66. What AWS services have you used?
Strong Answer Example:
“I’ve worked with EC2 for hosting applications, S3 for storage, RDS for managed databases, IAM for access control, and CloudWatch for monitoring. I understand how these services integrate to build scalable web applications.”
67. What is EC2?
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides virtual servers in the cloud. You can configure CPU, memory, storage, and networking.
Used to host web apps or backend services.
68. What is S3?
Amazon Simple Storage Service is object storage used for:
- File uploads
- Backups
- Static websites
- Media storage
Highly durable and scalable.
69. What is RDS?
Amazon Relational Database Service is a managed database service supporting MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, etc.
It handles backups, scaling, and patching automatically.
70. What is IAM?
Identity and Access Management controls:
- Users
- Roles
- Permissions
Best practice: use roles instead of root credentials.
71. What is AWS Lambda?
Serverless compute service.
Runs code in response to events without managing servers.
You only pay for execution time.
72. What is Elastic Beanstalk?
Platform-as-a-Service that automatically deploys and manages applications.
You upload your code — AWS handles provisioning, load balancing, scaling.
73. What is CloudFormation?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) service.
Define AWS resources using JSON/YAML templates.
74. What is CloudWatch?
Monitoring service for:
- Logs
- Metrics
- Alerts
- Performance tracking
75. Scaling vertically vs horizontally?
Vertical scaling = Increase server size (more RAM/CPU).
Horizontal scaling = Add more servers.
Horizontal is preferred for high availability.
76. What is an Auto Scaling Group?
Automatically adjusts number of EC2 instances based on load or policies.
Ensures availability and cost optimization.
77. How would you deploy a .NET app to AWS?
Strong answer:
- Build app
- Deploy to EC2 or Elastic Beanstalk
- Configure IIS or Kestrel
- Use RDS for database
- Store static assets in S3
- Configure IAM roles
- Monitor with CloudWatch
78. How would you deploy a PHP app to AWS?
- Host on EC2 (Apache/Nginx)
OR - Use Elastic Beanstalk PHP environment
- Connect to RDS (MySQL)
- Store files in S3
- Configure security groups
79. What is a VPC?
Virtual Private Cloud.
Isolated network within AWS where you define:
- Subnets
- Route tables
- Internet gateways
- Security groups
80. How do you secure applications in AWS?
- IAM roles (least privilege)
- Security groups
- HTTPS
- Encryption at rest
- Environment variables for secrets
- WAF (Web Application Firewall)