Top AWS Services to Know for an Interview in AWS Development

Hey, it's great to have you back, mate! Today, I’ll walk you through some essential AWS services that you should know for interviews—whether you're aiming for a Senior, Mid-Level, or even Junior role. We’ll also take a closer look at some of these services to explore what they bring to the table. Let’s dive in and make sure you're interview-ready. Hope you enjoy it!

AWS (Amazon Web Services) has become the backbone of many modern software systems, and knowing the key services is critical for AWS development interviews. Here's a breakdown of the essential AWS services you should be familiar with:

1. EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

What it is: EC2 provides scalable compute capacity in the cloud, allowing you to run virtual servers (instances) that can host your applications.
Key Concepts: Instance types, auto-scaling, load balancing, pricing models (On-Demand, Reserved, Spot Instances).

Why it's important: EC2 is the foundation of many AWS applications, offering flexibility in terms of compute power and configuration.

2. S3 (Simple Storage Service)

What it is: S3 is an object storage service for storing and retrieving any amount of data from anywhere on the web.
Key Concepts: Buckets, objects, versioning, lifecycle management, permissions, storage classes (Standard, Glacier).

Why it's important: S3 is often used for static assets, backups, and storing large volumes of data with high durability and availability.

3. RDS (Relational Database Service)

What it is: RDS makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale relational databases in the cloud, supporting databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB.
Key Concepts: Automated backups, Multi-AZ deployment, read replicas, scaling.

Why it's important: Many applications rely on relational databases, and RDS simplifies database management while providing high availability and reliability.

4. Lambda

What it is: Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. It automatically scales based on the number of requests.
Key Concepts: Function triggers, event-driven architecture, integration with other AWS services (S3, DynamoDB, API Gateway).

Why it's important: Serverless architectures are becoming increasingly popular for reducing infrastructure management, and Lambda is central to these designs.

5. API Gateway

What it is: API Gateway is a fully managed service that makes it easy to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs.
Key Concepts: RESTful APIs, WebSocket APIs, integration with Lambda, authentication, and caching.

Why it's important: It’s essential for building scalable, secure, and cost-effective APIs that integrate with other AWS services.

6. DynamoDB

What it is: DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service designed for high availability and scalability, particularly for web and mobile applications.
Key Concepts: Tables, items, partition keys, sort keys, global and local secondary indexes, on-demand scaling.

Why it's important: DynamoDB is used for fast, flexible key-value and document-based data storage, critical for high-performance, low-latency applications.

7. CloudFormation

What it is: CloudFormation allows you to define your AWS infrastructure as code (IaC), enabling you to automate and replicate your environment.
Key Concepts: Templates, stacks, parameters, resources, outputs, nested stacks.

Why it's important: It’s key for infrastructure automation, version control, and consistent environment provisioning.

8. Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)

What it is: ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple EC2 instances.
Key Concepts: Application Load Balancer, Network Load Balancer, health checks, scaling, SSL termination.

Why it's important: Ensuring scalability and fault tolerance by distributing traffic is a crucial part of maintaining a highly available system.

9. IAM (Identity and Access Management)

What it is: IAM allows you to securely manage access to AWS services and resources for your users.
Key Concepts: Users, groups, roles, policies, least privilege, MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication).

Why it's important: Security is paramount, and understanding IAM ensures that your AWS environment is properly protected with appropriate access controls.

What they are: SNS is a push notification service for messaging to distributed systems, and SQS is a managed message queue service for decoupling components.
Key Concepts: Topics, queues, message filtering, fan-out patterns, dead-letter queues.

Why they're important: Messaging is vital in distributed systems, and understanding these services helps in building decoupled, scalable applications.

11. CloudWatch

What it is: CloudWatch is a monitoring and management service that provides data and actionable insights into AWS resources and applications.
Key Concepts: Metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards, events.

Why it's important: Effective monitoring and logging are critical for diagnosing issues, optimizing performance, and ensuring system health.

12. EKS & ECS (Kubernetes & Container Service)

What they are: EKS is a managed Kubernetes service, while ECS is AWS's own container orchestration service.
Key Concepts: Container orchestration, clusters, tasks, services, Fargate (serverless compute for containers).

Why they're important: Containers are widely used for packaging and deploying applications, and these services help in managing containers at scale.

Final Thoughts

For an AWS development interview, having a good grasp of these services is critical. It’s not just about knowing what they are but understanding how they integrate, scale, and fit within cloud-based architectures. A combination of practical experience with these services, along with a solid understanding of best practices, will set you apart in any AWS-related technical interview.

Would you like to dive deeper into any of these services?