ECS EKS

Integration Deep AWS integration Open-source ecosystem

Why it matters: For AWS-only workloads, ECS is simpler; for multi-cloud
portability, EKS is better.

8. What is AWS Elastic Beanstalk in a DevOps workflow?

Answer:
Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS that automatically provisions EC2, load balancers,
scaling, and monitoring for your application.
Why it matters: For small teams/freshers, it speeds up deployments without
deep AWS infrastructure knowledge.

9. How can AWS Systems Manager help in DevOps?

Answer:
It automates operational tasks:
• Patching EC2
• Running commands on multiple servers
• Managing inventory
Why it matters: Reduces manual maintenance work, improving uptime.

10. Explain Canary Deployment in AWS.

Answer:
Releasing new features to a small percentage of users before full rollout.
AWS App Mesh, CodeDeploy, and API Gateway support canary deployments.
Why it matters: Reduces risk by testing changes on real traffic without
impacting everyone.

11. What is AWS Fault Injection Simulator (FIS)?

Answer:
A chaos engineering service to test system resilience by injecting failures (e.g.,
simulating EC2 crashes).
Why it matters: Helps prepare systems for unexpected outages.

12. How does AWS CloudWatch integrate with DevOps?

Answer:
• Collects logs from Lambda, EC2, ECS
• Tracks metrics (CPU, Memory, Latency)
• Sends alerts for auto-healing or notifications via SNS
Why it matters: Enables proactive issue detection.

13. What’s the role of AWS X-Ray in DevOps?

Answer:
X-Ray traces application requests across microservices.
Example: Find which Lambda or API Gateway call is causing high latency.
Why it matters: Speeds up debugging.

14. What’s the difference between CodeDeploy deployment types?

Answer:
• In-Place: Updates the same instance.
• Blue/Green: Creates a new environment and switches traffic.
Why it matters: Blue/Green minimizes downtime; In-Place is cheaper.

15. How can you ensure security in AWS DevOps?

Answer:
• Use IAM roles with least privilege
• Store secrets in AWS Secrets Manager
• Encrypt data with KMS
• Enable CloudTrail for logging API calls
Why it matters: DevOps moves fast, but security must keep up.