About this Video

• Video Title: AWS Solutions Architect Interview Questions (From Amazon Principal SA)
• Channel: Cloud With Raj
• Speakers: Raj
• Duration: 00:25:37

Introduction

This video provides answers to common AWS Solutions Architect interview questions, presented by Raj, a Principal Solutions Architect at AWS. The video focuses on providing not only average answers but also superior responses that highlight real-world architectural experience. The questions cover microservice design, three-tier architecture, containerization vs. VMs, disaster recovery, security, service selection, event-driven architecture, generative AI, and basic AWS service definitions.

Key Takeaways

• Microservice Design: Effective microservice design on AWS leverages Application Load Balancers with Route 53 for routing traffic based on paths to different target groups (e.g., EC2 instances, Kubernetes, Lambda functions) allowing for independent scaling and technology choices per service.
• Three-Tier Architecture: A three-tier architecture comprises presentation (e.g., web servers like Nginx), application (business logic in Java, Node.js, Python etc.), and storage (databases like DynamoDB, RDS) layers. A well-structured answer should demonstrate understanding of real-world implementations on AWS (e.g., Application Load Balancers with EC2).
• Containers vs. VMs: Containers are lightweight and portable due to lacking a host OS and packaging dependencies within the container. However, containers often run within virtual machines (e.g., in Kubernetes on EC2 instances), so managing VMs is still relevant.
• Disaster Recovery: Disaster recovery strategies depend on RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective). Options include backup/restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site active-active. The video emphasizes the importance of explaining chosen strategies and their implementation details.
• Application Security: Security considerations include authentication and authorization at the API Gateway level, data-in-transit encryption (SSL/TLS), data-at-rest encryption (KMS), Kubernetes namespaces and network policies, and RBAC. The video stresses the importance of detailed explanations showing practical experience.
• Service Selection: Choosing between AWS services requires understanding design requirements (functional and non-functional). The video recommends reviewing various services (load balancers, API Gateway, serverless options, message queues) to make informed decisions.
• Event-Driven Architecture (EDA): EDA decouples producers and consumers, enhancing scalability and resilience. Using services like SQS and Lambda allows independent scaling and built-in retries, offering cost advantages over synchronous architectures.
• Generative AI: The presenter suggests highlighting experience with RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) as a practical application of generative AI, demonstrating familiarity with relevant tools and techniques.
• AWS Service X: When asked about a specific AWS service, provide the official definition and then expand with your own understanding and practical experience using the service.