This appendix is your “if it exists on AWS, it might show up” checklist. The exam can pull from many areas, so the goal here is to recognize the term, what it broadly means, and where it fits (cloud concepts, security, pricing, services, and support).
The list below is non-exhaustive and can change over time.
Core Concepts & Cloud Foundations
- APIs: How software communicates with AWS services (most AWS actions are API calls under the hood).
- Benefits of Migrating to the AWS Cloud: Cost savings, agility, scalability, global reach, improved resilience.
- AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF): Guidance for planning and reducing risk during cloud adoption.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Provision infrastructure using templates/code rather than manual steps.
Governance, Compliance, and Security
- AWS Compliance: Programs and guidance for meeting regulatory and industry requirements.
- Management and Governance: Tools and practices to monitor, control, and standardize AWS usage.
- Security: Protecting identities, data, apps, and infrastructure.
- AWS Shared Responsibility Model: AWS secures the cloud infrastructure; customers secure what they run in AWS.
- AWS Security Center: Central hub for AWS security guidance and resources.
- AWS Security Blog: Updates, deep dives, and announcements on AWS security topics.
- AWS Well-Architected Framework: Best practices organized into pillars (operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, sustainability).
Compute, Storage, Databases, Networking
- Compute: Services for running applications (VMs, containers, serverless).
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Amazon EC2 Instance Types / Purchasing Options:
- On-Demand, Reserved, Spot (common pricing/usage patterns)
- Storage: Object, block, and file storage services and their use cases.
- Databases: Relational, NoSQL, in-memory, and managed database services.
- Network Services: VPC, routing, connectivity, DNS, edge networking, etc.
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AWS Global Infrastructure:
- AWS Regions and Availability Zones (how AWS provides global reach and high availability)
Migration and Data Movement
- Migration and Data Transfer: Strategies and tools for moving applications and data into AWS.
Analytics and Machine Learning
- Machine Learning: Services for building, training, deploying models, and using AI capabilities.
Pricing and Cost Management
- Cost Management: Tracking, analyzing, and optimizing AWS spend.
- AWS Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs before deployment.
Support, Help, and AWS Ecosystem
- AWS Support Center: Where you open and manage AWS support cases.
- AWS Support Plans: Support tiers (Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, Enterprise).
- AWS Knowledge Center: Official AWS how-to and troubleshooting articles.
- AWS re:Post: Community Q&A for AWS questions.
- AWS Prescriptive Guidance: Best-practice patterns and step-by-step migration/architecture guidance.
- AWS Professional Services: AWS experts who help deliver migrations and major projects.
- AWS Solutions Architects: Architecture guidance and service selection/design support.
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AWS Partner Network (APN): Partners including:
- Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) (software solutions)
- System Integrators (SIs) (implementation/migration/consulting)
Developer Tools & Programmatic Access
- AWS SDKs: Language-specific libraries for calling AWS services programmatically
Reminder: Always refer to the official exam guide for the most up-to-date list of in-scope and out-of-scope services (Additional Resources 👇).
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