AWS - Interview Questions for Beginners

Level 1: Foundational AWS Concepts

1. What is AWS?

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a comprehensive, on-demand cloud computing platform that
provides scalable and pay-as-you-go services. It offers a wide range of services including
compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and more.

2. What are the benefits of using AWS?

There are several benefits to using AWS, including:

● Scalability: Easily scale resources up or down to meet changing demands.

● Cost-effectiveness: Pay only for the resources you use.
● Reliability: Highly reliable infrastructure with multiple availability zones.
● Security: Robust security features to protect your data.
● Wide range of services: Offers a vast selection of services for various needs.

3. What is the difference between an EC2 Instance and an S3 Bucket?

● EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): Provides virtual servers in the cloud that you can launch
and terminate on demand. You have full control over the operating system and
applications running on the instance.
● S3 (Simple Storage Service): Offers object storage for data of any size and type. It's a
highly scalable and cost-effective way to store data in the cloud.

4. What is a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) in AWS?

A VPC allows you to create a logically isolated network environment within the AWS cloud. You
can define your own IP address range, subnet structure, and security groups to control access
to your resources.

5. What is an IAM (Identity and Access Management) user in AWS?

IAM allows you to securely control access to AWS resources. You can create IAM users with
specific permissions to perform tasks within your AWS account. This ensures that only
authorized users can access and manage your resources.
Level 2: Diving Deeper
Here are 9 questions that build upon the foundational concepts and introduce some
intermediate-level AWS functionalities:

1. Explain the different storage classes available in Amazon S3 and when you would use
each one?

● S3 Standard: Ideal for frequently accessed data, offers high availability and low latency.
● S3 Intelligent-Tiering: Automatically moves data between access tiers based on usage
patterns, optimizing cost for data with varying access frequencies.
● S3 Glacier: Designed for long-term, infrequently accessed data archives, with lower
storage costs but retrieval times can be longer.
● S3 Glacier Deep Archive: Most cost-effective storage for rarely accessed data, with
retrieval times in hours to days.

2. Describe the concept of Auto Scaling groups in EC2 and their benefits?

Auto Scaling groups automate the process of provisioning and managing EC2 instances. They
automatically scale your compute resources up or down based on predefined metrics like CPU
utilization. Benefits include:

● Improved Scalability: Automatically handle traffic spikes and ensure resources are
available.
● Cost Optimization: Scale resources based on actual demand, avoiding idle instances.
● Increased Availability: Automatically replace unhealthy instances to maintain app
uptime.

3. How would you configure security groups to control inbound and outbound traffic for
your EC2 instances in a VPC?

Security groups act as virtual firewalls, controlling network traffic to and from your instances.
You define rules specifying allowed protocols, ports, and source IPs to restrict access and
enhance security.

4. Explain the use of CloudFront in AWS and its advantages for content delivery?

CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) service that delivers content to users with high
performance and low latency. It caches content across a global network of edge locations,
reducing the distance users need to access data. Advantages include:

● Faster Download Speeds: Users access content from the nearest edge location,
minimizing latency.
● Reduced Cost: Offloads traffic from your origin servers, potentially lowering bandwidth
expenses.
● Improved Scalability: CloudFront automatically scales to handle traffic spikes.
5. How can you monitor the health and performance of your AWS resources using
CloudWatch?

CloudWatch provides monitoring and observability for your AWS resources. It collects logs,
metrics, and events, allowing you to:

● Set alarms for specific conditions and receive notifications when thresholds are
breached.
● Visualize resource utilization and identify performance bottlenecks.
● Troubleshoot issues and understand resource behavior over time.

6. Explain the different types of EC2 storage options (EBS vs. Instance Store).

● EBS (Elastic Block Store): Provides persistent block storage volumes that can be
attached to EC2 instances. Data on EBS volumes is independent of the instance
lifecycle, meaning it persists even after stopping or terminating the instance. Ideal for
storing critical data.
● Instance Store: Temporary storage associated with the EC2 instance itself. Data gets
lost when the instance is stopped or terminated. Suitable for temporary data like
application logs or caches.

7. Describe how you would implement a highly available web application on AWS?

This could involve:

● Load Balancers: Distribute incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances for scalability
and redundancy.
● Auto Scaling: Automatically scale your EC2 instances based on predefined rules to
handle varying traffic loads.
● Route 53: Manage DNS records and route traffic to healthy instances in case of failures.
● Elastic Load Balancing: Distributes traffic across multiple Availability Zones for
increased fault tolerance.

8. How would you back up your data stored in S3 buckets?

There are several options for S3 backups:

● S3 Versioning: Maintains previous versions of objects, allowing you to roll back to a

previous point in time.
● S3 Lifecycle Rules: Automatically transition objects to different storage classes based
on age or access patterns for cost optimization.
● AWS Backup: Centralized service for managing backups across various AWS services,
including S3.
9. Explain the concept of Security Groups in a VPC and how they control traffic flow.

Security groups act like firewalls, controlling inbound and outbound traffic to your resources
within a VPC. You define rules to allow or deny specific protocols and ports, creating a secure
environment for your applications.

Level 3: Advanced Scenarios and Troubleshooting

Here are 5 AWS interview questions that explore advanced functionalities and
troubleshooting techniques:

1. You are deploying a highly available web application on AWS. Describe your approach,
including the services you would use and the considerations for redundancy.

● Solution: Utilize an Auto Scaling group with EC2 instances running your application in a
VPC with private and public subnets. Implement a load balancer (e.g., Elastic Load
Balancing) to distribute traffic across instances.
● Redundancy considerations: Deploy the application across multiple Availability Zones
(AZs) within the same region for fault tolerance. Utilize EBS volumes with RAID
configuration for data persistence. Consider an S3 bucket for static content with
versioning enabled.

2. Explain how you would troubleshoot an issue where your EC2 instances are
experiencing high CPU utilization?

● Troubleshooting steps:
○ Use CloudWatch to analyze CPU utilization metrics and identify spikes.
○ Check application logs for errors or inefficiencies causing high CPU usage.
○ Scale up the Auto Scaling group if resource demands are exceeding capacity.
○ Analyze application code for potential performance bottlenecks.

3. How can you implement a disaster recovery (DR) plan for your critical AWS resources
in another region?

● DR strategies:
○ Utilize AWS CloudFormation templates to define and deploy infrastructure in the
DR region.
○ Enable Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication to replicate critical data to the DR
region bucket.
○ Configure Route 53 failover routing to direct traffic to the DR region in case of a
primary region outage.
4. Describe your approach to securing access to your AWS resources using IAM policies
and best practices.

● IAM best practices:

○ Implement the principle of least privilege, granting users only the necessary
permissions.
○ Utilize IAM roles for EC2 instances to avoid storing access keys on instances.
○ Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all IAM users with root or elevated
privileges.
○ Regularly review and audit IAM policies to ensure appropriate access control.

5. How can you leverage AWS Lambda serverless functions to optimize costs for
short-running, event-driven tasks?

● Benefits of Lambda:
○ Pay only for the resources used by the function during execution, minimizing idle
costs.
○ Scales automatically based on incoming events, eliminating server management
overhead.
○ Ideal for tasks triggered by events like image uploads, API calls, or scheduled
events.

Level 4: Deep Dive and Design Challenges

Here are 5 AWS interview questions that delve into in-depth service functionalities and
challenge your ability to design complex solutions:

1. Explain the different deployment options for containerized applications on AWS and
the considerations for choosing between them.

● Deployment Options:
○ Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Manages Docker containers on a
cluster of EC2 instances, offering more granular control.
○ Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS): Managed Kubernetes service
for deploying and scaling containerized applications.
○ AWS Fargate: Serverless container platform where AWS manages the
underlying infrastructure.
● Considerations:
○ Complexity: EKS offers more flexibility but requires managing Kubernetes
itself, while ECS and Fargate are simpler.
○ Cost: Fargate is serverless and removes server management overhead,
potentially increasing cost compared to ECS on EC2.
○ Scalability: All options offer auto-scaling capabilities.
2. You are tasked with designing a serverless data pipeline for ingesting and processing
large datasets in real-time. Describe your approach and the AWS services you would use.

● Solution:
○ Utilize Amazon Kinesis Firehose for real-time data ingestion from various
sources (e.g., IoT devices, logs).
○ Process data with AWS Lambda functions triggered by the Kinesis
Firehose stream.
○ Store processed data in Amazon S3 for long-term storage and analytics.
○ Optionally, utilize Amazon DynamoDB for low-latency, NoSQL data storage
if needed.

3. How can you implement a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD)
pipeline for your AWS infrastructure using tools like AWS CodePipeline and CodeBuild?

● CI/CD Pipeline:
○ Use CodeCommit for version control of your infrastructure code (e.g.,
CloudFormation templates).
○ Configure CodePipeline to trigger builds upon code commits.
○ CodeBuild builds the infrastructure code and deploys it to a staging
environment for testing.
○ After successful testing, CodePipeline deploys the infrastructure to
production.

4. Describe how you would leverage AWS services like Amazon Route 53 and Amazon
CloudFront to implement a globally distributed website with high availability and low
latency.

● Solution:
○ Use Route 53 as a global traffic routing service, directing users to the
nearest edge location.
○ Configure CloudFront as a CDN, caching website content across
geographically distributed edge locations.
○ Implement Route 53 health checks to monitor the health of origin servers in
multiple regions.
○ Route 53 can failover traffic to healthy regions in case of an outage.

5. Explain your approach to cost optimization for your AWS infrastructure, including
tools and strategies.

● Cost Optimization Strategies:

○ Utilize AWS Cost Explorer to identify cost drivers and unused resources.
○ Implement right-sizing for EC2 instances to ensure they have sufficient
resources without overprovisioning.
 ○ Leverage reserved instances or Savings Plans for predictable workloads to
get significant discounts.
○ Utilize spot instances for flexible workloads that can tolerate interruptions
at a lower cost.
○ Enable AWS Budgets to set spending thresholds and receive alerts for
potential cost overruns.

Level 5: Scenario-Based Problem Solving and Leadership

Here are 5 AWS interview questions that move beyond technical details and assess your
problem-solving skills, leadership potential, and ability to think strategically within the context of
AWS:

1. Your company is experiencing a sudden surge in user traffic to their e-commerce

website hosted on AWS. Describe the steps you would take to ensure website availability
and scalability.

● Immediate Actions:
○ Analyze CloudWatch metrics to identify the source and nature of the traffic surge.
○ Utilize Auto Scaling groups to automatically scale up EC2 instances to handle
increased load.
○ Investigate if the application can be optimized to handle higher user concurrency.
○ Consider temporarily enabling additional resources like reserved instances for
immediate scaling.
● Long-Term Solutions:
○ Design a load balancing strategy to distribute traffic across multiple instances.
○ Implement caching mechanisms like CloudFront to reduce the load on origin
servers.
○ Conduct stress testing to identify potential bottlenecks and proactively address
them.
○ Invest in infrastructure automation tools like CloudFormation for faster
provisioning and scaling.

2. You are leading a team of developers migrating a legacy application to a serverless

architecture on AWS. What challenges might you encounter, and how would you
approach the migration process?

● Challenges:
○ Debugging and monitoring serverless functions can be more complex compared
to traditional applications.
○ Legacy code might need refactoring to adapt to a serverless model.
○ Cost management needs careful consideration in serverless environments.
 ● Migration Approach:
○ Break down the application into smaller, well-defined functions suitable for
serverless deployment.
○ Utilize tools like AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) for simplified
serverless application development and deployment.
○ Conduct thorough testing and performance analysis throughout the migration
process.
○ Monitor serverless functions closely for unexpected costs and optimize resource
utilization.

3. You are tasked with building a secure and compliant data platform on AWS to store
and analyze sensitive customer data. Describe your security considerations and the AWS
services you might use.

● Security Considerations:
○ Implement IAM roles with least privilege for access to data storage and
processing resources.
○ Utilize Amazon KMS (Key Management Service) for encryption of data at rest
and in transit.
○ Configure Amazon S3 bucket access controls to restrict unauthorized access.
○ Enable CloudTrail logging to track all API calls made to AWS services for audit
purposes.
○ Consider deploying the data platform in a dedicated VPC with additional security
controls.
● Services:
○ Amazon S3 for secure and scalable data storage.
○ Amazon Redshift or Amazon Athena for data warehousing and analytics.
○ AWS Glue for data cataloging and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes.
○ AWS Security Hub for centralized security posture management and automated
threat detection.

4. How would you approach architecting a fault-tolerant and highly available cloud
application on AWS?

● Fault Tolerance Strategies:

○ Implement Auto Scaling groups with healthy instances across multiple Availability
Zones.
○ Utilize Elastic Load Balancing to distribute traffic across healthy instances.
○ Design the application with stateless architecture for easier scaling and failover.
○ Consider deploying Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) with Multi-AZ
configuration for database redundancy.
○ Configure CloudWatch alarms to notify you of potential issues and enable
automatic scaling based on predefined metrics.
5. You are presenting a proposal to your CTO for migrating your company's on-premises
infrastructure to AWS. Explain the key benefits and potential challenges associated with
cloud migration.

● Benefits:
○ Increased scalability and elasticity to meet changing business requirements.
○ Reduced cost of infrastructure management and maintenance.
○ Improved agility and faster time to market for new applications.
○ Enhanced security with robust AWS security features and compliance
certifications.
○ Access to a wide range of innovative AWS services to support various business
needs.
● Challenges:
○ Initial migration costs and effort required to move existing infrastructure to AWS.
○ Potential need for application refactoring to leverage cloud-native features.
○ Ensuring proper security posture and access control in the cloud environment.
○ Dependence on a third-party cloud provider for infrastructure and services.
○ Managing and optimizing costs in a pay-as-you-go cloud model.

Level 6: Advanced Troubleshooting and Optimization

This level delves into highly technical scenarios and pushes your expertise in troubleshooting,
optimization, and deep AWS service knowledge.

1. You're experiencing intermittent performance issues with your latency-sensitive

application hosted on AWS. Describe your approach to diagnosing the root cause.

● Initial Analysis:
○ Utilize CloudWatch metrics to pinpoint performance spikes and identify affected
resources (e.g., CPU, memory, network latency).
○ Analyze application logs for any errors or warnings coinciding with performance
drops.
○ Investigate EC2 instance health checks and identify any unhealthy instances
potentially impacting performance.
● Advanced Troubleshooting:
○ Leverage AWS X-Ray for detailed tracing of application requests and pinpoint
bottlenecks across components.
○ Utilize Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights to analyze application logs for patterns
and identify potential issues.
○ If network latency is suspected, consider using tools like MTR (traceroute) to
identify specific network hops causing delays.
● Optimization Strategies:
 ○ Implement auto-scaling to ensure sufficient resources are available during peak
loads.
○ Consider using Amazon ElastiCache for caching frequently accessed data and
reducing database load.
○ Optimize application code to improve efficiency and reduce processing time.
○ Utilize CloudFront as a CDN to offload static content delivery and improve overall
application responsiveness.

2. Your company is running a large-scale data analytics workload on Amazon EMR

(Elastic MapReduce). How can you optimize the cluster for cost and performance?

● Cost Optimization:
○ Utilize spot instances for EMR cluster nodes to take advantage of lower costs
with the understanding of potential interruptions.
○ Implement EMR automatic scaling to adjust cluster size based on actual
workload demands.
○ Configure EMR to use instance types optimized for your specific data processing
needs (e.g., memory-intensive vs. compute-intensive tasks).
○ Consider using Amazon S3 Glacier for long-term storage of processed data sets
to reduce storage costs.
● Performance Optimization:
○ Use spot fleet requests with diverse instance types to improve cluster launch time
and potentially achieve better performance.
○ Configure EMR with YARN (Yet Another Resource Negotiator) to optimize
resource allocation across cluster nodes.
○ Tune application configurations like Spark executors and memory settings based
on your data size and processing requirements.
○ Utilize Amazon Kinesis Firehose for efficient real-time data ingestion into your
EMR cluster for processing.

3. You're tasked with designing a highly available and secure architecture for a
microservices application deployed on AWS. Explain your approach.

● Microservices Architecture on AWS:

○ Utilize Amazon ECS or EKS to manage containerized microservices
deployments.
○ Implement service discovery with AWS Cloud Map for dynamic service
registration and discovery across microservices.
○ Configure an Application Load Balancer (ALB) for efficient traffic distribution
across healthy microservice instances.
○ Utilize AWS Lambda for serverless functions that complement your microservices
architecture for specific tasks.
● High Availability and Security:
○ Implement Auto Scaling groups for each microservice to ensure automatic
scaling based on demand.
 ○ Design each microservice to be stateless and loosely coupled for easier scaling
and fault tolerance.
○ Utilize IAM roles with least privilege for each microservice to access required
AWS resources.
○ Implement API Gateway for secure and controlled access to your microservices.
○ Monitor application health and performance with CloudWatch and configure
alarms for proactive notifications.

4. Your organization plans to leverage AWS for disaster recovery (DR) for critical
business applications. Describe your strategy for failover and recovery.

● DR Strategy:
○ Deploy applications in a primary region with high availability architecture (e.g.,
Auto Scaling, redundancy zones).
○ Utilize AWS CloudFormation templates to define and deploy infrastructure in a
secondary DR region for rapid recovery.
○ Implement Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment for database replication and
failover to the DR region in case of outage.
○ Configure Route 53 failover routing to automatically direct traffic to the DR region
during a primary region outage.
○ Regularly test your DR plan with failover simulations to ensure smooth recovery
in case of a disaster.

5. You're managing a complex AWS infrastructure with multiple accounts and services.
How would you approach security best practices and access control?

● Security Best Practices:

○ Utilize AWS Organizations for centralized management of multiple AWS accounts
and enforce security policies across them.
○ Implement IAM roles with least privilege for all users and services, granting
access only to necessary resources.
○ Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all IAM users with elevated
privileges.
○ Utilize AWS Security Hub for centralized security posture management and
continuous threat detection.
○ Regularly review IAM policies and user activity logs to identify potential risks and
suspicious behavior.

Level 7: Diving Deeper

Here are 5 additional Level 3 questions to further challenge your understanding of AWS
functionalities and troubleshooting techniques:
1. You suspect a security breach on your S3 bucket containing sensitive customer
data. Describe the steps you would take to investigate and mitigate the issue.
● Investigation:

○ Utilize AWS CloudTrail logs to identify any unauthorized API calls made to the S3
bucket.
○ Analyze S3 access logs to pinpoint specific users or IP addresses that accessed
the bucket.
○ Check IAM user permissions to identify any potential misconfigurations granting
unauthorized access.
● Mitigation:

○ Immediately revoke access for any suspicious users or compromised credentials.

○ Enable S3 bucket logging to track all future access attempts.
○ Implement stricter IAM policies with least privilege for S3 bucket access.
○ Consider using Amazon S3 Object Lock to prevent unauthorized deletion or
modification of sensitive data for a predefined retention period.
2. Your Lambda function, responsible for processing real-time data from a Kinesis
stream, is experiencing high execution times and throttling errors. How would you
troubleshoot and optimize the function?
● Troubleshooting:

○ Analyze CloudWatch logs for Lambda function execution times and identify any
specific events causing delays.
○ Utilize AWS X-Ray to trace the execution path and pinpoint bottlenecks within the
Lambda function code.
○ Check the Lambda function memory allocation and consider increasing it if the
function is resource-constrained.
● Optimization:

○ Refactor the Lambda function code to improve efficiency and reduce processing
time.
○ Implement asynchronous processing techniques within the Lambda function to
handle large data payloads more efficiently.
○ Consider using a larger Lambda function timeout value if processing complex
data requires more time.
○ Monitor function performance over time and adjust memory allocation or code
optimization as needed.
3. You are tasked with migrating a large MySQL database hosted on-premises to
Amazon Aurora. Describe the migration process and considerations for ensuring
minimal downtime.
● Migration Strategies:
 ○ Utilize AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for automated schema and data
migration from your on-premises MySQL database to Aurora.
○ Consider using AWS S3 as a staging area for temporary storage of database
backups during the migration process.
○ Implement a downtime window during the migration process to minimize
disruption to applications.
● Minimizing Downtime:

○ Utilize Aurora reader replicas for scaling read traffic during the migration and
reduce pressure on the primary database instance.
○ Configure Aurora point-in-time recovery (PITR) to quickly restore the database to
a consistent state in case of any unforeseen issues during migration.
○ Perform a test migration on a non-production environment to validate the process
and identify any potential challenges before migrating the critical production
database.
4. Your Auto Scaling group is not scaling out as expected during peak traffic
periods. What could be causing this issue, and how would you diagnose the
problem?
● Potential Causes:

○ Insufficient scaling policy configured for the Auto Scaling group, with minimum
and maximum instance limits set too low.
○ Launch template within the Auto Scaling group might be referencing an
unavailable Amazon Machine Image (AMI).
○ Resource limitations in the Availability Zone where the Auto Scaling group is
deployed (e.g., insufficient EC2 instance capacity).
● Diagnosis:

○ Analyze CloudWatch Auto Scaling group metrics to identify scaling events and
any errors encountered during scaling attempts.
○ Review Auto Scaling group configuration and scaling policies to ensure they are
set correctly for your application needs.
○ Check the health status of EC2 instances in the Auto Scaling group and identify
any unhealthy instances preventing scaling out.
5. You are designing a highly scalable web application with dynamic content on
AWS. How would you leverage AWS services to achieve this?
● Solution:
○ Utilize Amazon EC2 instances with Auto Scaling groups to scale the application
tier based on traffic demands.
○ Implement an Application Load Balancer (ALB) for efficient traffic distribution
across healthy EC2 instances.
○ Consider using Amazon ElastiCache for caching frequently accessed data and
reducing database load for dynamic content.
 ○ Utilize Amazon S3 for static content storage (e.g., images, CSS, JavaScript) and
configure CloudFront as a CDN for faster global content delivery.

6. Your company is migrating a database-driven application from on-premises to AWS.

Describe your approach to data migration and ensuring data consistency during the
migration process.

● Data Migration Strategy:

○ Utilize AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for automated and efficient
data migration from your on-premises database to an AWS managed
database service like Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service).
○ Consider using AWS Snowball for secure bulk data transfer of large
datasets to AWS S3 for staging before migration to the target database.
○ Implement a change data capture (CDC) solution to capture and apply
ongoing data changes during the migration window to maintain
consistency.
● Data Consistency:

○ Utilize DMS CDC functionality or a separate CDC tool to capture and apply
ongoing data changes during the migration cut-over window.
○ Utilize snapshots of the on-premises database at a specific point in time
and migrate the snapshot to the target AWS database.
○ Implement a phased migration approach, migrating a subset of data first
and validating consistency before migrating the entire dataset.