AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Cheat Sheet
The core AWS services, concepts, and pricing/support facts worth memorising for CLF-C02 — on one page.
Much of Cloud Practitioner is knowing which AWS service does what. Nail these core services and concepts and most scenario questions become easy.
Global infrastructure
Regions are geographic areas; each contains multiple Availability Zones (AZs) — physically separate datacenters. Spreading across AZs gives you high availability. Edge locations cache content close to users (used by CloudFront, AWS's CDN).
AWS is responsible for security OF the cloud (hardware, regions, the physical infrastructure); you are responsible for security IN the cloud (your data, identity/access, OS patching where applicable, and configuration). It's the single most-tested idea on the exam.
Core services by category
You need to know what each service is for, not how to configure it.
| Category | Service | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | EC2 | Resizable virtual servers you manage (IaaS) |
| Compute | Lambda | Run code without managing servers — serverless, pay per execution |
| Compute | Elastic Beanstalk | Deploy and run web apps without managing the platform (PaaS) |
| Compute | ECS / EKS | Run containers (Amazon's container service / managed Kubernetes) |
| Storage | S3 | Virtually unlimited object storage (files, images, backups, data lakes) |
| Storage | EBS | Block storage volumes (virtual disks) attached to EC2 |
| Networking | VPC | Your own isolated private network inside AWS |
| Networking | Route 53 | DNS and domain registration |
| Networking | CloudFront | Content delivery network (CDN) using edge locations |
| Database | RDS | Managed relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.) |
| Database | DynamoDB | Fully managed NoSQL database, single-digit-ms latency |
| Security | IAM | Manage users, groups, roles and permissions (who can do what) |
AWS's design best-practice framework has six pillars: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability. If a question asks about designing well on AWS, it's usually pointing at one of these.
Pricing, cost, and support tools
Domain 4 is small but easy marks if you know these.
| Tool / concept | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | AWS's core pricing model — pay only for what you use, no upfront cost |
| AWS Pricing Calculator | Estimate the cost of AWS services before you deploy |
| AWS Cost Explorer | Visualise and analyse your actual spending over time |
| AWS Budgets | Set custom cost/usage budgets and get alerts when you approach them |
| AWS Trusted Advisor | Recommendations across cost, security, fault tolerance, performance, limits |
| CloudWatch | Monitoring — metrics, logs, and alarms for your resources |
| CloudTrail | Records API activity in your account for audit and governance |
| Support plans | Basic (free), Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, Enterprise |
- Regions contain Availability Zones (separate datacenters); edge locations serve CloudFront.
- AWS secures OF the cloud; you secure IN the cloud (your data, identity, config).
- Core services: EC2 (servers), Lambda (serverless), S3 (object storage), VPC (network), RDS (SQL), DynamoDB (NoSQL), IAM (access).
- Well-Architected = 6 pillars (Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance, Cost, Sustainability).
- Support plans: Basic → Developer → Business → Enterprise On-Ramp → Enterprise.
Frequently asked questions
What are the core AWS services for Cloud Practitioner?
Compute (EC2, Lambda), storage (S3, EBS), networking (VPC, Route 53, CloudFront), databases (RDS, DynamoDB), and security/identity (IAM).
What is the AWS shared responsibility model?
AWS is responsible for security OF the cloud (physical infrastructure, hardware, regions); the customer is responsible for security IN the cloud (data, identity and access, configuration, and OS patching where applicable).
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