AWS Certified Associate SOA-C02 Updated Exam

To securely allow a security administrator to review the VPC configuration of developer AWS accounts, the best approach is to create a cross-account IAM role with read-only access to VPC resources. Here’s how to do it:

Create IAM Policy:

In each developer account, create an IAM policy with read-only permissions "Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Action": [

"ec2:DescribeVpcs",

"ec2:DescribeSubnets",

"ec2:DescribeRouteTables",

"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",

"ec2:DescribeNetworkAcls"

],

"Resource": "*"

}

]

}

Create Cross-Account IAM Role:

Create an IAM role in each developer account, assign the read-only policy to the role, and allow the security administrator's account to assume the role.

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": {

"AWS": "arn:aws:iam::security-admin-account-id:root"

},

"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"

}

]

}

Assume the Role:

The security administrator can assume the role from their own account using the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI.

aws sts assume-role --role-arn arn:aws:iam::developer-account-id:role/role-name --role-session-name security-admin-session

Review VPC Configuration:

After assuming the role, the security administrator can review the VPC configuration using the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI with the temporary credentials.

References:

IAM Policies and Roles

Cross-Account Access

AWS CLI Assume Role

To ensure high availability and that instances are placed on distinct underlying hardware, a spread placement group should be used. Spread placement groups place instances on distinct hardware, reducing the risk of simultaneous failures.

Create Spread Placement Group:

Open the EC2 console at Amazon EC2 Console.

Navigate to Placement Groups in the sidebar.

Click Create placement group and select Spread for the strategy.

Launch Instances:

When launching new instances, select the placement group you created.

Ensure the instances are in the same AWS Region but spread across distinct hardware.

Verify Placement:

After launching, verify that the instances are in the spread placement group by checking the instance details in the console.

References:

Placement Groups

Creating a Spread Placement Group

Reuse templates to replicate stacks in multiple environments After you have your stacks and resources set up, you can reuse your templates to replicate your infrastructure in multiple environments. For example, you can create environments for development, testing, and production so that you can test changes before implementing them into production. To make templates reusable, use the parameters, mappings, and conditions sections so that you can customize your stacks when you create them. For example, for your development environments, you can specify a lower-cost instance type compared to your production environment, but all other configurations and settings remain the same. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AW SCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/best-practices.html#reuse

To reduce latency in data transfer among EC2 instances, especially in high-performance computing (HPC) applications or applications requiring low network latency, using a placement group is the best approach:

Understanding Placement Groups:

A placement group in Amazon EC2 is a logical grouping of instances within a single Availability Zone. Using placement groups, you can achieve low-latency network performance necessary for tightly coupled node-to-node communication.

Types of Placement Groups:

Cluster Placement Group: Instances are physically located close together in the same Availability Zone to provide low-latency network performance.

Partition Placement Group: Instances are divided into logical segments called partitions, reducing the likelihood of simultaneous failures.

Spread Placement Group: Instances are placed on distinct underlying hardware to reduce correlated failures.

Creating and Using a Placement Group:

You can create a placement group using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs.

When launching instances, specify the placement group to ensure they are launched within the same group.

aws ec2 create-placement-group --group-name my-placement-group --strategy cluster

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-12345678 --count 4 --instance-type c5.large --placement GroupName=my-placement-group

Relocating Existing Instances:

Stop the instances, modify the placement group settings, and then restart them. Note that not all instance types are supported within placement groups, so check the documentation for compatibility.

References:

Placement Groups

Cluster Instances for Low-Latency